Hello, friends! Here it is, the first chapter to Anna Begins - a sequel/companion to my story Still Breathing. If you have read SB and are here to continue to Paul's story: Welcome back! Thank you so much for sticking around! If you're new and haven't read SB: Welcome! I'm not sure how much of the dynamic between Paul, Felicity, and Jacob will be evident right away (or how much of SB's plot will have to do with this one...), but if you're super not interested in reading SB first I hope you enjoy finding your way with these characters here! Above everything, thank you for taking the time at all to check out one of my stories.

I'll put a little more info in the ending A/N (mostly about when I'll update), but for now I hope you enjoy the first chapter of Anna Begins! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. (That disclaimer stands for the whole story. I refuse to type that every time I update.)


Chapter One

Anna

I'd always liked the quiet, rainy town of Forks. It was the perfect place for my grandparents to spend their retirement, and visiting every Christmas was basically a winter wonderland. So moving there a couple of months after Grandma died to be close to Grandpa wasn't exactly a hardship.

I mean, switching schools more than halfway through my senior year sucked. Transferring and making sure all my credits ended up in order was a bit stressful. But aside from that, it wasn't like I was teeming with friends that would miss me. I'd simply go from being a loner in Colorado to being a loner in Washington.

My younger brother Alex wasn't exactly thrilled at the move, since he did have friends who he'd miss, but was trying to be as positive as possible as we carted all our belongings into our new apartment. "At least there's actually room for your bookshelves here, Annie," he said to me as he set another box full of books on the floor of my room. He was right—our last apartment had been a little more than half the size of this one, and the wall space in my room was so scarce I'd had to stack my books in my closet in lieu of putting up my two tall bookshelves.

"I'm assuming that means you're volunteering to put them together for me?" I asked teasingly.

Alex smiled. "Only if you organize all the chords and shit in my room after I hook up my TV."

I pretended to consider it for a moment; both he and I knew I'd say yes, just like it wasn't actually a question of whether or not he'd help me with my shelves. "I guess I can do that. You know, if I'm not too busy."

He laughed. "Try to work me into your schedule." Then he left the room to go grab more boxes from the moving truck.

As I followed the direction he went, my mom called me into her new bedroom. I veered to the right and into the room she'd be sharing with Dad. The mattress and box-spring were leaned against the far wall, boxes all over the rest of the floor. Mom was going through them, trying to get something akin to organized. She looked up when I entered the room. "Annie, baby, can you go get something for us to eat? It's such a small town, I'm sure there's something within walking distance." Our little car was still packed to the brim—we were focusing on emptying the moving truck first so we didn't have to rent that out for another full day.

"Sure," I said, glad for the excuse to take a break from carrying and sorting boxes. "Any preferences?"

Mom shook her head, digging some money out of her pocket and walking it over to me. "Whatever you can find should be alright. I'm sure your brother and father are hungry enough to eat a horse by this point." She smiled, nudging me a little. "And you know you need to eat something."

My mother was terribly sensitive to the fact that I wasn't a big eater. Not that I didn't enjoy food—I just didn't have an especially hardy appetite. Which sometimes led to me forgetting to eat. Which in turn worried Mom, causing her to keep a mind to my eating habits on a regular basis. I'd decided a while ago not to let it bother me; it wasn't like I didn't want to eat. Getting reminders to do so wasn't the worst thing that could happen.

I nodded. "Yeah, I'm actually hungry." And that was the truth—moving was hard work. "I'll be back soon."

On my way out of the building, I passed a pretty girl with wavy hair. I was all prepared to keep my head down and maintain zero eye contact, but before I could get to the stairs she called, "Hey! Excuse me?" Her voice was kind but insistent. I couldn't ignore it without seeming rude.

So I paused in my tracks and half turned to face her. "Yes?"

She smiled, stepping closer to me with her hand extended. "I'm new here, so I haven't had a chance to meet all the neighbors just yet. I'm Felicity."

I gave a small, close-mouthed smile back and shook her hand. "I'm new too. My family is moving in as we speak, actually. I'm Anna."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Well then, welcome. Do you need any help? I have a roommate and a boyfriend, both of which would be great help at carrying up boxes."

If Alex were the one here having this conversation, he would have said yes. He'd have accepted the offer gratefully and without a second thought. I, on the other hand, was socially inept and immediately shook my head before her words even processed. "Thanks, but we're okay."

She bit her lip, clearly uncomfortable with my quick refusal.

