1-I Knew It!

"Look!" Ellie said with excitement.

"No!" Alexa said. She was laughing so hard that her stomach hurt, but she snuck a glance anyway. He was coming!

She turned her head from her cousin Ellie and pretended to tan, looking at the ocean. Ellie was still smiling when the guy that they saw staring at them all day walked over.

"Hey." He said to Ellie, grinning.

Alexa's heart slowly sank to her toes. She knew what was coming.

"Hey." Ellie said, giving Mike a grin that totally told Mike that yes, she was flirting with him.

"My name's Mike. What's yours? Everybody convinced me to come talk to you." Mike said, scratching his stomach and pointing over to his family a couple of yards down the beach. His grandpa was standing up on his towel, waving at Mike and Ellie.

It was like Alexa didn't even exist.

They talked for awhile, and mike told her where he lived, blah blah blah. Then he said that today was his family's last day in Bethany and that he had to go, but it was nice meeting her. Not once had he asked Alexa's name or even acknowledged her. And Ellie hadn't even bothered to introduce her. This was typical for Alexa. Not one guy in her 16 years had ever paid attention to her. And sure, you're probably thinking that's a total over exaggeration. Far from it. It was almost like Alexa had an invisible boy-barrier around her.

When Mike finally left, Alexa sighed and pretended to be happy for Ellie. Then she finally spoke her mind as they were walking back to their cottage.

"Ellie, how come guys only want to talk to you? Why has no guy ever even acknowledged me?"

"Because! Guys aren't mature!" Ellie said, clearly not wanting to talk about this.

Ok… Alexa thought. Then why do they talk to you? But she didn't say that. She just let the subject drop, and she pondered why guys didn't come within a three mile radius of her. Alexa had blonde hair and blue eyes. She was 5'4" and 100 pounds. She thought she was attractive, by why didn't anybody else?

2- Um… Excuse me?

Alexa had gotten home from her vacation a week ago, and she just couldn't get her mind to focus on anything. She was trapped in a permanent daydream.

There was only one way she could get herself out of the funk, and that was physical education. She was pretty modest, but when it came down to it she was amazing on the trampoline. She knew all kinds of flips.

She got on and started to jump, trying to get high enough to do the first flip, but she stopped in her tracks. She thought that someone was watching her. She could feel their eyes boring into her back, but she figured it was just her creepy neighbor so she decided to show off and do something really complicated.

She started to jump. Higher and higher, she pushed her legs down on the trampoline one last time, and as she was flying upwards again she started to twist. But she got the rotation wrong! She started to fall downwards at a dangerous angle. If she continued in this direction she would fall on her neck! Luckily, she lived to tell the tale. Suddenly she felt a WHOOSH of wind, and strong arms caught her.

The jolt of Alexa's downward spiral into someone's arms had her wheezing to catch her breath. But then she realized that someone not so un- attractive had caught her.

She studied him closely. He had blue eyes, blond hair styled kind of flauntily with gel, perfect pearly whites, and a strong square jaw bone.

Before Alexa knew it she was back to her old self, sputtering and trying to wipe her tears. She had never been this close to a guy before! Then it happened.

A flush appeared on her cheeks and she could swear she was as red as a fire hydrant. She giggled nervously and realized she had been studying him for several minutes and he still hadn't said a word, let alone put her down.

She was about to say something, anything, but before she could say a word he spoke.

"A little clumsy there, don't you think? You might have wanted to make that twist a little tighter."

Alexa tried her hardest to recover, but all she could make out was "Put me DOWN!" The guy smiled and obeyed her request.

Alexa didn't return the smile. How could such an attractive guy want to save her?

"Who are you?" Alexa demanded. But apparently the guy didn't want to obey her every command, because he set her down other feet, looked around, and dashed off just as fast as he had come.

He was so fast in fact that it looked supernatural. Alexa shook her head and muttered something about "crazy boys."

Then she ran inside and stayed there for the rest of the week. She didn't want to tell anybody about her strange encounter. At the end of the week, she decided to try the trampoline again. Maybe she'd listen to the advice the guy gave her.

She was still wondering why she wasn't traumatized by the whole thing. After all, a guy that she had ever seen in her life, with supernatural looking powers had caught her, so obviously he was watching her.

She oddly felt relaxed when she thought about him. Crazy.

She hopped onto the trampoline, and started to jump, but she felt the strange feeling again. He was watching her. She spun around and there he was! How come she never saw him when she was getting on the trampoline?

There was something seriously wrong here. "You again?" Alexa suprised herself from the question. She surprised herself again when she said "Give me one reason why I shouldn't call the cops on you."

The guy smiled and said "Because you're curious about who I am and why I'm watching you."

"Maybe." Alexa said coldly. "But maybe not. I'm not well known for being curious." as she said this she jumped off the trampoline and started to run inside.

She was planning on getting the phone and calling the cops, but right at the door the guy blocked her, holding his arms out in a casual position. A position that basically said, "Don't move another step, I'm stronger than you after all."

Alexa knew this position well, because she had an older brother and whenever he caught her snooping in his room and she tried to run out he did the same thing.

But she knew some things too, and one of those things were how to juke out her brother so she could get to safety- her room. And she did that same thing now. She made a sharp move to the left, then another to the right, and then attempted to spin around the guy, but apparently he knew a few moves from the books too, because he grabbed her wrists and stopped her in her tracks.

Breathless, Alexa flinched, ready for him to stuff a bag over her head or something, but it didn't come. He dropped her wrists and they hung there limply. "What do you want?" Alexa asked.

"I just want to have a friendly conversation!" The guy said blankly.

"Normal people usually don't start a friendly conversation by invading other people's personal space!" Alexa shouted.

"Well, I'm far from normal." He said, grinning.

And that's how it all started.

So next year at Bethany when no guys payed attention to her, she understood why. But it didn't matter. She had someone very special waiting for her at home. And that was her boyfriend, Jackson. Guess what? He was far from normal. Because he was a werewolf.