AN: I know that I have a gabillion fanfictions already, but I couldn't hold this one in. It's already been written in my mind for nearly a year and has gone through serious plot changes I don't know how many times. If I don't set the story in stone, I never will. And it will bug me till the day that I die. So please, read, enjoy, and whatever you do, don't freak about about things you don't expect, like people being in love with someone that they don't like in the books, I promise things will change throughout the story to something that you're more familiar with. It's just part of the plot.
Enjoy, and please review.
The ring in my pocket felt like it weighed one thousand pounds. My heart was pounding as if I had drank twenty Rockstars, ten Monsters, and fifteen Full Throttles in one sitting, and had somehow survived. My stomach was turning, not because of the energy drinks, because I really hadn't drank all of them, but because of the nerves.
I still don't know exactly when I fell in love with Bella. I was too busy trying to figure out this mysterious girl to notice my own mysterious feelings for her. But somehow in the mix, Bella had won my heart, and she did it without even trying.
Not many high school seniors were ready to propose to their girlfriends. But there I was, at eighteen years of age, waiting for Bella to walk through the door, ready to humble myself enough to bow down, to kneel onto one knee before her. I would go to such lengths as to beg her to marry me. I was ready to ask the question. I just hoped that, after everything that Bella had gone through, she would be ready to accept.
Bella had done so much for me. Over the past three months, she taught me more than I had learned in my entire life. And this was the important stuff. The stuff that is actually useful later in life. The kind of lessons that you can't learn in a classroom. What Bella showed me was the kind of things that you read about it romance novels. The ones where you don't know what you're reading until after you've experienced it for yourself. Never again will I underestimate a romance novel.
Bella had taught me about respect, hopes, dreams, and appreciation. But most of all, I was taught something that I never thought I would learn from someone like Bella Swan: I learned what it meant to truly love someone. And I learned what being loved felt like. And I was glad that I had been given the chance to show Bella the same thing.
I had drank, partied, and slept my way to a reputation that was shattered the instant that I fell in love with Bella. I had changed so completely since getting to know her. Within three months, Bella transformed me into someone unrecognizable. I had gone from a guy who dated for sex to someone who looked at a girl with respect. Bella was my first and only kryptonite.
I had done more for Bella than I ever had anyone else. I actually wanted to help her, wanted to open her eyes to how much better things were than she thought. Instead of telling her what she wanted to hear in order to get in bed with her, I told her what I knew was true, which, even though they were good things, she didn't exactly want to hear. She was the only girl that I never lied to, the only girl that I sent flowers to on Valentine's day, the only girl who made me wish that I could take back the past three and a half years of recklessness. And she was definitely the only girl who I had ever considered marrying.
While I may not have realized exactly when it was that I had given my heart to Bella, I do know that it was definitely before I even learned her secrets, the secrets that kept her away from me as long as they had. Even before I knew why she wanted to avoid serious relationships, I knew that she deserved better.
I just never realized how much it would take for her to see that.
Most of the population of Forks grew up together, but of course there are the few that move here in the middle of secondary education. Like Bella Swan. And Alice Brandon. But Bella had more of a reputation. Alice was just Bella's tag-along.
Bella Swan had only moved to Forks sophomore year, but I still knew a lot about her.
Her father was a decorated police officer in Los Angeles, her mother a remarried kindergarten teacher in Phoenix. She had lived with her mother and step-father, James, until she was ten. Then she moved to LA with her dad until the end of her freshman year. Ever since her sophomore year, she lived with her uncle, Laurent, here in the small town of Forks, Washington.
She had all of two friends, Alice Brandon, and Jasper Hale. Alice had become her friend when she, too, moved to Forks from out of town. Jasper became friends with the two of them afterward due to, complications, for lack of a better word.
There are quite a few pervs in the student body of Forks High School. In a town with pretty much nothing to do, sex crosses guys' minds a lot. On Alice's first day, a bunch of guys, one of whom was Jasper, were harassing her. Bella didn't take that too well and did something that none of us had seen before. She beat them up senseless. Sure, she and all of the guys involved were suspended for a week, but when she came back, everyone had a new respect for Bella. Especially everyone with a Y chromosome. Jasper took a special kind of appreciation and soon, after apologies were exchanged, befriended her. Everyone respected Bella enough to make sure that she didn't want to beat them up, but they didn't want to get close enough for her to even get the chance.
