DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters (besides the original ones (Kasey, Cole, Layla, Andrew, Luke etc.)). They're Stephenie Meyer's toys, I'm just playing with 'em.

Recommended listening for this chapter;;
* The Truth About Heaven – Armor For Sleep
* Thinking of you – Katy Perry
* Eyes on Fire – Blue Foundation
* Twilight – Vanessa Carleton
* World Without You – Beth Hart


I couldn't feel my legs much less move them and I most definitely could not stop staring.

His pallid skin looked bright against the darkness outside but his dark eyes – narrowed in my direction -- matched the turbulent skies; his copper hair – an organized mess that looked absolutely effortless – was a shade I had never seen before. In his own right, he was absolutely beautiful, impossibly gorgeous, and flawless down to every curvature of his face, his perfect lips…

My chest began to burn, lungs begging for air that I hadn't realized I was depriving them of and quickly, with the intake of air, I pulled my eyes away from the godly being. Flitting to the last desk in the row, my eyes touched each table, counting them; assigning the tables a number until the leering eyes drifted into my peripheral vision. The gorgeous, god-like boy with the dark, cold unwavering eyes sat at the second table from the back of the class, sat in the seat beside the empty seat I had been given to call my own… presumably the Mr. Cullen Mr. Britt had referred to prior.

Taking a breath, I forced myself to regulate my suddenly erratic breathing, coaxing my legs out of their momentary paralysis to head to my appointed seat, my eyes shying away from the angered deity. There was no need to call any further attention to my arrival by refusing my seat; however, this same refusal that kept me relatively unnoticed seemed to enrage my new classmate, Mr. Cullen further.

Sliding onto the stool, I lowered by backpack to the floor beside the lab table slowly and I could feel the heat radiating from what I assumed was his concentrated stare. I had been stared at before through the course of the still very early day, and obviously through the course of my life, but this stare… there was nothing I could match it to other than the hot seer of a stove element. Part of me wished the ground would just open up and swallow me whole… this was torture.

***

The remainder of the class ticked by impossibly slow, the heat of the stare I felt from the boy sitting at my side never ceasing, never leaving. Throughout the class I stayed as quiet and as still as I could possibly manage and my eyes – unseeing -- never left the inside of the text book for longer than a moment, yet from the corner of my eye, I could see where his clenched fist sat, pressed tightly against his open book. If his skin wasn't so pale already I would have expected that his knuckles would be blanched from stretching out over the bone structure in his hand.

By the time the bell rang to signal the end of the class I felt the relief as I was released from his stare, I knew this because from the corner of my eye I could see him burst from his seat almost too quickly with his books gathered neatly under his pale arm; apparently finally set free from whatever bond had held him there to begin with. It took him seconds to reach the classroom door and I hadn't realized I was staring after him until several of my classmates paused in the same doorway he had passed through – jaw set and eyes focused ahead of him -- moments prior, to throw a glance my way.

It was enough to shake me out of my daze and very quickly, I shifted my gaze to my backpack on the floor and gathered it without a second thought on the matter. The day was starting out wonderfully… I thought sarcastically as I pushed myself off the stool, maybe it wasn't too late to call Luke in to save the day… very clearly I was already hated here. Even this far reaching, small community wasn't far enough… he had to have known what had happened, the strange Cullen boy must have know; that was the only explanation I could think of for the uncomfortable atmosphere, the angry stares I was forced to endure. He knew what I had done and even here I couldn't escape it. Luke had been wrong and I had been right. It was better to stay in my room as I had been doing… at least there I could deal with my own guilt, my own anger; I didn't need the judgment of others to make me feel horrible. I would tell him exactly this when he picked me up from the same spot he had dropped me off this morning, not but two hours ago; I would tell him it wasn't worth the effort it had taken. I would tell him I had died with Jeremy that night on the back road…

Without bothering to dig my already crumpled schedule from the depths of my jean pocket, I took a hard right as soon as I had reached the door, the opposite way the Cullen boy had ventured off in. There was no need for a schedule if I was calling it quits and it had been such a short time since I had left the office that morning to need a map to know where I needed to be going.

"Kasey?"

