A/N: This is a story that I wanted to write after I wrote a one shot in the story exchange. It had to be less than 10k so it became another story, but it still stayed with me. I didn't think I'd write anything for awhile after The Fallen, but it started talking to me, so here we are.
It's set in Australia, because I'm kind of all researched out with The Fallen and I wanted to write what's familiar to me. I'll try and explain any terms that might be confusing.
It's also going to swap back from Edward and Bella's POVs. They're characters I haven't written about before, so I'm kinda excited about it. I'll upload two chapters at first, and I hope to update no later than once a week. So long as RL doesn't get in the way. While this story begins in high school, it's not a high school story. Been there, done that; no wish to repeat it.
Anywho, I hope you give it a go.

Vertigo

Chapter 1

Edward

I still think of her most days. Don't ask me why; I really couldn't tell you. In my mind, I think of her as the one who got away—which is complete bullshit. She was never mine to lose.

She was just that girl in high school I had a major hard on for but never had the guts to do anything about. Until it was too late, anyway. Maybe it's regret that's really haunting me. Or the lack of "closure" as Jake insists it is, but closure from what? There's no unwritten rules about unrequited teenage crushes to explain why I've pined away for a virtual ghost for most of my life.

My job doesn't exactly help, because she's everywhere. Every grade has one; the introvert who hangs out in the library during every lunch break. The girl who has zero interest in fitting in or conforming to the standards of the "popular" kids.

There's one in year 11, and Jesus, does she remind me of Bella. Straight A's, almost perfect attendance, but a complete loner—by choice. She's not in any of my classes; kids like her don't tend to take P.E after the mandatory four years is over and they're given the choice of their electives.

I see her in the halls from time to time, a book stuck in front of her face, her glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose; completely oblivious to the world around her. It's not that she has any contempt for the other kids; it's simply that they don't interest her.

That's how it was with Bella. She was never rude, she never stared through me, or avoided me. Nothing like that. She knew who I was—I was School Captain, everyone knew who I was—it was just my entire existence was irrelevant to her.

That's what drove me completely mad, and made me want her more.

At that age I was struggling with my own identity and sense of worth. Emmett and I had just moved in with our grandfather, and away from our mother's influence, and I was rebelling. I was a 'little smart arse'—as Pop would say—and was always being sent to see the Headmaster. That's where I was when I first saw her, as I was waiting to get the cane. Corporal punishment never really fazed out of private schools; especially, not one as exclusive as Sydney Grammar—the school that had produced the most amount of Prime Ministers and high court judges. Which made sense considering the front building resembled more of a court house than it did a school, but give the Housemasters shit and you paid, heavily. For thirty-five grand a year, kids were taught strict discipline as a matter of principle.

By my third year I had become pretty desensitised to it, and I preferred physical punishment to the psychological mind fucking I was used to at the hands of my mother. Being able to feel anything was almost therapy for me. The Headmaster knew that, he knew our family dynamics, and he'd been in the elite education system of Sydney long enough to know how fucked up most of the families were.

Emmett and I were no exception. Either was Jake—or Bella, for that matter. We all suffered from Silver Spoon Syndrome in one way or another. As ironic as it is, Bella in a way was more fortunate than the rest of us. She didn't find out, until after her entire life went to complete shit, just how dysfunctional her own family was. It's probably why she always appeared to have her shit together, but I guess I'll never really know.

Whoever said money is the source of happiness obviously never had any. Sure, I never starved, but I was fucking miserable. So miserable I was a suicidal nine year old who jumped off the roof of my mother's house in an attempt to end it all. I only fell around twenty feet and broke my arm. It was our nanny who took me to Emergency to have it plastered; my mother was never even informed. The staff weren't stupid enough to interrupt her during one of her spa/hair/nail/Botox appointments. The wrath that bitch would have brought down on the entire house wasn't worth any concern over me; the scapegoat child.

