Sleep did not come easily to me. I laid in bed for an hour, hearing when Charlie decided to go to sleep, and still couldn't make myself fall asleep. It got to the point where I was wishing I'd been old enough – or, rather, in a place that wasn't a small town – to get a bottle of Baileys, which had a helpful effect, when mixed with chocolate milk or hot cocoa, to help me sleep when I found myself unable to. It was also helpful in keeping nightmares away as well, when it was needed. I was rather annoyed at my inability to sleep, finally resorting to take a Dreamless Sleep potion.
I hated having to take it. Not only did it taste disgusting, but, much like drugs, if I relied on it too much, I'd become addicted to more. It would also lose potency the more I had to use it. At least I didn't have to take too much of it, and it did what I needed it to do, knocking me out right away.
I awoke to a think fog outside my windows. I frowned, hating the feeling of claustrophobia that ran through me as the greyness pressed against the glass, giving the feeling that there was nothing but it. I resorted to closing the curtains that I'd accidentally left open, shivering in the cold air of my room. To make up for the lack of light that gave me, I turned on the lights in my room, making a stop at my mini fridge to get a water bottle before heading into my closet. I was careful not to trip over the bags that were brought up the previous day.
I wasn't picky on what I wore, just grabbed a long-sleeved blouse and a pair of jeans. I decided to also wear wrist length gloves over my usual elbow and shoulder length ones. A pair of five inch heeled oxford shoes on my feet, and I was pretty much ready. I just needed my jacket and bag. I also threw my ear phones on, seeing no reason not to. Ali Project's King Knight was the first song that played.
Charlie wasn't there when I got downstairs, and I figured that he had already left. It was still a little too early for me to leave quite yet, and I was a bit hungry, so I had a bowl of cereal, wondered what color to paint the yellow cabinets, and took an in depth look at the pictures over the fireplace. Most of them were of me, the ones that I'd sent to Charlie, of which a set of my own copies of the same pics sat in a drawer of my desk. There were, however, a few of Charlie, and some people I figured as his friends. I recognized Cora and Waylon, but everyone else in those pictures weren't known to me, and the majority held the same two men, both with heavy darkly tanned skin. I wondered if one of them was this Billy Charlie mentioned before.
The pictures that I hated, though, were the ones that held Renee in them. The first picture was of her holding me. I couldn't see her face, because the camera was more focused on me, and she was looking at me. However, in the second picture, that was of all three of us, Renee looked happy, but her eyes said otherwise. The final picture was of her's and Charlie's wedding. As with the previous family one, her face was lying while her eyes spoke the truth.
I frowned, wondering if Charlie would mind or care if I put those ones out of sight. I eventually decided that it wasn't worth it. They were hidden enough as it was by all of the other pictures, and he only reason I found them was because I had decided to inspect every picture there. So long as I didn't go looking for them, I could just ignore them.
Still, seeing those pictures left me not wanting to stay in the house much longer, so I cleaned the bowl I used and donned my jacket. Grabbing my bag and truck keys, I headed outside, locking the door with the key that Charlie had handed to me the day I arrived. I waited in my truck for a few moments, letting it warm up as I hooked my I-Pod to the radio, letting the song Lost Northern Star by Tarja play before I pulled out of the driveway.
Finding the school wasn't too hard. Even without Charlie having pointing it out to me last Thursday, I would have still been able to find it alone. It wasn't obvious that it was a school, though; only the sign, which declared it Forks High School, showed what it was. The school itself looked like a collection of little houses, all with red roofs, that were connected to each other by covered walkways, most likely there to help keep people dry. It was kind of hard to see it's actual size, there were so many trees and shrubs that blocked a good bit of it from my view. As I got closer, I could see more, and noticed that three of the buildings were a bit bigger than the others. I took those ones to be the office, Gym, and cafeteria, along with two separate parking lots and a several more little houses that I hadn't seen before.
It was definitely different compared to my other two schools. The Xavier school was nothing more than a two story mansion where our classes were at and the faculty slept, surrounded by three story dorms that mostly resembled mansions themselves, and a large landscape. It too was surrounded by trees, but not that many.
