Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. [Insert other legal stuff here.]

September 1997

Emmett McCarthy's demarcated muscles threatened to rupture the sleeves of his worn Run DMC t-shirt as he gripped his Atari controller tighter, becoming obsessively engrosses in the game before us. The concentration ingrained in his facial features and the light sheen of sweat beading on his forehead caused me to imagining him gripping something else with such fervour…

I watch Emmett's mouth move, ignoring the sounds coming out of his mouth. Knowing him, he's probably swearing at the character's in the video game or insulting somebody's mother. It's not until his baby blue's meet my dilated pupils that I realise that he's talking to me.

"Huh?" was my eloquent response.

With a heavy sigh, E tossed his controller onto the couch beside him. "What's up, Bells?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, forcing an expression of innocence to overtake my features.

Emmett quirked an eyebrow, not for a second believing my façade. "You haven't stopped staring at me since we sat down."

I swallowed down the lump in my throat and turned to look my best friend square in the eye. Our whole relationship, from birth until that moment, had been one huge cliché. We had grown up together as brother and sister due to our parents being exceptionally close (as teenagers, we would joke about them attending swinger's parties together). We'd joke and laugh and would rather hang out on weekends playing pranks on Wayland Johnson, an elderly man with the personality of a toothpick who lived down the road, instead of doing our homework. He was there when I went on my first date at fifteen years old, and beat up the douchebag when he dumped me because I would not sleep with him. I was there when, at the age of fourteen, his first girlfriend dumped him because she was jealous of me.

However, it wasn't until Leah appeared that I realised my true feelings.

She had moved to Newcastle from the Central Coast a few months previous. No male at school could resist her charm. She smart, athletic and beautiful – everything a guy could ever hope for.

When Leah and Emmett began dating, I thought she'd eventually get jealous like Em's previous girlfriends and dump him, leaving me to pick up the pieces when she broke his heart. Only, she never did. Once I realised that she wasn't going anywhere, I began to hate her, only I didn't understand why. She was a great person and she was a perfect match for Emmett and always went out of her way to be nice to me, never getting jealous of my relationship with her boyfriend. It was only when Emmett told me they had slept together that I realised why I hated her: I was in love with my best friend.

Since my epiphany, I found myself staring at Emmett when he wasn't looking, gazing wantonly at his muscular body, courtesy of his new-found gym fixation, and strong, handsome features. Gone were my sisterly affections, replaced with an overwhelming urge to wrap my legs around his waist and kiss the crap out of him. I hadn't thought he'd noticed, but apparently I was wrong. Now, it was time to tell him.

"There's something I have to tell you," I began, angling my body toward Emmett's. "I don't know how to say it…" How can you tell the person you grew up with, the person who thinks of you as a sister, that you love him?

I exhaled loudly, scrunching up my eyes and nose, trying to summon all the courage I could. Like a Band-Aid, Bella. Just tell him, quickly.

Emmett reached over and grasped his hand in mine. "You can tell me anythi–"

"I love you!" I shouted

Emmett pulled me in for a giant bear hug. I nestled my head into his chest, revelling in the warm exuding from his body. "I love you too, B," he said into my hair. "You don't have to be afraid. You can tell me anything, we're family."

A knife stabbed me through the heart. I pushed against his chest, scrambling away from him. "Family?"

"Well, yeah," Emmett's brow furrowed in confusion. "You're like a sister to me."

"Sister?" I asked, incredulously. I was on my feet in an instant, startling Emmett with the swiftness of my movements.

"What is wrong with you today?" Emmett came to a stand also, though he towered over me by a foot.

"Me?" I choked as my anger began to surface. "What's wrong with me?"

Emmett's tone became more agitated. "You're acting like such a…" He stopped speaking mid-sentence, turning his head away with a huff.

"Such a what?" I pressed, shoving his shoulder.

"A girl!" he cried, turning his attention back to me and throwing his arms up in the air.

"Well, guess what?" I screamed. "I am a girl!"

I turned and began to walk toward the front door, but a large pair of hands grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the exit.

"You're not leaving until you tell me what is going on," Emmett demanded with a scowl.

"Nothing." I crossed my arms against my chest and pouted like a petulant child.

"You're too worked up for there to be 'nothing' wrong, now tell me."

Looking him square in the eyes, I mustered a blank expression. "Leah is cheating on you.

Emmett dropped my arm as if I burned him. "You're lying."

"You don't believe me? Your best friend?"

"Best friends don't tell lies about these sorts of things."

"Exactly!" I exclaimed. "So why don't you believe me?"

"Do you have proof?" A small flicker of doubt crossed his face..

"Yes…" I stalled, trying to think of something. "Jake saw her and some guy making out at the cinema the other day."

"Jake? As in Jacob Black? The boy who follows you around like a lost little puppy? The boy who, if you said 'Jump', would reply with 'How high?'"

"Why don't you believe me?" Hurt, angry and betrayal rose inside me.

"Leah loves me. She wouldn't cheat on me."

"So that's it, then? You don't believe me?"

Emmett stayed silent.

"Fine," I whimpered, holding back tears. "I guess I'll go then."

"Bells, wait…"

"No!" I cried. "I love you! I'm the one you should be with!"

"Bells…" E begins. "I love you, but not like that. You're my best friend."

"What if I don't want to be your best friend? What if I want to be your girlfriend?"

A pleading expression comes to rest on Emmett's face. "Please, don't do this…"

"Do what?" I asked. "Tell you how I feel?"

No answer.

"You need to choose, Em! Me or her?"

Choose me, choose me, choose me, I begged silently.

An expression crossed between hurt and anger overcame Emmett's face. He walked over to me and a small bubble of hope began to rise in my chest. A bubble that popped the instant Emmett opened the front door and stood stoically, gesturing for me to leave. "Goodbye, Isabella."

A sob escaped my throat at the sound of my real name falling from his lips. He had not ever called me Isabella, opting instead for the nickname my dad established for me as a child.

"Goodbye, Emmett."

My teenage self was heart-broken. For weeks after I left Emmett's house, I was a zombie. My life, it seemed, was over. Looking back now, however, I can see that Emmett McCarthy was the first in a long line of bad romances.