The next day was better… and worse.

The reason it was better was because I didn't have the same nightmare that had plagued me for the better part of two decades. Instead, I'd dreamed of Alice. What we were doing, I couldn't say, most likely boring, mundane things like going to the fair or going on a shopping trip at the mall - the latter I was less than enthused about. But I was with her, so it didn't matter.

I had meant to find Alice and ask her about her little disappearing act, but that was why my day was worse. She wasn't there. I had gotten to school early to be able to ambush her before class, not to semi-stalk her and see what she was driving, but I must admit, curiosity was undoubtedly going to kill the cat.

When the Cullen's did arrive, I noticed all too late that Alice wasn't among them. I also noticed that they had noticed me. The sculpted one, Edward, as I'd been told later by the mousy girl, was glaring daggers my way. He seemed furious, as if he were trying and failing to make my head pop. I slouched in my seat, already wanting to just turn back on the truck and go home. It was going to be a long day.

Turns out: I was right. I got called on when I didn't raise my hand, stuttered when I read aloud, dropped my binder in the hall spilling papers everywhere, and even worse than the accumulation of all of those incidents, I had to participate in gym class.

From a young age, after succumbing to a "trauma" that I'd forgotten, my motor skills developed weirdly. I would lose balance if I were focusing on something; if I tried to throw or catch, it would end in disaster - usually for whoever entered my orbit. It was even worse if both criteria were met, which, guess what, they were. I couldn't keep my mind from wondering less than ideal thoughts of Alice emerging, and there were projectiles coming my way that I would indeed need to throw and catch.

I let myself believe that when I went to lunch, Alice would magically be there or appear like an angel as she had yesterday. She didn't, however, no matter how long I waited. Jessica and Mike, whose names I'd barely remembered, talked about drama in school among the teachers and students, and I did my specialty: nod and smile and agree with everything they said. It worked perfectly. The mousy girl, Angela, as she'd politely reminded me again, was un-focused, staring at the Cullen's table. She was staring at Edward.

In a hushed voice so the gossip community wouldn't hear, I leaned over and asked, "What do you like about him?"

She squeaked, glowing red, and chirped back a flurry of responses, "What? Who? Edward? Who said I liked him?"

"You're going to bore a hold in his head if you keep staring like that." I chided. This caused her to turn an even brighter shade of pink, and she buried her head in her arms, covering her face with her hair. The Cullen table at the opposite end of the cafeteria, way outside of earshot, laughed. 'Had they heard me?' The timing of the laugh with my response was too peculiar just to be happenstance. Another strange thing about the Cullens noted.

When school was finally released, I evaded contact with everyone who would try to make conversation and successfully made it back to my truck without incident. Now was time for the fun part of my day; I got to go grocery shopping. I'd found out very early on in my time with Charlie that he was no chef. How someone managed to burn instant noodles was a mystery to me, but Charlie had managed to find a way. After a stern talking to about adulting, he was all too willing to cede food prep rights to me. Following a cursory look around the kitchen, finding it almost completely bare, I was given money and a shopping list that had been Charlie approved.

Firing up the old rust bucket as I'd named it, I tried to play off the fact that my engine turning over was the loudest thing short of a fighter jet taking off. It was a fruitless effort, gaining me a bunch of confused stares. Looking over to where the Cullen's had parked, I noted they were also preparing to leave. I also noted their clothing, which, while wasn't super extravagant, was clearly hinting at a more affluent pedigree than most of the other residents. It was demeaning that not only were they beyond gorgeous, but they were rich. Thems the brakes, I guess.

Grocery shopping went rather pleasantly, with me only ramming my shopping cart into something and someone only a few times, much to my dismay and abject horror. I paid for my food, loaded it in the truck, and began the trek home at breakneck speed.

After transporting the groceries inside and unloading everything, putting it in a place that made sense to me, I started on dinner. As was my tradition I'd picked up while trying to block out Renee and Phil fighting, I put on some music. I'd always liked harder music, but this new album was more soulful while still remaining hard. It was unique, and to me, that made it special.

Dinner that night was just me, and after having my fill of chicken carbonara, I covered the pan with aluminum foil and tucked it into the fridge, writing a note to Charlie to take it out and put it on the stove until warm enough to eat. I cleaned up my mess and put the remaining dishes into the washer, turning it on, and then promptly retreated to my room.

