[BamaFan121s]

Would this day every end? I was beginning to have my doubts. I was really beginning to understand the monotony that presented itself with everyday life that my family always complained about. But there was one thing to be thankful for—this was the last day I would have to sit in this particular class. The last time I would have to hear the droning, monotone voice of this professor. This time anyway. This was the last day of the term and our finals had been graded and returned. I’d been looking forward to this day for weeks and now that it had arrived, it seemed like it would last an eternity. Ha! An eternity—I laughed to myself at the irony of that thought. It would have been easier for the professor to dismiss class. Half of the students had not shown up in any case. Instead he chose to seize one last opportunity to inflict torture on us by once again, going over the material from our examinations. It was only too easy to allow my mind to wander to a more preferable location…



The sun shone bright, reflecting off the small bubbling creek before me. The light struck my skin, which in turn filled the small meadow with thousands of tiny dancing rainbows. I myself was still awestruck by the phenomenon on occasion, but my own fascination was nothing compared to that of the small person in front of me. Renesmee, my daughter, was a few feet from me, arms held out, spinning in circles amidst the thousands of prisms shining all around her. Joyous giggles escaped her rosy lips every few moments as her springy, soft brown curls danced about her angelic face.



I closed my eyes, completely euphoric in this, the happiest place I know. I was aware of the slight movement of the brightly colored flowers behind me as another person approached.



The most perfect, velvet smooth voice whispered, just inches from my ear, “I will never get past how amazingly perfect she is.”



And suddenly I was aware of a sharp, stabbing pain in my right side. In a fraction of a second, I whipped my head from right to left and back to the right a dozen times, trying to find the source of the discomfort, only to be greeted by the smiling face of my god-like mate. The second stab of pain pulled me from this happier memory and brought me back to the present.



Jasper. I realized the source of the pain had been a few carefully aimed blows from his elbow to my side—his attempt to pull me from my daze. Easily distracted, I believe was the term I’d become familiar with. I shot him an annoyed look, trying to put as much irritation behind it as I could. His only response was a playful grin back at me. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the professor who was slowly pacing back and forth across the front of the classroom.



As annoyed as I was with Jasper at the moment, I couldn’t deny the overwhelming feeling of calm it gave me to have him at the table next to me. That was due in part to his unnatural ability to manipulate the feelings around him. It was a huge relief to know that he was here, willingly devoted to helping me adjust to a normal way of life. As normal as can be expected for a vampire, in any case.



I was a vampire, as was Jasper, my “brother” as a result of the life I’d willingly and eagerly chosen. It had been at my insistence and his peace of mind that he’d agreed to enroll in this class with me. Actually, it was at the insistence of the two of us that there was at least one member of my family in each of the six classes I’d taken on this term—not as heavy a load as it seems for someone who never sleeps. The preference not viewed as entirely necessary by the entirety of our family.



Although I had adjusted to my new life with unexpected ease and quickness, I was still unsure of my stability as a newborn vampire, as was Jasper. I’d had it so engrained in my head that I would be able to focus on nothing but my burning thirst for blood that it had been an idea more difficult for me to move past than some of my other family members. It was common knowledge within the vampire community that newborns were unpredictable, erratic, and possessed a certain bloodlust that deemed them all but impossible to be reasoned with. I had, in my human life, had the unfortunate experiences of witnessing this first hand. I cringed away from the memory. Although the same situation would not present the same obstacles in present times for me, the thought of the events that had transpired were not pleasant to recall. Jasper’s past experience in dealing with the typical savage ways of newborns made him uneasy and unsure about my abilities to control myself as well.



It actually did more than that—it made him outright overbearing and annoyingly so at times. But still, I would be forever grateful for his dedication in helping me adjust to this new, immortal way of life. However grateful I was for his presence though, it did little to help pass the time on occasions like this where the subject matter of the professor’s lecture became torturously repetitive. It also did not help matters that he was the only member of my family with whom I shared this particular class with and that every second I was separated from Edward felt like an eternity. I sighed internally at the thought.



Before I had the chance to slip into another daydream, I heard a sound that I’d been waiting on for the past few hours—the dismissal of class. For the majority of the class, like me and Jasper, this was the last class of the term, so it was no surprise that the professor’s parting words were barely audible over the excited buzz of the other students as they gathered their things and headed for the door. It was a human emotion I felt completely at one with at the moment. If it were not for Jasper’s patient hand on my shoulder, I may have literally flown from the classroom.



“Geez Bella, I thought that European History was your favorite class,” he teased in his thick southern accent, a playful smirk on his face.



“Well it was the first time I heard it,” I responded, returning his joking smile. My previous annoyance with him was already forgotten, as was customary with him. The newly photographic memory that being a vampire had bestowed upon me definitely had its downside as well. As interesting as I had found the material our class had covered, I still remembered it perfectly from the first time the professor covered it months ago. Actually, that was an understatement, I remember the material, which syllables of each word the professor had stressed during the discussion, that there had been a fly in the corner window on that particular day, that the girl in front of me wore a green shirt, the boy to her right a red cap as well as a dozen other minute details that would have rendered themselves just as mundane the second time they were presented.



We slowly walked out into the muted light of the long, gray stone hallway that led out to campus. We paused briefly at the water fountain outside the classroom, each taking our turn to lower our lips to the cool stream that flowed from the tarnished silver fixture. The action was merely a charade as neither of us really drank anything, but it was a very nonchalant way to pass a few seconds and allow the halls a few precious moments to clear. Packed into a crowded hall was not the most ideal place for one to be when the temperature of your skin was shockingly ice cold…or when the pulse of the blood through their veins was so inviting and warm and beckoning…I shook my head to clear the image and felt a wave of calm wash over me. I immediately shot Jasper an apologetic look, grateful again to have him by my side. I was still within control of myself, easily. I could have easily forced the image from my mind on my own, but he wasn’t willing to take any chances.



Once the crowd had dispersed, Jasper fell into stride beside me as we strode towards the end of the hall. Having conveniently scheduled the majority of my classes at night, it was already nearing darkness as we stepped out into the fresh air of the courtyard. Not that it would have mattered. There was a time that I could not have imagined a place in existence that was as dreary as Forks, Washington. In the short time I’d lived in Forks with my father Charlie and then with the Cullens, I’d come to think of it as the most overcast, dreariest place on Earth. That was before I came to Hanover, New Hampshire to attend Dartmouth. It was only a few weeks before I realized that this town easily rivaled Forks in that aspect.



“So, do you think you managed to do well in all your studies?” Jasper asked.



“Well, you know Alice told me weeks ago what my final grades would be, so that really takes a lot of the speculation out of it, doesn’t it?” I said, a smile playing on my lips at the thought of my favorite sister.



As we neared the far side of the courtyard, the edge of the nearby forest came into sight. The vegetation was different from the mossy, thick green that I had grown accustomed to in Forks, but the shielding cover of the trees was just as effective. We would travel home today by foot, which really wasn’t so bad when you were a vampire.



“Hey Jasper, I’ll race you home,” I challenged as we approached the edge of the trees.



“You’re on, little sister,” he welcomed the challenge.