Disclaimer: All belongs to SM except plot and unrecognised characters.

Next chap is up. Sorry it took so long. I caught a bad bout of writer's block, unfortunately. I'm not sure how good this chapter is, I hope you like it. But leave a review and let me know! You know you want to! : L

Please read the authors note at the end when you've read the chapter. Thanks!

BPOV

We arrived in Portland a few days later. The first thing we had to do was enrol in the local high school. Then we would have to find out about working at the hospital on certain nights. We couldn't work there every night of course. People would get suspicious and may realise that we did not sleep. It was doubtful that they would even let us work there, seeing as how we would be posing as freshmen, even though I was over two-hundred years old. Hopefully, they would allow us to 'volunteer' though; we had decided to say that it was for experience purposes for future endeavours alone.

We arrived first at the house we had rented. We then began to unpack at vampire speed. It was much easier than doing it at normal speed. We completed a task that would have taken humans hours in mere minutes. As soon as we were done, we left for the high school.

When we arrived we went straight to the office to enrol. The receptionist was a young woman named Jane, judging by her nametag. I worried briefly whether or not Edward would be able to control his bloodlust. Maybe I had sprung this on him too soon. I glanced at him worriedly. He looked pained and I grasped his hand in an attempt to reassure him. Jane glared at me, which confused me. Edward grasped my hand harder and his face became more pained. What on earth was going on?

I cleared my throat unnecessarily to clear the air and began.

'Hello, Jane. My name is Bella Swan, and this is Edward Mason. We'd like to enrol at this school, if it's not too much trouble.'

'Where are your parents', she asked snootily, all the while glaring at Edward's hand in mine. Ah, jealously. One of the seven deadly sins. She merely continued to glare at me and seemed to decide upon ignoring me. She turned to Edward and smiled at him in a sickly sweet manner. Ah, lust. Another of the seven deadlies. This girl would have a lot to answer for at the pearly gates.

'And what can I do for you?' she purred at Edward in what I assumed she thought a seductive manner. Edward looked faintly disgusted. I tried to restrain myself from giggling, but unfortunately a slight sound escaped. She took a second from the ridiculous batting of her eyelashes to glare at me, Edward still looked faintly ill. I needed to move this along. It was taking way longer than expected.

'Excuse me Jane, but can we please enrol now?'

'Oh, yes, of course, here are the forms you need to fill out.' Wow, she was actually doing her job, although she didn't seem exactly happy about that fact. I filled out the

Forms and handed them back to her. She took them, looked through them, saw that they were in order, and told us we could start tomorrow.

We left the office and Edward turned to me looking horrified.

'That was- that was absolutely…. Terrible. I feel so...so...so...violated.' That confused me somewhat. 'What do you mean?'

'What do you mean, 'what do you mean'? Did you not hear what she was saying?! Vile woman!'

'Edward, what do you mean, what she said? Yes, it's true, she was a tad inappropriate in the way she was looking at you. But she didn't say anything that could be construed as 'vile'.'

'Are you seriously telling me that you did not hear her comments on my ahem body etc.?' He looked completely embarrassed and if he could blush, he'd be beet root.

'Eh, Edward, she didn't say anything of the sort, you don't think….you don't think that you can…read minds, do you?'

After enrolling at the school, we had to go to the hospital to find out about our part time jobs. When we arrived at the hospital, we decided to test out our theory considering whether or not Edward could read minds. It seemed that I was right. He said that every female we passed were literally screaming lustful thoughts at him. However, we still couldn't figure out why he could not hear my thoughts.

We walked over to the receptionist's desk and enquired as to where we should go to find out about working at the hospital.

An hour later, we were heading home. I had been right. We had to pull the experience card and could only work weekends and certain evenings, so as not to disrupt our education. I guess that actually made sense, seeing as how this would be our first time in high school, though we would certainly be going again.

We went home and spent the rest of the night talking. We found that we actually had a lot in common; we both loved Debussy, especially Clair de Lune. I discovered that he wished to learn to play the piano and he learned that I loved the book, 'Wuthering Heights'. I had bought a copy of it when it was first published. That reminded me, I needed to buy a new copy, my old one was crumpling due to overuse. He disagreed with my choice of book; he said that the characters were self-destructive and that they brought everything that went wrong in their lives upon themselves. I disagreed and we spent the rest of the night engaged in what you might call a heated discussion.