Hogwarts, however, was a large and rather elaborate looking castle, with many towers and turrets, large grounds area, a lake, and a dark forest surrounding most of it, save for a single road that led to Hogsmeade, a magical only village that one could visit on certain weekends if they had their parents, or guardians, permission.
So, especially compared to the schools that I had attended, this school was indefinitely different from what I was used to.
I parked in front of the first large building I came to; as I had suspected, it was the office according to the sign next to the door. I had the feeling that I wasn't supposed to park here, but I figured that it would be okay while I went into the office and took care of any business I would need to do. I stepped unwillingly from my now toasty truck, heading straight for the door in a quick movement. I paused for a moment to take a deep breath before opening it and stepping inside.
I was a bit surprised at how brightly lit and warm it was inside. The office – at least, the part that I could see – was kind of small. It was had a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, and a big clack ticking loudly. Pants grew everywhere in large plastic pots, as if there wasn't enough greenery outside. An 'L' shaped counter, cluttered with wire baskets full of papers and brightly colored flyers taped to it's front, cut into the room, leading to another door and hallway on the side I was on.
Behind the counter were three closely cramped desks and another hallway. A large, red-haired woman wearing glasses manned one of the desk. She was wearing a purple T-shirt, making me feel a little overdressed. I stepped closer to the counter, looking at the desk she was manning to see if there was a nameplate, and the red-haired woman looked up.
"Can I help you?" she asked. She sounded friendly, which helped make me less nervous.
"I'm Isabella Petrova, Charlie Swan's daughter," I said, adding the last part in case she was confused. While I knew that my father had enrolled me, a part of me had feared that he might have used the last name I was born with instead of the one that was my legal last name. It appeared that he didn't remember that little tidbit; that, or he actually hadn't said my full name, and they just assumed it was be Swan.
A light of awareness flashed through the woman's eyes when I mentioned who my father was. As I had expected, I was a topic of gossip. I wondered what the main thoughts everyone was having about me were, particularly since I didn't know what Charlie had mentioned about my lack of visits. The only think I figured I could assume going through their minds was that the chief's daughter was home at last.
"Um, I actually have you down as Swan," she said. I sighed.
"Can it be fixed quickly?" I asked. "I'd rather not go to jail."
"Of course," she said, nodding her head as she did just that. Then, she printed out and handed me my new schedule, also giving me a map of the school and another piece of paper. She spent several minutes highlighting the best routes to my classes, as well as explaining that I was to have my teachers sign the piece of paper she gave me, and that I was to bring it back at the end of the day. The only part of that I really listened to was the latter, and that was mostly because I had the feeling that it was how they kept students from skipping out on their first day. It was a pretty smart plan, really, a way of making sure students didn't skip classes that they'd rather not have.
Saying bye to the woman – who mentioned that he name was Mrs. Cope – I stepped outside. It was then that I realized that I didn't ask where students were to park. Luckily for me, the other students had begun to arrive, so I was able to follow them to the student parking lot. As I got there, I immediately knew that my truck was going to stand out. Most of the cars here were older, more like the Chevy that Charlie had gotten me. The only car that could be considered newer was a shiny silver Volvo, and it stood out.
I parked in the first spot available, turning the engine off once I was situated. I didn't immediately get out. Instead, I took a look at my schedule, noticing immediately that, like this school, it would be different from what I was used to. It appeared that I would have every class daily, a new concept for me, as it wasn't like that at either of the other too schools I went too. It left me wondering just how homework was done while here. Then, I took a quick glance at the map, memorizing it as best I could, before throwing it into my bag. I took another deep breath, suddenly nervous. I can do this I thought, trying to dispel the nervousness that gripped me. No one is going to bite me.
With that thought, and after making sure I had everything I would need, I stepped out of my truck. I kept my face down as I walked towards the school, only looking up when necessary, in order to keep from bumping into others. My plain black jacket didn't seem to stand out a whole lot, though I could feel people staring at me. Luckily, I found my first class rather easily, and followed two unisex raincoats through the door.
