A False New Start

Thursday was much the same as Tuesday. I had English with Alice but she let me alone, only saying “Good morning, Bella” to which I mumbled a reply. She seemed pleased that I was at least acknowledging her, she smiled and listened intently as Mrs. Langdon spoke, taking extremely detailed notes that she most likely didn’t need. She probably didn’t even need to attend class. She could just show up on test days and for the final and she’d ace the class.

When we were let out, I walked out without glancing back at her. I was half certain that she would follow me back to my dorm but no, I made it to Hadley alone. It was barely eleven and I didn’t have class until two-thirty so I sent Renee an email, something I should probably do more often, and copied down the vocabulary words from the sheet Mrs. Langdon had handed out. For my scholarship, I had to keep my GPA at a 3.5 or higher so I really had to work to keep my grades up.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. I got lunch with Chelsea and then headed off to math. Since it was an algebra class, I knew the stuff we were learning for the first few chapters. The only reason I was taking the class was because it was a general education requirement.

Friday was a long day with classes from ten to three. Not only that but I had both classes with Alice. I was dreading the five hours I would spend in class with her, most likely with the two of us sitting next to each other since she insisted on it.

First we had our seminar. I had chosen The Hero-Villain in Renaissance Drama. I was surprised Alice had opted to take the same seminar as me, one of the choices had been about the history of shopping. One of the other options was about vampires in pop culture, that should have been entertaining to her as well. When I saw that class, I immediately skipped over it.

I got to class early and chose one of the seats in the front row. At least this way Alice wouldn’t be able to talk to me much or pass notes. My teacher looked up from the computer at the front of the class and smiled.

“Hey, there! I’m, Mrs. Lane.”

“Bella Swan.”

“Well, Bella Swan, are you looking forward to learning all about Renaissance drama and the hero-villain relationships within it?”

“You bet.”

“Oh, here’s another early bird. You two do know that there’s still like twenty minutes before you have to be here, right?”

Alice smiled at Mrs. Lane and then at me, her teeth glinting in the florescent lights. “I know, I had to come over with my boyfriend, though, his class starts in five minutes.”

I scowled at her as she took the seat next to me just like I knew she would.

“And who are you?” Mrs. Lane asked.

“Alice Cullen.”

“Okay so Bella and Alice. Well, I have to run down the hall for a few minutes so just chill out and relax and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“She seems nice,” Alice said after Mrs. Lane left. “I think this will be a good class.”

“Alice,” I started but she cut me off.

“I know, I know,” she sighed. “It’s just so hard to not speak with you. Don’t you miss how close we were? I love Rosalie but you and I had such a close, sisterly relationship.”

She knew just the thing to say that would make me feel guilty. It was just like last year when she would mention how she couldn’t remember any of her human life and I then found myself becoming her Barbie.

I grimaced at her words and, with my voice slightly softer, said, “Of course I miss it. How could I not? But-”

“But I hurt you.” Her topaz eyes were sad as she frowned up at me. “It pains me every time you say that but I deserve it. You have no idea how badly I want to call him up and tell him just how stupid he truly is for what he did.”

“But you won’t.”

“No. If I told him anything…well let’s just say, no one would be happy after that,” she chuckled humorlessly. “If he were to come back, though, would you speak to him? I doubt forgiveness would be possible.”

“I would yell at him,” I confidently said. “I would tell him just how wrong he was and I would make sure he knows just how bad his decision was.”

Alice looked…proud of what I said. At least she was nodding along and smiling as I spoke which looked promising. “I know I don’t have the right to do this but I have a favor to ask you.”

That was a complete subject change. I wasn’t sure if I should be suspicious or not so I slowly asked, “What is it?”

“Jasper feels so awful about what he did at your party and he would like to see you to apologize. He feels responsible for what happened.”

“He shouldn’t,” I earnestly told her. “It was no one’s fault really.”

“Still, he would feel so much better if he could apologize to you in person.”

My suspicions rose. “And where would we meet up?”

“Well, Jasper and I do have a house where no humans would be able to overhear us.”

“What’s to overhear in the words ‘I’m sorry’?”

She gave me a dazzling smile. “Please, Bella? Jasper would just like to speak to you for a few minutes.”

“You’re not going to let up until I say yes, are you?”

“You know me so well.”

“Fine, I’m assuming you want me to come over after Reading Women’s Writing?”

“That would be great.”

The classroom was begin to fill up and Mrs. Lane came back in. I went back to my task of ignoring Alice. Why did she have to have her way? If I was a little tougher, I would have told her no way. Sure, I forgave Jasper for what happened, but that didn’t mean I had to go to their house and hear an apology. I didn’t hold as much of a grudge against Jasper for everything, we hadn’t been close to begin with so when he left, it hadn’t hurt as much. Even though I wasn’t as angry with him, that didn’t mean I was completely fine with going over and having a conversation with him. I was sure it would start off with his apology and then Alice would manipulate the situation and I would end up talking to her for who knows how long.

