[BamaFan121s]

I pulled my car around to the back of the red brick buildings. A candy apple red Ferrari easily turned heads in the sleepy little town of Forks. Parked alone outside an empty, lifeless high school, it was sure to attract the attention of anyone who happened to pass by.
I parked in the rear of Forks High School and walked up to the rear entrance. There was no excessive chattering from a surrounding of students, and no boisterous laughter echoing through the air. The building looked eerily deserted—like it had been closed for years rather than just a few short summer months.
I walked up to the rear door and peered into the small inset glass window. The interior of the building looked still, dimly lit by only the light that filtered in through the scattered windows. I reached down and grasped the metal handle on the door and tugged gently, fully expecting it to be locked, denying my entry. The door didn’t budge. I double checked and tugged again, just a bit harder. With a metallic snap, the handle broke off easily in my hand and the door swung open. Oops. I made a mental note to send an anonymous donation to the school at the beginning of the upcoming year.
I stepped over the threshold and into interior hall. I breathed in deeply, allowing the scents of pencil shavings and chalk dust to assault my senses. I began walking, my shoes echoing slightly on the cheap, dated tile. Expectantly, the hall was completely deserted other than an occasional pieces of paper on the floor serving as reminders of school functions from the previous year.
I glanced down at a midnight blue flyer as I passed with the words “Senior Prom” printed across the top in silver calligraphy writing. I smiled as I thought back to a night when I’d arrived at my own prom against my own will, dressed in an elegant Alice-bought dress and sporting a not so formal cast on my leg. It had been that night that I’d first revealed to Edward my desire to be like him so that we could occupy forever together, as equals.
I continued walking, pausing briefly to run my hands over a nearby locker where the raised number 316 was displayed on a small metal plaque—my old locker. Its neighbor still displayed a mustard yellow flyer announcing the details of the graduation ceremony that had been held a few months prior. I felt a brief pang of pity for the students who’d worn the hideously colored robes as they’d shaken hands with the principal and received their diplomas. I hoped that their graduation night had been less eventful than mine. It was hours before my own ceremony when Victoria’s plan to kill me involving her newly created newborn army had become evident. I’d spent the entire ceremony not able to focus on the words flowing from the mouths of the guest speakers and praying that Jessica Stanley, who’d sat beside me during the commencement, would eventually tire of constantly chattering in my ear as I tried my best to block her out.
As I made my way from one side of the school to another, more and more memories of my human life flooded back into my mind. I stepped into the gymnasium as I passed and picked up a stray basketball that lay by the door. I turned it over in my hands as I thought, feeling it’s raised, bumpy faux leather texture under my fingers as I recalled images from my numerous, torturous gym classes. Poor Mike has been on the receiving end of my lack of athletic prowess and poor coordination in his attempts to be chivalrous. I took the basketball in my hands and sent it flying effortlessly through the air the full length of the gymnasium and turned to leave, hearing a satisfying “swoosh” from the goal on the far end as I stepped back out into the hall.
For a moment I stopped by the room where Edward and I had once shared a lab table in Biology. My fingers traced the contours of once smooth wood, forever misshapen by the crushing force of a certain vampire. A row of covered microscopes that I’d once used to examine the cells of onion roots sat on a table near the door. At the end of the hall, across from a small glass trophy case, sat the lunchroom. I entered it through the double doors, which stood propped open. The tables had all been folded up and pushed against he walls, and the floors shone as a result of a fresh coat of wax, the scent of which hung heavily in the air.
I stood roughly in the spot where I’d sat nervously as a new student on my first day and peered across the room to the spot where the Cullen’s had occupied a table by themselves. This memory was readily available to my mind. It was in this room on that fated first day when my eyes had first met Edward’s. I pictured perfectly the confused and pained look on his face as he’d cast his then intimidated, black stare in my direction. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was in that moment that my fate and future has been sealed.
I crossed the lunchroom to where Edward and I had shared a few lunches together, taking turns grilling each other with random questions hoping to reveal one another’s secrets. I stood reminiscing for what could have been seconds, or minutes, or even longer before finally turning my attention to the tall floor to ceiling windows that lined the nearest wall. I could see above the clouds starting to thin and took that as my cue to leave. I exited the lunchroom and made my way down the sidewalk that led back to both my car and to the main office—the very same sidewalk where Edward had carried me after a fainting incident on blood typing day.
A glance at my watch told me that it was still just before noon. I still had a few hours before I had to be out of the public eye, but I hurried my pace just the same. I still had another stop I wanted to make before I headed home.
A few short minutes after I left the school parking lot, I pulled up in front of Charlie’s house—my old house. The absence of his police cruiser told me that he was either at work, or more probably fishing somewhere with. I pulled into the spot that my old Chevy truck had once occupied, easily found the key hidden on the porch and let myself in. I passed through the kitchen and noted the odor of burnt food lingering slightly in the kitchen, but stronger than that was the smell of fresh oregano, garlic and peppers. I took that as a good sign that he was at least getting some edible meals in my absence, undoubtedly being supplied by Sue.
I topped the stairs and passed the one small bathroom in my house, remembering a night I’d spent on the bathroom floor in agony after a disastrous trip to Port Angeles to catch a movie with Mike and Jacob. I turned the knob of my old room as I approached and the door opened, issuing a protesting creak from the old hinges. Charlie hadn’t changed anything since I’d left, not that I expected him to. I fingered the keys on my old computer and stared at the screen, seeing the ghostly image of various websites I’d poured over telling the history of vampire folklore—very badly I now realized. But still, they’d served their purpose. I remembered endless emails from my erratic mother, begging for me to divulge every detail of my new life here in Forks and chuckled to myself as I thought about the countless attempts by Edward to persuade me to allow him to buy me a newer model PC and a faster modem.