Renewal [Emmett Cullen] (1)

[41- College]

"El, it's 8:15," Emmett said gently. "We need to leave soon." Even though I wasn't tired, it was so hard to leave, wrapped up in the fluffy blankets.

The day before, Alice had given me another lavish gift, a Michael Kors backpack, the small, unpractical kind. It wasn't even big enough to fit the 15 inch MacBook Pro she had given me a week prior.

It was a moderately chilly September morning. I would have been just as comfortable wearing shorts and a t-shirt but to blend in, I dressed snugly in one of Emmett's hoodies with my favorite jeans.

"I need to teach you how to use your wardrobe!" Alice tsked when we left the house. We split up into our cars.

"Maybe we should have picked a bigger car?" I laminated.

After parking the car on a side street adjacent to the campus, Alice ran through our story. "If anyone asks where you're from, tell them New York, it's easy to move the conversation from there. If someone recognises you, which is highly unlikely, call anyone of us and we can handle it. Don't draw attention to yourself. Don't talk unless spoken to. Guys will try to ask you out, just remind them you have a boy-"

"Fiancé actually. And I will beat them up if necessary!" Emmett winked.

"Don't worry about it El," Jasper reassured me, a wave of calmness overpowered my anxiety, "You are already doing much better than we did."

We received our schedules from a perky brunette in a pop up gazebo. She gawked when she saw all 4 of us approach, stumbling through her words as she attempted to show the map of the campus.

"Alright see you guys later," I said, reluctantly letting go of Emmett's hand.

He smiled, then kissed the top of my head, "Have fun El."

I headed to my first class of the day, 'Introduction to the digital world'. All of our classes were in different parts of the campus. Jasper was taking a philosophy course. Alice was doing international business, I would have thought she wanted to do design, but she wanted to expand her clothing design business overseas. Emmett was taking an engineering course, he never really had one particular interest, chosing what he liked at that moment.

I was one of the first to arrive but the lecture theatre was quickly filling up as students trickled in from orientation. I grabbed a seat at the back, hopefully no one would sit here. Unfortunately, a girl walked to the empty seat next to me. Her scent drifted with the flow of hot air from the vent. It hit me like a wrecking ball, like a battering ram. I felt the dry ache in my throat, the hollow yearn in my stomach, the automatic tightening of my muscles, the excess flow of venom in my mouth.

She had the sweetest blood I'd smelled in my short vampire existence. Thirst burned through my throat like fire. My mouth was baked and desiccated. The fresh flow of venom did nothing to dispel that sensation. My stomach twisted with the hunger that was an echo of the thirst. My muscles coiled to spring. Not a full second had passed. She was still taking the same step that had put her downwind from me.

As her arm touched the chair, her eyes slid toward me. Her glance met mine, and I saw myself reflected in the mirror of her eyes.

My hand gripped under the edge of the table as I tried to hold myself in my chair. The wood was not up to the task. My hand crushed through the strut and came away with a palmful of splintered pulp, leaving the shape of my fingers carved into the remaining wood.
I forgot my own strength, quickly pulverized the edges of the shape with my fingertips, leaving nothing but a ragged hole and a pile of shavings on the floor, which I scattered with my foot.

I knew that Emmett would forgive me for this horrible act that I potentially would do if I couldn't control my thirst. He loved me and thought I was better than I was.

The scent of her blood bloomed in an inexorable cloud around me. I stopped the flow of air through my lungs; the relief was instantaneous, but
incomplete. I still had the memory of the scent in my head, the taste of it on the back of my tongue. It was an uncomfortable feeling, not breathing. My body did not need oxygen, but it went against my instincts. I relied on scent more than my other senses in times of stress. It led the way in the hunt, it was the first warning in case of danger. I did not often came across something as dangerous as I was, but self-preservation was just as strong in my kind as it was in the average human. The urge to kill was uncomfortable, but manageable. Even though I wanted to sink my teeth through that fine, thin, see-through skin to the hot, wet, pulsing blood, I tried to resist. I wouldn't be able to resist even that for long. But perhaps I could resist for one and a half long hours. Enough time to get out of this room full of witnesses, witnesses that maybe didn't have to witness anything out of the ordinary. If I could resist. I had to believe I could do it. To prove Emmett right. To prove my family right.