*Again, this is a repost. Sorry if there's any confusion.*

A quick word about a few things. Edward and his family will look slightly different in this story than they would in most, and the difference should become obvious once you read further in. And the format will obviously be from Keira and Edward' s perspectives, and it will switch off in each chapter. We've got a long road ahead of us, and I hope you're in for the long haul here.

I want to thank everyone who's already read, and I hope anyone else who stumbles in likes what they see. And don't forget to tell me what you think - good or bad.

Read on!

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September, 1945

Keira

Two weeks after starting at my new school, two things had become obvious. The first thing was that it was rare for one family, let alone two, to move to a small community like the one I was now living in, and the second thing was that not many of the students I was now going to school with had ever been outside the small community in their entire lives. My father had apparently been an exception, and an unusual one at that.

For two weeks, I settled into my classes and got to know my teachers — Mr. Jennings, John as he liked to be called, was currently my favorite and not just because he was the youngest and easiest to relate to. My liking him also had nothing to do with the fact that English was my favorite subject. I was moderately capable in my other classes, and the teachers were generally helpful, but Mr. Jennings seemed to take a special interest in me — and Edward Masen.

I didn't know if it was because we were both new, and he wanted to get to know us since most of the other students had been in his class before. I didn't know if it was because I was from a bigger city and Edward was obviously not from nearby either. But it became clear that Edward was a terribly quiet person. He kept to himself most of the time, even though most of the teachers had appeared to sit us next to each other.

The few girls in my class whom had already introduced themselves to me were accepting of me since we also had classes together. Abigail was very helpful, and I was grateful for her help. The few boys whom I'd met also tried to make me feel at home. It was more than I'd expected. But Edward hardly muttered a word to anyone half the time, not just me. I was still determined to figure him out, but I didn't know how I was supposed to do that if he never really spoke to anyone. Only Abigail seemed to have really interacted with him since he'd started school, but it was only in one class, and the rest of the time, he kept to himself — which seemed to be the way he liked it. How could anyone like being that solitary?

He never purposefully avoided me. If we ended up standing next to each other in the court yard behind the cafeteria or reached for the same thing in the line to get lunch, he made no effort to move away from me. But he never apologized either. And he always sat with his sister Rosalie and his brother Emmett. In two weeks, I'd re-learned their names from the other students as they made no effort to hide the fact that they were new and liked the attention it garnered. Edward seemed to detest being the center of attention. I couldn't blame him there. It wasn't my favorite thing either.

"We're going out tonight, Keira," Abigail said from the seat next to me. I looked at her, seeing a pleading light in her bright brown eyes as she leaned in close to me. "You're coming right? With your brother? You both simply have to come. It's Friday night, and we're all going to the drive-in."

At the mention of my brother — and I knew she was referring to Fisher — I looked over my shoulder to look in the corner of the cafeteria where Edward and his siblings had settled. Within eyeshot I could see Fisher sitting at a table with a few students in his grade, one of which happened to be one of the boys I'd met my first day, Ethan Conway. He was one of the most popular boys in his class, and he was handsome in a small town kind of way. I suppose living in Seattle most of my life had spoiled me on boys who were a little more cultured than any of the boys here.

"I'll have to talk to my mother and Fisher," I told her sympathetically, even though I knew my mother would have no problem with me going out with friends from school. Honestly, she would be positively buoyant. Fisher, on the other hand, was another story altogether. "But I'll try."

Abigail smiled, turning to her lunch, and I glanced behind me again. This time, I noticed for the first time that Edward was staring at me. And his eyes were not dark the way they'd been two weeks earlier, when I'd gotten a good look at them. To my amazed eyes, they looked green, like shimmering emeralds were embedded in his irises. I was astonished I was able to see his eyes, but I could. And I'd never seen anything like them in my life.

"Exactly what do you think you're staring at, Ms. Keira Jones?" Jennifer asked as she sat in front of me, the tone of her voice teasing if nothing else.

I turned back to look at her. "Nothing you need to worry about," I replied certainly, and her blue eyes lit up.

"You're staring at Edward, aren't you?" she teased. "Not that I think he's worth anyone's time, but since you are staring at him, I think it's just so cute! The new girl obsessing over the new boy! It's so romantic."

