A/N: Okay, Elle here! Mackie and I apologize profusely for not having updated in so long. Over the weekend, myself and my choral group competed at Heritage Festivals in St. Louis and took home two gold awards, and I haven't had the internet access or the document to be able to post this until now. We hope you like this chapter, we have put a lot of time and energy into writing it just for you. Please review and tell us what you want to see happen. Thank you all so much! ~Elle and Mack
Chapter 2
The class was rumbling with random and nonsense-filled chatter. I kept my chin in the palm of my hand as the teacher walked to the front of the class. We were barely three weeks into the last year of high school and the teachers were piling on work like nobody's business. Mr. Manley wrote the assignments for both class and home on the board.
As he started up the projector and screen for us to take notes, there was a light tap on the door. I don't think anyone heard it but me. At first I thought I imagined it. But the gentle tapping came again.
"Mr. Manley," I called. "I think there is someone at the door." The teacher looked up, slightly startled and said "oh." He quickly walked to the door.
When he opened it I only kept my head up long enough to see who stood there.
It was a tall, brawny guy probably about my age. His body was all muscle, his shoulders broad. He had a face that meant business, but yet I couldn't help but see him as a giant teddy bear.
I shook my head, laughing to myself. I opened my spiral notebook to a random blank page and started doodling.
I heard the classroom door shut and glanced up. There stood the large teenager. It seemed he was most likely in our class now. A move-in. I was a bit surprised. With the exception of me and couple other people, Forks did not get many move-ins.
I stared past the giant (I think he might have been an easy six foot two).
In one split second, my heart constricted, my stomach dropped out of me as if I was on a roller coaster, and I went brain dead. Bronze hair, green eyes, pale skin, crooked grin, quiet yet confident.
Edward Cullen.
Gorgeous green eyes, flawless pale skin, dazzling grin…whoa, whoa, whoa Bella! Hold up there! Gorgeous? Flawless? Dazzling? What has gotten into me?
I couldn't decide what to do. Shriek? Gasp? Cry? Or just stare, looking like an idiot. Apparently my mind decided to go with the latter.
But as I stared, I realized he was staring back. He wasn't just staring though. His eyes conveyed so much emotion. He searched my eyes, looking deep for something.
I'm sure Mr. Manley introduced them at one point, but all I could see was Edward and that's all I needed.
I watched in my peripheral vision as the tall one I vaguely heard introduced as Emmett, took the empty seat next to Rosalie.
My eyes followed Edward as he took the vacant seat behind me. As he sat, I let my eyes cast downward onto my lap. I blushed furiously. This class was going to be a thousand times more tortuous than the deepest, fieriest pits of hell.
The whole time the class took notes I was hyperaware of Edward sitting right behind me. I couldn't tear my thoughts away from him.
Without my consent, a lone tear swept down my cheek. I wiped it away, praying no one noticed me in such an emotional state.
I really needed to get out of here, but Mr. Manley was really strict about not letting anyone leave during class. Curse that man and his ridiculousness.
The bell rang just then and I quickly gathered my things and raced as quickly as possible out of the classroom and down the hall to French III. I took the last four minutes of the passing period to drag out a mirror from my purse and check my make-up. Alice and Rose would kill me if it were running.
Luckily I was in good shape. No smears of black mascara and eyeliner.
Madame Villanelle walked into the room when the bell rang. I was so absorbed in my thoughts I didn't realize that the best and worst thing possible had happened.
Edward was at the front of the room conversing with Madame Villanelle. She handed him a textbook, workbook, and syllabus.
When she pointed in my general direction I froze. Edward's head turned slowly, his eyes capturing mine once more, eyebrows furrowed slightly.
To my horror and delight I realized the seat next to me was empty. I blushed a deep crimson as Edward eased into the seat to my left.
He gave me a tentative smile. My attempt at a grin in return turned into a slight grimace. I mentally kicked myself.
Just forty-five more minutes, Bella, I thought to myself. Then it will be time for lunch and you can confront him there.
My stomach got all tingly and I felt confusion entering my mind. Why was I acting so weird; crying and feeling nervous? I should be ecstatic, right? Right?!
I put my head in my hands and sighed quietly.
***forty-five minutes later***
The bell sounded and I put my things together at a somewhat slower pace. I didn't want Edward to think I was trying to get away from him. I wasn't. Was I?
I shook my head, rattling the incoherent thoughts. Get a grip, Bella! I slung my messenger bag over my left shoulder, draping it across my body.
I walked at normal speed to the cafeteria, but I felt like I was in a trance. Alice greeted me just outside the cafeteria. She froze when she saw my face.
Uh-oh, I thought. Apparently I can't hide anything from Alice. Her pixie-like figure stiffened and I swear her spiked, black hair stood on end. I swear it's like she had this sixth sense about things.
