A/N: Just a note that there is discussion here, and will be in other chapters, of under-age drug use. If this bothers you, you may prefer to move on to a different story. I do not condone such use but needed it for the plot. As always, Stephanie Meyer owns all the Twilight characters.
Edward POV:
I walked into lunch expecting more of the same banal thoughts I'd been hearing all day long about the new girl in school. Apparently she was nice to look at, but not much of a talker. Of course, several of the immature male youths here thought that was a great combination. Their thoughts were like mental pollution, so I tried to ignore them as much as possible. Human minds hadn't really changed much over the past century.
As I made my way to the lunch line, I noticed that Rosalie and Emmett were standing in front of our table. The new girl, "Isabella, call me Bella," had beaten us to our regular seats. Of course, Rosalie wouldn't simply sit somewhere else; she had to go and fuck with the girl instead. I loved my sister, but there was no way around it—she was a bitch. I could see Bella's face in Emmett's mind, and she looked really freaked. I tried to see what she was thinking, but there was nothing there. That was new… I had never come across a human whose mind I couldn't read clear as words on a page. I detoured over to the table to try to figure this out.
"Emmett? Rose? What do we have here?"
The girl looked at me, and I could see she was terrified. Still, her mind was blank. I was eye to eye with her, and yet I couldn't detect a single thought. Maybe she was too scared to think; although, I'd scared the fuck out of plenty of people before and never had a problem reading any of them.
"I'm sorry," she said, breaking my concentration. "I'll get out of your way, if you'll just please excuse me." She seemed to be rushing and mumbling the words at the same time. I'm not even sure a human would have understood.
I watched her inch past Rosalie and then scoot out the door as fast as she could without actually running. Em and Rose turned to me, clearly expecting that I would be able to shed some light on the girl's odd behavior. I wasn't ready to admit defeat yet, so I simply told them I was going to follow her and see if she was all right. I saw in Emmett's mind that she'd had the same reaction when he ran into her earlier, and I was starting to get a bit concerned that she'd seen through our human façade.
As I turned to head out of the cafeteria, I saw Alice and Jasper enter the room. Alice was moving much slower than usual, and I could tell she was having one of her visions. Normally, she kept her expression blank during a vision so as not to tip off the other humans. This one seemed to be bad, though, since her face was all scrunched up in concentration. Despite the gravity of the situation, I couldn't help but notice that she looked like a human with constipation issues. It was nice to make myself chuckle once in awhile.
They reached the table, and Alice finally looked up at the rest of us. The worried look on her face was not a good sign.
"I don't know what's going on." She whispered very low and fast, "I'm getting so many visions at once that I can't make sense of any of them. It's like things are changing all over the place. All of a sudden, our future is completely undecided... what's happening?"
I answered her, "I think it may have something to do with the new girl. She fucking freaks any time she sees one of us. Rosalie was giving her some shit about sitting at our table, but she acted like we killed her cat or something." I still wasn't ready to let on that I couldn't see inside her head. Most of the time I hated my gift, but it was the one thing—the one thing—I had to contribute to my family for keeping us under cover.
"Ah, fuck," Emmett broke in. "Do you think she knows what we are? That would really suck monkey ass so close to graduation. Fuck me." He sat down heavily in a chair, pissed off at the thought of having to leave.
We'd only been in Forks for a couple of years. If we avoided detection, we could stay at least another four or five before people started to notice we weren't aging. Of course, if we were outed as vampires before then, our stay would be cut drastically short. It was the one rule of our kind—the humans could not know what we were. Ridiculous that we had to hide from them when we're higher on the food chain. But that was the law, and it was punishable by the only death available to a vampire—rip and burn.
"I'm not moving to a new town and starting high school all over again just because of some frightened child!" Rosalie exploded.
I could see that Jasper was stressing, trying to help reassure Alice and now attempting to calm Rosalie down before she attracted attention. We all kind of noticed at the exact same time that, other than Emmett, we hadn't sat down yet. Since we were talking as only vampires can do—itoo low for the humans to hear and too fast for them to see—it must have looked like we were standing there for no reason. Very unusual for us and the human children were starting to turn our way to see what was going on.
"All right," I began, "I'm going to go check on the girl. Em, Jas, go grab some food while Alice and Rosalie stay at the table. Try to look normal. Someone contact Carlisle to see what he thinks."
My siblings agreed, and I saw Alice get her cell out so she could call Carlisle, the head of our family. I once again headed toward the exit to find Bella. Her scent had been distinct from everyone else and was easy to track. Now that I had a chance to pay attention, I noticed her blood smelled tangier than normal—somewhat spicy. All humans were different from each other in flavor, but hers had a definite distinction setting it apart from the rest. Bella was turning out to be quite the puzzle. I had to admit, I didn't really give a shit if we had to move again; vampire life was fucking boring no matter where we were. This Bella was the first interesting thing to happen in decades, and I was much more intrigued than bothered.
