Alice's expression turned slightly downcast as she nodded.

"I understand, next week then, right?" Alice asked, her voice colored with hope.

Alex nodded, a smile on his face as he answered.

"Of course, Alice. We're friends, and I don't like lying to my friends," Alex said as he nodded his head towards Alice.

Turning towards the rest of his table, Alex said.

"Well then, I'll have to be going now. See you guys next week!"

Alex waved his hand goodbye and started heading back toward Bellas's table.

Emmet, Jasper, Edythe, and Alice gave their goodbyes as well, with only Rosalie staying silent throughout.

As he was going farther away, Alex's super hearing did its work as intended as he heard Rosalie talk in what he thought was the vampire speech shown in the movies.

"Why are we associating with a human?" Rosalie said, her brows furrowed as she looked at the others at the table.

"Human? From the fact that Alice can't seem to see him in any of her visions, then I seriously doubt that he is human," Edythe said towards Rosalie, her voice equally cold as Rosalie's.

"That's right. You and Edward can't hear his thoughts either, but you also can't hear his sister's thoughts, but Alice said she can see Bella in her visions," Jasper said as he nodded in the direction of Bella.

"That's true," Emmet said; his voice sounded much more severe than Alex thought he would ever hear him be.

Alice then spoke for the first time since the conversation had started.

"He has done nothing strange since he arrived here. We aren't even sure if he isn't human or if it's just the evolved form of the gift his sister has." Alice said, her voice just as serious as the others, though it still carried a somewhat soft tone, or at least Alex thought so.

'Being able to escape Alice's visions is both a boon and a danger. It means that she cannot gather information about me from the future or predict my actions, but that also means that I'm abnormal. No regular human should be able to escape her vision. However, she shouldn't be able to see Bella in her visions either if she's around me. I wonder...' Alex thought as he arrived at Bella's table.

"Hey guys!" Alex said as he sat down on his usual seat next to Bella.

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"Hey Alex, what's up," Mike said from the other side of the table.

The others also greeted Alex, though they didn't talk to him much. They had learned that Alex didn't like to talk much over the last week.

'It's not that I don't want to talk. The gossip you guys talk about isn't interesting or something I care about. Why should I care what Cassey's boyfriend did to her?' Alex thought as he shook his head lightly.

'It seems like the conversation over there has also ended,' Alex thought as he looked at the Cullen table from the corner of his eye.

'Either way, it's going to come out into the open sooner or later. I just need to build a better relationship with them so that nothing out of the ordinary, like me getting exposed to the Volturi, happens, even if the chances are so low. I don't want to take any risks, ' Alex thought.

"So what did Alice talk to you about Alex?" Jessica, the greatest gossiper of humankind, asked Alex.

'Ahh, and here I thought I had escaped her notice. The godly gossiper truly is unbeatable,' Alex thought to himself as he turned to face the young woman.

"Nothing much. We became friends during art class, and she asked if I wanted to sit with them for lunch. But I didn't want to just leave you guys randomly, so I told her we could sit together next week." Alex explained what had happened, hoping to God that he wouldn't hear some random rumors going around school next week.

'It would be amazing if the rumors didn't start today,' Alex thought as he remembered how fast gossip would spread around the school.

'Yeah, right. I'm telling Jessica some random gossip is going to start rampaging around. After all, in high school, once someone knows something, it will spread like wildfire, and almost everyone saw me go and talk to them at the table. It's guaranteed two hours max before I hear them talk about it in the halls, ' Alex thought, releasing a small sigh as he tried not to think about it anymore.

"Oh, it seems like they can talk to someone else, huh? I thought they were so caught up in themselves that everyone else was simply bugs in front of their eyes," Jessica said as she turned to continue her chat with Angela.

"You shouldn't say that, Jess," Angela said softly. However, Jessica just rolled her eyes and continued her conversation.

'Ah, dear Jess, have you perhaps ever tried to be friends with them and not just ask them out on a date? Even then, you decided to pick Edward, the hardest one to talk to. If you had talked to Alice, I'm sure she would have accepted you as her friend easily,' Alex thought as he drummed his fingers on the table while he listened to the others talk around the table.

Lunch ended as soon as the students got up and headed toward their classes.

Alex stood seated momentarily as he watched the students walk out of the cafeteria.

"You coming, Alex?" Mike said as he got up from the table.

"Yeah," Alex said as he got up.

Alex looked at the Cullens, who were now leaving the hall as well. They all went to the trash can and threw everything they had gotten for lunch in it.

'Isn't that way too conspicuous? Are you even trying to hide at this point if you do that? No one will think you're a vampire, but they will think you guys sure are bad mannared bastards for wasting food every day.' Alex thought as he shook his head and followed Mike.

____________________________________________________________________________

I decided to do triple upload because of all the support I've received.

If you want to read ten chapters ahead and support me further, then check out my Patreon at:

Patreon.com/WhiteAuthor

The goal for the extra chapter is still 300 powerstones.

It's midnight, so I'm going to log off for the day; see you guys tomorrow!

Once again, thanks for reading <3

-WhiteAuthor