“All right, guys,” Mrs. Lane announced, interrupting my inner grumbling. “I’m Mrs. Lane but that just makes me think of my mother-in-law so feel free to call me Jennifer. Welcome to the Hero-Villain in Renaissance Drama, your freshman seminar for Middlebury! This class is designed to introduce you to the way college classes function. You aren’t in high school anymore and things are different here. Hopefully you’ll find that this class will help you while still being enjoyable.”

Like most of the other first classes, we went over the syllabus and what we would be doing in class. However, once we finished up with that, Mrs. Lane, calling her Jennifer seemed weird, jumped right into teaching. This was good, though, because it left no extra time for Alice to speak to me. When class let out there was nothing to stop her.

She walked right next to me, chatting about what she expected from both of our Friday classes. She’d already seen us having fun in the Reading Women’s Writing class though I wasn’t sure if I believed her. Anything Alice said could be a ploy to get me to become her friend again. Did I think she would be so deceitful? Yes, absolutely. I’m sure she wouldn’t do it to be hurtful but I still had to be on my guard.

We got right to work in Reading Women’s Writing. Because we only had the class once a week, we had a lot to cover in a three hour period. I was really excited for the class, though, because one of the authors we were going to be studying was Jane Austen. At least I had a chance to do well with one of the sections. Our teacher, a formidable woman with a sharp voice and what seemed like little to no sense of humor, kept us until three, glaring at anyone who tried to leave at two fifty-nine. I don’t know what Alice was talking about with how much fun we would have in the class with that woman as the teacher.

“She’ll loosen up soon,” Alice assured me. “She’s one of those teachers who just acts tough in the beginning so that the students don’t act up. Do you want to drop your bag off before you come over?”

“Sure, I guess.”

She followed me over to Hadley and the whole walk over I was praying that Catie wasn’t in the room. I didn’t want the two to meet, I was sure Alice would warm up to Catie and once they became friends, Alice would have an excuse to come over more often. I couldn’t remember Catie’s Friday schedule but I thought that she was in class until almost five, of course, I could have been thinking about Monday for all I knew.

We got to my room and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that it was empty. I dumped my backpack on my bed and grabbed my smaller backpack that I used for a purse. I stuffed my wallet with my phone, ID card, and key inside and turned to Alice.

“I’m ready.”

I turned to head towards the door but Alice was looking out the window. No, actually, she was looking at the picture on the window sill. It was the same picture of Jacob and me that Caleb had noticed the other day but instead of looking curious, Alice looked sad.

“Alice?”

“I just wish there was a picture of you and Edward like this, with you smiling this widely in his arms. I just wish…I wish things could have turned out like I saw them.”

I stiffened and inched towards the door. This was not a conversation I wanted to be having. “Things change. Can we go now?”

“Yes, of course.” She tore her eyes from the photo and followed me out of the room.

Because they lived close by, Alice and Jasper didn’t drive to school. The walk only took fifteen minutes but it felt much longer as Alice told me all about their house and how it was perfect for the two of them.

“It’s adorable and I’ve been having so much fun with the decorating. That’s the best thing about having our own house. Usually Esme will decorate with her own taste and while it always looks great, I love adding my own flair in.”

I was praying that we would just get to the house when she veered off onto a walkway up to a small, one story brick house.

“This is it,” she brightly told me. “What do you think?”

“It’s great but not what I would imagine for you.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I’m used to the house in Forks which had to hold six of you and it was so open. This one just looks so different from it.”

“It is different from what we usually go for but Jasper and I thought it would be nice to be a little different here. Come on inside, I can’t wait to show you around!”

We walked into the living room which was cozy. Instead of the lighter tones that had been in the Forks house, Alice had gone with darker earth tones here. The floor was dark wood and the walls were paneled wood. A wrap around couch sat in front of a small stone fireplace and a flat screen TV was above the mantle. There was a bare coffee table in front of the couch and that was it for the living room. The living room led into a kitchen which looked pretty empty from where I stood. Then there was the small hallway Alice was leading me towards. There were only three other rooms in the house, a bathroom, a small guestroom, and a large master bedroom. I was very surprised at how small this place was. It was nicely decorated, though. Alice had decorations hanging all over but she spaced them artfully so that they didn’t seem overbearing.

“What do you think?” Alice asked after I had been given the full tour and we were sitting on the couch.

“It looks great, Alice. I just can’t believe you didn’t get a bigger house.”

“With just the two of us here, we didn’t see any reason to get a two story one with bedrooms that would just be empty.”

“Yeah. When should Jasper get here?”

“Soon. His class let out a few minutes after ours. He should be here within the next five minutes. Would you like some water? That’s the only thing we have, I’m afraid.”

“No, I’m fine.”