Bella's scent led me toward the hall to the library. Approaching the doors, I peered in through the window, and I saw Bella sitting at one of the tables next to the check out desk. She was just kind of slumped in her chair, looking at the stacks of books, but not really focusing on them; clearly deep in thought. It was hard to get a good look at her with that big hood around her face. Her thoughts were still a blank. I waited a bit hoping to be able to judge her mood before I approached but I had nothing to go by.
Finally, I just said 'fuck it' and opened the door. I watched her as I approached and saw her head dart up as she looked to see who was coming in. Her hood fell back from her face, and I got my first good look at her with my own eyes. Hardly ever did a human's appearance stand out to me. Bella's did. She had auburn hair, and her eyes were the color of chocolate, milk chocolate swirled with dark. I couldn't remember the way chocolate tasted but the association was still pleasant and it carried over to this girl.
It had been nearly one hundred years since I was changed, and other than a decade that I preferred to not think about, I had generally ignored humans as much as I could. They held no interest to me and were easy to disregard. I initiated no conversations, keeping to myself as much as possible. Despite the distance I kept from them, my ability to read minds left me an expert on human relations; however, I found myself a bit unsure of how to approach this girl who was clearly scared of me and my family. I decided I needed to be as calm and soothing as possible and hope for the best.
The conversation we ended up having was short and simple; she was clearly uncomfortable talking to me and wanted to be alone. I left the library and headed towards my locker to get books for my next class: Biology. As I walked, I thought about my talk with Bella. The words we exchanged meant nothing, really; it was her face that fascinated yet worried me. Expressions moved across her features one after the other, constantly changing: fear, uncertainty, even anger, and, somehow, always sadness. I felt... I felt like I wanted to comfort her... assure her... make that sadness go away. It was more than a need to protect my family; I wanted to protect… her. Unfortunately, I was no closer to knowing what caused her extreme reactions to my family and myself. Oddly enough, the idea that I was going to need to keep digging didn't bother me at all.
Bella POV
I managed to find my way back to my locker and grab my books for the afternoon classes. It was hard to focus on the normalcy of school, but I needed to make an effort if I was going to seem oblivious to the vampires walking among us. Biology was in a separate science building. I did not appreciate having to go out into the rain to get to a class. Hadn't these people ever heard of covered walk-ways or tunnels? You'd think with all the rain that would have been a no-brainer.
Rushing into the classroom to get out of the rain, I hung my jacket on a hook by the door. The hood from my sweatshirt was soaking wet, so I took that off, too. Wearing just a t-shirt left me feeling exposed, but I couldn't stand to wear the heavy, wet cotton. My hair had gotten all tangled up in the process, and it took me a few moments to get it out of my eyes and lying flat down my back again. Once my rat's nest was finally out of the way, I took a look around the room to see if anyone was watching me. I was relieved to see there were only a few students in the room, and they weren't looking in my direction.
The science room was typical; with tall, black tables that each had room for two students. Great, I'll be expected to work with a partner. Science itself was fun; having to work with a partner sucked.
Since I did not yet have an assigned seat, I stayed where I was near the coat rack, waiting for the teacher. Student after student came in and sat at the tables, and I was feeling really self-conscious, so I started flipping through my book to keep busy. As I stood there examining a picture of a dissected frog, a chill washed over my skin as someone brushed by me. I looked up and saw that it was him—Edward—who had just entered the room. He took a seat at an empty table and immediately looked toward me, right into my eyes. It was almost as if he was trying to see into my head. Immediately my breath caught in my lungs, and my eyes widened as that same fear shot through my body. It took a huge effort, but I was able to calm myself down as soon as I realized what was happening. Unfortunately, it didn't look like those black eyes of his had missed anything; the look of concentration on his face was only more intense. I needed to learn how to control myself better.
Breaking away from his gaze, a fresh look of the room revealed a horrifying circumstance—every seat in the room was taken… except for the one next to Edward. I turned to the door, desperately hoping to see another student come in who might take that last seat. Maybe the class was full and I could take another… please, please, please!
The teacher hurried into the room as the final bell rang. He shut the door behind him, leaving me trapped in the room with the empty seat and the vampire. I could feel the terror rise inside of me again and had to work once more to settle down.
The teacher seemed flustered from being late and simply waved me towards the chair next to Edward. Reaching the table much too soon, I slipped into my seat and put my books on the table as a meager barrier between the two of us. A twist of my neck allowed my hair to fall along the side of my face closest to him, blocking our view of each other. Putting the science book in front of me, I resumed my examination of the frog, hoping to give the impression of shy-geek girl. Please leave me alone!
"Hello again." His voice was that same soothing tone, trying to put me at ease.
I mumbled a "Hi" back and resumed reading. No way was I ready to have another conversation with him. Hopefully he would get the hint and leave me the fuck alone. I was actually starting to get irritated about how often I had to interact with him. Maybe that was better than fear—easier to hide anyway.