The room was small, with short bookshelves against the wall under the window, and around thirty desks set in six rows of five, facing a larger desk at the front of the room. A podium stood to the side of that desk. The teacher was sitting at his desk, watching the door. I noticed that the two people I followed in had hung their coats on a long row of hooks. Copying their actions, I studied them for a moment. They were two girls, one a porcelain-colored blonde and the other a pale-skinned brunette. As I had suspected, my skin wouldn't be standing out too much, though, to my dismay, I noticed that it was still slightly lighter than theirs were.
I walked towards the teacher's desk, observing him. He was a tall, balding man whose nameplate identified him as Mr. Mason. He gawked when I introduced myself – not an encouraging response – and stared at the white streak in my hair. However, he signed my slip, handed me a reading list, and sent me to a seat in the back of the room without making me introduce myself – though it didn't really matter, and the other student's attention had been caught, and they were all trying to stare at me. The fact that he had done that raised him up a bit in my opinion.
Despite the fact that I was sitting in the back, the other students still found a way to look at me after the class started. I kept my eye on the reading list that he'd given me while listening to him. The list was fairly basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I'd read all the books before, several years ago when the Xavier class had required it. It was comforting that I knew the books, but boring in that it wouldn't be anything new. I figured that it was a good thing I'd brought all of my old essays with me. It would only take a bit of sprucing up, and I could reuse them, unless Mr. Mason surprised me by asking for something I hadn't encountered before.
The class seemed to go by rather quickly, until the bell rang, signaling that class was over. As I was standing up to leave, an Asian boy with hair as black as an oil slick appeared by my side. I started slightly, not expecting him to move so fast, and held back a frown as I looked him over. He seemed to be like the overly helpful chess club type.
"You're the new girl, Isabella Swan, right?" he asked.
"It's Isabella Petrova, actually," I said. "I prefer to be called Bella though."
Everyone still in the room – which was most of the class – turned towards us. I held back a huff as I hurried out of the room. The guy followed me.
"Well, Bella, I'm Eric Yorkie, the eyes and ears of this place," he said. "Um, anything you need: tour guide, lunch date, shoulder to cry on, I'm your man."
I frowned.
"I'm more of the suffer in silence type of girl," I said. Like what happened in the classroom, everyone around us in a four-foot radius turned towards us. Ignoring them once more, I kept a watch of Eric's face, hoping that I didn't hurt his feelings. I really didn't want to deal with hurt feeling right now.
Strangely enough, however, the smile on Eric's face widened.
"Good headline for the feature," he said.
"Feature?" I asked, completely confused, and a little unhappy. I really didn't like the sound of that...
"I'm the head of the school paper, and you're news, babe," he said. Oh no I'm not I thought to the first part. I clenched a fist around the strap of my bag, trying to hold back from hitting him when I heard the second part of what he said. I wasn't his babe.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said, holding up my hands once I was sure that I wouldn't hit him, and putting a look that seemed to suggest that I was begging a bit. "Okay, first off, don't call me babe, and second, please don't put me in the paper. I really don't want any more attention drawn to myself." Not to mention, I couldn't really tell them anything about myself, not without lying about most of it.
"Whoa, chillax," he said. "All right, no feature. Are we cool?"
"Yeah," I said, putting my hands back down and digging into my bag for my schedule.
"So, what's your next class?" he asked.
Government with Jefferson in building six," I recited as I put the schedule back in place. Unfortunately, it left me without something to look at, and there was really no safe place to look, for curious eyes were set all around me.
"I'm heading to building four, I could show you the way..." Eric offered. I frowned, not sure if I should accept his help or not, then shrugged, figuring that it wouldn't really matter all that much. While I doubted I would get lost in this school, I really couldn't think of a way to tell Eric no, not without sounding like a bitch about it.
So, I let him lead me to my next class.
