Given the chance I would never have moved to Forks in the first place. It wasn't exactly my favourite place in the whole world. It was always damp up there, and the constant moisture in the atmosphere played havoc with my hair. Plus you never knew what to wear. I mean come on, was it going to rain, or was it just going to stay foggy all day? Nobody knew.

I had been visiting ever since I was a kid, since my mom left my dad and ran off to live somewhere less damp. My dad, Charlie, had never really recovered from that one, spending a long time as a spinster. Oh he met someone eventually, but we'll get to that shortly.

Phoenix was a completely different living proposition, warm most of the time, sunny most of the time, you know, before I made the decision to move I never even owned a jacket never mind a poncho or waterproof coat. The high school had been clean and modern, the university large and scholarly, and the office where I had worked the last four years, well it was work but not the most terrible of jobs. But now it was all over.

Rene, my mom had tried to talk me out of leaving, but I didn't really have much of a choice. I had to go. Charlie had been texting me a lot lately, which said a lot because I knew how much he hated using his phone. A few years ago he had followed in mom's footsteps and remarried. But recently it had collapsed, and she had left him. His texts were manly, yes, but filled with pain, so I decided he needed some kind of family around him.

Getting a new job in Forks was easy. There was an Electrical contracting firm always hiring, and Charlie pulled a few strings to get me an online interview. That was easy enough, and they offered me the job right then. It was a bit of a pay cut, but I figured I would be living less expensively up there anyway. I remembered my childhood visits to spend the summer with Charlie, and the fact that there was very little to do or even spend money on.

As I went through security at the gate I kissed mom goodbye, promising to call, text and email as often as I could. She was tearful, as you would expect.

"It's not too late, you could stay..." She said, cheeks stained with tears.

"No mom, I made up my mind, I have to do this."

"Take care of him then, he acts strong, but he's fragile, you know?"

"Ok mom, no worries."

I gave her a hug and a kiss and off I went, through the door that would lead to a completely new life. If only I could have know how different it would really be.

What can I say about the journey? Well it was pretty dull. When I was a teenager I had avoided making the trip where possible, and as a college student I had actually driven up once. It was a crazy two day road trip, and my beat up old station wagon nearly gave up on me on the way home.

It was evening when I finally collected my bags at the airport and walked into the arrivals hall in Port Angeles. There he was, in his police chief uniform, waiting to pick me up. He smiled. I figured I must look an absolute wreck after that trip, my hair was all over the place, makeup smudged and worn off. And we still had over an hour in the car.

He was quiet and awkward in the car, my cases filling the back of the police cruiser. Why did he collect me in that? Surely he could have borrowed something more suitable. Anyway, the drive seemed long, and dark. And fortunately the radio broke the silence nicely with golden oldies. Neither of us were great conversationalists, so sitting in silence was probably the best option.

And there is was. The same old house from my childhood. The one I had crashed at as a student. Holy crap, let's do this.

We hauled my stuff inside and he showed me to my room. It had been gutted since I was a kid, my unannounced college road trip had seen me sleep on the couch because my room was full of boxes. Now it was empty save a bed and a desk. I could live with that. The more challenging aspect would be the bathroom situation, but I figured I would worry about that later. I really needed to get my own place, but I figured I should see how the job went first.

It was getting late when I finally finished unpacking. The closet was crammed and stuff was in neat piles all around the room. After a quick shower I was ready for bed.

The great thing about Charlie was that he wasn't the type to linger. He had shown me up here, reminded me how the shower worked and got himself the heck out of dodge. By which I mean he settled in front of the TV watching the game.

I popped my head into the lounge to see he was fully engrossed in the action, beer can gripped tightly.

"Ok dad, I'm off to bed, see you tomorrow." I said with a little sigh.

"Ok Bella," he turned his attention to me, then snapped his head back as the commentator howled about something amazing. He returned his gaze, a little shamefully. "I'll be gone when you get up, so good luck, and have a great day."

"Thanks dad."

"Oh and Bella..." he paused, looking thoughtful. "Thanks for this, I really appreciate it."

"No problem dad."

I went back upstairs and slipped into bed. I wish I could say I slept well after the tiring day of travel, but I would be lying. There was a constant patter of rain, and a low howl of wind. Great. this was really setting me up well for my first day of work. Why did I travel on the Sunday when I could have travelled on the Saturday and had all day to recover? Ah well, too late for that now.

I'm sure I nodded off eventually, but it took a long time. The rain kept changing from pitter patter to whooshing to hammering to back again. And that was not conductive to sleep. But I knew I had gotten off because the alarm scared the hell out of me.

I rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom. Sure enough, the house was silent, and the cruiser was nowhere to be seen. There was a battered old truck on the drive though, which I assumed was a project Charlie was working on or something.

My work clothes were comfortable, pants, blazer and blouse. I kept it low key with the hair and makeup too, no need bringing too much attention to myself.

In the kitchen I poured myself a bowl of cereal and sat at the table where I found a note from Charlie.

Hi Bella, good luck today.

I forgot to tell you last night, I figured you might need some transport so I got you a car.

Well, ok, it's a truck. Billy Black sold it me very cheap, said his boy refurbished it.

Anyway, it runs fine, so don't worry about the bus.

I don't know how we didn't notice it last night. Must have been dark.

Love Charlie

Ok, well that was two mysteries solved. First, the rusting hulk on the drive was apparently mine. And it would go so well with my outfit. Second, I had just figured out how I was getting to work.

I finished up my breakfast and cleaned the bowl, then picked up my bag and brand new jacket on my way out the door.

The truck was not only huge, it was the colour of rust. I assumed this was because it was mostly made up of rust. It fired up first time, and almost deafened me. The way it shook I wondered how in the world it didn't shake itself apart. But it seemed to work ok, and it was mine, and that was great. I held back a tear. All I needed right now was to need to fix my mascara.

I had brought my sat nav with me from Phoenix, but I probably could have found the place without it. Forks wasn't exactly a sprawling metropolis. My route took me down high street which wasn't exactly teeming with life, past the high school, and a short way up the road past the last house to the north of town.

I pulled the truck into the paved courtyard which been alerted to me by the large sign that read 'Forks Electrical Contracting' it was a large open courtyard with a few empty spaces. I parked in one of the visitors spaces figuring my first day was my only chance to do so.

Then I collected myself, grabbed my handbag and headed for the door marked 'Reception'.

It was a fairly old looking set of buildings, maybe twenty or thirty years? They actually all looked like they could have been built in different eras. Reception was nice though, shiny glass surfaces and pictures on the walls of what I assumed were the high profile jobs the company had carried out. Hmm, fascinating.

A nice lady was sitting behind the reception desk wearing a big smile. I walked up to the desk and laid my handbag down. She seemed fully aware of who I was though.

"Oh hey, you must be Isabella Swan, our new girl?" She beamed at me. Oh great, I was going to be the new celebrity in town? That I could live without.

"That's me. Call me Bella." said, not quite through gritted teeth.

"Ok honey, let me call Esme for you. Take a seat."

I perched myself on the edge of a large leather chair opposite the desk. The receptionist tried very hard to look busy, but I could feel her looking at me. It was quite unsettling. Then a young man came around the corner, tall, glasses, dark hair slicked back. He was apparently still recovering from teenage acne. Poor guy.

"Hey, Isabella?" He asked, gesturing for me to follow.

"Call me Bella." Yeah this was going to be tedious.

"So you moved here from Phoenix? Leaving all that sun must be hard?" But still you bring it up.

"It was a difficult choice, but here I am." I followed him through a small rabbit warren of office, feeling eyes upon me as I passed through each room. It was going to be a long day. Eventually we reached a medium sized meeting room with a large TV on the wall. He gestured for me to take a seat.

"Ok, watch this short film, and I'm sure Esme will be with you shortly." He said, pushing play on a remote. I'm not going to lie, the film was tedious. Lots of obvious stuff about what to do in case of emergency and all that. Towards the end I could feel my eyelids getting heavy, so I was relived when the door opened and in walked the lady I knew from my video interview.

"Bella, how are you?" Esme asked, stepping forward to shake my hand. "Great to finally meet you. Did you have a good trip?" She was very beautiful, in her late thirties maybe early forties. She was well dressed too, very classy. But the thing I noticed that hadn't come across online was how pale she was.

"You too. Yes thank you, it was very long." I answered, letting her take the lead.

"Well, hopefully you can settle in nice and fast. Let's get you a tour shall we?" She leaned out of the room and called a girl named Angela. "This is Angela, she knows her way around. Let me know if you need anything."

Angela bounded into the room, a bit shorter than me, average looking with loose dark hair almost covering her face. Esme turned back to me. "We're just getting your desk set up, so take your time..." And with that she was gone.

Then Angela was right in my face. "Hi, uh, so you're Isabella huh? Cool."

I sighed. "Bella."

