Bella's POV

I soaked up the last of the sunlight that I was going to get for a long time. My mother spoke as we walked out of the sun to the gate.

"You know, Bella, you don't have to do this," she said referring to my self exile. "You could travel with me and Phil." Ah, the reason for my separation. Renee and Phil were going to travel. A lot. Because Phil works in minor league baseball. His latest assignment took him to Jacksonville Florida. My mother had stayed with me in Phoenix but I could see that it was making her unhappy to stay away from Phil. So I decided it was high time to spend some quality time with Charlie, my dad.

"No thanks."

"Oh, come on, Bella, you detest Forks," she said. Forks, Washington, the place I was moving. My mother was right; I resented Forks because of its freezing climate and sunless sky.

"I love you, Mom, bye," I said. Then I got on the plane and she was gone.

It takes four hours to get from Phoenix to Seattle on a plane. Plus a one hour plane trip from Seattle to Port Angeles and then an hour in the car with Charlie. It was raining when I landed in Port Angeles, the default weather for the Olympic Peninsula. I stumbled over to Charlie; Damn my incoordination.

"Good to see you, Bella," he said.

"You too, Dad," I wasn't aloud to call him Charlie to his face. The car ride was quiet. Eventually, we got to the house. There was an faded red truck in the driveway.

"Did you get me a car?"

"Yeah."

"Thank you! I love it!" I said. Charlie mumbled something indiscernible. It took one trip to get my stuff upstairs. I put my toiletries in the single bathroom in the house and unpacked. Charlie left me alone. It was a relief to shed a few tears about the horrors that would come tomorrow, my first day at Forks High School.

The next day wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Breakfast was a quiet event because neither Charlie nor I were very talkative. I left and got into the truck. Time to see if it worked. The engine roared to life, thankfully. I drove to school aka the soon-to-be sight of my social doom. I parked in front of the office and walked in.

"I'm Isabella Swan," I said to the woman at the desk.

"Of course," she said, collecting some papers. "Here's you schedule and a map of the campus." She gave me the papers and a slip for each teacher to sign

I reparked my truck and trudged off to English, my first class. I walked in and made a beeline for the teacher, Mr. Mason. He signed my slip, handed me a reading list and directed me to an open seat. I sat down and looked at the list. I'd already read most of the books on there. Good. I could reuse old essays. The bell rang and I tried to remember the way to Government, my next class.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?" A nasal voice asked.

"Bella."

"Where's your next class?"

"Building four."

"Great. I'm headed over there. My name's Eric." I followed Eric to Building four.

The rest of the morning followed in a similar fashion. My Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Varner, was the only teacher that made me introduce myself. I had a feeling that we wouldn't get along. In every class, there was one brave soul who would talk to me. One girl who had sat next to me in Trig and Spanish walked with me to the cafeteria. She introduced me to some of her friends whose names went in one ear and out the other. It was then that I first saw them.

They were sitting in the corner, as far away from where I sat as possible. They were looking away from everything. There were five of them. All of them were inhumanly beautiful. One was big and muscular. He was sitting next to a perfect golden haired girl who should be on the cover of sports illustrated. Next to her was a tall blonde boy. Beside him was a small pixie like black haired girl. They fifth was more boyish; lanky, with untidy bronze hair. My muscles tensed and I almost snarled. I didn't know why. It felt like they were dangerous and that I should hate them. I did hate them. Vehemently. Irrationally. Unreasonably. The blonde boy glared at the others with an expression that could've been on my face but then stopped, looking surprised. The others looked surprised at him, too. The bronze haired one moved his lips, as if talking quietly. The blonde one looked toward me, still surprised. I wondered what was going on. I looked away.

"Who are they?" I asked the girl from Trig and Spanish. I remembered her name. Jessica.

"That's Edward, Emmett and Alice Cullen and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. They all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife." Jessica said. Cullen. It sounded evil. I shook my head. Why was I so suspicious of them?

"They're all very pretty." I said.

"Yes! Don't waste your time, though. They're all together. Emmett and Rosalie, Alice and Jasper." Jessica gossiped.

"Have they always been in Forks?" I asked.