"So, this is probably a lot different than where you lived before, isn't it?" Eric said. I kind of didn't want to answer him; several people were definitely walking close enough that they could eavesdrop on any conversation I had.
"I mean, different from Arizona, anyway," he added. I almost stopped in my tracks, wondering where he got the idea that I was living in Arizona. Then, I realized that I had mentioned to Charlie that was where Renee had first had us living, right up to the year that we'd moved to Richmond, Virginia when I was six. I didn't have a clue of where she went after that, since it wasn't much longer before she'd thrown me out of the house with the words not to both trying to find her.
"Um, actually, I lived between New York and Scotland," I told him. "While different from New York, it's not that much different from where I lived in Scotland, just a bit more rainy."
"I thought you lived in Arizona?" he said.
"No, not really. I lived there very early in my life, but I mostly lived in New York," I said.
"Why'd you live between New York and Scotland?" he asked.
"Oh, several of my friends were invited to a boarding school in Scotland," I said. "They refused to go without the rest of my friend, so we were all incited as well. Other than summer break, it really wasn't worth coming home for Christmas or Easter holiday, so I stayed there the entire school year. Since the school year is nine months out of the year, I lived there for most of the year, therefore living between Scotland and New York."
"Really," he said. "That sounds interesting." I could tell that he honestly thought that, and could see that he wished he could put the information in the paper. I was glad to see that I was right in believing him when he said he wouldn't do a feature on me.
"It was," I said.
"Did it rain in Scotland a lot?" he asked.
"No," I said. "It would be cloudy a good portion of the time, and it would snow a lot during the winter months, but, for the rest of the time, it was quite sunny."
We reached building six at this point. I was slightly surprised, as I hadn't expected him to actually walk me all the way to the door, just show me the way once we hit building four. It kind of didn't make sense for him to do so, since he would just have to backtrack to his class again.
"Well, bye," I said, turning towards him a bit. I frowned when I saw that his face adopted a rather familiar look, one that I'd seen on the faces of several make students at Hogwarts. It was the face that suggested that they would love to be something more than friends with me. I held back a grimace. I really didn't want to deal with that. Getting rid of admirers wasn't a task I relished much, mostly because most guys were just too hard headed to understand that I didn't want to date them. As for the small population that weren't, well, they were usually the ones that were nice and made me feel bad about turning them down.
"Yeah, bye," he said. "Oh, good luck with the rest of your classes. Who knows, perhaps we'll have some others together." He sounded rather hopeful. In all truth, I couldn't see him being really wrong to hope. In a small school like this, it was very likely that we would have some classes the same. So, I gave him a vague smile, and walked into the classroom.
Like Mr. Mason's room, this one was set up in the same way. I once again walked up to the teacher – an older grandmotherly type woman – to get my slip signed. She didn't goggle at me, instead greeting me warmly and handing me a copy of the book I would need for this class. She also pointed me to a seat in the back of the class. I ended up next to a girl who, before the bell rang, introduced herself as Sylvia Bennett.
The class didn't go by as fast, though that was probably because Government was one of the classes that I'd always been bad in. Thankfully, the class itself wasn't too bad – we just had to read the chapter and answer the questions at the end, as well as some questions on a work sheet that Mrs Jefferson had made, which ended up being our homework to finish when the bell did ring.
There was a fifteen minute break between my second and third classes. I ended up talking to Sylvia during that time, answering most of the same questions that Eric had ask me. Sylvia seemed to be nice, and generally interested in the answers to the questions she asked. However, I didn't trust her a whole lot, since she could be faking being nice. I would see if she stayed that way as the days went by.
My next class was Trigonometry, and I immediately hated Mr. Varner, who was an older teacher who looked like he had a severe scowl permanently fixed to his face. He was, so far, the only teacher who made me stand in front of the class and introduce myself when I went to get my sheet signed, as if this wasn't high school but elementary school. Of course, as I felt his gaze on my arse, it was easy to understand why he did so.