Now I felt bad. This Felicity girl was only trying to be nice. She didn't deserve to deal with my awkwardness. "Um…" I mumbled, trying to think of how to salvage this exchange. "I'm on my way to get food. Do you know any good places nearby?"

Felicity nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, yes! If you want really close, there's a pizza place a couple blocks away. They have some of the best breadsticks I've ever eaten in my life. And if you go into town, there's a Chinese restaurant close to the grocery store—that's where I work, so I go to the restaurant often. So good. Other than that, there's not much else other than a McDonald's on the other side of town. Unless you want to go onto the reservation, but you said nearby…and while the rez is literally right there, there's quite a bit of trees to go through before you'd get to their businesses."

She stopped talking and looked at me expectantly. I didn't know how to respond to that overload of information, so I just blinked at her for a moment. Then I said, "Okay. Thank you!" My feet began moving, carrying me down the hall and to the stairs without my permission. That was not the way to end a conversation. That wasn't even really a conversation at all. It was me being an idiot while kind Felicity tried to be a good neighbor.

I'd made a fool of myself. What a shock.

Outside and walking in the direction I hoped took me toward that pizza place she'd mentioned, I tried to shake off the interaction. Why did it matter if I couldn't even handle an innocent social interaction? I'd made it without friends in Colorado, and I could make it without friends here. So when Felicity inevitably avoided me and told all her friends about how weird I was, which would likely spread all around this tiny town, I'd be fine. I was okay with being alone.


Paul

The front door opening snapped me out of the power nap I'd been taking on our couch. Felicity shut the door behind her, then froze. "Paul," she said. "It looks great!"

I grinned, sitting up and glancing around the room. We'd moved into this apartment barely a week ago, and Felicity was trying hard to make it homely. So while she was gone today, I took the liberty of helping out—by putting up some pictures in the living room. There were some of everyone: Felicity and Jake, me and Felicity, Kai, Emily, the rest of our pack of friends. It wasn't much, but I'd wanted to at least do a little something.

"Picked out the frames myself," I bragged.

"Wow," she said, walking closer to study the basic metal frames. "How artistic."

"Exactly what I was going for."

She smiled. "Thank you, Paulie."

I winked back at her. "Anytime, doll."

"So," she said, flopping down on the other end of the couch, "turns out we aren't the only newbies here."

"Cool," I said, not really caring as I made my way to the kitchen. A power nap was nothing if it wasn't followed by a power snack.

"It's a family. I met the girl, but I don't know how many others there are."

I looked at her over the breakfast bar. "Is there any particular reason you're telling me this? She didn't threaten you or anything, right? We don't need to be on guard?"

Felicity rolled her eyes. "No, of course not."

"Because I don't care, I'm not afraid to get in someone's face if they're being an ass to you. I'm not afraid of some girl." I smiled, pouring most of a box of cereal into a large bowl. "It's been a hot minute since I've gotten to tell someone off."

"You're so dramatic." She sighed. "I just met her in the hallway and thought I'd make conversation."

I grabbed a spoon from the drawer. "Make conversation with me or her?"

"Well, her first. And now you."

A gasp left my mouth as I sat back down on the couch with her, huge bowl of cereal in my hands. "I thought I was your first! And now I'm replaced by some random new girl? That's cold, doll."

"You're impossible," she said, glaring at me.

I shrugged, bringing a spoonful to my lips. "You love me anyway."

"You—" she started to say, but then her dearest love and imprint and blah blah blah mushy shit walked in the door. A grin took over her face—which was good, the girl was smiling more and more often lately—and she stood to give him a hug. Those two were apparently progressing their relationship in baby steps. The fact that they weren't at least up to making out confounded me. I knew they'd kissed; the entire pack knew, partly because we saw it happen at the bonfire and partly because Jake's thoughts had a tendency to trail to the memory of it. So why didn't they make it a regular thing? If I were in Jake's shoes…

Well. Whatever. I wasn't. I instead got to be Felicity's best friend, something I was more than okay with. I'd been something of a shit before I started shifting, and now that I had good friends—friends that were practically family—I wanted nothing more than to be better for them. I may act like an ass, but I had their backs. I could be fucking supportive, thank you very much. And so even though Jake and Felicity and their snail's pace relationship made no sense to me, I wouldn't give them a hard time about it…much.

"Whoa, there," I said in between bites of cereal. "Innocent eyes are present, you two. Get a room."