"No, they just moved here two years ago." She said. I felt a pang of relief and pity mingled with the hatred; pity because the Cullens clearly weren't accepted and relief that I wasn't the only newcomer. The blonde one, Jasper, looked at me again. Why did he keep looking at me like that? Did he have a crush on me? Why? He hadn't even met me. Then why was he looking at me? He had no right to stare at me! There I went with the hatred again. Jasper glared at his family and then looked at me, surprised again. I wondered what they were thinking...

Edward's POV

I nibbled idly on my bagel, just to look normal. But then I looked up sharply when I heard Jasper's thoughts. First they were the usual fantasies of massacring the entire student body. I had kicked his chair. Now they were completely spiteful.

I hate them, I hate them, I hate them. Why did they have to curb my appetite? I'm only staying because of Alice. What's it to them if I murder a few people? Why am I still here? Oh, right, Alice. Why did Alice have to come here anyway? Taking me away like that. I hate her, to- wait why in the world am I dissing Alice?

I looked at him, bewildered. He was glaring at us.

"If you want to go, just go." I said softly, to confused to sound angry. He switched his glare to me.

Damn mind reading vampire. I hate you too! I know you can hear this!

His thoughts were interrupted by Alice.

"Leave? Leave? What are you talking about, Edward? Who's thinking about leaving?" She asked. The table erupts in quiet conversation, Rosalie saying she'll kill whoever makes us move, Emmett saying it's a joke and Alice questioning me.

Why am I thinking about leaving? I can't leave Alice! What the heck is wrong with me? Oh, right, I hate them. Why? Can I hate Esme? No, I can't, can I?

Apparently, he can. Loathing clouded his memory of Esme, beautiful and pure Esme.

"How can you hate her?" I asked, bewildered. I noticed the table has gone quiet, Rose glaring at Emmett, Emmett at Alice, Alice at me and Jasper at everyone.

Crap. I can hate her. Why? What did she do to me? Is there something wrong with m-

Jasper slowly turned to stare at the new girl, Bella Swan. She looked away, but not before I caught the glare on her face that had been identical to Jasper's.

"Edward, I think we have a problem." He said.

"That's problems, plural, Jasper, because I can't hear her." I said.

"What's going on, Edward?" Alice asked.

"It seems the Swan girl is rather spiteful of us," I said. "We can discuss this later. We're going to be late." We walked out quickly. I walked next to Jasper, wary of another outburst. I'd had an ulterior motive for getting us out of the cafeteria. I doubted that Jasper could deal with another emotional outburst and his thirst.

Once we were out of range of Bella's emotions, I walked to Biology, leaving my siblings. I went into the classroom and sat down. Bella came in with Angela Webber, a kind girl. I wondered if Bella was hateful to everyone or just us. I was sitting next to the only empty seat in the room. I started to clear my books to make space for her. Maybe I could figure out why she hated us so much.

Bella Swan walked in front of the heater that was blowing towards me.

Her scent hit me like a train, like a battering ram, a wrecking ball. There was no image violent enough to express what I felt in that moment.

In that instant, I was nowhere close to the human I was pretending to be. I was a predator and she was my prey. She looked at me and the shock I saw on her face saved her life. Then I realized that there was an edge to the scent. A wet dog smell was creeping in. I wondered what was going on. I continued to fight with myself; the vampire part of me wanting her blood, the reasonable part of me begging the vampire part to wait until we were alone. Bella walked toward the teacher's desk to get a slip signed. I was still warring with myself. Poor Bella had to sit next to me for the whole period. She came and sat down. I edged my chair away and, to my surprise, she did the same. The reasonable part of me wondered what she was thinking...

Bella's POV

As soon as I sat down, Edward Cullen's glare intensified, if that was possible. My muscles tensed as if I should fight him. I felt a hatred of him. But it was dulled, a dim imitation of the fury I felt earlier. I also felt an elusive pull toward him, like he had a gravity that was pulling me closer. It was faint but it was there. I wondered what was wrong with me. Then the smell hit me. It was faint, slightly sickly sweet. It mildly burned my nostrils. But other than that, his scent was utterly intoxicating. I scooted my chair away. Maybe his scent was intoxicating and I was going crazy. I looked at him. He wasn't breathing. I sniffed my hair. It smelled like my strawberry shampoo. Edward was still glaring at me. We sat like that for the whole period.

