Day 1 : The Last Wish
Summary: When Bella and her friends go backpacking through Europe, one by one all their secrets are revealed and their lives will never be the same again. AH/AU, rated M for lemons.
Bella POV
August 1st, 2004
We have completed elementary school, and we consider that quite an achievement. This is the summer where we will enter real life, where we will fall in love and dream the dreams that will guide us through the rest of our lives.
Or maybe that is just what we expect every summer? One year older, one year closer… to what?
The four of us are gathered around the light in the middle of the tent, and we wonder out loud, just a little giggly, for how much longer our parents will allow us to spend the night in a tent with our male friend Jasper. My parents are easygoing, and they know Jasper, who lives next door, very well, and Rose's parents are practically absent, but Alice is having more and more trouble with hers. She's the only one of us who seems to have entered puberty, and yet, she's the only one whose parents still treat her like a child.
As we fantasize about the future, and the changes that middle school and high school will bring, we believe it's a wise decision to create a little pact. Here and now, we will vow to each other to stay best friends, forever and ever, and to never forget the dreams we have on this day.
Alice makes it official, by writing our promises down in glitter ink on her cutest love letter paper.
Each one of us thinks of dreams we will make true before we turn 18, and we promise to help each other make them happen.
As usual, Alice takes the lead.
"Can I pick more than one? I can't choose."
"Of course," I reply, "it's our pact, we can do with it whatever we want."
"Awesome. " She starts writing enthusiastically and we all read with her over her shoulder.
"Designing your own line of clothes? Cool," Rose nods approvingly.
"Get my parents to treat me as an adult," Alice says, "I don't know if that's a realistic dream, but I'm gonna put it on there anyway." She keeps writing.
"Um," Jasper interrupts, "how are we supposed to help you make that one happen?" He points at her third wish, which says "have sex."
Rose laughs out loud, "well Jasper, since you're the only boy here, you're gonna have to carry the burden of making that happen."
He starts blushing heavily and as usual I come to his rescue.
"Knowing Alice she'll lose her virginity waaaaay before the end of high school."
"What's that supposed to mean!" she shrieks, but she can't help but smile, as if she's already looking forward to the idea. I, myself, am not so much, and the only wishes I can come up with are boring stuff, like getting into Harvard.
"I know what your wish is," Jasper says.
"Me too," Rose says. She grabs the pen from my hand and writes next to my name "date Edward Cullen."
It's my turn to blush now "cross that out, that's not realistic!"
"No, leave it," Alice says, protecting the paper from me, "it's a good one. We'll make it happen hun, just you wait and see."
If only we could… It's true, Edward Cullen is my one and only dream.
"My turn," Rose says, and she continues to write.
"Ew Rose, we're not gonna help you make out with a girl! Why would you put that on there? That's gross!"
Rose simply grins and shrugs "I'm just curious to know what it's like, and I would prefer if you didn't help me, Alice, you're not my type."
They bicker some more, back and forth, and Jasper uses the distraction to write down his wish quietly.
Backpack through Europe, visit Milan, Rome, Barcelona, Paris…
August 1st, 2011
Fasten your seatbelts, please.
"Tell me again why we're doing this," I ask her, as I nervously check my seatbelt. Again.
"Come on, Bella, a little more enthusiasm, we've planned this for like seven years!".
Still my best friend, still the excited one. I prefer to see myself as the down to earth one. If only I could stay down to earth right now. Literally. My fear of flying is definitely a downer on my mood.
"Exactly, we were ten then. We're not legally bound to the promises we make at that age!"
"Can you please shut up?" Rosalie, sitting on the other side of Alice, murmurs, "I'm trying to sleep here."
Alice rolls her eyes, "when we arrive it's going to be 8pm, Rose, you can't sleep now, you'll be jet lagged."
"I don't care, I had a rough night and I need some sleep now."
"Well, I'm not gonna shut up on a nine hour flight just cause you had a bad night," Alice pouts, and she adds in a whisper "probably smoking pot", which earns her a hard shove.
"Girls girls girls," Edward turns around and leans over his seat, "how do you think to get through this month if you're already bitching at each other."