Yeah, Headmaster knew the hell I was raised in; that's why he often chose the cane over the paddle, and went easy on me.

While Sydney Grammar is technically co-ed, the classes are segregated, and the girls have a separate entrance. Our entrance was opposite Hyde Park in the CBD of Sydney, on College Street; the girls a block over in the Darlinghurst end of the city. The sexes are kept apart for the most part, while the only shared buildings are the library, gym, lunchroom, and of course, the main office—where the Headmaster's office was.

It was June, halfway through the school year. I was in year 9. I was sent to the office for being the unfortunate kid who was caught with the smutty note about Jessica Stanley that'd been circulating around the classroom. Though, if it wasn't for that reason it would have been something else. Mr Banner was a miserable old bastard who couldn't stand me; he spent every class, his eyes on me like a hawk, waiting for the smallest excuse to throw me out. He knew the note was being passed around; he was just waiting for it to fall into my hands.

It's not as if I was complaining; getting the cane was a small price to pay to get out of class. I wasn't much of a scholar. For me it was all about sports. The school might spew out a lot of PMs, but I wouldn't be one of them.

Mrs Cope, the office administrator—who made every kid in the school aware of the fact that she hated her job—only rolled her eyes blatantly at me when I walked in, before jerking her head to the row of chairs in front of the Headmaster's office.

"The Cullen boy is here to see you again," she spoke dryly into the intercom before she resumed her typing; sighing impatiently to herself as if the thirty seconds of her time I'd taken up had set her back for the entire day.

I only smirked to myself, reaching into my blazer and pulling out a stick of gum.

That's when she walked in, sandwiched between her parents. I couldn't see much of her, apart from the long, dark hair that fell halfway down her back, and the navy and yellow blazer of our school.

She was transferring from her first year at Pymble Ladies College, I heard her mother explain to Mrs Cope, before she stated her name; Isabella Swan.

That perked my ears up immediately. The name "Swan" was familiar. I turned my attention to her old man; he stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder looking pissed off and put out, and really bloody intimidating. He was easily in his fifties, dressed in a tailored suit, and from his overall demeanour I guessed he was the famous Barrister, 'Senior Counsel Charles Swan'.

Yeah, no scholarships for this kid. She came from money.

I listened to the old cow, Mrs Cope, carry on about how good her grades were, while her mother, who looked younger and more expensively attired than my own, filled in the required registration forms. This is when her father, huffing loudly to himself, pulled his Blackberry from his suit jacket and sat down on the set of chairs directly opposite me.

He ignored me, of course, but he'd given me a direct line of sight to his daughter. She wore glasses, but she was pretty, really bloody pretty; though, that didn't surprise me considering her parents. And I mean, if you go for that nerdy type. Which I didn't. I was fifteen, and at that age I didn't really have a type. I hated my mother, I knew that much, and considering she was the only real female influence I had I guess she'd subconsciously affected my perception of the opposite sex.

For the most part I found girls to be annoying and weak-minded. Emmett thought I was gay. I wasn't gay; I just didn't like girls. At least, I didn't like the ones I was surrounded by daily. The rich bitches and spoiled princesses who'd rip their undies off in a heartbeat for a dare. The ones who lost their virginity in the locker rooms of the gym and then openly bragged about it as if it was some sort of accomplishment. The same girls who spent every minute terrorising the boarders for their blue-collared backgrounds.

If they only knew half my genes came from the same background, I wonder if they would have paid me as much attention.

All I saw in the girls at my school was my mother in the making; shallow, pretentious, narcissistic, evil fucking bitches who would make my life a living hell. I didn't want a bar of that crap. I'd rather join the clergy.

But this girl... I watched her, closely. She was staring down at her feet, clutching a small object in both her hands. I quickly realised it was an inhaler; something she brought to her lips a moment later and breathed in.

She had asthma, her mother explained to Mrs Cope. Chronic asthma, and they weren't comfortable with her boarding away from home at her old school.

