Florence

It had been about a month since we moved to Portland. We each received a weekly phone call from Charlie asking about how we were doing, how our classes were and so on. Jacob would be the same, but understood we needed time to adapt. I'd grown close with Olivia, or Liv she went by, and made some other friends through her and my classes. I'd also started seeing a guy called Kai from my class. Will had also settled in quite well too and had made a few friends too. We spent most of our week in class and doing work so Fridays and the weekends were our only chance to let our hair down and get out.

"Are you sure this looks good?" Liv said as I did the finishing touches to my eye make up. I turned to see her wearing a green strappy dress. "Not too dressed up?"

"Of course, you look hot Liv." I smiled. She grinned and spritzed herself with her perfume.

Liv had convinced me to wear this dark red-orange dress I'd bought when we first went shopping together. We'd been invited to a party by one of Liv's course friends, Will was obviously going too as… Well, it's Will, he knows everyone now it seems. I wasn't too fond of the house parties and usually tried to avoid them if Will wasn't there. The main reason was in a room full of drunk young adults, emotions were heightened and varied and I hated it.

We headed down to the house where the party was being held, it wasn't hard to guess which it was as you could hear the music. As we entered, a remix of Barbie Girl started playing and Will was immediately in front of us.

"Ladies," Will handed us a drink each, "something I concocted myself."

I sniffed the cup, wincing at the harsh smell of what I assumed was Vodka, "Do I even want to know what's in this?" Will tapped the side of his nose with his finger, "fuck sake…" I whispered as I took a drink.

"Hey now, you know you love me, Sis." Will put his arm around me, he'd clearly had a few cups of whatever this drink was, however one of the perks of being half Vampire is alcohol barely touches the sides, so whilst a few glasses of the weird Vodka-Gin-Coke mix would get someone very drunk inside an hour, Will and I could drink the same amount and we would barely feel it.

"Sure I do."

As the night progressed, Liv got considerably more drunk, it was quite funny really. Although Will and I lived with Charlie, we spent a lot of our time at the Reservation which meant most of the older wolf guys would sometimes bring beer to the bonfires - this is how we came to learn alcohol doesn't affect us like it doesn't affect the wolves, they just drink it for the placebo effect.

By 12am, we'd joined some of Liv's friends in the living room. I had no idea what they were talking about, however I could feel from them it was mainly excitement.

I tried listening into their conversation but I began feeling more emotions coming through and my chest began feeling tight, it becomes harder to block them out when there's a mixture of different emotions in one room. It manifested like a panic attack, the room began spinning and my chest became tighter. I decided to leave the house, Liv won't notice me leaving to get some air. I ran outside onto the back porch and leant against the railings, taking deep breaths with my eyes shut. This happened a lot when I was a young teenager, the only people I could really speak to about it were Will, Jacob and the wolf pack. Charlie knows nothing about the wolves or about myself and Will being part vampire, so to him I was having good old fashioned panic attacks.

"Excuse me," I heard someone say. "Are you okay?"

"Mmm." I mumbled, I still had my eyes shut. "Just… mmm… give me a second."

"Here, sit down." I opened my eyes to a guy pulling up a chair for me. He looked familiar, but I wasn't sure why.

I sat down on the chair, taking a few breaths with my hands covering my face. "Thanks, just needed some air, these kinds of parties can be a lot sometimes."

"I understand."

I looked at him again and found him watching me intensly, "I'm sorry… have we met? I feel like I know you?" I questioned.

"I think you're confused, how much have you had to drink? Let me get you some water." He stood up quickly.

"No, I don't need any water, I'm not drunk." I said. I put my hand on my forehead, "I just recognise your face from somewhere, are we in the same class? I'm crap with names."

He frowned, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…" He began walking away.

"No it's okay, I didn't mean to offend you… er… thank you for checking up on me anyway." I said. He stopped. "I'm Florence, well Flo, everyone calls me Flo."

"Florence." He said, still facing away from me. "Swan." He whispered.

"Yeah how… how did you know my last name?" My chest began feeling tight again as I felt a wave of sadness and anger from him. I rubbed it, "excuse me, how do you know my last name?" He started walking away again. I followed him quickly, still rubbing my chest, "Answer me, don't ignore me, if you're from class just fucking say so!"

Before I knew it, he was gone and out of sight. "Creep." I muttered. I got my phone out and text Liv and Will to let them know I was heading home.