"Edward, please, sit down again and put your seatbelt on."
"Relax, honey, nothing's going to happen." He reaches over and cups my cheek in his warm hand, his green eyes staring in mine. I smile at him thankfully.
"Can you switch places with me, Edward," Alice asks, "I'm stuck here between wussy and grumpy."
"Sure," he replies, "but I doubt that you'll have more fun here, between nerdy and sleepy."
When Alice dug up that piece of paper about two months ago, we were amused and surprised to see that most of the written dreams have come true by now.
All but one.
And by helping Jasper with his wish, which was ultimately a dream of us as well, we hoped to renew our friendship. Me and Alice are the only ones who have stayed very close. I still consider Jasper a very good friend, but I have to admit that I might have neglected him the last two years, being too occupied with my amazing boyfriend Edward.
And Rose, well, she's just gone a little weird. Sure it can't be easy to be the only outed lesbian in school, but she's not making it easy on people to be her friend. It's like she's avoiding rejection by rejecting others first, by scaring them away with freaky clothes and vampire makeup. Hiding the Rose we knew and loved under bright colored hair. This is just my theory and I haven't talked to her about it. She's not easy to talk to these days.
Me and Alice did stick around, but sometimes things get awkward, and sometimes we feel as if our relationship is based on tolerance and past memories, instead of present fondness.
That is why we were so surprised that she wanted to come along with us. The only condition is that she could bring her older brother, who she is very close with. We don't really know Emmett very well, he's just as weird as she is, but we agreed since he will allow us to rent a car in Europe and drive around, and Rose promised us he won't be much trouble.
When Edward heard about the childhood pact around that time, he couldn't stop teasing me about my wish, so I finally had to threaten him to go on this Europe trip without him. He has become such a part of me that none of us ever believed that I was serious, but he stopped bugging me about my childish crush on him anyway.
I think he feels a little guilty that I had loved him for all those years and that he only noticed me two years ago, after Alice gave me a total makeover. I used to be kind of a tomboy when growing up, never caring much for clothes or hairstyles. But somehow I let Alice influence my wardrobe, dressing me up, making me into a girl. Her polishing paid off, and I finally got the attention of the captain of the soccer team.
She told me to play hard to get, a strategy that had worked flawlessly for her, but I never felt like playing games around Edward, and neither did he. We've been going out for two years now, and it's always been easy, we never fight and always agree on everything.
I've been wondering lately, if he's the one I want to grow old with. I can't imagine marrying anyone else, it's always been him, but I worry what college is gonna do to us. Suddenly being a long distance couple.
He said I should have more faith, and I try to. Honestly. But I can't help but wondering now and then.
Alice would kill me if she knew of these thoughts. She's been telling me from the start how lucky I am to have found a boyfriend like Edward, someone who completes me. If it were up to her, she'd be planning our wedding. Maybe she's secretly doing that already. No, she wouldn't understand why I feel the need to doubt everything.
Jasper is the only one I can talk to about that kind of stuff. Edward teases him and calls him a nerd. But me and Jasper are so alike, so maybe I'm a nerd as well. I know that deep down Edward is a little jealous. He doesn't really get why I need a close male friend, if me and him can tell each other everything and he is my boyfriend and my best friend at once. But I see it differently. I don't need Jasper cause I lack something from Edward. He's just my neighbor boy, we've always been buddies, why would that stop with me having a boyfriend?
After our plane finally landed in Amsterdam and I plant my feet safely on the ground again, we make for the car rental that we looked up before we left, and put the address of our first hotel into the satnav. Most of this month will be spent in backpacker hostels or tents, but we decided to book a hotel for the first nights to get over our jet lag in a decent bed.
Me and Alice are going to share a room, and after unpacking some essentials, we have dinner in the hotel restaurant. By the time we are finished, it's midnight. Neither of us is tired, since it's only 3pm in Forks, but the best way to adjust is to adapt to European time straight away, so we say our goodnights and go to bed.
Soon enough, we're all sound asleep, neither of us realizing that this journey will change our lives forgood...
AN: It's been so long since I've written a full story, it almost feels weird to me. *blush* Tell me what you think?