EPOV
I came downstairs the next morning, finding myself both apprehensive and eager to get to school and officially meet Bella. When Rose and Alice had gotten home last night they had filled in the blanks on the shopping trip with Bella, and I had been shocked to learn that ever vigilant Alice had slipped up and nearly revealed her ability to see the future. Apparently they had both been so comfortable around her that she probably could have walked them out into the sun and they wouldn't have noticed. I had frowned at that and warned them to be more careful.
Much to Alice's annoyance, we had all gotten a hearty laugh out of the special photo Rose had produced. It showed Bella and Alice pouting at each other, identical sad puppy dog looks on their faces as they both tried to get their own way. When Rose told the accompanying story Jasper fell off the lounge in shock, incredulous that anyone had been able to turn Alice's pout against her. Emmett and I were impressed- we'd never been able to turn down Alice's pout.
I was still apprehensive about resisting Bella's scent, but I had secretly borrowed one of Bella's shirts and tried to get myself used to her scent in preparation, so I was relatively confident that I would be able to resist. I hated to think of the consequences if I did slip up. Not only would I hate myself, but because my whole family was now attached to her, they would probably hate me too. I was not willing to let that happen if I could help it.
The rest of my family soon joined me downstairs, and we jumped into the Volvo and headed to school. We arrived in time to see Bella exiting her truck, and I smoothly slid the Volvo into the space next to hers.
We exited, with Rose and Alice rushing immediately over to Bella. Emmett, Jasper and I followed them at a more sedate pace. As Bella turned and spotted me I felt Jasper register the change in her feelings. She had been completely comfortable before, but now she was feeling slightly worried and sympathetic. I frowned; I would love to know what she was thinking about me that would make her feel sorry for me. After the way I had acted last week, I had expected her to be incredibly scared of me, I certainly wasn't expecting her to be worried about me. This was definitely not a normal human reaction. She should be running away from me screaming, or at the very least cowering.
Instead, she simply gave me a beautiful smile. With her eyes lit up, her cheeks flushed from the cold and her glorious mahogany hair framing her face she looked sensational, and I felt my breathing stop for a second. Jasper quirked an eyebrow at me What's gotten into you?
I snapped out of it and collected myself and returned her smile with one of my own. We all heard her heart stutter as she blushed a deep red, and I felt venom pooling in my mouth at the sight. I swallowed it back, finding that I had indeed become somewhat desensitised to her scent.
Extending my hand to her I spoke softly, "Hello Bella, I'm Edward. I'm sorry I didn't get to meet you last week, but I was out of town for personal reasons." I was surprised when she reached for my hand with no hesitation. We simultaneously gasped as our hands connected and a spark ran between them. I looked down at our connected hands, confused. I had never felt that before.
My siblings were no help. Jasper's thoughts were smug, but he was deliberately thinking about the Civil War. Emmett and Rosalie obviously hadn't noticed anything, and Alice was singing the tune of a Britney Spears song in her mind.
I looked up at Bella, who had a perplexed look on her face and was also staring out our joined hands. It was obvious that she had felt it too. I suddenly realised from the thoughts of the other students that we had been standing there for a couple of minutes and I released her hand, puzzled that I felt a twinge of regret and an urge to pick her hand back up. I could hear Jasper laughing at me in his thoughts, carefully keeping them hidden from me.
Bella seemed to collect herself once I had let her go, and her smile returned as she looked up at me, "It's nice to finally meet you, your siblings have told me a lot about you." I frowned at that, turning to look suspiciously at my siblings, who were all trying to look innocent, though amusement was breaking out over their faces.
"What have they told you?" I asked guardedly.
Her face broke out in laughter, "Nothing actually, they barely mentioned you, but Rose said you'd react like this if I told you they had said something." My siblings were now barely breathing as they laughed at me.
"Not funny," I growled at them, causing them to laugh harder. I glared at them until the bell went and we had to go to class. I walked to class frowning, my siblings still laughing at me in their minds. I noted proudly that I had managed to resist Bella's blood, in fact, though my throat still burned, I found that it was becoming much more tolerable.
At lunch, I entered the cafeteria, got a tray of food to use as a prop, and sat down at our normal table. I was the first to arrive and was soon joined by the rest of my family. Bella entered the cafeteria soon after, moving quickly through the line before grabbing a square of some sort of food, which she quickly unwrapped and placed into her pocket. Across from me Alice started vibrating with excitement, and I frowned when she kept her thoughts blocked. I watched as Bella confidently approached us, not an ounce of fear in her demeanour, and inwardly winced as the jealous thoughts of Mike hit me.