She sighed softly to herself, as if she was irritated by being spoken about right in front of her, when her eyes quickly darted to me. She glanced at me for a second or two, practically expressionless, before she went back to staring at the floor.

But I wanted another look at that face, because...shit...

Blowing into the wad of gum in my mouth, I cracked it loudly, catching not only her attention, but Mrs Cope's. And her old man's.

He eyed me for a moment, much like Mr Banner, before he went back to staring at his phone, and just as the old crone, school secretary, barked out into the room.

"DISPOSE OF THAT GUM THIS INSTANT, YOU INSOLENT BOY!"

"Yes, Miss." I smirked again, pulling myself arrogantly from the chair to chuck it in the rubbish bin in the corner of the room, when my eyes again caught hers. Her expression was slightly curious this time, but...almost bored before she severed my gaze and completely turned her back on me.

A minute later she left to be shown to class, before the Headmaster's door swung open and he grabbed me by the collar, yanking me roughly inside the room.

I didn't see her again that day. In fact, I didn't see her for the rest of the week. Not in the lunchroom, or the gym, or in the courtyard. I was forced to put the feelers out and ask Emmett. Emmett knew every kid in the school, the girls especially. He was the boy they lost their virginity to on a dare. The biggest man-whore arsehole there was.

My brother; my twin brother.

While we grew up in the same house, Emmett's childhood was vastly different from mine. He was my mother's golden child. The child who could do no wrong. The child she was always throwing in my face and pitting against me. I always had to bow to him, and if I ever did better than him at anything, at school for example, it'd send her into a rage and she'd beat the crap out of me. Then she'd stand back while he did the same, on her instruction.

Emmett's always been a giant. While I stand just taller than our grandfather at 6'2", Emmett is still four inches taller. He gets his height from our father apparently; though, neither of us ever met him. He died before we were born. When I was five I found a picture of him in the hall closet in my mother's house. Emmett's his clone, whereas I look nothing like him. While we're twins, we're not identical. I look like my grandfather, Carlisle. Pop, as we call him.

Which is why my mother hates me with a passion.

Until Emmett and I moved in with Pop, we hated each other. I detested the bastard. I hated him so much, I used to lie awake at night thinking up inventive ways to kill him in his sleep.

When we were twelve, Pop put us into therapy. It took me awhile to realise Emmett was being just as emotionally manipulated by our mother for her own purpose, as I was. That's when we eventually started to get along, and I could finally see him as my brother.

"Never heard of no Isabella Swan," Emmett replied to my question during lunch break, distracted as he was as we played basketball with Jake and a couple of other guys from our year.

"She's new," I probed further, stealing the ball from him and throwing it toward the hoop. It bounced off the backboard and dropped smoothly through the net. "Like last week new," I added with satisfaction when he turned to scowl at me.

"I dunno. Never heard of her," he reiterated, shoving me, before wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his hand.

I didn't take it as a good sign. If Emmett had never heard of a girl, it usually meant she didn't exist. I was starting to doubt whether I'd heard correctly, and whether she had even transferred to our school, at all.

"So..." He shoulder barged me that afternoon as we waited for Pop's driver to pick us up, before stepping in line beside me. "I found out who that girl is."

"Yeah?" I turned to him, a little too eagerly.

"Forget it, bro. Number one, she's a total nerd, and two, you know who her old man is?"

"Yeah, of course I know," I said impatiently.

"Plus, mate, she's in year 7—practicing to be a sugar daddy already, are you?" He snickered.

"It's only two years—shut the hell up!" I retorted, defensively. Emmett had a real talent of taking the piss out of me. "Anyway, where does she hang?"

"In the library—doing her homework." He rolled his eyes, making a loud gagging sound.

The library...

I was going to become intimately acquainted with the library. Isabella and I, though? Not even close.

*Sydney Grammar School is an all-boys high school. I may have embellished about it being co-ed for the purposes of this story.

A/N: Thank you for reading.