Then, when I did introduce myself, he interrupted me, starting an argument with me that I should lie about my name. I just looked at him and told him that he should assume anything is it made him look like an ass, and then pulled out my driver's license, which showed my name being Petrova instead of Swan.
He still argued, saying that my license was a fake, and that I should be ashamed of myself for carrying a fake license around, considering who my father was. He kept going on and on about it. Finally, I told him to call the office, and he would see that I was right and he was wrong. I even invited him to call my father. He called my father first, his face going pale as my father – who I could hear on the phone – told him that I wasn't a Swan but a Petrova by law, and that Mr. Varner should already know this without having to be asked. His call to the office explained why he hadn't been aware of it at the moment.
Much to his shame, the whole class had stayed quiet during all this, and broke out in quiet laughter when he was defeated. It was obvious that Mr. Varner wasn't all that popular. I was given a seat in the front of the class, where he could glare and shoot dirty looks at me easily. I got the feeling that I was now on his shit list, a feeling that increased as he purposely kept asking me questions on his subject. I was thankful that I was a bit better at this subject than I was in Government, as I wouldn't have had the pleasure of proving that I knew the answers to his questions and making him grit his teeth when I answered them correctly.
If it wasn't for the fact that my eyes never strayed from his, he probably would have accused me of cheating and try and give me detention. As it was, he tried to refused to sign my sheet, and it was only the fact that I mentioned that both my father and Mrs. Cope knew I'd been in his class that got him to do so. I left that class knowing that he was pretty much an enemy to me, and hoped that I didn't have to deal with his pigheadedness every day.
My next class was History, my second favorite class in general. Unfortunately, like Mr. Varner, this teacher seemed to have a stick up her arse. Miss Lemech was a thin, drab looking woman whose face looked like it never showed a smile in her life. When I came up and handed her the sheet to sign, she curled her lips in a sneer as she signed her name then also made me introduce myself. Like Mr. Varner, she argued that I shouldn't lie about my name – however, unlike Mr. Varner, though she sneered at me again, she didn't continue to argue after seeing my license, and I was allowed to sit a bit further back from her.
However, other than her general attitude, what made me really dislike her was the condescending way she treated the other students. I particularly hated how she treated the girl two seats to the right of me, Elisha Munday. I finally snapped when she implied that Elisha was an idiot for not knowing something. When she asked Elisha the question again, I answered.
When she sarcastically thanked me for answering the question while calling me Ms. Munday, I told her 'your welcome'. This seemed to set off a chain reaction in her, and she, like Mr, Varner, asked me questions of historically important dates, and telling me to stick to the year only after I said the month and date of the first few. This went on for quite a while, with the other students watching like it was a tennis match, until she finally asked about when the Korean war ended. She tried to say that I was wrong, and had one of the other students look it up. Elisha was the one to find it first, and Miss Lemech was stumped when Elisha read, with great relish in her voice, the same year I'd told Miss Lemech.
The rest of that class was spent with Miss Lemech pouting at her desk while glaring daggers at me. The other students were talking amongst themselves, many of them congratulating me me stumping her. It didn't surprise me that she was just as well liked as Mr. Varner was. Elisha came up to me personally to introduce herself, and talked to me a bit before Eric, who was in this class with me, came to sit next to me. Though he talked to me, I mostly ignored him, choosing instead to look at the faces of the other people. I recognized that most of them were in my previous three classes. I didn't recognize their names, though.
For the most part, those whose name's I did were people who had been brave enough to introduce themselves to me, which was a very small amount. In fact, I could count on one had how many people had done so. Everyone else seemed to just eavesdrop on any conversation I had.
"So, Bella, what was that school you went to in Scotland like?" Eric asked. The question pierced itself through my brain, gaining my attention. I thought for a moment, and then, with careful details, told him about it. I lied a lot, though, when he asked about the classes. After all, I couldn't exactly tell him that they were magic classes. So, instead, I used the classes that I had at the Xavier school – the ones that I took during summer so that I didn't fall behind on my non-magical studies – as an idea of what the classes at Hogwarts were like.
