Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Over And Over Again

Ilina -

I waited impatiently for Beki to arrive outside the school, tapping my foot to the song stuck in my head. It just happened to be 'No Tricks' by Koda Kumi, one of my favorite songs, and I was staring down at the pavement as if I were expecting it to move or do something interesting.

"Hey Ilina!" Sarah's voice broke through my reverie, and I grinned as I turned to see her getting out of her blue car. The girl had a license. She had a car. She had car insurance. Needless to say, I was jealous.

"Hey Sarah!" I called back, just as enthusiastically. She crossed the street between the student parking spots and the front lawn of North Eugene High School before I wrapped her up in an embrace. She hugged me back, apparently cheerful this morning, before pulling away and looking at me seriously in the face.

"Beki's late again, isn't she?"

I grinned. "Uh huh."

"That girl has the worst attendance record that I've ever seen!" Sarah complained as the silver car that I recognized as Beki's dad's pulled into the visitor's parking lot, across the lawn from the student one.

"There she is," I pointed as I hid my laughter. It was just like Sarah to exaggerate things.

Beki walked across the sidewalk that spanned the lawn, avoiding the dew-endowed grass. Beki was tall and thin, with red hair that was curlier than any that I'd ever seen. She kept it slicked back in a short ponytail, although it was just as unruly as mine. She'd end up redoing that messy hairstyle before the end of first period. Like I'd predicted, she had her nose buried in the Odyssey, reading so intently that she almost ran into Joey, who was walking in front of her, engrossed in a conversation with Marissa. I waved to both of them before Sarah and I joined our friend. "Morning, Beki. Cramming again?" I teased.

"Shut up," she laughed, elbowing me before I could do anything about it. It was gentle enough to not cause pain though, which was a good thing. I bruised pretty easily, and that was one bruise that I didn't need to explain. Sarah, on Beki's other side, closed the book. Her face was angelic as she grinned at Beki, fluttering her eyelashes that matched her coffee-colored hair. Beneath those pale eyelids was a pair of eyes that matched her hair almost perfectly. She had luck.

I was almost in between Beki and Sarah with my looks. I had porcelain skin, even paler than Beki's somehow, and had jet-black hair. While my eyes were blue, although it wasn't a deep-color-of-the-ocean kind of blue. They were the blue-almost-transparent-slash-white kind of blue (Sarah called it periwinkle. I just told her that she liked the word. She couldn't fight with that logic). I was small and short, everything about me being small with the exception of my eyes. That was what happened when you had a Japanese mother and a European father. Things seemed disproportionate on my body.

"Hey, who're they?" Sarah asked, pointing at the group of people that were walking up to the school after getting out of a . . . Aston Martin Vanquish?

Edward –

I ignored the stunned stares of my new classmates as I slammed the driver's door shut on my Aston Martin Vanquish. It was easily the most expensive car there. It was easily the handsomest car there. It was arguably the handsomest car in history, but we weren't going there. I slung my backpack over my shoulder, scanning the faces of the teenagers gathered around. Order had resumed.

Taking the paperwork that Alice handed me, I touched the edge of the top sheet to my bottom lip, making every movement seem absentminded. I memorized mental voices, able to hear the tenor of every student's thoughts now. I groaned, wanting to bury my head in the nearest bush, as some people took notice of me and my siblings. Wasn't it considered rude to stare anymore?

It was mildly difficult to resist the scent of the human blood dancing around me like I was human. I hadn't been around humans for a couple days. However, I refused to give in, and besides, my throat wasn't burning. Not like it had been when Bella had . . . I couldn't finish the rest of that thought.

Stopping by the nearest humans, a group of three girls that were staring at my car still (I found that interesting. Girls that were stunned by cars? Was Eugene that much different from all of the other cities in the world?), I looked at the tallest one. She was good-looking, her red hair making my eyebrows rise. I doubted she was from Eugene originally, but then again, stranger things had happened. "Excuse me?" I asked, flawlessly polite.

All three girls turned to me now, paying attention. "Oh? What is it?" the one I'd asked responded, just as polite. The brown-haired one was staring at me distrustfully (Was this because of her subconscious warnings, or did she know something? Her mind was focused on my car. I didn't know what to make of this), while the smallest one, the one with the darkest hair, gave me a cursory glance, and then went back to staring at my vehicle.

"Can you tell me where the office is? My brothers and sisters and I need to go there."

The littlest one looked up at me again, taking a bit more interest now that I'd said something of importance. "I can take you there. I have to go see Sally this morning anyways." Whoever Sally was, it was beyond my comprehension. No one's minds were giving any indication. By now, I was starting to regret asking. Sure, it was good to fit in (It would have looked the slightest bit odd if we'd somehow known where the office was already), but the way that the middle-sized one was staring at me was like she knew my secret. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

"Thank you."

"Not a problem," she answered, skirting around me before beckoning me with a single finger. I tilted my head inconspicuously at my relatives, and they followed the girl. If she realized that she had quite an audience now, she made no response. Every person's eyes were on her as she led us around the corner to the easily-distinguished office. "Here you go," she said, not affected by our wordlessness. She walked over to the secretary, leaning over the counter. "Is Sally in yet?"

Through the secretary's head, I could see that Sally was the principal at one of the small schools. It was the interesting thing about North Eugene High School. They went off of the small schools grant, an idea that separated a large school into three smaller schools. I'd chosen the International High School, the only one of us who had. Alice and Emmett were in the School of the Arts, and Rosalie and Jasper had chosen the School of IDEAS. IDEAS stood for something, but I wasn't really interested in that. Rose and Jazz could tell me later.

"Not quite yet." The secretary's bleached blond head popped up to examine us intently. "New students?" she asked.

The girl that had been our guide shrugged. "Ask them. I've got to run to class. I don't have a quarter." And with that cryptic remark, she turned. Almost as if she'd forgotten that it was there, she tripped over the floor trim, and a pain seared in my heart.

Embry –

"Pauuuuul!" I cried, leaping out of bed. The alarm clock hadn't woken me; Seth had. Thank God for someone who was a morning person.

Paul groaned, rolling over. The walls were paper thin, we'd found out last night, and I immediately called again and again until I heard the ruffle of sheets. "Whatdoyawant?" he asked, not quite awake enough yet to form real sentences.

"We're late for school!" Seth's squeaky voice was like nails on a chalkboard in the mornings.

Paul must have glanced at his alarm clock. "It's only 9:30," he mumbled.

"School started at 7:50!"

It took Paul a second. "Damn it," he mumbled.

A/N: Yup! Chapter 2 is already up! I ended up having time tonight! Talk about AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I love writing about the werewolves. They're so funny.

So, read and review?