Changing from my day clothes into something much more comfortable allowed me to let out the breath I'd been holding all day. I sauntered over to the computer at my desk. It showed its time, with the yellowing of the originally white case and CRT monitor, but it was still mine, and that made it special. Listening to the dial-up tone, I let out an overdue laugh at how dated the house was and settled in for the long run, watching it load into the desktop.

After the indurably long time it took to load in, I opened the browser and logged into my mail service. I had a few messages, all from Mom.

"Bella. Let me know when you arrive. I'm sure it's rainy, so the connection won't be good, but send me a message anyway. I'm also missing some clothes, did you happen to take any of my clothes? I'm not mad, just curious."

A second email read, "Deary, why haven't you replied yet? I'm trying to be understanding with you moving in and getting settled and all, but still, what are you waiting for?"

And the third one, "You're hurting my feelings. Please let me know you're alive before I have to call Charlie to get a report on you."

'Yikes.'

I sat down to respond to her emails promptly, typing out an excellent rebuttal to refute her, "Mom," it read, "I'm doing fine. Don't jump the gun and do anything rash. It was raining, but I was tired from traveling all day, so I didn't respond. I couldn't respond the next day because I had school. I'll try and write as often as I can, but please don't expect me to check my email every five minutes. It'll be okay."

I pushed send and then began on my homework. None of it was something that I hadn't done already, so it was just primarily fill-in-the-blank from memory. That was when I felt the house shake and heard the front door open and close. From this morning, I knew that I shouldn't trust Charlie not to burn the house down by trying to follow my instructions, so I decided to head down and greet him.

"Bella?" He called, listening to the footsteps approaching him from the stairwell.

"Who else?" I retorted, chiding his distrust in the home's security. "Welcome home."

"Thanks, Bells." He said, stepping out of his boots and removing his gun belt, hanging it on the coat rack. I took the initiative and darted to the kitchen, taking the pasta from the fridge, removing the aluminum foil, and placing it on the eye of the stove on medium heat so it'd heat faster while not getting burned.

I remembered a repressed childhood memory then. When I was a child, Charlie used always to unload his service weapon almost as soon as he'd cross the threshold into the house. I guess he thought I was grown up now and wouldn't shoot myself. That, or I wasn't depressed enough yet to do it on purpose. The jury was still out on that, though.

"What's for dinner?" he remarked upon hearing the sizzle from the pan and the scent wafting over to where he was still getting settled.

"Pasta." I answered. He looked relieved. I was hit with another flash from my childhood. My mother was always… "creative" with her food concoctions. Most of which would eventually be rendered inedible. That's why I learned from my grandmother to cook. 'One of you needs to be able to keep the house from falling apart.' She'd always say to me, a slight nod at Mom.

He let out a relieved sigh and trudged to the den to watch TV while the chef was working. This was a good thing. Mom would constantly hover while I was cooking, afraid that I'd slip and smash my face into the stove and get set alight being covered in scars for life. Eventually, his stomach couldn't maintain being egged on any longer, and he made his way towards the kitchen.

"Ut-uh!" I said, momentarily feeling like my mother, and pointed to the dining room table. He looked at me, frightened for a second, then pouted and went over to the chair he'd sat at this morning. I transferred the pasta from the pan to a plate and brought it over to him, placing it in front of him on the mat and setting the silverware I'd used to heat it up on a napkin.

"Smells good, Bells." He looked up at me with a genuinely happy face that clearly stated he hadn't had a home-cooked meal in way too long a time. My heart felt a slight pang for him.

"Thanks." I replied trepidatiously. I took my spot on the opposite side of the table, eyeing him, waiting for my chance to interrupt our peaceful dinner to interrogate him. He seemed to notice that there was something I was trying to say.

"You okay, Bells? Something on your mind?" Leave it to the Police chief to notice that I was dying to ask him a thousand questions.

"Well, so I feel like I'm making friends. But, there's a topic of conversation that seems to come up quite often. I was wondering what you knew about the new family in town: the Cullens."

Charlie eyed me quizzically for an all too long time before putting down his fork. "Dr. Cullen's family? Sure. Dr. Cullen is a great man. What of them? Are people already spreading baseless rumors?"