"Oh, ok, Bella. Let's take a walk, shall we?" She gestured towards the open door, so I followed her out into the large office. "This is the Admin office. Oh don't worry about remembering who and where everyone is, you'll be spending time in each department." She gave me a big, toothy smile.

"Right, ok." I was starting to feel like a show dog already.

"So this is where I hang out, and some of the other girls." I looked around and saw a bunch of faces illuminated by monitors. Most were female, but I did recognise the guy who showed me up. He waved when he saw me looking. "That's Eric, I guess you met already?"

"Yeah he collected me from reception."

"Oh, ok." She seemed relived that he wasn't an old friend or something. "Well that..." She pointed to the glass walled office at the end of the room, "is where Esme lives. She's a great boss, very loving. She married the MD, you know?"

I just nodded and followed along like a poodle. We left that office and walked down a short hallway, passing restrooms and a store cupboard. At the end was another office.

"Ok, so this is sales. There are meeting rooms here, and that..." she pointed to another large glass office, this one had the blinds open and I could see an incredibly handsome man, who was surely in his late forties, on the phone in deep conversation. "That is our managing director, owner and all round great guy, Mister Cullen. But we all call him Carlisle." Wow. I could see why people did what he asked.

The rest of the room was busy, mostly with people on telephones. I noticed a couple of pale, beautiful faces, but thought nothing of it. Almost as soon as I was comfortable we moved on.

We walked out into the factory, which wasn't very large, probably around thirty men all working hard putting things together. There was a canteen out there and a small office. We went outside into the drizzle and crossed the courtyard to the second largest building. This one was more brick where the last one was mainly sheet steel.

"Ok, this is where the engineers are" Angela said as she opened the door for me. We went up some stairs into a vary wide spacious office. All the seats in here were taken by men. Some ordinary, some less so. We quickly walked through and down another set of stairs which led out into a covered courtyard with some snack machines in the corner and some picnic tables.

"This is the quad. most of the office staff take our lunch out here." It was quite a nice space, with hanging baskets and some art on the walls.

There were a few other meeting rooms in this building, and soon we were outside again, walking to the third building, a more wooden looking structure, much smaller than the other two buildings. "Research and development." She announced as we entered.

The building was one large lab space, and a couple of guys were working on something on a bench in the middle of the room. "This is where the guys like to get nerdy... You don't need to worry about it..." And with that she turned and lead me back out and across the yard to the main building. We walked into the admin office and I took a seat by her desk.

"There are a lot of people here." I prompted, trying to coax some conversation out of her. I was trying to distract myself from the guy who was staring at me. He was average height, and probably the most average guy I had ever seen, with short blonde hair in neat spikes. He was waiting for one of the girls to print him something. When he saw me looking he took it as a cue to come over and introduce himself.

"Hey I'm Mike, Mike Newton, you must be Isabella?" He smiled widely, and his eyes were bright.

"Call her Bella." Angela interrupted on my behalf. She went back to her keyboard, checking emails.

"So, used to the rain yet?" He asked with a chuckle.

"You get used to this?" I asked with a withering smile.

"Maybe after a few decades."

"Oh great." That was all I needed.

"So where are you living Bella?" he asked, perching on the corner of Angela's desk. He wasn't going to leave any time soon, was he?

"With my dad, until I can find a place. But I want to get settled here first."

"Oh well, yeah I totally get that." He said, fidgeting, realising he was outstaying his welcome. "Well I guess I'll see you later." He stood and left, then remembered he hadn't gotten his original printout and had to circle around for it.

Before I could form another thought, Esme appeared, and a few seconds later another girl came scurrying along to be by her side.

"This is Jessica, she's going to help you get used to the system. Your computer is ready." And with that she left. Jessica was a bag of nerves.

"Come on." She said as she turned and headed across the room. She was about my height, long curly sand coloured hair. She was what I would call pretty but not standout.

"Later." Said Angela, barely looking up as I stood and followed Jessica. I now noticed that all the other desks in the room were crowded with paperwork, photographs of family, trinkets from vacations, and the rest. We arrive at mine, which was a blank desk with a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor. Oh and an in tray.

"Don't get used to that being empty." Jessica pointed at my in tray. She moved my mouse and the screen fired up. "So, how do you like Forks so far Isabella?" She asked. Her demeanour was friendly and approachable. Lucky for her, because I was already sick of correcting people on that front.

"Ask me in a few days, I only got here last night." I said. "Oh, and please, call me Bella."