In the last two weeks, since meeting Abigail and Jennifer, I'd noticed their distinctive personalities emerge slowly. Abigail was quiet and shy, and she only ever spoke when I spoke to her. Jennifer had practically started to dress like me, almost overnight. I think I was supposed to be flattered that she wanted to imitate me. But despite being relatively well-known at my previous school, having her emulate me felt strangely odd. I didn't really feel very comfortable with it, and I knew I would never become accustomed to it. And I didn't know how to make her stop.

"Jennifer, he's barely said two words to me in two weeks," I told her, to which she giggled loudly. "That's hardly romantic."

"It's probably nothing personal," Abigail said to be softly. "He only really talks to me in study period, and it's not every day. Maybe he just likes his privacy."

I shrugged, nibbling on the sandwich on my plate. "I don't really care."

"You're lying," Jennifer accused, despite her wide smile. "You could at least tell us why you're looking at him from across the cafeteria."

Again, I glanced, and he was still looking at me, his expression too blank for me to read. "I don't know why I'm staring at him, Jennifer. He'd not like the other boys here. I'm not sure how I know. I just do."

"Well, why don't you go talk to him?" Abigail suggested. "You're both still new. Odds are you'll have something to talk about."

"And if you don't have anything to talk about," Jennifer added, "who says you have to talk?"

Jennifer was truly advanced for her age. In two weeks, she'd all but blurted out how much she envied me for having grown up around boys who were bound to know more about girls than the boys here. I knew what she hinting at, but I made no effort to acknowledge her.

"I'm sure I'll want to talk first, Jennifer," I told her.

"But he's gorgeous!" she whispered excitedly. "Why talk when you can — "

"Because I'm not like that, Jennifer," I stated with finality.

"Well, he's all any of the girls can talk about," Jennifer informed me, a slight hint of disgust laced through her voice. "Especially since his brother Emmett keeps jostling him to the front of their pack. It's almost like he wants Edward to have someone else to talk to. Why not just talk to him? He's obviously curious about you if he's staring at you too."

I instantly blushed. And I wasn't even sure why I was blushing. I knew Edward was attractive. He was tall and lean and seemed fairly athletic. A lot of girls who I heard talking about him called him "strong and silent." Whether he was or wasn't, I liked boys who seemed to have an interest in me that drifted passed the "staring" phase, and if that was all he was going to do, then I didn't see the point in even attempting to talk to him — not unless I had to.

Once Abigail was finished with her lunch, she and I left our table together, giving Jennifer the opportunity to harass a freshman who sat down behind her. I barely noticed Edward rise from his table and move in the same direction Abigail and I were headed, but the moment he was in front of me, doing what I was doing as I threw away the trash and leftover food on my plate, I couldn't help but notice that he threw away untouched food and an unopened carton of milk. How odd.

As usual, he said nothing, lifting his eyes to mine and staring for what felt like half a minute before he turned and left, and I was glued to the floor until Abigail nudged me forward. I said nothing to her as she directed me out into the cool air of late summer in Washington State. Or maybe I noticed the cool air because I was still blushing. For that, I was thankful. Cool air was good for my face and my nerves.

My class after lunch, French, was usually a rather enjoyable class, and it would have still been enjoyable for the last two weeks had I not been seated next to Edward. And after having been the talk of the school for the last two weeks, I wasn't interested in sitting next to him anymore. He behaved like he was bored every moment of class, and even when the teacher, Ms. Lockhart, asked for his answer to a question, he almost always answered her without even looking up from the journal he always carried with him. Something else I noticed since the very first day was how immaculate his pronunciation was and his accent was near perfect.

He never stumbled over any of the words or phrases she asked him to say, and when I listened to him from less than three feet away, it almost always never failed to send a million tendrils of electricity through my entire body. His voice was so perfect and sounded almost like warm honey when he spoke. I couldn't understand how anyone could sound like he sounded, and I was absolutely positive that I would never hear anyone else sound like him. I barely knew anything about him, and yet, there was so much I could tell just by the way he held himself and the way he spoke. And then there were the words he said when he actually spoke during the other classes we shared.

I'd always believed I was about as refined and cultivated as anyone could get, and I held myself to the lifestyle my parents had raised me within, but Edward was completely different. He was calm and concise in his words, reserved in his attitude despite the way he always seemed disinterested in what he was doing. He spoke like someone who'd been born about thirty years before everyone else in the room, and the more I listened to him, the more I was sure there was something else different about him no one else was seeing.