Felicity laughed, but Jake narrowed his eyes at me. "Innocent isn't a word anyone would use to describe you."

I grinned. He wasn't wrong. Not that I'd been living up to that particular reputation lately. "Glad to see you too, man."

Now Jake smiled. Before Felicity had come along and he'd imprinted, I hadn't liked the little punk. His previous obsession with a certain leechlover made it hard to respect him. But in the past couple of months that'd been flipped on its head. Felicity was here, Bella Swan was nowhere to be found, and Jake and I were actually friends.

"I was just telling Paul that there's more new people moving in. A family." Felicity sat back down on the couch.

Jake took the chair, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he focused on Felicity and what she had to say. It was like he was watching someone announce winning lottery numbers—like it was seriously fucking important and he was in awe. "Oh yeah, I saw the moving truck in the lot."

Felicity nodded. "I don't know how many people will move in, but there's definitely at least a girl. Around our age."

His head tilted to the side for a second as he considered her words. Clearly he was having trouble figuring out why his imprint was so enthused about this news. Glad I wasn't the only one. But then he smiled. "You going to make a new friend?"

She smiled back. "Maybe."

"Wait," I said, leaning forward and placing my now empty bowl on the coffee table. "You want to make another friend? Why would you want to do that when you have me? How could you possibly need more?"

She scoffed. "You're not exactly feminine, Paul."

I leaned back in my seat, aghast. "So? I'm still an amazing fucking friend."

Her lips twitched. "And modest."

"Clearly."

"But it's not about how good of a friend you are." She rolled her eyes. "I just think it'd be cool to have a friend who's a girl."

My brows arched. "Emily?"

She frowned. "Emily's great…but someone who's not Emily."

"Kim?"

Felicity crossed her arms over her chest. "Not Kim, either. It's nothing against them—they're super nice and I'll still spend time with them. But I don't think it'd be terrible to have another friend. One that I make myself instead of one that's built into the pack."

Jacob reached out, resting his hand on her knee. "Are we pressuring you too much with pack stuff?"

She shook her head, indignant. "I'm okay with pack stuff. The pack isn't the problem. I just want to make a friend."

I raised my hand. "And am I chopped liver?"

Jacob glared at me. "Would you stop giving her a hard time?"

"It's an honest question!" I defended myself. "She made friends with me not too long ago. That wasn't entirely pack related."

"I don't see why it has to be such a big deal," Felicity said. "I met one of our new neighbors in the hall earlier, and now I think it'd be cool to try to be friends with her. It's not like I've been out scouring the streets for replacement friends."

I chuckled. "Scouring?"

She smiled. "If you're going to be dramatic, so am I."

"Touche, doll."

"So," Jacob said, leading us out of that dead end of a conversation, "was she nice?"

She nodded. "Yes, but she seemed kind of…shy? I don't know. It was weird. Not in a bad way or anything. I think I may have made her uncomfortable."

"Stranger danger," I said. "You're terrifying."

Felicity snickered. "I'm sure that was it."

"Well, try to invite her over or something if you talk to her again," Jake suggested.

"Yeah," I said, smirking. "We've got to sign off on your new friend. Isn't that best friend code? Oldest must approve newest or some shit like that?"

Felicity laughed, tossing a throw pillow at my face. "You're so annoying."

I swatted her with the pillow. "I think the word you're looking for is attractive. Or maybe irresistible? Possibly even god-like? Really, the choice is yours; any of those would be fitting."

She scoffed. "Maybe I'll get lucky and my replacement BFF will be less delusional."

Grabbing my bowl and heading into the kitchen, I tipped my head back and laughed. "Good luck replacing me, doll. No way you're shaking me anytime soon."


So...what do y'all think? Please leave a review letting me know your thoughts!

As for when I'll update: as of right now I'm just going to say that I'll update when I can. I'm finishing up a semester of school right now, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to write. Since I only started writing this story last week (unlike my other new story, The Lucky One, which I started a WHILE ago and therefore have a few chapters ready to post during this busy end-of-semester time), I haven't had the chance to get super ahead on writing. I do have chapter two started, and I HOPE to update once a week...but I don't want to promise just yet. We shall see. That said, please know that I'll be working on this story as much as I can so I don't leave y'all hanging - and if I ever DO take a good while to update, rest assured that I will not abandon Anna Begins. Sometimes I just need time.

And that's it for now! Thank you so much for checking out my story, and I hope you enjoyed this first chapter!