AN: First of all, I know you hate to hear warnings about M-ratings, but I feel it needs to be done. Not sure where this story may eventually go but preliminary warnings in place for:

Sexual content (LEMONS), cursing, underage drinking, drug use, violence, cutting, rape, and mental health issues.

Not all (or really, none) of these are portrayed in this chapter but they will most likely arise in the future. This starts with fluff, but it will get rather angsty. I understand that characters, as I am portraying them, are very young, but based on my personal experience, they are not too young to act and deal with the repercussions of their actions as I have them do.

That being said, I hope you read and enjoy. This is my first published fanfic in nearly a decade, and I am eager to see what you think,

DISCLAIMER: All recognizable characters and plot lines belong to Stephenie Meyer & co. I just like to play with them.

PROLOGUE:

I hated summer. It's a weird thing for a kid to say, but it was true. For most of my friends, summer meant no school, just sun, fun, and friends. For me, summer meant Forks. And Forks meant no sun (it was always raining), no fun (there was nothing to do), and no friends. I mean, there was Edward Cullen, but he was definitely not my friend.

Edward was just this weird kid I was forced to hang out with because his parents, Carlisle and Esme, were friends with my dad. He had a funny-colored bowl cut, ears too big for his head, and a voice too deep for his tiny body. He was annoying. He was rambunctious. He was always insisting I play games with him when I'd rather be reading my Babysitter's Club books, and the games he insisted on playing were dumb.

If he'd agreed to play Little Mermaid with me it wouldn't have been so bad, but no, he wanted to play some stupid thing about vampires and werewolves. And he always insisted on being the vampire, which meant I had to be the wolf. And there's nothing nice or pretty about pretending to be an overgrown dog. I tried to convince him to play vampires and mermaids once, as a compromise, but he wouldn't hear of it. Something about their "habitats" being "incompatible for interaction." Yeah, he was a total science geek too. He wanted to be an ecologist, whatever that meant.

So anyway, my summers basically stunk, what with nothing to do but stare at the rain or play with him. I tried convincing Renee to let me stay in Phoenix with my friends, but she always bit her lip and said it would hurt Charlie's feelings. And then I would bite my lip because, no matter how much I hated summer, I loved my dad.

Charlie was so cool. He was a police officer and drove a real police car and let me play with the sirens. He taught me how to fish and he always fried up whatever I caught for dinner, even if it was a little too small. Fried fish was my favorite food in the whole world, and it always tasted so much better when you caught it yourself.

One time, he took Edward fishing with us, but we didn't catch anything. The boy couldn't

sit still for five minutes. He kept reeling in his line even though his bobber hadn't moved an inch and then he would recast it with a plunk that scared all the fish away. The other men, Charlie's friends Billy and Harry, gave up and called it a day before it was even lunchtime. I was mad and I refused to play his dumb vampire game when we got home so he knew it.

The next time we went out, without Edward, Billy and Harry complimented me on my patience and said their boys, Jacob and Seth, couldn't sit still either and I felt kinda special that I could. They said I got it from my dad, which was obvious because Renee was worse than Edward if that's possible. She couldn't even live in the same house for more than two years at a time, she was so restless. But when they said it, I could tell that Charlie was proud and I didn't really mind summer so much right then.

So every summer, I flew up to Washington, by myself, and the flight attendants tried to be so nice to me like I was scared and hadn't been doing this my whole life. And every summer, I lost myself in my books to try and pretend I wasn't really stuck in Forks and, when that didn't work, I played stupid games with stupid Edward. And every summer, I went fishing with Charlie and it wasn't quite so bad.

When I was ten though, Renee married Phil. I was a "Junior Bridesmaid" in the wedding, something I think Renee just made up, and I got to wear a really pretty, really expensive white dress, even though everyone knows only the bride gets to wear white. And I walked down the isle behind all the other bridesmaids, last except for my mom, who looked like a Disney princess in her gown. And the crinoline beneath my skirt itched and my tights were all twisted and the shoes pinched my feet, but I felt really special like when I went fishing with Dad. And Mom was so happy, so I was so happy.

Phil was really nice. He was almost like a big brother. He taught me how to play catch and how to bat because he was a baseball player, which was cool, but not as cool as a police officer. He even cooked dinner sometimes, which Renee never did, and we'd all sit down together and eat at the table rather than on TV trays.

There was one time, when he and Renee were first dating, when we got into an argument because he didn't like the top I secretly bought in the Juniors department that showed my whole belly button but Renee said I was allowed to express myself and I explained that I was Posh Spice (because Jackie was blond and got to be Baby and Tiffany was Ginger because she had red hair and Sanya was Scary because she was Pakistani and dark even though she wasn't black and Brittney didn't care who she was but I wasn't athletic enough to be Sporty) and then it was okay so long as I only wore it when we were pretending in the house.

So things were different but it was still alright because Phil was cool and my tenth year went by pretty quick. It was May and all my friends were getting restless for summer and I was starting to dread it when everything changed.

Phil got signed to a team new team. In Florida. And we were moving.

At first, Florida sounded pretty neat. I mean, Florida meant beaches and palm trees and I'd finally get to go to Disney World and meet Ariel even though I knew by that point she wasn't real. But still. I was sad to leave Jackie and Tiffany and Sanya and Brittney behind. I'd moved houses before, and we even lived in California when I was really little, but this was different. It was totally new. It was on the other side of the whole country and I wouldn't know anyone. But I tried not to think about that and just be happy because Phil was happy so Renee was happy so I was happy.

I was scheduled to fly to Forks the weekend after school let out. Renee and Phil were going to finish packing things up and move to our new house in Jacksonville while I was in Washington. And then, at the end of the summer, I was going to board a plane with unnecessarily sympathetic flight attendants and fly longer than I'd ever flown before to a place I'd never seen. And it would be home.

That was the plan.

Then I met Alice Brandon.