disclaimer: i own nothing.
I walked into Forks High School on the first day of my junior year. I have lived in Forks, Washington my entire life, with my loving parents, Charlie and Renee. I had two brothers who went to this school with me this year. One was a freshman, Jasper. He was more like me, shy but independent. Emmett, my older brother, was a senior this year. He was very protective of me, but always there for a good laugh. We usually had no trouble getting along, even when we were little kids. Jasper, Emmett, and I would always play video games and watch movies together. We would wrestle and play cops and robbers in the backyard. I didn't mind getting muddy and down in the dirt. We would even play military, a game where we would pretend to be saving the country from evil aliens. We had put mud on our faces for war paint, and it never bugged me, like most girls. When I did have girls come over to play, they thought I was weird, so they didn't usually come back. I wasn't really into Barbie's or baby dolls as a child, and that's all they wanted to do. I always felt out of place around other people in the first place, but especially around girls. Almost everyone that I conversed with was a guy, but it would be nice to have a girl to talk to about certain things. Ah well. I liked more guy stuff than most girls my age because of this factor. Renee was gone a lot, what with her real estate business and what not. I mean, she was a great mother, but she didn't have much time on her hands just to teach me how to be a normal girl. Today I wore shiny blue basketball shorts with white stripes on the sides and an old t-shirt from the freshman year choir trip. That was the only year that I had been in choir. I enjoyed it, but I didn't make a lot of friends easily, and I often felt left out of group activities. It really wasn't my thing anyways. I loved these kinds of outfits, though, because they were quite comfortable. That was exactly my style. I didn't stay up to date on the latest fashions or anything like that. I liked my style, and that was all that mattered. In the winter I even wore pajama pants to school. They were just so warm and comfy!
"Bella! What are you thinking about?" Emmett was almost jumping in anticipation as we walked into the small room of a gym to hang out before the first bell rang to go to class.
"Oh, nothing. Just how I'm a lot more like you than, let's say, her. "I bobbed my head toward a small, spiky black-haired girl whom I had never seen before. She looked like an overgrown pixie she was so petite. I noticed that she was wearing all designer clothes from top brand name stores.
"Yeah. You certainly are little sis. Whoa! Look at that blonde! This family must be new, because there is no way I would have missed her in the past 3 years." I rolled my eyes as soon as I saw her. Of course. He was referring to a blonde girl standing next to the black-haired girl. She had a slim figure, the perfect kind of body you would only see on the cover of magazines. I could easily see her being a supermodel. Her clothes fit snug around her body in all the right places, and she looked exquisite in her designer outfit. Of course he would notice her. What boy wouldn't? I thought to myself. Then I noticed a certain gleam in his eyes that I had never seen him wear before. It wasn't anything close to lust, not at all. I couldn't quite find a word for it.
"I would imagine not." He smiled at my disgruntled tone, but I had stopped paying attention to Emmett, still ogling, for I had turned my eyes to see a tall, reddish-brown haired boy looking straight at me. He was so beautiful, I could barely contain myself. We locked eyes, and I quickly looked down, blushing violently. My face still felt hot when the bell rang to go to class, and when Emmett playfully tripped me, I fell flat on my face. I didn't even have time to throw my hands out in front of me. All of a sudden, my heavy backpack landed on top of the back of my head, and was pressing down on me pretty hard. Hey, I had seven classes in one day and an inconvenient location for a locker.
"Oops. I'm sorry, Bella. I didn't know you were so out of it. Usually you are more observant for my tricks." I could tell he sounded smug and was also trying not to laugh, but he helped me up all the same.
"Thanks a lot, Emmett. You are going to pay for that one," I retorted, although I wasn't very good at getting people back. He knew that, so he just laughed, not able to control himself anymore. I looked up
and noticed that the bronze-haired boy was still looking at me with a smirk on his face. I looked down flushing again.
"Ah Bella. You get embarrassed way too easily."
"Shut up, Emmett. I wouldn't be blushing so much if it hadn't been for you."