French class was filling up when I stepped inside, and I spotted him in his seat with his eyes trained on the journal under his quick penmanship. Having seen the way he wrote while helping Ms. Lockhart grade papers, it was obvious he'd been writing in his journals for much longer than seemed possible. He never lost confidence over what he did or said, unlike most, if not all the other students in class. He was much more sophisticated than any of the other boys in class, most of whom were jostling around the room like the teenagers they were. They all behaved as though they had all the time in the world. Edward seemed to know that wasn't always the case.

"Installez-vous des enfants," Ms. Lockhart called as I made it to my seat next to his and opened my book to our last lesson. "Today, we will be selecting a partner for the next phase of our lessons. Some of you still need a little . . . improvement," she said, looking in the direction of a boy in front of me who hadn't been doing very well at all. I was curious who would take a foreign language course without meaning to actually learn the language as opposed to being able to sit between two girls who were obviously impressed.

Next to me, I heard what I believed to be a laugh, and I glanced beside me to see a strange crease in the corner of Edward's cheek. Was he smiling?

"The ones of you who need the improvement will be partnered with a student who has improved since the first of term. Mademoiselle Jones," she called, and I lifted my eyes to hers to see a small grin on her young-looking face.

I smiled back, uncertain why she was smiling at me like that. "Oui, Mademoiselle Lockhart," I replied.

"You will be partnered with Monsieur Masen," she informed me as the small grin on her face widened and caused her hazel eyes to brighten slightly.

I inhaled deeply, bowing my head and looking over the lesson in front of me. Of course, I thought.

Ms. Lockhart went on in partnering the other students, and I tried not to notice how everyone else was looking at me now that there was no way I could avoid talking to Edward, especially since I had actually been working to avoid him altogether. The sounds of the other students speaking in English and French began to fill the room, and I resigned myself to reading the lesson in my book since Edward hadn't made an effort to talk to me so far. And then he spoke.

"Bon jour, mademoiselle," he said softly, prompting me to turn my head slightly to look at him as he sat there with his torso turned toward me as he still wrote in his journal. Was that even possible?

I spoke automatically. "Bon jour, monsieur," I replied.

"Vous avez déplacé ici de Seattle?"

I didn't pretend to know exactly what he said, because I honestly only caught the last two words. I didn't mean to blush, but when I did, the soft expression on his face faded slightly even as I spoke. "I'm — I'm sorry," I said softly. "Could you repeat that a little more slowly?"

"You moved here from Seattle," he repeated, this time in English.

I glanced around at everyone else, sitting back in my chair. "I did," I confirmed. "Et vous?" I asked, attempting to switch gears. The crease in his forehead deepened slightly.

"Rochester," he replied distantly.

"Did — Did I say it wrong?" I asked. "Your pronunciation is exquisite."

"No, you said it fine," he said curtly.

"And there's a reason why you're behaving like you would rather be somewhere else?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound hurt, but afraid it was the only emotion I could convey at being spoken to like I was waste of time.

He whispered so softly I barely heard him, but I caught a little of what he said, and it sounded a lot like, "Could you please not do that?"

"Mademoiselle Jones," Ms. Lockhart called, causing me to look away from him. "En français, s'il vous plaît."

I bowed my head, looking at him as he continued to sit there like he didn't want to be there. I was determined to figure out what was so different about him.

By the end of class, though we'd exchanged a considerably longer conversation than I'd expected up to that point, the moment the bell rang and released us from class, he was out of his seat within seconds. He made it to the door and into the hallway before anyone else, and when I stepped into the corridor outside the classroom, Fisher was there waiting for me.

"Hey," he said with a wide smile and a twinkle in his blue-green eyes.

I looked around, wondering how Edward had gotten away so quickly. "Hi," I said absently.

"Keira, are you okay?" Fisher asked, and I looked at him.

"I'm fine," I assured him.

He laughed softly. "Really? Because you look lost. I've been walking you to your classes for two weeks, and you haven't looked like this the whole time. Did something happen in French class?"

I inhaled deeply, still looking around the corridor and then bowing my head as Fisher directed me toward the staircase to the first floor where the study hall was. I knew my day would only continue to get worse because as soon as I stepped inside the room and saw Edward sitting at the back of the room by himself. Fisher directed me to a table as he carried his own book bag, and we sat down together silently. I opened one of my notebooks, glancing over my shoulder at him and seeing him casually writing in his journal. I liked solitude every now and then, but the way he stayed away from people made me think something deeper was going on with him, and I wanted to know what it was.