"Did you find what you were looking for in the library?" He seemed intent on initiating the conversation I wanted to avoid.
Inwardly, I gave a big sigh. Obviously, I was going to have to talk with him to keep up some facade of normalcy.
"Yes, thank you." Once again, I went back to my text book hoping he would leave me alone. I huffed a little sigh, hoping he'd get the hint. Vampire or not, I was getting ready to stab him with my pencil.
"Are you enjoying Forks so far?"
That was it; I gave up and actually chuckled a bit. Someone so obtuse didn't seem very dangerous after all. Maybe he was a special-ed vampire and that was why he was in high school. I decided I better give him the conversation he was looking for. Brief amusement aside, he could end me at any time. Luckily, his idiocy was actually helping me to be able to talk to him normally.
"It's too cold and wet here. I miss the California sun."
He gave a funny kind of look when he heard my reply. It was like it amused him for some reason. Maybe it was the sun thing. My research had been fairly consistent that sun and vampires did not mix.
"Why did you move here?" he asked. "It doesn't sound like this is where you want to be."
I hadn't really looked at him yet as I was still trying to avoid my standard freak out. His blatant nosiness startled me, though, and I had to turn to face him to see the look on his face. He looked mildly curious; not what I expected.
"It's actually kinda complicated; we had to move for my father's job."
"I think I can keep up." he replied.
Gee, arrogant much?
By now, after being close and facing him for a few moments, I began to notice something. He smelled really fucking good! It wasn't cologne. The scent was hard to describe... kind of sweet but not like a cookie. Almost against my will, I was drawing closer to him to get more.
I realized what I was doing and, all of a sudden, he didn't seem funny anymore. The fucker was trying some of that vampire mojo on me to get me to calm down. There was no doubt in my mind that he knew exactly what he was doing. I turned back to my book and let my hair fall into place between us again. I could feel my pulse start to beat really fast. It was time to finish this conversation.
"Edward?" I said in the most pleading voice I could manage. "I think I'd really rather not talk about my family life right now. I'm not sure why you're curious, but I'm a private person, and I don't know you. If you'd like to tell me your secrets, I'm happy to listen."
There! That should put him in his place.
Edward gave a small chuckle. "I'm sorry for prying. You seem different from the other students here, so I was curious. Maybe we can talk another time."
Finally, a bit of respite from the questions. Thankfully, class came to a start right about then with the teacher calling us to order and explaining the lesson for the day. Yet another class where I already knew the material. It was a good thing I was probably going to be dead before I got to go to college considering the sub-par quality of the school I was now attending. Yeah…I had learned to find humor in my situation.
Edward's questions brought me back to the events that led to our move to Forks. I felt my cheeks get hot and red as I remembered. I'd been sick of everything: sick of missing my mom, sick of small town life, sick of always feeling lonely because I could never fit in. Kids were constantly making fun of me, and I always felt like a pathetic loser. My mother would have been so disappointed in me. I wanted—no, needed—to spend some time away from myself.
So, I did what was probably the stupidest thing I'd ever done before and obtained some crystal meth from a local dealer. I wasn't going to play around with so called "gateway" drugs like pot or alcohol. All the things I had heard about meth being addictive, super fast, and hard made it seem like a miracle drug. The before and after shots of meth users in the anti-drug ads gave me even more incentive. Maybe if I destroyed myself obviously enough, the vampire would no longer think I would taste good when he came back for me.
Luckily for me, my first meth experience landed me directly in the hospital. The dealer was brave enough to literally throw me out of his moving car at the entrance to the emergency room. It was close enough, though. The nurses inside had seen what happened and ran right out to help. It took me three days in the hospital to recover enough to leave. I was charged with the drug use, but my dad got it thrown out by agreeing to have me admitted to a rehab facility for six weeks.
Rehab was a joke. I couldn't exactly explain that my life sucked ass because a vampire was seasoning me for a big blood sucking feast sometime in the future. Even I knew that without honesty, therapy was worthless. I bided my time and said all the right things to ensure they'd let me out when the six weeks was up.
The worst part of the whole ordeal was knowing I'd disappointed my Dad. He'd lost his job because of what I had done. The voters figured if he couldn't keep me in line, he wasn't going to be able to handle the whole town. He reassured me that he was just happy to have me back in one piece and that the job was no big deal. I had a very hard time believing he could forgive and forget that easily. He loved my mom, and I bet he wished that it had been me that had died instead of her. Children grow up and move on, and it's easy enough to have another one, but he'll never find another woman like her.
Ah, fuck… I would have been better off matching wits with the annoying guy next to me. Now I was about to start sobbing because of my memories and really make an ass of myself. Thankfully, the bell chose that moment to sound my reprieve, and I was out the door. I did notice, though, that Edward made it through that same door quite a bit faster than me and the rest of the class.
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