a/N:

Hello! I have been sitting on this story for a little while, going back and forth about publishing it. With a gentle pushes from dear friends, I think I found the confidence to let ya'll into this small world I created based on the Twilight characters. I expect this lil fic to last around 15 chapters, short and sweet with no convoluted plots. We'll be following Bella through her senior year, hopefully ending by the summer time. All human, canon couples, and rated M for the potential of lemons and saucy, teenage thoughts and situations. Updates will be once a week till complete!

Summary: Seventeen year old Bella Swan is in her last year of high school and she has a big secret that no one knows about, not even her best friends. The witty, smart-ass, who likes horror movies and sixties music, is completely in love with the school pretty boy, Edward Cullen. Despite her best efforts to be different than every other girl at Forks High School, she has fallen for the most popular boy. Can she get over her crush? Or will she cave in and confess her feelings before college pulls them apart for good? Rated M for lemons, language, and potential situations.

Chapter One: Orange Sweaters

I woke up a quarter past six even though my alarm was set for seven.

I was too uncomfortable to force myself to go back to sleep because my clothes were drenched in sweat. My pajamas were blue with wine glass prints, they were apart of my mom's "Home is Where the Wine Is" collection. A complimentary set to her self-published-self-help book, where each chapter is named after one of her favorite wines. The moderate success of her first book prompted an actual publishing company to reach out, and now she is in the process of writing her second book. Like her first book, she references wine, and the pajama set was a promotion tactic by the publishing company, and I have no idea how well its working because the fabric was very itchy and uncomfortable.

I sat up and pulled the itchy, poorly knit top over my head and tossed it onto the computer chair. I remember using my desk religiously when I had a desk-top, but ever since my conversion to the wonderful world of portable internet, my new residence is my bed. Therefore, my chair serves a new purpose: laundry pile.

I tried laying back down, but my bed felt wet even though my sweat was contained to the shirt. I forced myself out of bed and pulled off my shorts, figuring it was better to take a shower before Charlie woke up. For a fifty-something year old man, with a hyper-sense of masculinity, his bathroom routine was obnoxiously long.

Due to a poorly established plumbing system in Forks, it takes an upward of ten minutes for the water to turn warm. When I first moved here from Phoenix, where I lived a newly constructed apartment complex in the middle of the city, I was appalled by how long it took the hot water to kick in. But that was six years ago, now I'm desensitized to these once annoying inconveniences. I simply turned the knob all the way to the right and hopped in.

The water was barely warm when I finished scrubbing my ass. I checked the clock when I got back to my room: 6:45am.

I groaned inwardly, the shower did not take nearly as long as I had hoped. I took my time brushing out my stubborn knots before letting it air-dry in a messy bun behind my head. I knew it would become frizzy by the time I got to school, because the dry October weather is brutal to my hair, so I did not bother trying to style it.

Although I wanted to take my time getting ready, it was pretty hard when your wardrobe consists of hoodies, plain shirts, and jeans. My hair was still a little damp when I decided to go downstairs, rocking some reliable shoes and a neon orange hoodie. I was feeling bold.

Charlie was sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in his police uniform and drinking his usual cup of hazelnut coffee. He usually reads the Seattle Times or something, but today he was engrossed in a motorcycle magazine.

"You're not going through a mid-life crisis, are you?" I asked half-kidding, half serious as I made my way to the coffee pot. Renee's midlife crisis is her attempt to recreate her image through her books, I figured it was only a matter of time before Charlie did something drastic too.

He chuckled, taking my comment as a joke and choosing to ignore it. Instead, he zeroed in on my choice of clothing, "A bit bright." It was a statement, not a question.

We had a weird relationship, Charlie and I. I love him as much as a daughter should, but we aren't close. Not that it was his fault or mine, he tried his best to be interested in the things I am. He even bought me a few Molly Hatchet CDs, hoping we could listen to it in the living room or something. But he is a simple man who enjoys watching baseball and hockey, drinking coffee, and reading the newspaper, things I have absolutely no interest in. I did a good job of staying out of trouble by confining myself to my room 6 days a week, where I do nothing but listen to music and watch horror films, occasionally chowing down an entire Family Sized bag of lays. I stay out of trouble and he leaves me alone. So here we are, six years later of co-habitation, and we politely do our own things.

"Yeah, I'm feeling a bit bright today." I grabbed some pop-tarts from the cabinets and sat across from him.

"Looks good on you," he offered, but the compliment didn't reach his eyes. I rolled my eyes internally, I didn't take it personally. Charlie doesn't like things that disrupt the reality he built for himself. The color palette that surrounds him are grays, blacks, dull blues, and moss greens, a palate that is supported by the dreary town of Forks. The neon-orange must make him uncomfortable.

We ate in relative silence, occasionally making short conversation. He would ask the usual Dad stuff: how's school? How's Alice? Did you talk to your mom? And I offered short, but detailed enough responses to satisfy him. And just like that, he was off to work and I was in my equally loud orange pick up truck on my way to school.

The thirty minute drive to school is my favorite part of the day, the roads were almost always empty because I lived on the opposite side of town, where there were less houses and more trees. I remember being thirteen and upset that all my friends got to spend the summer having bike races through the neighborhood, while I spent my days playing chess with Mrs. Featherhorn. Although I did resent my time with eighty-three year old at the time, I do miss her peppermint and power scent as she passed away six months. She's the one who started my addiction to cinnamon flavored gum.

With that, I pulled out a fresh pack of cinnamon gum out of the glove department, and stuck two sticks into my mouth, my mouth watering with the sensory overload of bitterness.

