One More Bloodthirsty Insomniac

First Day Of School

I entered the room and looked around. Twenty-two pairs of human eyes and one pair of vampire eyes met my gaze. Almost all the boys stared at me longingly, and the girls glared. I smirked, then continued walking to the desk where the teacher, Mr. Grant, sat.

"Goodmorning, sir." I flashed him a confident smile. "I'm Clarisse, your new student."

He gawked at me a second, then sat forward and entered the same trance-like state the other woman had been in. My smile got bigger. This was seriously getting cool. Mr. Grant nodded at me. "Of course, Ms. Henderson." He reached for my paper and I handed it to him. He signed it and returned it to me. I stuffed it back in my pocket with my schedule. "You may sit."

I made my way down the aisle and sat by Jasper. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and I smiled politely. This seemed to upset him. His eyes got cold.

"Something wrong?" I whispered. "You look mad."

He sighed. "It's just annoying, I guess. I was finally getting over living with one irrationally calm newborn vampire, and now another one shows up. You guys are hurting my ego."

I laughed under my breath. "It's not without difficulty, trust me." My laughing stopped short, and I frowned as I was reminded of the fierce burning in my throat.

Jasper frowned back at me. "You said at lunch you heard about our family.  From who? Aro?"

I shook my head. "The Volturi never mentioned you. It was after I left, I was wandering around in a forest. A male vampire found me and told me of you, that he was searching for you."

He looked at me curiously. "Did he say why?"

"Same reason as me, I suppose. He wanted to not be a monster."

"He hasn't turned up...Do you know his name?"

"Of course, it's-" My mind went blank. Holy crap, name. I never asked his name!

Jasper's eyes lost all coldness and actually got a bit of humor. "Your emotions are very amusing for a newborn." He teased.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

"Oh, that's my gift. I can sense and change the emotions of people."

I stared a moment. "That's cool. My gift is I can make people believe me, even when what I'm telling them is a complete lie."

"I'll keep that in mind." He smiled. I raised my eyebrows.

"Ms. Henderson?" The teacher called on me for the answer to a question I hadn't been listening to.

"Oh. Um, what?" I asked.

Mr. Grant sighed. "Please pay attention in class."

I nodded, waiting for the blood to rise to my cheeks. Then I remembered it couldn't.

I tried to focus on what Mr. Grant was saying the rest of class, which lasted two periods, dull as it sounded. I could feel Jasper's confused and slightly annoyed looks every five seconds or so. The whole being in control of myself thing seemed to bother him quite a bit. When the bell rang, I stood and began walking to the door when I was interceded by a brown-haired boy with hazel eyes. He was kind of cute. He had his hands in his pockets, and he looked at me shyly.

"Hi," he smiled a little at me, "I'm Dylan."

I smiled back at him. "Clarisse."

"S-so, do you want some help finding your next class?"

"Sure, thanks." I took out the schedule again and looked it over. "I have Math with Mr. Varner."

His face brightened a bit. "Me, too." But he shrugged like it was no big deal. Yeah, he was pretty cute.

"Cool." I shrugged too, smiling. We walked together and he told me about the teachers and students and what they were like. I met eyes with Alice in the hallway and grinned at her, she rolled her eyes.

When we arrived at Math, Dylan went to his seat and I approached Mr. Varner. He didn't even look up. I just handed him my sheet and he signed it, then he sent me to my seat. I saw Rosalie sitting in the very back next to an empty seat, but she wasn't looking very friendly so I went to sit by Dylan. He grinned at me when I sat down, and I smiled warmly back. We talked through the entire class, and I was pretty good at math so when the teacher called on Dylan a couple times to make sure he was listening, I whispered the answer to him and he looked at me gratefully. He was seriously cute. When the bell rang, he wrote down some numbers on a piece of paper and handed it to me shyly. I took it and looked at it, confused. Then he said, "Call me?" I didn't know if I would be able to, but I smiled and said okay. I shoved it in my pocket with my other two papers.

I was beginning to feel like I fit in here.