"Speak," she practically growled. I raised my eyebrows. Damn, she was good. I decided to play dumb.
"What?" I asked innocently.
"What is up with you Bells? You were fine at the beginning of class, but ever since the new students came in, it's like you've been in this trance. You're either blushing furiously or pale as paper. What's wrong?" She fired the whole rant in one breath. I let the guilt rise to my face.
"Sorry, Ali, I'm just so confused." Then I broke. I stood there with my head in my hands, shaking as each sob rocked through my body. I was just so…happy?
Was that it? I was just happy? Wow, I never thought that would be it. Alice slid my bag off of me and hugged me. Her spikes tickled my nose, she was so short.
"Bella, honey, what is it? Please tell me," she pleaded. I started walking to the bathroom, Alice trailing next to me with my backpack on her shoulders. I sat on the couch that was provided in the girls' bathroom. I was thankful that no one was occupying the room at the time.
As my sobs quieted to a sniffling, I began to explain.
Her hands were soft and cool against my dark locks, and she gently played and twisted each strand at an attempt to soothe me.
"I can't do this." I whispered, shocked at my unusually fragile state. Why is this so difficult for me? I didn't understand.
I heard a light thud as my bag was dropped to the ground and the slight pressure of Alice's tiny body against my own as she held me in a loose hug.
"Bella, please talk to me? You haven't been this emotional since…well…since we brought you home." I nodded at her assessment of my mood. I had been particularly emotional back then, it was when I left Seattle Saints. Of course, I had been excited at the prospect of being adopted. According to Karen, I should consider myself so lucky as to be taken in. But leaving Seattle Saints, however an amazing circumstance that presented, meant leaving my best friends. It meant leaving Edward.
Edward, who essentially had been my light in that dark and unfamiliar boarding house, who had been the best of friends and the most understanding of persons, was now the cause of these unfamiliar tears. It's like I had been unwillingly strapped in for another emotional roller coaster ride. Who knew when I would pull myself together.
But Alice had been for me then, and she was definitely here for me now. Then, I had needed to pull myself together, to pick up the scattered pieces of my past and push them aside. I had shoved them into a subconscious drawer, left undetermined and unorganized. I hadn't figured things out like I should have done. I just left them there. And Edward, his unexpected appearance today rattled that drawer. He upset my imperfect balance, and now he was to blame for my confused mental state.
"Alice, those new kids, that's Edward. He's here." She froze for the shortest of seconds, and then grasping a sense of understanding pulled me closer against her small frame. I felt her tiny hands as they patted at my back willing away the tears.
"Oh honey, shouldn't you be happy? He was your friend, right?" I nodded. He was my friend, but since my move from SBH, I had put him in that drawer along with the rest of my past. It had been too hard to leave him, and the emotions that came with that departure had been too difficult to maintain. I had to shove him away, just like I did with any other memory. It was cruel to undermine his image, the bright spot in my faulted childhood, but it had to be done. And so it was. I needed to remain the happy child that my new mother pictured me as, even though that happiness was a result of my friendship with Edward.
"I never sorted my feelings for him out Ali, he was my best friend, I just left him." She lifted my chin in her tiny fingers and wiped at the tears, brushing back my frazzled locks.
"Bella, I love you. You know that. You're my sister and my best friend." I blinked, attempting to figure out where her words were leading the conversation.
"I know you're confused, I get that, but you had to have realized that you can't run from your past. You shouldn't run. I know that it was a difficult point in your life, but, we all have them." I sighed in defeat.
"I know, I just don't understand why I'm so frightened of facing him, why I'm a mess with my emotions, and why I can't maintain my pale complexion when I'm around him." She giggled, and I joined in. Of course I had to blush, that was just, me.
"He was important to you, of course you're going to be a little 'all over the place' after seeing him in so long." She grabbed up my bag and slid her hand into the side pocket to retrieve my tube of black mascara.
She swiped the dark solution against my matted lashes, and brushed her cool fingers against my tear stained cheeks.
"There, you're perfect." She turned me around, flung my bag over my shoulder, and shoved me out the bathroom door.
I laughed at her display, and linked arms with her once we had both made it into the hallway.
"Off to lunch dear sister?" I joked, and she smiled.
"Duh." We walked along, pushing through the cafeteria doors and getting in line.
Alice got a veggie sub and some chips, and I grabbed a slice of cheese pizza and a coke before we paid and made our way over to the familiar lunch table. Rosalie was already seated across from Jasper who, once he caught sight of Alice, rushed over to us and grabbed her tray.
"Hi Jazz!" She sang, kissing his cheek and prancing back to her seat. I took my usual place next to Rosalie, who was picking at a salad, and who had an uncharacteristically dazed look about her face.