The front door finally opened and Jasper walked in, his face emotionless. Even though I had seen him for months before the night of my birthday party, the most vibrant memory I had of Jasper was when he was trying to attack me. I could see the craziness in his eyes, see the strain as he tried to fight off his brothers. Now seeing him, I tried to push away that old memory and remain calm, I didn’t want to make him feel bad if he felt fear rolling off me.

“Bella,” he quietly said once the door was closed behind him.

“Hey, Jasper.”

There was an awkward silence which neither of us seemed inclined to break. Alice, of course, was the one who jumped up and went over to Jasper then dragged him over to the couch. She took his school bag and started going towards the hallway.

“I’ll be right back. One of you please say something.”

Jasper was the braver one, of course. “I assume Alice told you why I wanted to see you?”

“She said you wanted to apologize but really, you don’t need to. I don’t blame you Jasper. I should have been more careful.”

“No, I blame myself for not having more control.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Please, just accept my apology so I can feel marginally better about myself for what happened.”

I huffed but I couldn’t deny Jasper his request. “I forgive you.”

He smiled softly and I hoped that this was the vision of Jasper that I carried with me. This relaxed, content man and not the blood crazed vampire from my memory. “Thank you,” he said.

“Are you two good now?” Alice asked, practically skipping into the room, she was so giddy.

“Yeah, can you take me back to school?” I asked, standing up.

“But you’ve barely been here ten minutes. Can’t you just stay a little longer and catch up?”

“Alice, we’ve been catching up for the past few days.”

“Not really, I’ve been doing basically all of the talking. We don’t really know anything about what you’ve been up to for the past year,” she pointed out.

“I haven’t really done much,” I mumbled.

“Come on,” Alice said, sounding a little annoyed. Good, it wasn’t my job to make her happy. “There has to be something you could tell us.”

I played with the sleeve of my shirt. “There really isn’t much to say. I spent most of my time with Jacob or with Angela and sometimes Jess. Instead of going to prom, I went over to the reservation and spent time with Jacob and his friends.”

Alice sighed. “Of course you would skip out on prom.”

“I went once, I didn’t see the need to go again. My summer was pretty relaxed. I didn’t work much, I was usually out on the reservation.”

“It’s strange,” Alice murmured. “You spent so much time with Jacob and yet when I was looking out for you, I never saw him.”

I shrugged, maybe it was some wolf thing but I didn’t feel the need to mention to Alice and Jasper what the pack was. “That’s basically the only interesting stuff I have to tell you.”

“Wow, hopefully college will be more interesting than senior year.”

“I wouldn’t say senior year was uninteresting per say,” I muttered. “There just isn’t much to report.”

“That makes no sense, Bella,” Alice pointed out.

“It does to me. Can I go back to the dorms now? I want to start working on that article summary for the seminar.”

“It’s a Friday, are you really going to spend all weekend doing homework?”

I stood up and looked over at her. “No but if I do it now, then I don’t have to worry about it tomorrow or Sunday. Now, are you going to walk with me or should I just say bye now?”

She looked mildly insulted. “Like I would allow you to walk back to school by yourself. I know this is a quaint town and everything, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely safe. Plus, no matter where you are, you should not go out by yourself. There are some crazy people out there.”

“You sound like Edward.”

“Well, I am here to look out for you although I won’t be quite as…high strong as Edward was.”

That was a relief. At least I would have some freedom. Although, it really didn’t matter if Alice felt I was doing something dangerous, she had no hold over me. Sure she could follow me but she wouldn’t be able to stop me. That was a cheering thought.

The whole encounter had barely taken an hour. Alice walked me all the way to Hadley even though I assured her that once I was on campus, I would be fine. Neither of us talked much which I was fine with. I think I’d said more than enough for the day.

“I’ll see you Monday,” Alice said as I headed up the steps. She sounded slightly forlorn and when I glanced back, she was frowning, her ocher eyes downcast.

“Goodbye, Alice.”

As I walked inside the dorm building, the one place she couldn’t follow, I couldn’t shake the look on her face. Maybe she had thought that me agreeing to go over to her house was a turning point, that maybe it would push us closer together. What she had to understand was that I needed to reacquaint myself with her slowly. Three days wasn’t enough to fix everything between us no matter what she wanted.

“Hey, Bella. Where were you?” Catie asked when I entered the room. “I was going to see if you wanted to head over to the school store and get some clothes.”

“Oh, sorry. I had to meet with someone and it took a little longer than expected. Do you want to head over now? We have some time before we’re supposed to meet Becky for dinner.”

“Sounds good to me.”

I headed out with my new friend, someone who I was sure would not hurt me as much as those in my past had. It felt good to be starting over. Looking back on my first few days at Middlebury, I felt like I had made a good choice. I was happy here, I had new friends who were fun and nice, interesting classes, and a chance to leave the old Bella behind. No one knew about what had happened last September, no one here saw me at my worst. Even with Alice here, I could leave that part of me behind and just focus on the better parts of me. Hopefully, if I kept up that attitude this year would be amazing and if not…well I could always try transferring and starting over once again.