When I got back to the house, I sat down on my bed - one thing other people's emotions do, they're exhausting. I put my phone at the side of my bed and the photo of my Mom caught my eye. I picked it up, and it made me smile. She was a year younger than me in the photo and had just recently moved to Forks. In the photo it looked like she was in her prom dress, it was purple and she had a boot on her leg. I remember Charlie telling us that she was in quite a bad accident when she first moved there. I put the photo back in the box they came in and noticed one was folded in half. I took it out and flattened it out, the centre was faded because of the fold but you could tell it was Mom with our Dad again. She was in the same dress as she was wearing in the other birthday party photos.

I ran my finger down the bend in the photo and looked at him. This one was a lot clearer than the others. I turned the bedside light on and looked closer at his face. He looked familiar, far too familiar. My mind went back to the guy not long ago.

No… it couldn't be. I turned my phone torch on and looked closer, his eyes, his hair, the face. It had to be him. My mind was in overdrive. Why was he here? Why would he approach me? Unless he didn't know who I was… but he knew my last name, he had to know.

I stood up and took a deep breath. I suddenly felt sick and ran to the bathroom, nothing came up. I took a few more breaths, splashed my face with water from the sink and looked in the mirror. I was imagining things, I had to be. Maybe alcohol does affect half vampires, maybe I'm the unlucky one. I left the bathroom and walked into the communal kitchen as Will and his roommate returned.

"Flo! I just got your text, I thought you'd be in bed by now." Will said as he rummaged in the fridge. He slammed it shut, holding a bottle of water. "Flo?"

I felt my eyes start to water. "Will…"

He pushed past his roommate Dom and took me into my room, slamming it shut. "Has something happened?"

"I… I don't know…" He looked at me concerned. "Maybe…"

"Flo if someone has done something to you or hurt you or…" I heard him grit his teeth, "Just tell me their name or what they looked like and I'll kill them." He said through his teeth.

I ran my hands through my hair, "No Will, nothing like that has happened, I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself."

"Okay… so why are you upset?" He asked.

"I'm not upset, I'm… I don't know what I am actually," I turned around for a moment and took some breaths and faced Will again, "okay… so I was sat with Liv and some friends, they'd been drinking and whatever they were talking about got heated and exciting so I felt it, I went outside for some space and some guy asked if I was okay-"

"You said no one hurt you." Will interrupted, his fists curled.

"Just shut up and listen!" I snapped. Exhaling, I continued, "I thought I recognised him but didn't know why, but when I said that to him he started acting odd and left so… I came back here and ended up looking at this photo," I picked the same photo up and flattened it out again, "this is the guy I saw."

He scoffed, "Our Dad?" I nodded. Will took the photo and laughed, "don't be stupid Flo, come on."

"I'm serious Will, why don't you believe me?" He stood up and shoved the photo back to me. "Will."

"He's a piece of shit, why would he come here and stalk us? If it was really our Daddy then he would've walked his precious daughter back to her dorm and apologised." He said angrily. "He would need some nerve anyway."

"Why are you being such a dick Will?" I asked, tears falling from my eyes. "Why would I imagine this or make this up?"

"Because for years you've been obsessed with this idea that he's gonna show up one day and everything will be fine, he's had 18 years to do this, if he was going to do it he would've done it by now." Will left the room and slammed the door.

I sat down on the bed and cried. Will and I rarely argued.

The next morning I woke up to see Liv's clothes all over the floor, a plate with a half eaten grilled cheese on and a bottle of water. Good to see she'd had a good night. I looked over at her bed and she was fast asleep. I climbed out of bed and saw I had 3 missed calls from Will, clearly he was calling to apologise. I locked my phone and made my way to the kitchen to find the remnants of Liv's drunken attempt to make a Grilled Cheese, I was surprised she'd not burnt the building down. As I switched the kettle on, I heard someone running down the hall towards the kitchen. It was Will. He flew into the room, almost running into the counter.

"Good morning Flo, I am so sorry for being a dick last night Flo…" I said to myself whilst I prepared my coffee. He grabbed my arm and spun me around.

"I am so sorry, you were right, he's here… I was heading back from my run and I saw this guy… I was cooling down so at first I didn't get a proper look but he was reading, sat on the bench near the main building."

I gasped, "See! W-what did you do? Did you say anything?"

"No, when I'd cooled down I had a better look and he looked at me, I didn't know what to do so I just ran back here." He took some breaths from running, "Flo I'm sorry I didn't believe you."