Her lack of friends was understandable. She was really down-to-earth and blunt about everything. A little too frank. Ready to point out everyone's flaws. She would give you a reality check the first chance that she got. But the three of them were inseparable. Especially the two girls.
And about the ass-kicking. I knew for a fact that her aunt, Victoria, worked for a movie stunt coordinator. You know, the guys that make the fight scenes in movies look good. When she first came to Forks, she went running to her aunt asking for defense lessons. No one knew why, though. Except Alice. That was when I first realized that something might be wrong with her, but her constant "I don't care" attitude told me that I was just being dramatic. I was being slightly concerned over a still fairly-new student.
It wasn't until the second semester of our Senior year that I knew what made her so different. It was more than just angst. It was more than just paranoia. And it was definitely more than just self-righteousness. Early on I knew that something had happened to her. Maybe more than just one thing. But whatever it was, she deserved better. She deserved more than what she was letting herself have. More than what the world was giving her.
Some people avoid things because it was drilled into them: "Don't smoke because it'll give you lung cancer."
Some people avoid things because of experiences: "Don't run down the stairs because you broke your leg last time."
Bella avoided love for both reasons.
I thought that I knew why Bella avoided dating: Her experiences had drilled into her that all men were insignificant assholes.
But I learned that there was WAY more to it. More than just a hatred of anything with a penis. It was the philosophy of her life. The idea that told her heartbreak was inevitable and there's nothing to gain from it anyway. So why even try? Why even give yourself the option of getting hurt one more time? Or worse?
Over the course of a semester, I grew to respect Bella, not just because she would kick my ass if I didn't, but because she deserved it. I learned so much more about respect from her than I ever did from my parents. EVER. Which was surprising when you thought about how respectable my parents were. The head of the ER in the only hospital in town, and his caring wife, willing to adopt two kids out of foster care, me and my brother, Emmett.
I had learned so much more about, life, fear, passion. What it meant to be afraid of something happening over and over again no matter how far you ran away. What it meant to live without anyone helping you, being able to do things on your own. What it meant to have such strong desires in something other than sex. How to set goals that would actually be productive, with or without a companion.
I'd known, even before getting to know Bella, that what I had been doing was wrong, all of the womanizing and parties and alcohol. What Bella had done was give me the reality check that had helped me step away from that. Bella taught me so much more about love, even without believing in it. Her logic never failed to amaze me. She just never saw how her logic failed her. How much she was the one hurting herself. Letting her past follow her around like some lost puppy.
Of course, Bella Swan, the girl who vowed never to fall in love, would be the one girl that I would fall in love with. The only girl that, if I was lucky enough to persuade her to date me, I would NEVER cheat on. The only girl that made me break down and cry every time she denied me. The only girl that I had to earn trust from. The only girl who I wanted to trust me. The only girl that I ever wanted to love.
She haunted my dreams, taunting me. Not with her body, like my dreams before might have, but with her soul. Her immortal ideas and passions for her future. The way she held herself with confidence and independence. She didn't need a man, but I wanted to be hers anyway. My nightmares consisted of the fear in her eyes, the worries that I would do to her what every man of her past had done. My darkest dreams revolved around me hurting her more than any man ever had.
The more I got to know her, I saw that it wasn't just determination in her eyes. It was a confidence fueled by hate, a determination to get away from anything that could hurt her. Her independence was a shield. She didn't need anybody to help her because she didn't want anybody to help. And the closer I got with her, the more I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly to me. I just wanted to lift the weight of the world off of her shoulders. I loved her more than anything in the world.
And she would never love me back.
But you know what they say...
"Never say never."
AN: It will be a while before we get to the point at which the preface begins, but I wanted it to catch your attention right away, so be patient. A lot of amazing things will happen before this point. Please review. Leave a comment good or bad, I don't care.
