I'm not going to start with once upon a time because that's bullshit. This also isn't a dear diary moment. On these pages, I write the truth as it actually happened.
There was a girl named Bella. Now I know you're expecting the cliché, she was his next door neighbor and crushed on him, her entire life. But that is incorrect. If anything, she couldn't be more oblivious to his existence.
Bella was the second child of Charlie and Renee Swan. Her mother died when she was still a baby. Her father remarried when she was five. No, her stepmother wasn't evil and definitely didn't hate her. They had two kids of their own, making Bella and older sister to a younger brother and sister, Seth and Katie.
Now there was a boy. His name was Edward Cullen. He lived across the street and not next door. His family moved to Santa Barbara when he was six. Prior to that, they lived in Sacramento. California was still California.
Again stop making assumptions. Edward believed girls to have cooties and never spared a second look for Bella. He didn't grow out of that phase until he was eight (he was actually nine, but he denies it). Still, there is no cliché. He didn't crush on her or even talk to her. If he noticed that a girl lived across the street, he never said anything. Instead he preferred to play with his friends from school, so he was rarely at his end of the block anyways.
It honestly isn't even until years later that Edward Cullen realized a girl named Bella Swan existed. By then, it was practically too late. They were heading off to college on opposite coasts.
The signing of the yearbook is where this story begins.