I was lucky that he didn't ask about what the Xavier school was like – then again, I hadn't said anything about it being a school, which would explain why he didn't ask. As it was, I simply said that the schools I went to when I was living solely in New York was much like any other elementary school. So, basically, I lied. A lot.
At least no one realized it, or called me out on the fact.
My last class before lunch was gym. The teacher – a rather nicely buffed man called Coach Clapp – gave me the option of staying out for today's lesson after he signed my slip. I thought about it, particularly seeing that I didn't have the right shoes for it, but decided to participate instead. After all, the girls half of the class was to do volleyball, which is one of the few sports I like to play. So long as I didn't have to run, I'd be fine, though he did seem a bit doubtful in letting me play in my heels.
And I was right. I did hold back a bit so not to send the ball cantering through the wall or into someone's face. In fact, I mostly stayed near the back, helping my team to win the game. Unfortunately, I accidentally hit the ball wrong towards the end of the game – though it didn't make much of a difference, because my team was ahead of the other one. I winced a bit as the ball hit the back of some blond-haired kid.
I saw him flinch as the ball did so, his hand coming up to rub where it hit as he turned towards us. His eyes immediately focused on me, giving me a once over. Like with Eric, I could see that he liked what he saw. Unlike with Eric, his 'appreciation' made me want to go and find the bulkiest jacket I could, and hide within it.
He swaggered over.
"I'm sorry," I said as he got closer. "I didn't mean to hit you with the ball."
"No, no, that's okay," he said, an eager looking smiling crossing his face as he stopped in front of me. "Isabella Swan, right?"
"It's Petrova, not Swan," I said, repeating it for what felt like the fiftieth time today. "And I prefer to be called Bella."
"Yeah," he said. "Hey, I'm Mike Newton."
"Nice to meet you," I said, lying through my teeth once more.
"Yeah, yeah," he said.
Before anything else could be said, a brown haired girl who had been watching as Mike came up to talk to me appeared.
"She's got a great spike, huh?" the brown haired girl said. The look on her face as she gazed at Mike was slightly pathetic.
"Yeah,it's..." Mike said, looking unhappy at the interruption. The girl turned towards me, and I saw that a look of distaste on her face before she masked it into a pleasant expression.
"I'm Jessica, by the way," she said, introducing herself. "Hey, you're from Arizona, right?"
"Uh, no, actually. I lived between New York and Scotland," I said, slightly annoyed. I wondered why Charlie had said that I lived in Arizona, since that was the only way I could think of as to why everyone seemed to think I lived there before coming here. And, strangely enough, I couldn't see Renee bothering to keep in touch with anyone here. None of the memories I had of Renee suggested she ever had friends, just acquaintances and people to use.
"Really," Jessica said, and I could see that she was interested in know what living in New York was like. Thankfully, she chose not to ask what it was like, particularly since I wouldn't have answered her anyways. "How did you live between them?" she asked instead.
"I lived in New York, but attended an elite boarding school in Scotland," I answered. I saw Mike's eye brow rise in interest.
"Aren't people in New York supposed to be, like, really tan?" she asked, her eyes on the pale skin on my face. I barely kept from rolling my eyes, wondering where she got that idea. After all, that question would have been more suitable if she'd asked it had I lived somewhere in the desert.
"Not really," I said. "Not enough sun can get through the smog and buildings. If you want to be tanned, you either go to a beach, go to a fake tanning salon, or buy some of that fake tanning lotion."
"Oh," she said, frowning. I saw her eyes glance towards the gloves I was still wearing. "Do people from New York always wear gloves?"
"No, not really," I said. "It's probably why they kicked me out." The last part was said sarcastically, and I was about to mention that, in truth, everyone had their preferences, some that might appear weird to others, but, before I could, Mike started to laugh. After a few moments, Jessica joined in herself, the look on her face suggesting that she would be up to anything he wanted.
"You're good," Mike said, confusing me a bit. Jessica's laughter calmed down.