"Rose?" I questioned, following her line of sight across the cafeteria. A small group of students had formed near the end of the lunch line, and I stiffened as the all to familiar bronzed head emerged from the crowd, his brother close beside him.
Rose sighed, her eyes glassing over, as they followed the two wandering forms. I stared at her intently, studying her expression. It was all too familiar, that look. Rosalie was dazed, something that had occurred rather seldom in the time I have known her. But when it had occurred, Rosalie, and the object of her affections, had always ended up together for at least a few months.
So had Edward, my long time best friend, the object of my affections, caught her eye? If so, I was in a sense-screwed. I mean it was Rosalie we were dealing with here; tall, leggy, blue-eyed, blonde-haired, bombshell. With her there was no competition. When she wants something, she gets it. No questions asked, no arguments. But Edward had been such an important role in my life for so long, would she back down this one time? Or would I once more lose Edward to matters out of my control?
"Hey it's the Cullens." Jasper's voice brought me out of the fog of my confused mind, and his perked up form alerted my eyes back to the two wandering men. Standing up and waving an arm in there direction, Jasper called them both over to our table. "Hey! Emmett, Edward! Over here!" I felt all the air rush out of my lungs at once, as if being impaled by something of an immense weight. I sent a frantic look at Alice, hoping for help in the situation, but she appeared equally as stunned.
"Jasper!" Rose and I both quieted him at the same time, glancing at each other as he sat down.
"Hey Jasper, man!" The unfamiliar voice boomed, and I saw one large arm come around me from my right side and pound fists with Jasper. I stiffened, angling my body away from the foreign mass as it rounded back toward its owner.
"Hey Emmett! Care to join?" He answered, gesturing to the two empty seats beside Alice and I. This was such a nightmare, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that Rosalie had a slight grin set into her perfect face.
"Sure." The familiar voice startled me, sending a shudder of recognition down my spine. I saw a new tray being placed upon the tabletop beside me, before he slid into the spot next to my shaky form.
Emmett plopped down beside Alice across from Rosalie, Edward, and I and immediately began to inhale his meal.
A sudden moment of pause occurred, during which we all seemed to have a staring contest with the food in front of us.
"Who are your friends Jazz?" Alice asked in her soft trill of a voice, glancing back and forth between Emmett and Edward. I knew she was just trying to help, settle my nerves, but it wasn't working. Introductions meant that I had to speak, to the both of them, to Edward. I gripped onto the edge of the table to steady my trembling hands, keeping my eyesight level with the white plastic of my tray, afraid of my emotional state at the moment.
"Oh, this is Emmett and Edward Cullen. Met them this morning during homeroom." He announced, oblivious to the tense atmosphere.
"I'm Alice, Jasper's girlfriend, and that's Rosalie Hale, Jasper's sister, and that's Bella Swan, my sister!" Alice replied happily, motioning for both Rose and I to initiate some sort of conversation.
Rosalie immediately reached an arm across the table toward the larger of the brothers, Emmett, and grabbed onto his hand in a firm shake.
"Hi?" He answered in response to her gesture, a smile widening his cheeks and causing two dimples to emerge in his pale skin.
She pulled her arm back, and in a more reserved sense reached for Edward's hand across my body.
"Hello." He responded with that signature grin of his. Crooked to perfection.
The motion felt awkward, as I observed her perfectly tanned arm angle it's way back around my body. I sat still for a long while, anticipating that lovely bell that should sound and wake me up from this horrid nightmare, but alas, the clock on the far wall had chosen the role of foe rather then friend, and I was forced to accept the fact that I had yet another ten minutes of torture ahead of me.
Alice attempted once more at polite conversation, asking the boys about their move and where they had moved. The topic intrigued me, but I was afraid to let my interest show, lest someone might direct a question at my curiosity.
"We moved down here from Denali, Alaska with our adoptive parents, Carlisle and Esme. Well, my adoptive parents." Edward answered quietly, focusing on the food in front of him and glancing at my still form every few moments.
"Adopted? Are you originally from Denali?" Rose questioned, allowing for an unappreciated turn of topic.
"Uh, no. I'm originally from Chicago, but I was staying at a local orphanage in Seattle when Carlisle and Esme found me. That was when I was fourteen." So he had been their two years after my departure. Interesting.
"Seattle? Which orphanage? Maybe you know Bella! She's adopted too." Rose stated matter-of-factly, resting her chin against her hand and almost bouncing in anticipation of his answer. I sucked in a shallow breath, sinking even further into the plastic mold that was my seat and praying to whatever higher power would listen to grant my much-needed freedom.
Luck was on my side, and the shrill ring of the warning bell sounded throughout the cafeteria. A muffled groan escaped the mouths of nearly every student and faculty member present as the familiar bustle of departure sounded through the air. I quickly pushed myself away from the table, grabbing up my tray, and nearly sprinting out of the cafeteria.