I had just about reached the end of the slightly crowded hall when the sound of my name stopped me in mid stride. At first, the sound was strange, almost as if I hadn't been expecting to hear it at all today, but then, it confused me. I hadn't been here nearly long enough for anyone to know it yet. Turning, it wasn't long before I had found the source of what had caused the mixed reaction among the other individuals ignoring my presence.

"Kasey. Hi, sorry I'm late…" She shifted her books from one arm to the next, freeing up a hand that soon became outstretched in greeting as she approached me. A short girl, her face round and eyes shimmering with the smile that lit up her face. "Layla Moore, we used to hang out all the time when we were younger before my dad took the job here and we moved… not sure if you remember."

Flicking an auburn tress out of her eyes, I took up her hand with slight hesitation, shaking it shortly before I allowed a small, almost fabricated, smile to cross my face. Now I remembered her face, now I could match it with the name Luke had given me moments before I'd left the car this morning. Layla Moore.

"What class do you have next?"

Almost mechanically, my hand dove into my pocket to retrieve the crumpled mess that had been my pristine schedule once upon a time this morning. Unfolding it, my eyes scanned the paper in a jittery manner until the second period slot caught my attention, "Uh- Trig with… Mr. Dinardo?"

"Well I'm headed there too, so we'll be going this way." Layla replied rather shortly, her voice overly confident as she motioned in the opposite direction that I had been heading. Abruptly, my stomach churned oddly; the same direction the Cullen boy had been heading when he had rushed from Biology class moments ago…

It didn't take long for Layla to notice my hesitation. "Kasey?"

"Hmm?"

"This way." I watched Layla motion, take a leading step in the appropriate direction but still, I was hesitant, my eyes almost unwittingly scanning the sea of unfamiliar faces for any sign of the boy who had suddenly made me want to abandon this chance at normal. It didn't take me long to realize he wasn't here, he wasn't close. For one, I couldn't see his radiant skin, paled beyond belief. Second, I was sure I wouldn't be the only one staring if he had been here; I couldn't have been the only one that noticed his impossible beauty that seemed to outshine any that I saw before me in the hallway now.

Taking a steadying breath and gripping the straps of my backpack with an almost uncertainty, I took several long strides and caught up with Layla before she could motion again.

***

By the time we stepped into the next class, my nerves settled immeasurably when I could not locate the impossibly gorgeous Cullen boy in the nearly full classroom. Still, I couldn't help but keep the image of his face in the back of my mind; it seemed impossible to remove even should I have liked to at this point...

I was so distracted by this strange realization that I allowed my body to move almost on its own accord, following Layla and finding a seat at the back of the classroom near her. However, it didn't take long for me to realize this class was not going to be the same as Biology class this morning.

"Hey! New chick!"

The cry shook me roughly out of my wandering thoughts, bringing them quickly back to my current situation; trigonometry class. Pulling my eyes up from the desk, they shifted almost immediately to a lanky, blond boy, a smile, accentuated by perfectly white teeth, stretching from cheek to dimpled cheek as he approached. Every part of him oozed confidence and it wasn't hard to see why; if I could match him up with any face I'd seen before, he would have closely resembled a young Hollywood hotshot. Still, I couldn't help but notice, he wasn't quite worthy of a deity title.

"I'm – "

"Kasey, this is Cole," Layla sighed, shaking her head and her eyes rolling ever so slightly when the boy settled into the empty seat beside me with his books in tow. "Ignore him; he hits on anything with boobs."

"That's defamation of character, Layla. I don't hit on anything with boobs. I don't hit on you anymore…" Cole sighed, shooting a glance in Layla's direction for a moment, placing his books down on the table in front of himself. "Now where was I before I was so rudely defamed? Right; I'm Cole."

The smile was already spreading across my lips as I offered my hand in introduction; Cole's friendly disposition seemed contagious. "Hi, uh – Kasey."

Taking my hand, Cole grasped it but didn't shake it, his eyes locking momentarily with mine as he did so. "Funny story, we're actually in Biology together." Cole smirked, pulling his hand from mine gently before leaning on the table. "Mr. Britt's just hard up on the rules so I didn't really get a chance to say anything. Ya know, sit down, shut up, do your work. My last name's Vanders, so I'm… not even in the same zip code as you are where seats are concerned. Gotta love your new seating arrangement though, right?"