"That's so funny," she said. When she saw that Mike wasn't really paying attention to her, but to me, her smile slid off her face for several seconds. I waved bye towards Mike so that the final game of the class could begin, and he walked backwards towards the basketball game that he was playing. I felt a little sorry for Jessica, who had to be reminded to come back to the court before the next match could begin.
I took a quick shower, and grabbed my things from the girl's locker room when the coach let us all go. Jessica showered and dressed quickly, appearing by my side fast enough to startle me.
"Hey, has anyone invited you to sit with them at lunch?" she asked. I shook my head no. "Would you like to sit with me any my friends?"
I thought about it for a moment, and couldn't really see the harm in it. And, while I didn't have any real desire to do so, it would have been rude of me to reject the offer.
"Sure," I accepted. When we were released, she led me towards the cafeteria, which was, as I suspected, the third big building I'd seen when I first arrived. The cafeteria was rather blasé. Flags and a few pictures adorned the white walls, and there were plenty of windows with vertical blinds covering them. Round tables decorated the floor, a long serving area was along one wall, and and another, slightly smaller serving area was a few feet from it.
"We're over here," Jessica said. As she led us over to the table, Mike joined us. I noticed, at the table we seemed to be heading towards, that there were four other people already there. I only recognized Eric and another girl that was in my trigonometry class. Eric and the girl I recognized were talking to each other. As we got closer, I heard what Eric was saying.
"...like a masterpiece, you know," he was saying, "we'll have, like, this crazy pyramid fall from the sky, and then you guys can..."
Mike, who had rushed a bit ahead of me, pulled out the seat next to Eric.
"Thanks," I muttered.
"It's my pleasure, Madame," Mike said courtly. Eric stopped speaking, turning towards us for a moment, and then finishing his his conversation.
"You guys can give each other high five," he said, sounding a bit distracted as he inched closer to me.
"Burrito, my friend?" Mike asked him, stopping his progress and completely interrupting his conversation. The girl didn't look like she minded all that much. In fact, she looked a bit glad for the interruption. Jessica, who hadn't looked happy at what Mike had done for me, sat down in the seat to the left of the one that Mike chose.
"Hey, Mikey, I see you've met my home girl, Bella?" Eric said with false cheer.
"Hey," Mike said, before Eric finished speaking. When he heard the rest of what Eric had to say, he added, "Oh, your home girl?" His tone of voice a incredulous, obviously showing that he didn't quite believe him.
"Yeah," Eric said.
"Yeah?" Mike questioned. "That's..."
Before anything else could be said, though, another boy came up, grabbing the back of Mike's chair and leaning towards me.
"My girl," this new guy said, and, to my extreme aggravation, he attempted to give me a kiss on the cheek; only my fast reflected kept him from doing so. Instead, he ended up kissing the palm of my hand. It didn't seem to bother him much, though; once his lips left my hand, he pulled Mike's chair out from under him and took off running towards the other side of the cafeteria, calling out, "Sorry I had to mess up your game, Mike."
Mike grabbed onto the table to keep from falling completely to the floor, and stood up as quickly as he could, taking off after the guy who tried to kiss my cheek. I watched as they chased each other for a while.
The girls at the table laughed a bit at Mike's misfortune, while I heard Eric say, "Tyler." I got the feeling that was the attempting to kiss me guy's name. As I turned back to the table, I heard one of them shout out 'Yes,' for some reason. The other three girls stood up and left.
"Oh, my God," Jessica said as she calmed down, and scooting closer to me. "It's like first grade all over again. You're the shiny new toy." She giggled a bit at that, but I could tell that there was no humor in her voice. If anything, she seemed a bit jealous at the attention that was being given to me.
At that moment, another girl came up, holding a camera in her hands.
"Smile," she said, quickly snapping a picture before I could say anything. The flash blinded me a bit, and I blinked a few times to clear my eyes.
"Okay," I said as I did so, confused as to why she was photographing me.
"Sorry," the new girl said apologetically, and I recognized her as being in my History class. "I needed a candid for the feature."