Bella soon sat down beside me, and I hesitantly smiled at her. She smiled back, and opened her mouth to speak when Emmett interrupted her. "Bella, no buffet outfit today?" he guffawed, his mind going back to an incident last week when Bella had ended up wearing two trays of food due to her clumsiness.
Instead of turning red with embarrassment like I thought she would, she quickly reached into her pocket, dived across the table and slammed her square of food in his mouth, smearing it over his face.
Emmett shut up quickly, his face screwing up in disgust as he spit out what I now recognised as chocolate cake. The rest of us watched him, laughing at him. "Mmm Emmett, you look absolutely delicious." Bella choked out between laughs.
Emmett glared, "I will get you back Bella." He threatened.
Bella turned serious. "This is the kind of thing that happens when you mess with me Emmett," she warned, her face and tone threatening. My eyes widened as Emmett cowered slightly. "If you try to make me embarrassed again I will quite happily hurt you." She growled.
We all chuckled under our breath at the thought of petite, human Bella, hurting super stong, human Emmett. "Who knew a human could be so scary." Emmett muttered under his breath at us, and I had to agree with him. This human was so strange, she acted more like a vampire than a human.
From Jasper, I could see that Bella was feeling quite smug about getting even with Emmett, and I had to admit that I was more than impressed. She couldn't have picked a better way of getting back at Emmett it was as if she had known that we were vampires who were repulsed by food.
I stopped at that thought, silently wondering if she could know what we were. Surely she must have noticed something different about us by now, with all the time she had spent with my family. But I soon dismissed that idea. If she did know what we were she would have run away screaming. Even if she usually reacted differently to most humans, it was impossible for her to not run away in fear and disgust if she knew what kind of monsters we were.
My musings were interrupted by Bella, who had recovered from her laughter at Emmett's expense, and had settled back in her seat, grabbing my bagel off my tray and taking a big bite. As she chewed I looked at her in shock, registering that my siblings hadn't thought anything of her strange behaviour, as Rose and Alice chatted with Bella, and Emmett and Jasper argued over a video game.
Jasper noticed my shock and looked over from his conversation with Emmett. He smirked at me as he noticed Bella happily chewing on my bagel, It's kind of funny to see your food steal your food isn't it? he asked. I nodded slightly and continued to watch in confusion as Bella ate half of my bagel before putting it back down on my tray. She picked up Rose's fruit salad next, eating roughly half of it before moving onto Jasper's bag of chips. He had already opened it, and she grabbed a handful. The others didn't even comment on her stealing their food props, seeming used to it, and I surmised that it was a daily occurrence for her to eat off all their trays.
When she reached for Emmett's tray he quickly grabbed it and held it protectively to him. "Uh uh Bella," he teased, "I'm a growing boy and I need my food." He stated, his eyes dancing with amusement.
Bella laughed, then composed her expression. Her face turned into a pout, the same one we had seen in the photo of her with Alice. "But Emmy, I'm starving," she whined, her eyes suddenly glistening with tears that threatened to fall. I watched awestruck as Emmett took one look at her expression and hurriedly thrust his tray towards her, not even commenting on the fact that she had called him Emmy- something he hated.
Bella smiled triumphantly, her tears disappearing as she picked up a slice of pizza and took a large bite. She moaned in contentment, "Emmett, you always manage to pick the best food," she complimented him. He smiled proudly, and I felt a fleeting sense of jealousy. Jasper looked over at me in surprise. I shook myself out of it, wondering why I was jealous that Emmett had been able to pick more appealing food.
Last of all, she swiped Alice's chocolate pudding, scarfing it down as she looked at the clock and realised that the bell was going soon.
Her phone vibrated and, after she checked the ID she jumped up, apologising as she rushed out of the cafeteria. I listened hard and could only make out faint words of her conversation. Yes Heidi...I know...Yeah I went shopping without you, it was a blast...don't worry, I'll be fine...talk to you later.
She soon came back, "Cousin from Europe," she explained, "She wanted to hear about our shopping trip."