"It's alright I guess…" I murmured, pushing back the recent memories of my horrible start to the day with some difficulty, the image of the strange Cullen boy's face – full of some kind of fiery resentment – resurfacing too quickly.

"Yeah, you and Cullen, desk buddies, huh?" Cole chuckled shortly, however he didn't seem amused. "He's really weird if you ask me, always been kind of shifty but this morning was, beyond weird… I don't know. He just kept staring and –"

"Will you stop it, Cole." Layla snapped, her voice bordering on that of anger. "You're always on about Edward… lay off."

I hadn't realized I'd been paying attention to Cole so closely, so wrapped up in what could possibly have been an explanation for the strange behaviour that Layla's interruption startled me to a degree.

Mouthing Layla's words with a twisted face in a mocking manner, Cole rolled his eyes shortly at the girl at my side. "He's weird, creepy even. Not my fault I'm observant…" He completed his words with a shrug of his shoulders.

"I swear to god Cole, you overreact..."

"You weren't there okay Dudley Do-Right… trust me, this wasn't overreacting, you don't understand…."

"What's there to understand? Different people react differently to varied -"

Cole was quick to interrupt.

"I'm sorry, when was the last time 'death glare' was the appropriate reaction to a pretty girl, huh? Never, that's when the last time was. Never."

Layla narrowed her eyes in Cole's direction for a short moment before she shook her head and turned away from the boy. "You're just jealous…"

Cole scoffed, "What's there to be jealous of, huh?

"Lay off of them Cole, they're technically new here too. You don't know them."

"Yeah, new five months ago at the beginning of the year, they've been here long enough…"

"Lay off Cole." Layla rasped, her eyes shifting to myself and then back to Cole almost pointedly.

What had she meant by them …? How many was them and did that mean that the strange Cullen boy's problem wasn't with me after all?

"It's not my fault they're freaky." Cole rasped back as his eyes darted to the front of the class momentarily. "I'm just calling it as I see it, Lay. Besides, Andrew agrees so don't look at me like I'm the bad guy here. Don't you Andy?" Grabbing an eraser from the top of his stacked belongings, Cole lobbed it at the back of a boy's head who sat in the row just in front of him.

"I told you I don't agree to anything you say anymore until I hear the whole story, Cole." A boy interrupted swiftly, swiveling in his seat so that his back was to the front of the classroom. Brushing the shaggy dark hair away from the front of his glasses, a small smile crept up on the boy's lips, "I'm not having a repeat of last spring break thanks."

"As if you weren't already listening in you big baby…" Cole rolled his eyes with a sigh, shaking his head for a moment. "And besides, memories my friend; you know you'll look back on that moment and laugh... one day."

Shooting him a glare, Andrew sighed, sweeping the hair away from his blue eyes once more before he allowed a short, mock laugh to slip from his lips. "Lays, I know you hate to discriminate, but you have to admit, Cullen is weird, there's something off about all of them and you know it.

"Second, I'm Andrew and it's nice to meet you. Don't worry, not all of us are jerks." Andrew whispered rather loudly, not bothering to cloak the wink he sent my way.

"Mr. Vanders? Mr. Erics? Am I to assume that you two can pay attention properly from the back of the classroom?" A voice from the front of the classroom questioned loudly, the chitter-chatter of the surrounding students dying down ever so slightly as I looked up to see a man in a wrinkle free dress shirt and glasses address my new acquaintances.

"Just being friendly, Mr. D, just being friendly." Cole replied in assurance, a smile crossing his face once more as he waved to the teacher and Andrew turned to face the front of the class once more.

***

"I play baseball with the school, on and off ya know." Cole mumbled his mouth full of a cafeteria purchased hamburger as he chewed through his sentence. "Keeps me in shape and I live to play."

Settling into seats at a relatively empty cafeteria table, near the far corner of the large space, Andrew opened up a notebook and began flipping through it, absentmindedly opening up a brown paper lunch bag with his free hand as he did so.

The rest of the morning had gone off without another hitch, English followed Trig and Layla and Cole had been in the same class as well, so I wasn't as new and awkward there as I had been in the first class today – not that it could be more awkward than Biology if I had tried.