He looked up then, and our eyes met the way they had in the cafeteria. The crease in his forehead was still there, and he was staring at me like he was trying to make me stop looking at him. But I didn't. Whatever he was thinking or not thinking, I wasn't usually deterred by the prospect of causing trouble. I'd never backed down from a challenge, and I was sure I wouldn't now. No one else really knew anything about him, not even Abigail, and for some reason, I wanted to be the first person to figure him out.

"You're staring, Keira," Fisher told me from his algebra textbook. "There's no need to be rude."

I looked at my older brother, still blushing even though I now knew it wasn't the kind of blush you felt when you were interested in someone you just met. "Sorry," I muttered.

He glanced in the direction I'd been looking, and I watched him grin and then lower his voice. "I take it you've had a chance to get to know the other new student in your grade," he said to me.

"He barely talks to me," I told Fisher. "And I can't figure out why. Surely I can't have done anything so wrong for him to behave that way, even if Abigail says he never really talks to anyone. And I still can't understand why I want to know why he won't talk to me."

Fisher sat up straight in his chair. "Is he . . . I mean, does he behave inappropriately?" he asked, the tone in his voice that of an older brother and not someone who was teasing me.

I sighed softly. "No, of course not. He's just acting strange," I amended.

For a few seconds after I said that, it was quiet, and then Fisher closed his textbook and put his pen down, rising from his chair slowly.

"What are you doing?" I hissed, watching him push the chair out and then move toward the corner where Edward was sitting. "Fisher," I hissed. "Get back here!"

He glanced over his shoulder at me, holding his hand up to me and then arriving at the desk next to Edward's.

I sat there stuck to my own chair, watching my brother interact with Edward for a few minutes. They shook hands, and Fisher grinned, glancing back at me and then pointing in my direction. Edward nodded, still writing in his journal and then leaning closer to Fisher to speak too softly for me to hear what they were saying. It looked like they were just talking about trivial things, but I had no idea what was being said. I put my head in my hand after a few minutes, leaning over the table and wishing I hadn't even said anything to my brother. Surely he could've done something other than this.

When Fisher came back and sat down, I looked at Edward, seeing that he was again immersed in his journal. Whatever they'd said, he hadn't even reacted. Fisher didn't say anything either. I leaned closer to him.

"What did you just do?" I demanded softly.

"What?" he exclaimed just as quietly. "I was just introducing myself. You said he never talks to anyone. Someone has to do it first. He's new. We're new. It's all right, Keira."

I sighed heavily, glancing at Edward again and noticing he was again looking at me. And after what Fisher had just done, I felt mortified, especially since I still had one class left in the day with him.

Mr. Jennings, John, was sitting at his desk when I stepped into English class, and I took a chance to peek into the room before I took a step into it, hoping he wasn't there. But my hopes faded the moment I saw him sitting at his desk still as a statue. I noticed he wasn't writing in his journal. It was closed over the top of his desk, and his arms were folded over his chest. I tried not to notice how the shirt he was wearing seemed to be tailored to fit his arms and shoulders in a way that made him even more appealing to my eyes. I glanced at Mr. Jennings, bowing my head and moving to my desk without saying anything, and I figured English would be much like every other class we had together.

I didn't look around as I sat down, but I could feel him looking at me. He never spoke, but it was unnerving to know he'd spoken to Fisher and was still going to act like we weren't sitting next to each other and didn't have the same schedule. I didn't like how I thought it had been done like that on purpose. I knew we were probably on the same curriculum, and the faculty grouped the smarter students together in contrast to most of the other struggling students. It wasn't possible for any of the teachers to have know we would be moving into town at the same time and had decided to put us in class together. It was completely accidental.

Mr. Jennings stood up then, addressing the class as he moved around to the front of his desk. "All right, everyone quiet down," he called. "We're going to be doing something a little different. I know we've already started on our mechanics lessons for the semester, but in addition to that, I want to talk to you about something a little more important. College."

A girl in the front row giggled, and he smiled.