"Not exactly. Just, the kids, they're a little different from the lot that runs amok here."

"And what does that mean, Bella? I swear, the people in this town. Dr. Cullen is truly a master of his craft. He could, and has, worked in much more prestigious places for far more money, but he chose to raise his family here! There's a reason for that! He wanted to teach them humility. He wanted to teach them the value of knowing your neighbor. All of his kids are beyond well-composed, and polite, and immaculate, and the kids around here should take a page or two out of the Cullen kids' books!" He said, his voice steadily rising. "I thought we were going to have problems with them, them being adopted as teenagers and all, but we haven't had a lick of trouble from them! Much more than I can say about the people who most likely put those suggestions in your head." He chastised, his inner cop coming out. It was the longest speech Charlie must have said since the divorce hearing. He clearly felt strongly about the Cullens.

This was my chance to interject my true feelings, "You're not wrong, I mean, they're beautiful! Just look at the daughters; they almost seem sculpted, akin to Greek and Roman goddesses. I just wonder why they seem to keep to themselves. If they were to put their selves out there, they could run the town in a day."

Charlie eyed me suspiciously; I was trying to keep cool, hoping that he hadn't picked up on my comment about the girls in the Cullen clan. "You should see Dr. Cullen. It's a good thing he's married; otherwise, we'd have so many problems from staff and patients alike trying to maim each other for his hand."

The rest of dinner was spent in silence. Not that either of us seemed to mind, almost like we were made to have these awkward conversations, then slip into a bearable silence that we both appreciated. Neither of us needed the silence to be filled. It was peaceful in a way.

For the most part, the rest of the week went by in peace until Friday. By Friday, I had concluded that I was either crazy and had made up the idea of Alice Hale, who had not inherited the Cullen name, or that she was so disgusted with the thought of me that she'd transferred out of my school. At this point, either was shockingly possible. And then she entered the cafeteria, the same as she did the first day I'd seen her, almost as if she were reminding me of the events that occurred that day.

I had completely forgotten about the snowing outside, the incident with the snowballs being launched between Mike and Eric - one of which smacking me right in the face -, and even the fact that Jessica was sticking to my side like a golden retriever, begging for attention. "What?" I spat venomously as she pulled at my arm, begging for my attention again.

"It's lunchtime. Are you okay? Are you hangry?" She said, slightly pouting. Angela smirked and let out a slight chortle under her breath.

"I'm fine. But so help me God, if I see another snowball fly, I'm going to seriously maim the person who thew it." Jesica let the snowball fall out of her hand.

When I entered the cafeteria, I felt queasy. The reason for it was that there were five filled seats at the Cullens table. Alice was real. She was sitting there with her family, leaning away from the boulder brother as he shook the water droplets of his hair in her and her sister's direction, laughing all the while like a character from a Hallmark movie. She was utterly regal, the embodiment of anything, and more aptly everything, possible in Hollywood. My breath hitched at the sight of her, and she ever so slightly looked in my general direction. I could die a peaceful death.

"Who are you staring at, Bella?" Jessica intruded, breaking the fantasy that I was currently a part of, trying to look over my shoulder and see where my focus was directed. "Oh, the Alice chick? Yeah, she's back, finally. Imagine missing a week due to your period."

I choked on the saliva that had pooled in my mouth and almost let it out my nose. Never in my life had I heard of such a stupid excuse. Alice's eyes shot over to me in that second, and for a moment, she looked like she was afraid I was going to choke. I instantly put my head down and covered my line of sight with my hair. In that split second, when our eyes met, Alice looked like she was longing to come say hi to me. I really wished she would.

"O.M.G. Bella! I think she's staring at you!" If it were possible to turn a brighter shade of red, I would have loved to have seen the example.

"Stop staring. If she won't talk to me anymore because of you, I swear I will never talk to you again."

"Oooh? Is our little lesbian scared of the big, bad Alice Cullen?"

"Shush! It's Hale. Not Cullen. She kept her last name."

"You're not entirely selling the 'I'm not a lesbian' thing, babe. If you keep it up, she might seriously try and make a move on you." Jessica said, laughing fakely.