BPOV
I skipped out of the cafeteria beside Edward as we headed for Biology, feeling pretty proud of myself for getting even with Emmett. Shoving food into unsuspecting vampire's faces had been a favourite trick of mine against Felix and Demetri for years.
I continued down the hall and into the classroom, secretly impressed by how well Edward was handling my scent, especially with how close he had been to me. We sat down at our biology table, and I listened as Mr Banner described the lab we would be doing today. I sighed as I realised it was something Sulpicia had had me do when I was seven.
"Ladies first," Edward offered, turning towards me. I found myself lost in his golden eyes for a few moments before I collected myself, blushing furiously as I took a quick peek at the first slide through the microscope.
"Prophase," I said confidently.
"May I?" he asked. I shrugged and pushed it towards him, inwardly seething that he felt the need to check my answers. Stupid know-it-all all vampire.
He checked it and, seeing that it was correct, wrote it down. We took turns with the rest of the slides, and were finished in less than ten minutes. Everyone else had barely started.
We stared at each other, I was still slightly annoyed that he had initially doubted my knowledge, so I decided to aggravate him a little, knowing that he would probably feel frustrated by not being able to read my mind. "Did you get contacts?" I asked suddenly, taking him off guard.
"No," he answered, looking puzzled.
"Oh, I was sure your eyes were black last time I saw you, and now they're gold." I said, observing his eyes closely.
Realisation dawned in his eyes before he shrugged, and turned towards Mr Banner, who was making his way to our table. "Edward, didn't you think Isabella deserved a chance with the microscope?" he asked, checking our answers.
"Bella," Edward corrected, "And she identified three of the five." He informed Mr Banner.
Mr Banner's eyebrows shot up, "Have you done this before?"
I nodded. "I was in Advanced classes in Phoenix." I explained, no need to mention my incredibly intelligent vampire family.
"I guess it's good that you two are partners then, teach the others something." he muttered before moving away.
We sat in silence for a moment before Edward cut in. "It's a pity about the rain isn't it?"
I turned to him in surprise. He was asking me about the weather? No doubt he was referring to the fact that it had been snowing before lunch, while it was now raining, thwarting any plans others may have had for a snowball fight. The snow had been the reason I had been late to lunch, going out of my way to avoid the snowballs that had been flying around. "Uh, no, not really," I muttered.
"You don't like the cold?" he asked.
I shook my head, "Not really." I answered honestly.
"Then why did you move to Forks?" he asked curiously.
"It's..." I thought about it, "Complicated," I finished lamely, hoping he would leave it at that.
He didn't, "I think I can keep up," he argued.
I sighed, I figured I might as well go with what was mostly the truth anyways, "My mum remarried," I sighed
"And you don't like the guy?" he asked. If I wasn't nervous about where these questions were leading I would have laughed at him. It was obvious that it wasn't often that Edward had to rely on talking to people to get the answers he wanted. It was obvious that he was aggravated by the fact that he couldn't read my mind.
"No, Phil's fine," I assured Edward, "But he moves around a lot because he's a minor league baseball player, and I knew my Mum wanted to be able to go with him, instead of having to stay with me. So I decided and come to Forks and spend some time with my Dad." I explained quickly. "Now both of my parents are happy." I concluded.
He frowned, and I could tell he knew that I was editing my story. I inwardly cursed myself for being such a poor liar. While I could tell when someone else, even a vampire, was lying with no trouble at all, I had always been a terrible liar myself.
"And are you happy too?" he asked.
I shrugged, "It doesn't really matter. Life isn't meant to be fair." I informed him.
He smiled, "I know what you mean." He muttered.
"Besides," I continued, "I'm not unhappy here, you're family has been very welcoming." I said gratefully, smiling back at him.
He opened his mouth to answer when someone at the next desk banged their book down on their desk, creating a draft that ruffled my hair, blowing my scent directly into his open mouth. He tensed, and I hurriedly turned away, cloaking myself in a shield and pretending to listen to Mr Banner, who was now back in front of the board, talking.
I watched Edward out of the corner of my eye for the rest of the lesson, feeling sorry for him, and well aware that he was in pain. Thankfully the lesson soon ended and Edward rushed out of the class. I made my way out slowly and headed to gym-groan.
After a relatively successful gym lesson, where I didn't injure myself or anyone else, I bid goodbye to Rose and Alice, waved to Jasper, Edward and Emmett, who were on waiting in the Volvo, and headed home.