She smiled. "And call me Jess." Great. I hadn't actually called her Jessica, but at least we shared that. She tapped a few keys and opened some windows, then proceeded to explain some of the systems I would be using. It was very heavy looking, and I was wondering what I was getting myself into, but I hoped that was just me getting used to new things. Surely my last job was just as daunting on the first day.

"Looks like there's a lot to learn." I said, sitting in a chair Jess had rolled over for me. She was into what she was showing me, and doing a good job of it too.

"Oh don't worry, I'm sure you'll pick it up ok." She handed me a booklet she had brought with her. "This is the rule book. Read it but don't worry, I wont test you on it."

I took it and flipped though it as she continued to cycle through various screens. I hoped I would take it all in. Then she noticed the time.

"Oh wow, check it out, almost Lunch hour." She said standing. "I'm going to go to the bathroom, did you bring any food?"

I shook my head. "I didn't have time to buy anything."

"That's ok, you can get something in the quad." She stood and took off, giving Mike another chance to come over.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"I think some of it is the same as my old place... I hope anyway." I gave a weak laugh.

"What are you doing after lunch?"

I consulted my schedule which Esme had left on my desk. "Says here I'm in engineering for the afternoon."

He made a face. "Oh. Who with?"

I looked again. "Some guy called Ed Cullen?" He did not look pleased.

"Oh, ok, well c'mon, let's go to lunch." Jess was on her way back to us, with a look of freshly fixed makeup about her. It looked like she was maybe trying to impress someone.

I followed them down the hall, Angela joining us and another girl with short black hair who didn't speak to me. We walked out into what was now free falling rain and almost ran across the paved part of the car park to the engineering building. The quad was quite full when we got there, and I put some cash into a machine and got myself a sandwich and a can of soda. I sat with my new friends at a picnic table in the middle of the area, where we had joined some others to make a large group of nattering people.

I was happy to sit in silence, listening to the shifting topics of conversation. Something kept coming up about a trip to the beach at La Push, which I remembered as being more of a pebble beach than a real beach like the ones I had visited in California.

My wandering eye came across a set of pale faces, five of them. They seemed familiar. But most noticeable was how good looking they were. Three guys and two girls sitting together at a table a little apart from the general hustle and bustle. I could see a large guy, dark hair, big muscles. He must spend a lot of time in the gym I thought. He was next to a blonde, very pretty in a classical kind of way. There was a guy with shoulder length blonde hair falling in rockstar curls, and on his lap was a tiny waif of a girl with short black hair and big eyes. And the fifth, maybe the most beautiful man I had seen, ear length reddish brown hair which was scruffy but in the kind of way that looked as if he could have just stepped out of a makeup trailer. They were all looking in various directions, like posing models.

I caught Jess' attention. "Who are they?" I asked.

"Who?.. Oh." She giggled."That would be the Cullen's."

"Oh, any relation to Esme?" I asked thoughtfully pulling a slice of onion from my sandwich.

"Sure, And Carlisle. The big guy, the small girl and the guy with the red hair, they are Cullen's, the other two are Hale's. They all live together or something. I don't know, they stick together. Don't really interact with anyone they don't have to."

Oddly, when she mentioned the word 'Cullen' the one with the red hair looked up like he had heard his name. Strange.

"So the Cullen's are Emmet, Alice and Edward with the red hair." He looked up again, now with a quizzical look in his dark eyes. "The Hale's are Jasper and Rosalie." She said the last name with what I would call an audible scowl. Their eyes were very dark, big black circles accented by their pale skin.

"Are they, I don't know, together?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah, Emmet and Rose, Jasper and Alice."

"What about Edward?" I asked, suddenly realising I would be spending the next hour with him.

"Oh no he's single. I think. Like I said, they keep to themselves."

I just nodded, gazing at his sculpted face, chiselled chain and entrancing eyes. Wow. He wore a short sleeved shirt and a red tie which was not very neat, despite the fact that it looked like it came from somewhere expensive.

"So are when are you house hunting?" Jess asked, snapping me out of my trance.

"Well I was going to give it a week of living with Charlie, just to make sure I don't hate the job and want to move back to Phoenix." I replied, draining the soda.

"Well let me know when you're ready and I'll help you out." She offered. "So most of us are going to a bar after work... well I say 'a' bar, it's actually the only one in Forks, but it's not too terrible, interested?" I caught a glimpse of Mike who was now paying attention to us.

"Oh, you know, I'm beat already. Yesterday was a long day, and I need some sleep, but count me in another day." I was flattered to be invited out so soon.