When the bell rang, Edward shot out of the room at a barely human speed. I wondered what his problem was.

While I walked to Gym, Mike Newton asked me a question.

"Hey, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or something? I've never seen him look so mad."

"No." Once again, I wondered what he was thinking...

Edward POV

When I was sitting next to her, so close to the end of class, the end of me being in the presence of her scent, the wet dog smell got ever so slightly stronger. And her temperature increased. And she was a sixteenth of an inch taller, a length to small for human eyes to notice. As soon as the bell rang, I had bolted, almost forgetting to seem human. I ditched Spanish, Mrs. Goff wouldn't mind, as I already knew more Spanish than her. I played a CD in my car, waiting for me to calm down and a reasonable time for me to go to the office and switch my Biology with something else.

I wondered where Alice had been. Hadn't she seen me kill the Swan girl in a multitude of ways? She must've been focused on Jasper. I found her mental voice in her English classroom. To no one's surprise, she was concentrating entirely on Jasper, analyzing every minuscule detail to the ninth degree.

The period was almost over, so I decided it was time to put my plan into action. I got out of my car and walked into the office.

"Mrs. Cope?" I asked. Her heart fluttered.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, smoothing her shirt. Silly, she thought to herself. He's young enough to be my son.

I leaned forward. This should be easy. Her thoughts were already in a flutter. The bell rang.

"I was wondering if you could help me with my schedule. Is there any way I could switch to senior level Physics?" I asked, making my voice compelling.

"Physics is already full, Edward, you know how Mr. Banner doesn't like more than twenty five students in one class." She said as the door had opened and the wind blew the scent- her scent- towards me, a little more marred by the wet dog smell than in Biology. I knew my eyes were black as midnight.

"Thank you for helping, but I can see that it's impossible."

I ran from the building. When I slid inside the Volvo, I gasped for breath.

"Edward?" Alice asked, alarmed.

I just shook my head at her. "What the hell happened to you?" Emmett demanded, distracted, for the moment, from the fact that Jasper was not in the mood for his rematch. Instead of answering, I threw the car into reverse. I had to get out of this lot

before Bella Swan could follow me here, too. My own person demon, haunting me... I swung the car around and accelerated. I hit forty before I was on the road. On the road, I hit seventy before I made the corner.

Without looking, I knew that Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper had all turned to stare at Alice. She shrugged. She couldn't see what had passed, only what was coming.

She looked ahead for me now. We both processed what she saw in her head, and we were both surprised.

"You're leaving?" she whispered. The others stared at me now. "Am I?" I hissed through my teeth. She saw it then, as my resolve wavered and another choice spun my future in a

darker direction.

"Oh."

Bella Swan, dead. My eyes, glowing crimson with fresh blood. The search that would follow. The careful time we would wait before it was safe for us to pull out and start again...

"Oh," she said again. The picture grew more specific. I saw the inside of Chief Swan's house for the first time, saw Bella in a small kitchen with the yellow cupboards, her back to me as I stalked her from the shadows...let the scent pull me toward her...

"Stop!" I groaned, not able to bear more. "Sorry," she whispered, her eyes wide. The monster rejoiced. And the vision in her head shifted again. An empty highway at night, the trees

beside it coated in snow, flashing by at almost two hundred miles per hour.

"I'll miss you," she said. "No matter how short a time you're gone." Emmett and Rosalie exchanged an apprehensive glance. We were almost to the turn off onto the long drive that led to our home.

"Drop us here," Alice instructed. "You should tell Carlisle yourself."

I nodded, and the car squealed to a sudden stop.

Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper got out in silence; they would make Alice explain when I was gone. Alice touched my shoulder.

"You will do the right thing," she murmured. Not a vision this time—an order.

"She's Charlie Swan's only family. It would kill him, too."

"Yes," I said, agreeing only with the last part.

She slid out to join the others, her eyebrows pulling together in anxiety. They melted into woods, out of sight before I could turn the car around.

I accelerated back toward town, and I knew the visions in Alice's head would be flashing from dark to bright like a strobe light. As I sped back to Forks doing ninety, I wasn't sure where I was going. To say goodbye to my father? Or to embrace the monster inside me? The road flew away beneath my tires.