Chapter 3

Stares

EPOV

What the hell was up with the people in this town? Hadn't they ever seen people who weren't from Forks before? I mean I had expected some staring of course, but this was fucking ridiculous. And man the girls in this school were either seriously sex starved or were just always this.... hungry. You'd think they'd never laid eyes on a male before, the way they were acting. My first class was Algebra. Rosalie was in my class along with two other girls, her friends I assumed, seeing as they sat with her. One of them was tiny, really short, she looked like she would probably only reach my chest. She was cute I suppose, with bright blue eyes and a mass of curly brown hair. The other was tallish, slim but with curves in the right places, she had wavy, strawberry blond hair down her back and deep green eyes. She was pretty hot.

They were both staring at me as I walked into the class and found a seat. Unfortunately, the only available seat was one right in front of them. I could feel their gazes boring into my back.

"Ugh for crying out loud would you two stop drooling all over the fucking desk" I heard Rosalie mumble.

"Rose!" I heard a horrified whisper, "why the hell did you say that for?"

"Coz you two are pissing me the fuck off." Rosalie said.

"Oh c'mon Rosalie if he wasn't your cousin you know damn well you'd be doing the same thing, how can we help it? He's gorgeous!" another girl whispered and couldn't tell which girl it was.

"Ok. Stop. Right. There." I heard Rosalie reply. "Number one, even if he wasn't my cousin, I would still have Emmett and therefore I would not be acting like a man-starved forty something year old, like you two and the rest of the girls in this school. Number two, I would never act like that anyway. And number three, I would appreciate you not letting me know how 'gorgeous' my cousin is, that's just gross."

I grinned. I could always count on Rose to put people in their place.

The teacher came in then, a balding middle aged guy, and the class had to quieten down for the lesson.

Walking to my second class, I saw Jasper in the hall.

"How's it going dude?" he asked.

"Great." I replied sarcastically, rolling my eyes and ignoring the stares that passed me in the hall.

He snickered, "That bad huh?" He started walking away to his next class.

"Later man." He called over his shoulder. "See you at lunch."

My second lesson was Biology. I saw a desk by the window that wasn't occupied so I sat there. Then, to my horror, Rosalie's two airhead friends sauntered in.

I groaned.

Were they going to be in all my classes? They looked at each other and grinned when they saw me and sat in the desk next to mine. I turned my head to look out the window, with a scowl. A moment later, I heard the chair scraping next to me and heard someone sit down. I didn't even bother looking to see who it was, but I was pretty sure it was a girl as I caught a whiff of a strawberry and vanilla scent coming off them as they sat down.

She smelt good.

I turned to look at her but her long, brown hair was acting like a curtain between us, hiding her face.

Rosalie's two friends who I now knew, thanks to the register, to be Jessica Stanley and Tanya Denali started whispering about me again, though they shouldn't have bothered whispering. I'm sure that if they had been shouting, it would have no doubt been quieter than their 'whispering'. Tanya flashed me a flirtatious smile and waved her fingers. I would have smiled back if it wasn't for the fact that I was getting really pissed off. I frowned in disgust instead and shifted my position in my seat so they wouldn't be in my line of sight.

The girl next to me was called Isabella Swan. I glanced at her several times, curious to see her face but her hair was always covering it. It was really long and wavy, a chestnut brown, with reddish tints where the light hit it. It was starting to bug me. Why was she hiding her face?

I didn't bite.

I wanted to do something to get her to turn her head so I could see her. I mean, her hair was pretty an all, but I was sick of looking at it. I gave up and focused my attention on the board at the front of the class, ignoring the shitheads glancing back to look at me when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed Isabella Swan leaning back a little. The movement caused her hair to fall back and finally reveal a portion of her face. I desperately wanted to turn and look at her, curiosity burning inside of me. She sat perfectly still and from what I could see from my peripheral vision she was also focused intently on the notes on the board. I took my opportunity and glanced at her.

I was taken aback when I saw that she wasn't actually focused on the board at all. She was peeking at me from the side of her eye and when I looked at her, my eyes locked with hers for a second, until she turned crimson and leaned forward so her face was once again obscured by her long hair. I was also stunned by Isabella herself. I had been curious to see her face simply because it was hidden from me. I hadn't expected her to particularly be interesting.

But she was.

She was fair skinned, but had a faint rosy glow on her cheeks like she had just been blushing. Her face was a soft heart shape, her lengthy hair framing it. She had full, pouting lips, shiny and pink from the lip-gloss she wore and a long, slender neck. She was average height I suppose, but she was petite and slender, graceful looking – like a dancer. But it was her eyes that startled me the most. They were big, doe-like, and a deep brown, framed by long, dark lashes. This Isabella chick wasn't cute like Jessica Stanley. She wasn't even hot like Tanya Denali. She was actually kind of...pretty? No, pretty wasn't the right word either.

Isabella Swan was beautiful.