Maybe this is what Luke had meant about my needing this, the feeling of normality, of consistency…

Unfurling the top of my brown paper bag lunch, my hand scrounged around almost disinterestedly inside and pulled out the first thing my fingers touched upon. Pulling the find from the paper bag I admired the crimson fruit, turning it in my hand and allowing my eyes to touch the surface, catching the bruise on the opposite site, a flaw on the nearly flawless apple.

Drawing my eyes up from my inspection, they wandered absently as my fingers fiddled with the stem of the fruit in my grasp.

It didn't take long for my eyes to find them with the help of the burning sensation of eyes on me.

I could see them easily from where I sat in the now crowded cafeteria – a perfect view of the table they sat at from between Andrew and Layla's shoulders - and it didn't take me long to understand that they could see me as well. If I could have ignored the distinct feeling of their eyes on me, of being watched intently, scrutinized, I would have, but there was a certain intensity about it that made it difficult to do so, that made it difficult to not stare right back.

Immediately, I recognized the boy that had been my assigned desk partner among them. However, even if I hadn't been able to pick him out right away from the curious colour of his tousled hair, I would have noticed him for the simple reason that he was the only one of the five that was not staring at me, he was the only one who kept his eyes intently glued to the surface of the table he sat at. Still, the sight of him sent a strange jolt through my system, an almost sickening feeling.

"Hey Layla…?"

The strange behaviour also made it significantly difficult not to question the stares, so I didn't fight to hold back the query when it slipped past my terse lips. Ripping my eyes away from the group of perfect, seemingly flawless people that sat at that table, I looked to Layla who sat across from me.

"Yeah?"

I paused for a moment, choosing my words as my eyes flashed to them for another moment, looking away quickly when I realized they were still staring.

"Who are they?"

"Finally…" Andrew murmured under his breath from across the table, not bothering to look up and turn around as he continued to scan over his notes.

Was it that obvious?

A chuckle from Cole affirmed my belief that it was indeed obvious. "Thought you'd never ask…."

Leaning over, closer to me casually, Cole shot a glance in Layla's direction as if to check himself before he took a breath, "They're the Cullens, the local freak show. The blond guy, sitting closest, that's Jasper. Kind of weird, doesn't talk a lot. The tiny girl, unconventional hottie in my opinion, short dark hair sitting beside him, that's Alice."

Glancing away as if to divert suspicion, Cole pretended to lean across the table and read over Andrew's notes as he continued, "The big guy, that's Emmett and the blond girl with him, mega hottie, that's Rosalie… then of course there's your desk buddy Edward…"

For a moment, Cole's voice adopted a rather snide tone as 'Edward' rolled off his tongue and past his lips, a hint of jealousy perhaps? In Cole's lapse, Andrew picked up almost dutifully.

"They're Dr. Cullen's kids; he works at the hospital in town. He and his wife kinda adopted them all apparently, so they're not really… related. Jasper and Rosalie are twins, they have a different last name than Alice, Emmett and Edward; Hale." Pausing, Andrew flipped a page in his notebook before moving forward. "An explanation which sets it up for the shocking yet legal fact that they're all together, together… well, most of them anyway. Jasper and Alice, Emmett and Rosalie…"

Cole didn't wait long to add in his own tid-bits of information. "We're still working on a theory for Edward though. They've been here for almost a year now and he's turned down every girl who's had half the nerve to ask him out."

At Cole's words, Andrew's eyes – which had since drifted back down to his notes - bugged out for a moment, a murmur slipping past his lips amid a flurry of an appropriately timed turning of a page. "… Including Amy Darwin."

At the mention of the girl's name, Layla rolled her eyes pointedly and Cole sucked in a large amount of air through his teeth in an almost painful hiss.

"Ga-ay." Cole coughed shortly thereafter, shifting his eyes almost uneasily as he moved to cover his mouth with a loosely balled fist.

At Cole's words, a movement from the Cullen table caught my attention and I could have sworn I caught the bigger Cullen's – the one Andrew had identified as Emmett – shoulder's shake with a laugh, a small smile pulling up the corner of his lips on his stony features. However, the reaction was over just as quickly as it had caught my attention and Emmett looked away.

