"So, you're telling me that after all the complaining you did, you
had fun?" Dad teased as we all sat in the living room, me eating
Chinese.
"That's not what I said," I defended. "I said that it wasn't
completely terrible. That's all." He laughed and rolled his eyes.
Alice was glaring at me. "I still can't believe you bought a couch
without me." I took another bite. "Yup. It should be here
tomorrow. Same day shipping."
"Ugh. I didn't even know you knew how to use that debit card." She
groaned. Truthfully, I didn't but it was pretty self-explanatory on
the website.
"Oh come on Alice. It's just a couch." She 'hmph'ed and that was all.
Then my cell phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Bells." It was Jake.
"Oh hey! What's up?" I could see frowns throughout the whole room.
"Nothing, I just got back from...that's not important. How was your
first day of school in Forks?"
"Fine. A little boring. So when you say 'that's not important' you
really mean 'I was out with my wolf pack', right?" I asked.
"Er, no?"
I laughed. "Do me a favor and never become an actor, 'Kay?"
"Haha, very funny. Fine, I was out with my pack. Why?"
"No reason. That's still really weird to me though." Picturing Jake
as a werewolf was really hard
"Coming from the girl who lives with vampires."
I frowned. "Hey, I'm used to that!"
"Really?"
"Really."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. And I should go now."
"Ah, how come?" I looked around the room.
"Well, when you're being glared at by an entire room, it's time to
end the conversation." He snorted. "Fine. Just remember, we still
have that open room-"
Crap. "Yeah, yeah. Bye Jake." I hung up. I hadn't mentioned that
offer to live with them to anyone.
"What was he talking about?" Mom demanded. It was the first thing
she'd said to anyone since this morning.
"Oh, you're speaking now?" I asked as I stood, heading to the kitchen
to throw away the leftover food.
She followed me. "Answer the question!"
I sighed. "It's nothing, okay? If it was something important I would
have told you."
"Well, you thought it was important enough to hide it."
"Who's hiding anything? There is nothing of hide. Drop it." I left
the kitchen and headed upstairs to my bedroom. I sat at my desk and
logged on to my laptop. I got on my email and fount seven new emails
from Dana. My heart went out to her but as much as I wanted to, I
couldn't respond to her emails. If I ever wanted to be a vampire, I
had to learn to detach. I also needed to learn to get along with Mom
but that of course goes both ways. When a knock came to my door I
almost told whoever it was to go away but then I remembered it was
probably Edward and instead said,
"Come in." Thankfully, it was him.
"Hey," he said as he came to stand behind me.
"What are you doing?"
"Checking my emails. Though I'm not sure why because it always puts
me in a bad mood."
"I've noticed. You should probably get a new account."
"Yeah, maybe later." I said, shutting my laptop and turning the chair
to face him. "For now, I just wanna relax." We spent the evening
watching a movie and just talking. It was nice until he tried to bring
up Mom.
"Look, I don't really wanna talk about her," I stopped him.
"Fine. Would you rather talk about Jacob." I didn't quite understand his tone.
I asked, "What about him?"
"I don't think you should be talking to him or anyone in that pack."
"Oh god, not this again," I groaned.
"Bella it's outrageously dangerous."
"Don't you trust me?" He sighed.
"Of course I do but you don't understand. Werewolves are extremely unstable."
"Well Jake isn't and neither is the rest of the pack, I assured him.
"Really? You can't think of a single incident where those werewolves
lost control?"
"No, absolutely not," I answered but my voice rose as I thought of
Emily's scarred face.
He looked satisfied. "Exactly." "Look, Jake is my friend and I trust
him and the pack and I'm not going to stop talking to Jake. You have
to trust that I know what I'm doing."
"Do you?"
"Yes. Now, goodnight." I turned off my beside lamp. We were finished
for the night but I knew this discussion was far from over.

When I went down for breakfast the next morning Mom seemed to be
trying to be civil and if she was trying so would I.
"Good morning," she greeted as I walked into the kitchen to find her
sitting at the island with Jasper and Alice.
"'Morning," I replied. I made a bowl of cereal and sat down at the
stool next to Jasper.
"So how was your night?" Mom asked. I swallowed a bite of cereal.
"Fine. Yours?"
"Just fine."
"Great." Well, we were speaking but apparently couldn't get out more
than two words at a time to each other. The room elapsed in to an
awkward silence. Fortunately, Dad came in a moment later.
"'Morning Bells." He gave me a hug.
"Good Morning,Dad."
"How'd you sleep?" He asked as he sat down next to Mom.
"Great."
"Awesome. So, what'd you do last night?" Wow, I could tell he was
trying really hard to get a conversation going. I figured I'd help
out.
"Edward and I watched a movie." It worked.
"Really? What movie?" Mom asked. Ooh, three words this time. I
responded with the same amount.
"Romeo and Juliet." Jasper snorted.
"Again?"
"Yes, again. It's my favorite," I defended.
"So you don't have it memorized yet?" Alice joked.
"I would have thought your new movie favorite would be Wuthering
Heights." My god, a full sentence from Mom.
"Nope. Not yet at least. For now I'll stick with Romeo and Juliet."
It was no secret that I had a worn out copy of Wuthering Heights in my
bedroom that had been read practically to death but the movie didn't
seem to have the same appeal.
On the way to school Edward said, "So I saw you talked to Rosalie
this morning."
"Yeah, I did," I replied simply.
"Does this mean you two are making up?" He asked.
"I don't know, maybe. We have a lot of issues though."
"Primarily me," he stated. I looked over, trying to read his face. He
seemed careful. I tried to explain it right,
"Well, In a way, yes. You're really important to me and I love you
and she doesn't really understand that. Until she does we're always
going to have problems but that's more because of her than you."
He nodded but did not reply, ending our conversation. At the end of
my second school day, we were pulling in to the driveway and who was
waiting? None other than my new friend, Jacob Black.

"Hey Jake, whatcha doing here?" I asked hopping out of Edwards car
and walking over to meet him.
"Came if you wanted to come hang out with me at my house for awhile."
I looked back at Edward who was glaring at Jacob. He clearly didn't
want me to go but he needed to learn how to trust me.
"Sure. What are we gonna do?"
"I was think study. As long as you don't mind my Dad and his buddy
Charlie watching a football game. Who knows? I might even help you
with your homework."
I laughed. "Aren't you a Sophmore? I think it's more likely that
I'll help you."
He rolled his eyes. As I headed to climb into his truck, Edward
tried to object,
"Bella-"
I cut him off. "Trust me," is all I said before closing the door to
the truck. As we were driving down the driveway Mom and Dad were
pulling in, glaring at us. Oops.
We drove to his little red house and headed inside. It was small and
nice but you could tell that only guys lived there. Sitting in front
of the television were two older men one of which I knew had to be
Jacobs father by his russet skin and wheelchair. The other man was a
pale man with black curly short hair and dark brown eyes. That must
have Charlie. When they saw us, Charlie stood.
"Hello I'm-" he stopped and froze, his hand held out half way to me.
"Um, are you okay?" I asked.
He responded to my voice. "I-I'm sorry. It's just your eyes. They
remind me of my daughter Isabella. She went missing when she was a
baby."
I froze. No, it wasn't possible. I coughed. "Oh, uh, what was her
middle name?" This wasn't happening. No, no, no.
"Marie. Isabella Marie."
Oh my God...