Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I can't thank her enough for giving me a romance to obsess over that is not set during the Napoleonic era.

Chapter 1, in which Edward Cullen insults Bella Swan

Forks High Dance Committee had done their best with the gym. Maroon and gold balloons everywhere (go Spartans!), glittery streamers, a concession stand with soft drinks and nachos…there was even a taco truck parked outside, though I would be very suspicious of any tacos this far out of Seattle. Or San Diego.

Emmett and I were lounging on the bleachers, taking it all in. It was Saturday night, Homecoming, and Emmett's team had gone down in flames. Unsurprisingly. Emmett had carried himself well, so he seemed resigned but not too down about it. We hashed out the game a bit, then Emmett asked me, all studiedly casual, "So, have you seen the new girl?"

"Of course I've seen her. I have two classes with her."

"Not bad, huh?"

Cue eye-roll.

"You too, Emmett? Is she all anyone can talk about in this piss-ant town?"

"Dude, fresh blood. You should ask her to dance."

"What?" Not freaking likely.

"Come on, bro. We've been here for months. When are you gonna settle in? You don't even give these girls the time of day, and I bet you could have your pick. You're a good-looking guy. If I were you I'd totally tap that."

"God, Emmett, please shut up." I wondered what, precisely, that expression meant. Was it a reference to maple syrup production or simply a more polite cousin of "hit that"?

"Look, man, she's right over there." He pointed with his chin a few rows down the bleachers we were sprawled on. "She's cute."

I was perfectly aware of where she was in the room at any given moment, but I followed his gaze. "She's all right," I shrugged.

"Edward," he barked. "Bella Swan is a babe."

I snorted. Wanting him off my back and myself out of this conversation, I twisted her name into a joke. "Swan? More like ugly duckling. It's gonna take a lot more to get me on the dance floor."

"OK, OK, I'm outta here. Catch you later." He sauntered off, in search of Rosalie no doubt. As soon as he was gone my eyes wandered back to Bella…whose dark eyes were locked on my face. She was sitting alone in the bottom row, looking back at me over one shoulder. My breath caught. How loudly had I spoken? I didn't see how she possibly could have heard me, she was too far away. I stared back at her, frozen, but instead of looking away like a normal person she held my gaze for a lingering moment.

Finally she dropped her eyes, stood up, and strolled over to a cluster of girls: Jessica Stanley, Angela Weber, and a couple others. I could see the others lean in towards her: she was speaking to them animatedly…but not angrily. It looked like she was telling them a joke. She must not have heard me. Then Jessica shrieked, clapped a hand over her mouth, and shot a look at me. I blanched. Holy crap, she must have heard me. Crap, crap, crapety-crap. I hadn't meant anything by it… I had just been trying to shut Emmett up. Mortified by my own bad manners, I hoisted myself up and went off in search of Jasper's blond head.

I didn't locate him, so I bought myself a bottle of Coke at the concession booth and leaned myself up against the wall at one end of the gym, rhythmically banging the back of my head against the wall. I wondered how long my siblings were going to force me to suffer through this debacle of a school dance...We should have taken two cars, but instead we had all crammed into the Volvo so now there was no way I could leave.

My eyes roved the floor in search of Jasper, but landed instead on Jessica Stanley, who was again shrieking, this time apparently in reaction to the opening beats of a Justin Timberlake song. She and Angela were dragging a protesting Bella Swan out onto the floor. Angela whispered something in Bella's ear that made her smile, and she followed them out to the middle of the floor to dance with a cluster of girls that included skanky Lauren Mallory.

I watched them dance and once again felt there were worlds separating Bella from the other girls. Jessica, all cleavage and sparkly hair clips, was frantically pronging up and down in time to the music and raking her eyes all over the room as if in search of someone, while Lauren wagged her ass in the most vulgar way possible and looked nowhere in particular, assuming all eyes in the room were on her. Poor gangly Angela did a female version of the awkward white boy shuffle, eyes on the floor or smiling shyly at her friends. My eyes were magnetically drawn back to Bella and as I swigged my Coke I tried to put my finger on what I liked about her dancing. She wasn't bouncing, she wasn't shuffling, she was swaying and rippling her hips—her entire body, really—with the music, but not really moving her feet. I had never seen anyone dance quite like that, and she looked great. It wasn't over-the-top like Lauren but it was, well, sensual. At least I thought so. She also looked like she was just enjoying herself, enjoying the music, enjoying her dumb new friends, totally content, somehow.

I mentally noted that this was the first time I'd seen her in a skirt—a dress, actually, some sort of dark blue knit minidress that might have come from a vintage shop. All week she'd been in jeans, thermals, sweaters, boots, coats, hats, mufflers. I guess that's Forks for you. Now, with her long sleeves and mock turtleneck, black stockings, and dark flat-heeled boots that came just up to her calves, she was showing less skin than most of the girls, but the overall effect was hot: all long legs and smooth curves. And that long brown hair, hanging halfway down her back, pulled away from her pale face with a demure little headband. God, she was pretty. It gave me an ache in my chest, and, to be honest, an ache lower down too. I was glad I was wearing jeans.

"Edward! Are you staring at Bella Swan again!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was Alice.

I glared down at her. She was my twin, but we really looked nothing alike. While I was a little taller than average and lanky, she was petite, really tiny, but kind of busty. I had my mother's green eyes and reddish-brown hair while she favored our father, her eyes bright crystalline blue and piercing, and her black hair cut short in a spiky, mod bob. The only feature we seemed to share was our deathly pallor, which we were cultivating here in the cloudy Pacific Northwest even more than in Chicago.

"No, am not. What do you mean, again?" I hissed.

"I noticed you were doing it at lunch too. So what do you think? She's cute."

"Jesus, Alice. Can everyone just leave me alone? She's not my type."

Actually, I had just been thinking that maybe she was exactly my type, except that I didn't have a type, since I never seemed to find anyone I really liked or wanted. I hadn't even kissed a girl for two years. Wait, make that three. But still, maybe Bella wasn't a type and maybe I just wanted Bella. But I certainly was not about to start blabbing all this to my sister.

She jutted out one hip and stuck her hand on it. "Really, Edward? And what exactly is your type?" Of course Alice was intimately familiar with my romantic track record, or lack thereof.

"Look, I was not staring at her, I was just thinking…how she's fitting into that little group so well. So unlike us." I smirked at her. I couldn't care less, but Alice was such a social creature, I know it ate at her to be a bit of a freak here in the burgh of Forks.

"Oh yeah, I was thinking about that too, at lunch…it seems like they just adopted her on day one. Or maybe it was the boys…look, here they come."

She was right, Mike Newton and Tyler Crowley were sidling up to the group of girls, trying to wedge their way in. I felt a flash of anger at the idea of either one of them dancing with Bella, and a now-even-more-urgent desire to get out of this gym. But at the same time I was suddenly glued to the spot, desperate to see if anything actually happened between Bella and one of these guys. I groaned internally.

"Can we please get out of here before they crown the Forks High homecoming royalty?" I snapped. "I don't think I can take it."

"Fine with me. But I was just going to say, I think I'm going to befriend the Swan girl."

I looked at her but said nothing.

She nodded. "I like her. She's in my Trig class. I think I could be friends with her. She seems smart, and down-to-earth. She might not like being stuck with those guys all the time."

I kept my mouth shut.