"Ha! You were blushing way before I tripped you. Bella, come on, let's just get to class. The first bell is about to ring." Sure enough, as soon as he said it, the bell rang. We had five minutes to get to class. "Okay! I'll see you later, Em!" I walked to my first class, which was English. I noticed that the black-haired girl I had seen in the gym this morning was in this class, and she sat in the seat right next to my own. I sat down, and almost immediately, she screamed, "Hi! I'm Alice-Alice Cullen! I just moved here with my family! What's your name?" She was so… bubbly. Much more girly than I was used to. She startled me, talking to me like that when she didn't even know me. Now everyone was looking at us. Great. She attracted attention, which I disliked very much. Attention is never a good thing when, at any given moment, you could fall flat on your face without warning from bad balance. I didn't like people looking at me.
"Uhm… I'm Bella- Bella Swan." I sounded so quiet compared to her.
"Oh, hi Bella! What a lovely name! I think we are going to be great friends!" Why would she want to be friends with me? I wasn't special in any way at all. I had no special skills or anything like that. I was a plain girl who felt comfortable in boys' shorts and t-shirts. I wasn't anywhere near the "cool factor" she was at. But I didn't want to let her down.
"Uh..sure? That could be fun." I didn't know how to react to her overexcitement.
"Yay! Of course, we should hang out soon! Maybe even tonight! Ohh, we could see a movie!" Either she didn't know that I was an outcast, or she was desperate for friends. I had never been asked to go
out anywhere with people from school. Well anyone I knew anywhere, really. I had never even been to single movie. I've never gone to the movie theater with friends. The only times that I went were with Emmett and my parents when we had family nights on occasion, when Renee was available. Alice went on for her plans to go to a movie tonight for the rest of class, and I just nodded and smiled when she expected me to.
I was a bit relieved to leave that class. How can anyone be that awake in the morning? I would never know. Just then, I happened to walk straight into an open locker and I fell on my back. I had been carrying my backpack by the top handle at my side so I wouldn't be late trying to put it on, so it fell to the side of me when I lost my grip. My face turned beet red, but I decided it would be better to laugh this off. So I started laughing and realized, much to my surprise, that I actually found my situation funny, and that made me laugh harder. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to open my locker when you were walking by… I though you would see it…" This soothing velvet voice couldn't belong to anyone but an angel. When I looked up, that same bronze-haired boy from this morning was looking at me curiously. I stopped laughing, suddenly not able to find anything funny at the moment. My face turned a deeper read than it already was, and I didn't know what to say without sounding like an idiot. Like a fool, I stared into his irresistible deep green eyes, and I couldn't stop myself from telling him the whole truth burning inside of me.
"It's okay. I fall down a lot- even without lockers. I usually don't laugh, but I couldn't help myself…" Why did I tell him all of that? Why didn't I just say "I'ts alright . My fault." And moved on? He smiled a beautiful crooked smile that made my heart skip a couple of beats, and my breath hitched from the effect.
"I'm Edward Cullen." I could tell he was trying to hide the smile in his voice.
"Oh, hi. I'm Bella Swan, "I began, feeling embarrassed again.
"So you're that girl Alice was talking about…anyway…u fall down a lot, huh?" He sounded amused.
"Well, unfortunately, I wasn't born with perfect balance, unlike you." I blushed, beet red again, and looked at the ground. I could feel his gaze on my face, and I glanced up at him smiling down at me again. My heart stopped and restarted and my face turned a dark crimson. "Well, I guess that's all the more reason for me to stick around and catch you," he teased. He looked at me questioningly, as if he were wondering if this was my desire. Of course it was. But I couldn't be completely sure if it was his. I laughed.
"Probably so. You can always count on me to fall into your outstretched arms." I stopped breathing. Why in the world did I say that? Why couldn't I control what I said around him? This was becoming ridiculous. "Sorry, I don't know why-"But he cut me off.
"It's okay," he chuckled, "We all say things in such ways we don't mean for them to come out, Bella. I'm not offended, in any case." I looked around at the empty hallway, unaware that I was even still at school. I'm beginning to enjoy this far too much. I smiled up at him, and my breath hitched. I didn't want to leave his side. Stop it, Bella! I kept screaming it myself, but it wasn't listening. I sighed.
"We are going to be late, Edward." I felt an unexpected thrill go through me when I said his name.
"Not if we go to class now. See you later." We went our separate ways as we walked towards our second hour classes. Wow, this morning seemed to be going by much slower than usual.