"Ok, we go there most nights. It's not like there's much else to do in town." She looked around the table, but before she could jump into another conversation there was a high whistle.

"Oh, time to go back." She said. I followed her back to our office and took my seat, noticing that my desk was next to Angela and opposite Mike. How did I not notice that earlier?

Esme appeared at my desk a moment later. "So how was the morning with Jess?" She asked, smiling warmly.

"It was good. A lot to pick up though." I pulled a face.

"Ready to go meet the engineers?" She clasped her hands together.

"Sure" I said, hopping to my feet. I was wearing flats, as I always did for fear of breaking my neck, and I was glad, for it seemed I would be walking a lot.

I followed her back out, the rain still falling steadily, but she was smart enough to pick up an umbrella on her way out. We went into the engineers office and approached Edward.

"Ok, This is Edward, he's my son, and I'm sure he can tell you everything about what we do in here." She turned and walked out, leaving me standing by his desk.

"Hello." He whispered, pulling a chair to his side and motioning for me to sit. His eyes were very dark, like holes. Up close he was difficult to look at, his beauty being so powerful. Despite them being so dark his eyes were fiery and there seemed to be a lot going on behind them. I sat, and put my eyes on his screen, seeing a technical drawing that I could not understand. He didn't seem happy.

"So, what do you do, Edward?" I asked timidly.

"I draw up the schematics." he said quickly. This was going to be hard. "Let me take you through a job."

He told me what he did, his voice low and even. I could tell he really didn't want to be doing this, and after an hour he told me that was it. He fluidly stood and was out the door very quickly leaving me to sit for a moment. I stood and walked back to the admin office.

To my surprise I saw Edward standing in Esme's office when I was back in the room, and he did not look happy. He was obviously arguing with his mother about something, and she was not relenting. I had a strange feeling that he was not happy about my presence.

I sat back down and wondered what might be next for the day. Would Esme fire me because her son didn't like me for no apparent reason? I started to randomly click windows.

Jess appeared at my side again. "Come on, I'm showing you more stuff next."

I went and sat by her at her desk which was covered with pictures of family and friends. I couldn't see any of her with men though. "Do you live alone?" I asked.

"Yeah, just waiting for the right guy." She said dreamily.

"You never know, you might already know him." I could see Mike checking us out again. Or was it just me he was checking out? "Ever thought about getting a flatmate?"

"You know, it would help pay the bills." She had a thoughtful look. "I'm going to think about that one."

The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at forms and taking a trip across to the sales office where I sat with Mister Cullen (He told me to call him Carlisle) who was a very nice, well spoken man. His skin and eyes were much the same as his family, but unlike his son he was warm and friendly.

When I picked up my things and headed for my truck at five I had almost forgotten what my truck even looked like. It didn't take me long to remember what it sounded like though, the roar ringing out across the carpark, turning heads all the way. I kept my head down, trying to hide behind my hair as I drove slowly out and onto the road.

When I got to Charlie's the cruiser was already outside. He was in the living room watching football on TV.

"Bella, is that you?" He called.

"Yeah dad, it's me." I said, hanging my coat and handbag in the hall.

"How did it go?" I walked into the room fully to talk to him. He had a takeout menu on the chair next to him. "You want Chinese?"

"Yeah, ok, get me noodles?" I said. "And it was good. I was worried to start with, but it seems pretty easy."

"Good. you make any friends?"

"Yeah a few nice people, listen dad, can you call the food in, I'm going for a shower." He nodded and I took off upstairs and got freshened up. By the time I went back downstairs in sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt I felt clean and happy, but tired. And the food had just arrived.

We sat on the sofa eating from the foil containers. "Dad?" I asked.

"Yeah?" he took a sip of beer.

"Do you know the Cullen's?" I asked innocently.

"That's a good question, seeing as you're working for them?" He pointed out.

"Yes, I noticed that. But what are they like, as people?"

"Well as far as this town goes, they are great." He seemed to be getting a little defensive. "Carlisle's business is one of the best employers in this town, and as far as Im concerned there would be a lot of jobless people without them." He was breathing heavily. "And people still treat them like outsiders? Well thats just stupid."

"Ok dad..." I said, and that was pretty much the end of that one. We ate in silence.

I cleared away the trash and made my way to bed, falling onto the mattress with a thud. The rain had picked up again, and it was hammering on the roof. With the light off and the clouds so dense the room was quite dark. Eventually I coaxed myself to sleep, fighting off thoughts of the day. However, I was not prepared for my dream in any way...

But I don't need to tell you who I dreamed about that night.