I stared after him for a moment, wondering exactly what he had found so amusing, a suddenly strange reaction when gauging the other, rather complacent one that had been unwavering.

Pulling my eyes away from Emmett, my eyes wandered for a brief moment until they caught something that made my stomach lurch and my eyes stop their wandering. Suddenly, my eyes caught Alice's gaze and for a moment, our eyes held with something peculiar… a knowing look of sorts….

I didn't know how long I held her gaze, but it was Cole's voice that shook me out of my trance-like state.
"So, have you been around town yet?"

Throwing my glance down to the apple in my grip once more, I stuttered out the answer, "uh – no… I –"

Taking a steadying breath, I swallowed my answer and brought the apple to my mouth, biting into it with slight determination.

***

The wind whipped the hair around my face as I followed Layla into the student parking lot, backpack slung lazily over my shoulder.

The rest of the day had been rather uneventful. To my dismay Edward Cullen was in the same last two classes as myself after lunch, however – to my great relief – he was nowhere to be seen when attendance was taken, his absence represented by empty desks and uncollected test papers.

My fortunes – I humbly refused to call it luck - seemed to continue through to the very end of the day when Layla assured me she wouldn't mind giving me a ride back home. Hastily, I accepted and notified Luke who seemed to be slightly worried about what sort of day I had been having…

"So, how do you like Scappoose High?" Layla questioned lightly as she pulled out a thick and noisy bangle of keys from her pocket, opening the car doors before she tossed her school bag into the back seat of the dark blue Honda Accord.

Pulling open the passenger door, I slipped into the front seat and closed the door behind myself, waiting for Layla to settle into the driver seat before I spoke, choosing my words carefully. Allowing my eyes to drift of the rain splotched window, I took a breath, "It's… alright I suppose. Different to say the least…"

Starting the car, Layla pulled out of the parking spot with precision before she spoke again.

"If it's about Edward…"

His name sent another familiar jolt through my system and my eyes were suddenly upon the girl in the driver's seat. "It's not I just –."

However, I stopped myself. What was it just?

"Look, I didn't say anything before because well, I hate to prove Cole right…" Layla began after a moment of silence, the lull of a song on the radio filling the dead air between us. "It's hard enough to knock him down a few pegs these days…"

"But?" I edged curiously, cautiously, my fingers digging into the material of the backpack on my lap as I looked at Layla with a strange amount of curiosity.

"But… they were acting kind of strange today… the Cullens I mean. Usually they don't…" Suddenly, Layla laughed, cutting herself off. "Look at me… just, never mind, okay? I shouldn't be saying things like that…"

A breath that I didn't realize I was holding escaped my lips a little too noisily and Layla glanced sideways at my figure as I relaxed my grip on the backpack.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine."

***

I trudged through the front door with unusually heavy feet, closing the door behind myself with a slight slam. Pressing my back up against the door, I leaned almost dependently on it, allowing my school bag – lade with trigonometry and biology texts – to fall to the floor with finality.

The remainder of the ride home with Layla comprised of small-talk and not much else, however, I hadn't been thinking about it as much as I should have when I replied. I was wrapped up in thoughts of what had happened during lunch and the peculiar absence of Edward Cullen in the classes after that event.

I didn't want to think that his absence had something to do with me, but I had been thinking about it since I had left school and I couldn't seem to come up with another logical explanation.

"Hey Kiddo…"

I was so wrapped up in thought that – not unlike the rest of my day – when Luke spoke to me from the kitchen entrance, I jumped slightly.

For a moment, Luke inspected me with a furrowed brow, his hands going through the motions of drying a mug with a dish towel almost mindlessly as he did so. "… How was your day?"

Pushing myself off the door, I stumbled forward slightly but righted myself quickly.
"Uneventful," I lied without hesitation as I kicked off my shoes and pushed them aside before I started for the stairs.

"Does that mean you're going back tomorrow?" Luke called up the stairs after me, the confusion laced thick in his tone, however the hope there was still evident.


A/N; If anyone has any questions, don't be shy, ask 'em. I'm a pretty understanding author and I'd be more than happy to clear up any confusion. Also, Scappoose High is an actual high school in Scappoose, Oregon. Just thought it was interesting and you should know that it was.

Anyhow, R&R please!