Chapter 1

BPOV

First day of school. They were the bane of my life, always so bitty and pointless. I had lived in a huge city and routine was the only thing we all shared in common, and yet every year we had this introduction and slow ease into our mundane schedule as if going to school was a frightening and new experience.

Things would always stay the same, they generally did. Maybe some relationships hadn't lasted the summer and the unease was tangible in the air. Maybe someone had lost weight, gained weight, dyed their hair or travelled to a distant, exotic land and now proudly showed their caramel tan to a gaggle of barely concealed jealousy. But one thing was always certain; all of these trivial events would be of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. Each day would blur easily into the next and news of who was dating who, though it provided temporary distraction, was of little practical significance.

I looked back on summer with disgust. But maybe I was limiting myself by just considering summer. Regret was my word of choice to describe pretty much every wakeful second of the past few years of my life. Not to sound melancholy, you understand. It was just a fact. Life moves on even when you think it can't. And in the end, nothing really mattered.

My mother, unobservant and hasty as always, had shipped me off to live with my absent father. Renée had always had gone through life with blinkers on. She saw what she wanted to and God forbid should anything mar the perfection of the life she had planned for herself, myself included. It was never really an issue I ever noticed in her until it was too late. She was very childlike in her approach to the world, which made her great fun when everything was easy. It did, on the other hand, make her unforgivably useless as the leftover half of my parental unit.

Charlie, my father, was an enigma. Mysterious to me and an ever forbidden topic of discussion in our little family. Certain things were never spoken aloud in our house. These topics included: my father, money problems, school problems, boy problems, any problems or negative thoughts, feelings or observations of any kind. Renee probably maintained these rules as a kind of self preservation, to try and keep bad things out of sight and out of mind. It served instead as an invite to all things evil, which sought out my mother and I as an easy target.

But back to my first day... I looked in my wardrobe and tried to decide what to wear. It was scant to say the least, most of my clothes being back in Phoenix with Renee. I was never going back there so I just had to face it that all I owned to my name was a few shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans. My choice was made for me. I looked into the mirror and sighed. I could try and attack the dreadlocks beginning to form at the nape of my neck, but the pain seemed hardly worth it. My long brown hair generally concealed the mess it contained in it's depths. Well it wasn't going to get any better than this.

I was excited, but only in the sense that without school, and without company at whatever distance, and without much drive for life I was living only to breathe. I hoped school would give me the routine I had come accustomed to in Phoenix, where at least I didn't have too much time to think to myself. That just about killed me and I could hardly believe that people could live with themselves for over 80 years. I was 17 and I was pretty sick of myself already.

I drifted through the kitchen, my stomach far queasy to even contemplate any sort of nourishment. I walked towards the front door and picked up the keys to the truck that Charlie had so amazingly bestowed to me upon my arrival to Forks. I briefly smiled at it before climbing into the cab and inhaling the musky smell of antiquity and tobacco.

"Well, here goes", I sighed to myself before fiddling with the ancient radio until it stuttered to life.

The actual building was a rather unassuming campus. The grounds were scattered with small red brick buildings and I remembered my last school, reminiscent of a prison block. There was no way I was going to get through this. I could probably invite my entire graduating class to stay in my tiny bedroom and Charlie's house. Great.

I grabbed my bag from the seat next to me and walked towards one of the little buildings the proclaimed itself to be the front office. It looked like a shed. Like everything in Forks it was small, and cramped and inhabited by strange overly friend occupants. I found all the eye contact uncomfortable and rested my eyes on the floor.

"I'm Bella Swan. I.. uh. I'm new", I murmured distractedly, looking at all the various posters and leaflets that littered the walls, held up by brightly coloured pins.

A red headed woman introduced herself as Mrs. Cope and handed me a stack of intimidating looking paper. She rattled on about class schedules and maps and materials lists and endless things that I wouldn't remember and would probably lose before the end of the day. I smiled in thanks and left. Everything and everyone here was too close.

I stared down at my class schedule. Biology and Calculus and other things I couldn't care less about. Then I smiled. English was first. It was the one thing I could do without completely humiliating myself. I was no genius, obviously but it was something I enjoyed. I just loved to read and write. Like most things I am passionate about – they were great distractions.

I made my way to building four. Which was I was right in guessing was the building with the conspicuous 4 screwed to the wall. This place was going to be easy to navigate, at least, I smiled. I tried to pick out specific faces from the small mass of people moving towards the same door as me, but they all seemed pretty similar, all talking animatedly to eachother, no doubt gossiping about the new girl. In a town as small as this, I guess I was pretty big news.

I went into the classroom; it was as bland as every other school room I had ever been in. Beige was everywhere and messy attempts at posters lined the walls with laminated sheets of indeterminable age. I made my way to the back, where a few empty desks still lingered.

The chattering continued (as did many stares) for a full 5 minutes after the class was due to start. Then the door opened and everyone's head snapped to the front of the room. There were several audible gasps and the shock in the room would have been evident even to the most unobservant of onlookers, hence why I looked up.

"Good morning, everyone. My name is Mr. Cullen".