Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just borrowed the names. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without written authorization. ©2010 SwedenSara. All rights reserved worldwide.
Thank you LouderThanSirens and JillM12, my betas on this chapter! JillM12: thanks for the encouragement. Without you it would suck even more... Thanks to hunterhunting for helping me find Project Team Beta and to chrometurtle for offering to look at my story.
The Secret Changes Within Bella Swan - Prologue
I don't know when it happened. I only know that at some point, somewhere along the line, things had changed.
I used to look at him thinking he was the most beautiful man alive. I used to not be able to keep my hands off him. I used to love him. Suddenly I didn't think he was the most beautiful man alive anymore. These days I preferred not to touch him. When did I begin to look at him so differently?
I remember the party where we met. Everybody stood up and introduced themselves by name and relationship status, because those were the two most important things to know. His name was Edward Cullen, and he had a girlfriend. "Sort of," he said. That made me wonder: what does "sort of" mean? He was kind of dorky, cute and shy; the kind of guy that accidentally tipped his chair over when he stood up, and then got embarrassed by it. He wore a suit and a shirt, the only one not wearing jeans and a tee. It was a bit weird, and I liked it. His brown tousled hair had red streaks in it, I could tell in the lights by the bar. His eyes were green like spring leaves, but I didn't notice until the Caps game when we started to throw bottle tops at each other.
I was a regular at the bar, being one of the students working there for no money, besides a few beer bongs that were usually spent the next week. We were the part of the student union who wanted to give other students a place to go for a beer after classes and exams. Everybody knew us; everybody wanted to be our friend. He later said it was the beer caps game that made him really notice me. He dismissed me until then, not because he wasn't interested, but because he didn't think he had a chance. I had my boys there: some of them just friends being friendly, some of them friends with benefits ready to follow me if I needed company. He felt inferior and discouraged from approaching me, always seeing me talking to or hugging someone else.
It was so easy to get him wrapped up in me. I'm not sure why I chose him, maybe it was the chair thing or maybe I just felt he would be an easy target. Maybe I wanted to figure that "sort of girlfriend" thing out. Mostly I just wanted to feel the high you get from turning somebody on. I used my most manipulative ways, being playful and smiling and throwing beer caps at him. When I leaned forward tugging my tank top down, urging him to throw the next cap in my cleavage, I knew I had him. I saw it in his eyes. I raised an eyebrow as I tucked the cap down in my bra, and he swallowed loudly when I leaned over and whispered, "I think I need to keep this". I was such a whore.
He followed me like a puppy, and the reaction I got from him kissing in the hallway behind the bar made me feel like the queen of the world. He was putty in my hands and my self confidence went sky high. He walked me to the cab, and when he wanted to follow me home I laughed and said I wasn't the kind of girl who went home with a guy the first night. Yeah right. I told him he was allowed to call me when he no longer had "sort of" a girlfriend. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who left his girlfriend just because some random slut stuck her tongue down his throat. I guess I didn't think he'd call at all.
But he did.