We had been so engrossed in our discussion that we hadn't even noticed the sun come up. The time had progressed so much so without our notice that by the time we realised how late it was, we had barely fifteen minutes until school began. Thank god for vampire super-speed. We both ran upstairs to get ready and were out the door in less than one minute. We entered the forest and began running towards the school. The school was quite faraway so it took us just under seven minutes to reach it running at full speed.

We had to visit the school office yet again before going into the school to get our schedules and other necessities for our first day. We headed towards the main school building for our first class of the day. I was quite worried about Edward being in such a crowded area being assaulted by all the mingling scents of human blood. I looked over at him but he seemed to be taking it all in his stride. He had very good self-control for a newborn. Suddenly, he made an extremely pained-face. This worried me greatly so I stopped him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

'Edward, are you okay? What's wrong? Do you want to go home? I'm sure that I can convince them you're sick. I'll go home with you.'

'It's not that Bella, it's….it's their thoughts.'

'Oh, Edward. I'm so sorry! What are they thinking about you now?'

'It's not just me; the boys are thinking impure thoughts about you too.' He clenched his jaw as he said this. Hmm I wonder why?

'Oh, Edward, don't worry about it.'

I started walking towards the classroom again when I felt someone's arm snake around my shoulders. I looked up in surprise to see Edward's arm resting on my shoulders. I asked him what he was doing at vampire speed.

'I just thought that if they think we're together, it might keep their hormonal thoughts at bay.' He replied.

'Okay.'

By then we had reached our first class. We just avoided being late, so we rushed into the classroom to make sure we weren't. We were lucky enough to grab two seats together. I really did not wish to be bothered by teenage hormonal humans. Lustful boys and jealous girls. Ugh, I barely suppressed a shiver. I could understand my own aversion to their ridiculous hormones; I'd been a vampire for two-hundred years, or crying out loud! However, Edward's confused me; he'd only been a vampire for a few days. Shouldn't he be enjoying the extra attentions of the opposite sex brought on by his new vampire qualities? Although I had found him just as attractive before he had become a vampire. Even in his delusional, fever-ridden state. Whoa, where did that thought come from? I had been so busy mulling over my thoughts that I didn't notice Edward trying to get my attention.

'What's wrong, Edward?'

'The teacher wants us to introduce ourselves to the class. Come on.' Edward stood up and took my hand to drag me with him. I could feel the jealous glares of girl's searing the nape of neck. We reached the top of the class and turned to face our classmates. Edward started. 'Hello, my name is Edward Mason and this is my girlfriend, Bella Swan.' What?! What did he just say? He shot me a look that said, 'Just go with it, okay?' and continued. 'We've just moved here from Chicago and are very excited to start our freshmen year of high school here in Portland.'

'Thank you very much for that, Edward and Bella. You may sit down now. Unless any of the students have any questions for you.' She turned to the class as she said this. Several hands shot up.

Mr. Ryan called on one girl and she sneered, 'Is she really your girlfriend, Edward?' Now what was that supposed to mean? I thought that I'd answer this particular question. 'Yes, I am actually. The two of us are very happy together as well, thank you.' I put my hand around his waist to emphasise my point. It sent an unexpected shiver through my whole body. Strange. 'Any more questions? No? Okay, Edward and I shall just go and sit down now then.' I dragged Edward back to our seat as he fought a fit of laughter. I sat down and all but pulled him into his own chair. I turned to him and demanded an explanation for the whole 'girlfriend' thing, lesson long forgotten. 'Well, like I said earlier, if they think we're together, they may leave us alone. I might still have to listen to their ridiculous thoughts, but hopefully they'll leave us alone on this plane of consciousness.' I calmed down and agreed, it sounded like a decent enough plan.

The rest of the day and week went pretty much the same. School, with a few people flirting with either Edward or I, unashamedly ignoring the other. We simply politely declined, seeing as how we were 'together'. I don't know why, but it always bothered me greatly when girls threw themselves at Edward, even when he seemed completely uninterested. Oddly enough, it seemed to bother Edward just as much when the human males flirted with me. I was so confused. I couldn't wait until the weekend, when we would start our 'volunteer' work at the hospital.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it. I don't know how good that chap was, let me know. I hope that I kept the attraction between Edward and bella subtle. I want your opinions on something. Carlisle and esme are going to be in this story, I was thinking of introducing them in the next chapter. But I'm not sure; would it be better if they were introduced later, so that Edward and bella's relationship could more without interruption? Well, let me know.

If I get 30 reviews for this chapter, I'll update by tonight.

20: tomorrow

10: Monday

Keep reviewing!

Thanks,

Kate.

Xxxx

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