"Well, I'm glad you find that amusing, Samantha," he said, causing her to stop and blush. "But this is very serious. You're only sophomores in High School now, but in just a couple of years, you're all going to be out there in the real world. And I've got news for all of you. It's not a walk in the park. Most of you have known me for the last couple of years, since I am the Advanced English teacher and most of you actually want to go to college, but to those of you who don't know me," he said, looking pointedly at both me and Edward, "I want to be much more than just your teacher. You're lives are going to be getting much more complicated than they are right now, and I don't want any of you to think you can't come to me or another teacher here with any of your questions. Most of you probably don't even know what you want to do with your lives once you're finished with school, but when that day comes, I want to know that I did everything in my power to prepare you for that world out there your parents have to live in every single day. So, for the rest of the semester, and more than likely for the rest of the next few years, we're going to be doing something a little different in light of events outside our control."

A boy a few seat ahead of me raised his hand, and Mr. Jennings gestured to him.

"Yes, Matthew."

"We're not going to have to do extra work, are we?" he asked, more like pleaded.

"The real world is all about doing extra work, Matthew," Mr. Jennings stressed, and I could've sworn I heard Edward scoff so softly it wasn't possible for him to have done it. "It's not rocket science, but you'll always have to do something extra to get to do what you really want to do. We all do. Ten years ago, when I got out of college, after the Depression, I wanted to be a lawyer. But circumstances never really lent themselves to me for it to be possible. Now, I know you're all young, and I don't think your parents would disagree when I say I want you all to be teenagers for a long time after you leave my class, but the harsh reality is that it isn't that simple anymore. We live in world now where wars are won by dropping bombs on entire cities and by killing thousands, if not millions of people. We've survived dictators like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. This world isn't all happy endings anymore."

He paused and looked around at all the other students, and it looked like he knew all these things from experience. I wondered what could happen to a person to make them aware of this, but then I realized I knew what it all felt like to lose what bit of innocence you had left that was tethered to a part of your life you never thought you would lose. And I'd lost that. I knew the world was not a happy place, and I knew there weren't always happy endings. People died, sometimes violently with no real reason, and it was strange to feel the same thing a teacher felt and was trying to ingrain into the minds of his teenage students, most of which would never know what real loss felt like until they were out of high school and possibly college. But I already knew that.

"I want all of you to start thinking hard about what you want to do with your lives after you finish school," Mr. Jennings continued. "If not for your future, then for your own peace of mind. And whether you want to be a doctor or a collegiate professor of the arts, as long as it's something you pick that you know you're good at, then it'll be something you can build on. And try not to consider it an assignment. Think of it as an exercise. And it's okay if you have no idea what you want to do right now. Think about what you're good at and whether you could do it for the rest of your life. Now, unless there are anymore questions, get out your homework so we can go over it before the quiz I'm going to give you at the end of class."

Half the students in the class groaned loudly, and he stood up from his desk, smiling and waving his hand at everyone. "I know," he cajoled. "I know. We all love my quizzes. Let's get a move on."

I was one of the only two students who didn't really complain as I pulled my homework from my notebook and produced it to the girl in front of me as she sighed annoyingly. I glanced beside me and realized for once that Edward and I actually might have something in common.

Fisher was waiting for me when I left English as he usually was when I was done for the day, and when he took me under his arm, I saw him peek into class for a second before pulling me on to leave the building.

"He's already gone," I told Fisher. "He always leaves right when the bell rings. It's almost like he has it timed."

Fisher made a face as if to 'hmm,' but I knew what he was up to. He was always trying to do something I didn't want him to do, especially with Kyle still being abrasive to everyone who so much as looked at him funny. Mother and Father were already settled in to their new lives, and it looked like Fisher had accepted the situation for what it was. It seemed only Kyle and I were the ones left who still wanted things to go back to the way things had been. I missed Seattle. I missed my friends. I'd made new ones, but it still wasn't the same.

Kyle was waiting for us by the car, and though he opened my door for me, he barely gave me enough time to get in before he closed the door. Fisher looked at him reproachfully, but Kyle got into the driver's seat without uttering a word. I sat back with the full intention of resting my eyes and my mind from the long day, but as had become the usual thing for me, just as Kyle pulled out of the parking lot and drove passed the car Edward came to school in, I found myself looking at him through the window. He never moved, still as a statue, but there was still something off about him. And I still wanted to know what it was.

Again, thank you for reading, and I hope you liked it!

A few things before we part:

Translations:

Installez-vous des enfants - Settle down children

Vous avez déplacé ici de Seattle - You moved here from Seattle

If there's any confusion, I promise I'll try to answer any questions anyone has.