"There are worse things that could happen," I muttered, noting the slight smile that appeared on Alice's face. "Stop staring before you make it obvious that I was looking." I was already planning of a thousand ways I could use violence against her if she refused to stop looking. There was a chuckle from the Cullent table as both Edward and Alice and Jasper looked like they'd experienced the funniest moment of their lives. It was, for sure, going to be the longest day.

Little did I know then.

I had repressed the little fact that Alice was in all three of my favorite subjects this year. I was able to slink by in Art class because we were doing abstract expressionism. I'm sure the teacher would have words about my painting, as it was clearly expressing my immense interest in another student, even if it wasn't super obvious.

English class was much harder to avoid coming in contact with the center of my orbit. We were seated right next to each other. I tried to pretend to be caught up in the book that I'd read at least seven times, Wuthering Heights, but every time I'd slip up and let myself look over at her, she was looking right at me with the most knowing smile possible. It was suffocating.

Finally, we arrived at science class. Since Alice was out for a period - and new - and I was the new kid who joined halfway through the semester, we were paired up as partners. 'Great. Just what I need.'

"Hello, Bella." Came her sing-song voice that instantly enrapt me, completely ensnaring me in her existance.

"Hi." I croaked out pathetically. Her eyes lit up, and she smiled so brilliantly it would have left scholars enamered in her positive radiance.

"You're going to be so fun to tease. I'm sorry. That slipped out. Let's try this again. Good afternoon, Bella. I missed you." There wasn't even the faintest hint that she was joking.

"I missed you too," slipped out of my trap. "I wasn't sure that you actually went here and that you weren't a figment of my imagination." I immediately turned scarlet at my response.

"I guess we're both not good at keeping our inner monologues to ourselves." She said, cackling to herself.

"Alice!" the teacher sounded. Sydney Seaton was the most elegant teacher that I'd ever seen. She was on the shorter side, but it only did numbers to elevate her beauty. She had shoulder-length, curly hair, and it accentuated her green eyes. Her hourglass frame was marveled at by many historical artists, who would have committed war crimes just to sculpt her marvelous figure. But she was still nothing compared to my little pixie.

"Sorry, teach. I promise you it won't happen again." Alice replied, lifting her right hand as if she were praying for forgiveness.

"It's no problem. I know how capable you are; I only just hope that Bella is able to live up to the expectations that you live up to."

"I'm sure that she will do fine." She turned to me, eyeing me knowingly.

'How did she know?' Her eyes radiated an uncompromisable belief in me.

"Well, let's find out. We're going to have a lab now that will count as fifteen percent of your grade for this class."

Alice and I had both made perfect scores. After receiving the grade from Miss Seaton, I eyed Alice, and she gave me a wink. I truly hoped that we would be able to develop this relationship that seemed to be sprouting. I envisioned Alice and I studying and preparing for tests.

"Yes. We can do that."

"Do what?"

"Study and prepare for tests together."

"How did you know that I was thinking about that?"

Come on, Bella. You are the most easy person to read in this whole school."

"I've never heard that one before." I chuckled remorsely.

"Why do you think that is?"

"I'm not sure we're at the spot in our relationship to open up that can of worms."

"So we have a relationship?" She said, eyeing me like a child eyes a piece of candy they've been told they shouldn't have. Her eyes almost seemed to darken.

"That's the question that I've been asking myself this whole week while you've been 'missing due to your period.'" I remarked, the last point being said in a mock voice of Jessica.

"You don't seem to believe that one like the rest of this school's populace."

"Well, not to point too fine of a pin in it, but I also don't have the same education as the rest of this school's populace," I said under my breath.

"I agree. That's how I know that we're perfect for each other." She said, the edges of her lips rising. She knew that I was playdough in her hands and was massaging the point home to me as the conversation drew on.

Not to be one to take things sitting, I tried to strike back verbally, "So you idolify me just as much as I do you?" I said, trying to sound smug. Only too late did I realize my mistake.

"Ooh? So that's what you think of me." She almost sounded prepared for my response. I needed a way to save this sinking ship.

"Well, it just seems like that. You know, from the way you kissed me and all."

"Did I, now?" She mused, her eyes never straying from mine. "Must be a hint to your former question."

At this point, I was just going to sink, and I accepted it.