I had the feeling that Eric hadn't told her that the feature of me was canceled, and opened my mouth to inform her, nicely, that it wasn't going to be needed. However, I forgot that Eric was sitting next to me, and he spoke before I could.
"The feature's dead, Angela. Don't bring it up again," he snapped, making her flinch. I frowned at him for his rude behavior, but he didn't seem to notice as he stood up.
"It's okay, I just..." I started to say, trying to explain exactly why it wasn't going to be happening. However, before I could finish, Eric interrupted me.
"I got your back, baby," he said. I was once again struck with the need to hit him. I mean, I told him not to call me 'babe' so why did he think that calling me 'baby' would work? He left before I could say anything, though, much to Jessica's amusement, if her light laugh was anything to go by.
"Guess we'll just run another editorial on teen drinking," Angela said, sounding disappointed. I felt a bit guilty. It seemed that, in a town like this, there really wasn't anything worth writing.
"You know, you could always go for eating disorders," I said. Noticing Jessica looking pointedly in my direction – I hadn't gotten a lot to eat and the fact that I was rather skinny probably made her think that my mentions of eating disorders was for a reason. "Or you could go with drug abuse, or even speedo padding on the swim team."
The girls at the table laughed, though I could tell that it was for different reasons. Angela's laugh was thoughtful, while Jessica's was...well, I got the feeling that she mostly thought the ideas were funny, but not worth writing an article about. It also seemed that the other girls still at the table agreed with Jessica on that as well.
"Those are actually some good ideas," Angela said, looking thoughtful. Jessica's laugh stopped. "Particularly the last idea. That's a good one."
"Kirk. Right?" Jessica piped in, nodding her head like crazy.
"Yeah," Angela said.
"That's exactly what I thought," Jessica said.
"We're talking Olympic-size," Angela said. At that moment, something out of the corner of my eye distracted me – a group of people heading towards the door to come in.
"There's no way. He's so skinny. It doesn't make sense," Jessica continued. I tuned the conversation out completely, looking at the door. As it opened, I fought to keep from stiffening as I finally got a good look at them.
The first two to walk in were an extremely beautiful and attractive looking blonde, tall and statuesque, with legs that seemed to go on forever. She was the type you expected to see gracing the cover of Sports, Illustrated, swimsuit edition, while also hoping that she'd also appear as the centerfold of a Playboy Magazine. I had the feeling that she had been the star of many wet dreams for the boys of this school, and, by the look on her face, she either know or suspected that as well.
The guy who'd walked in with her – and was now throwing his arm around her in a polite show of possessiveness – was big, a few inches taller than her, and muscular looking, like a serious weight lifter. His hair was dark colored and cropped closely to his head. As he smiled at the blonde, my sharp eyes noticed that he dimples in his cheeks.
The next two were also a boy and girl couple. The girl was the opposite of the blonde. She was short, with dark hair cut in a pixie like fashion. However, she wasn't any less beautiful. The male with her looked like he could be related to the blonde girl. His hair was about the same color as her's, and he was just as tall. He was also slightly leaner than the other male, though still muscular. He looked tense as he walked behind the other two, though I saw a smile cross his face as he spun the dark haired girl in a circle, the smile disappearing as he tucked her to his side. A look of reassurance crossed the girl's face when she noticed his tenseness.
The final one was male, who was lanky and less bulky than the other two, with untidy bronze-colored hair. He seemed to be a bit more boyish than the other two, who looked as if they belonged at a college instead of a high school cafeteria. He was also the most handsome compared to the other two as well. In fact, he kind of stole my breath away, which, at the moment, I didn't consider to be a good thing.
However, for all the ways that they were different, they were also the same, and I didn't mean their unnatural beauty. All of them had dark eyes, with purplish bruises underneath, as if they suffered from a sleepless night or a broken nose. Of course, I knew that the former was more true than the latter. I knew that they definitely weren't suffering from a broke nose. As for their skin color, well, they were all paler than me.
All of those things marked them for what they were, and I only had one thought going through my mind as my eyes stayed on them: What the hell were vampires doing in Forks?