Chapter One- Volleyball
SUMMARY: Alice is trying to find her place again at a school she's been at her whole life, and Bella is trying to forget her past friends and home, and find her place in a new school. When the two girls meet during volleyball tryouts in seventh grade, they slowly begin to trust each other, overcoming the past, and trying to find their way for the future.
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APOV
I walked along the narrow hallway to the first day of volleyball tryouts, annoyed at how my day had been going so far. My best friend and sister Rosalie was so obsessed with her boyfriend Emmett, that she no longer paid any attention to me whatsoever. My other friends Angela and Jeanne were awesome, but they weren't the same as Rose. It was that sisterly bond.
I was excited to finally be going somewhere that I actually fit in- volleyball. For as long as I have been playing, every time I tried out I was laughed at for wanting to be a 4'11" volleyball player. Well, once they saw me play, they stopped laughing. My sister and I had played together during fourth grade, and I had played in 5th and 6th as well. Now in seventh grade, I had a chance to try out for the middle school team.
After I had changed into spandex and a T-shirt, I walked into the gym to assess my competition. As I opened the door I was dismayed to find that we were running laps. Even though it seems weird, I hate running laps in a gym. I was pretty good at it, but something about the perfectly flat ground and non-existent scenery threw me off.
I fell into rhythm with the next person that ran bye, and immediately wished that I hadn't. It was Lauren Mallory, the queen bee-yotch of the school. I gave her a disgusted look and she didn't hesitate to return it. Not wanting to spend more time than absolutely necessary next to her, I began to speed up in hopes of leaving her behind.
As started running next to Erin, a girl that I didn't really know but I knew was nice, a girl across the gym from us caught my eye. She was easily running twice as fast as most of the people here; she had already lapped Lauren three times. I couldn't quite make out her face, but she seemed to be a little bit taller than me, with straight brown hair and bangs that hung slightly over her eyes.
"Okay girls, circle up!" called the coach, breaking my train of thought. She was new this year, and her nametag said Coach Dickey. I was a little upset over the new coach issue, seeing that I would have to prove myself all over again. As a 4'11" 12 year old, people usually saw my height and immediately gave up on me.
As expected, the coach looked me up and down and then shook her head like I had personally offended her. I smiled, relishing the thought of the look on her face when she saw how I could play volleyball.
"Oaky girls, warm up! Lauren and Jessica, you lead!" She called. Oh, so she was one of those people that got their jobs by sucking up to Lauren's parents and promising to give her special privileges and A's in all of her classes. It has happened more times than I care to count, let me tell you. Lauren's mom was president of the PTA, and her dad donated the big bucks to the school. Jessica was just her best friend. Well, she wasn't as bad as Lauren by a half, and mostly she was just stuck with her because their parents were best friends as well.
"ONE TWO THREE" called Lauren indicating that we should begin stretching our arms.
"FOUR FIVE SIX" called everyone else. I zoned out for a minute, spotting the new girls again and trying to see what she was like. I was usually a really good judge of character, and what I saw was heart breaking. She had the most gorgeous cat-like blue eyes that were framed by dark heavily made up lashes and lids. Her face was coated in layers of foundation and cover-up.
She had a curvy but still skinny body that was about the ideal body for girls our age, but I could tell by the way that she held herself that she didn't think so. But it wasn't what she looked like, or what was on the outside, but the second I looked into her eyes, I could tell that on the inside she was broken. I wasn't sure if a grandparent had died or if she missed her friends or if it was just first day of school anxiety, but whatever it was, I wanted to be a friend to her.
Once coach had us doing warm-ups, I purposely positioned myself so that Coach Dickey would assign us as partners, which she did. That's when I started to try to get to know her.
"Hi, I 'm Alice Cullen, what's your name? You're new this year, right?" Trying to slow down when I noticed the confusion in her eyes.
"Yeah, I'm new. I just moved here from Phoenix, Arizona," she said. As she said it I saw a pang of longing in her eyes. So she missed the place or the people that she left behind there? "My name's Bella. Bella Swan." She said it like she was uncertain. I smiled at her and she smiled timidly back. Maybe we could be friends.
"Okay girls, enough dilly dallying, back to work!" said Coach Dickey, looking at me like I had just proved exactly what she thought I would be like. Well, touching moment broken. And we got back to work, Bella looking off into the distance, me wondering what she was seeing.
IMPORTANT, READ AND REVIEW!!!
Hey, so that is the first chapter of my new story, Forgetting Pheonix. The title is kind of lame, so I might change it in the future, but if you have any ideas, let me know! This story is actually based off of how my best friend and me met, and also some of the stuff that we have been through together. If some stuff seems vague, that's because I'm respecting her privacy and mine. Please review, you don't know how much that would mean to us!