When I pulled into the parking lot of Forks High School, I was midway through my favorite song by the Smiths, so I decided to jam out for a little longer. This Charming Man wasn't your typical rave song or anything, but I still enthusiastically nodded along and slammed my hands against the steering wheel. I probably looked crazy, but the parking lot was relatively empty except for a few teachers who were parked on the other side.

"He knows so much about these thingggggggs," I sang the last note as loudly as I could, and I instantly regretted it when I heard a chuckle right outside my window.

Startled, I slapped the "off' button on my old CD player and looked over-wide eyed to see non-other than Edward Cullen smirking, as he leaned against the door of his silver Volvo.

Stupid rich boy.

I rolled down my window a little too aggressively, the car groaned in response.

"You know it's rude to stare at people!"

He had dark sun glasses on and a leather jacket, I guess he was pretending to be a bad boy today. He shrugged his shoulders dismissively, looked at my sweater, and raised an eyebrow. "Stop staring," I barked.

He continued to grin until his phone went off, looked behind him, and immediately walked off in that direction. A red Honda had just pulled in and Edward eagerly ran to open the door before she could. From the overly glossy car stepped out a perky blonde who somehow managed to obtain a 4.0 but still question if water is really wet if you're under water: Tanya Denali. She was nearly Edward's height when she wore heels, I think she is part-Amazon with her freakishly long legs and tan skin despite the lack of sun in Forks. I'm being mean, fuck, I am jealous of her legs, height, and perfect hair. She had hair almost as long as mine, but it was silkier and always neatly curled. Her eyes are a bright blue that always had a softness to them.

Edward and Tanya made the perfect picture of Forks Prom King and Queen. She is perfect and he is gorgeous.

I sighed dejectedly, looking down at my outfit. No shit I'm not his type. I wondered then if the faint yellow stain on my jeans was mustard or paint.

It was hard to pull myself away from my depressing thoughts, but I had to suck it up in order to maintain my reputation of the emotionless, smart-ass of Forks High School. I slung my dull orange Jansport book bag over my shoulder and made way inside, my senior year was off to a shitty start.

Alice always managed to cheer me up. She was a hoot. No one understood how we managed to become so close despite our very different personalities and interests, but we have been glued to the hip since junior high. From sleep overs to late night phone calls about boys and movies, our friendship is unbreakable.

When lunch came around, Edward was at the back of mind. Alice is energetically handing out flyers while I tried to help, occasionally passing flyers into unwilling hands, but I got really hungry which made me grumpy-Bella. I didn't want to spend my lunch period handing out flyers for some stupid dance that was more than a month away.

"Bella, you can go get lunch," Alice said looking at me disapprovingly.

"No, we're almost done. I might as well see the job through."

Alice shrugged.

Alice is my best friend, being second to none. She knew me well, but she was easily distracted and pleased.

"At least pretend to look excited, dances are supposed to be fun!" She smiled widely, clapping her hands together. Technically, Alice is seven months older than me, but she acted as if she were seven years younger. She could probably pass for ten, if I'm being honest. She is barely five foot and is very thin, if not for the fact that her face showed no signs of roundness there would be nothing to suggest that she is seventeen years old.

"I guess, but it's not really my thing. Maybe if it was horror themed I'd go," I looked down at the flyer entitled Royalty At Night, "But now that I think about it, this is the scary than any theme I could think up."

Alice glared, but did not comment, "Please come to the dance Bella."

"See I would, but I don't have a date. And like you said yesterday, it'd be social suicide," I joked as I shoved a flyer into some Freshman's hands, "So unless you can find the perfect match like on Zoey 101, I'm not interested."

I laughed, expecting Alice to protest further, but she just smirked.

We sat at one of the larger round tables, with our group: Jessica, Angela, Tyler, and Ben. Collectively, we were one of the more likable groups at Forks High School. Alice, Jessica, and Tyler were popular and the rest of us leveled them out, made us more approachable I think.

"It's a genius idea," Jessica said enthusiastically, clasping Alice's hands.

Alice responded with an equal enthusiasm, "I know, right! Can you believe it was all Bella's idea?"

I nearly choked on my pepperoni pizza.

She scowled at me, "Don't try to play innocent now!" Alice looked at the very confused faces of our faces and elaborated, "It was her idea. We were handing out flyers when Bella suggested a Zoey 101-esque dance. Remember the episode where everyone took a quiz that paired them up came with their perfect match? And Bells was like "wouldn't that be cool?" I was like yes, totally!"

Four pairs of wide, shocked eyes starred at me. From the way they starred at me, it was like I was no longer the Bella Swan they have known since the seventh grade, who always sported knotted brown hair and stained band t-shirts. It was as if I morphed into alien-like being. I shook my head at their expressions and shoved another mouth-full of the cool, cafeteria pizza and held up a single finger and mumbled, "Alice is exaggerating, all I said was that it would make dances a lot less stressful if our dates were pre-selected for perfection."

Alice rolled her eyes, "So basically what I just said," she turned to Jessica and squared her shoulders, "As Presidents of the Dance Committee, I believe it is our obligation to create the perfect personality quiz to ensure that all participants get their perfect matches!"

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

I chuckled to myself and kept eating my lunch, only have listening to Alice's plan to recruit Erick Yorki and the rest of the "tech-geeks" (as Jessica called them) to develop the quiz.

By the time lunch ended, Alice and Jessica had an entire To-Do list created to ensure the dance would come together. Apparently this task was a big deal because two months was barely enough time to organize it all and get it approved by the higher-ups. Alice touched my elbow as we parted ways, I made a left to head to the science wing.

Biology is my favorite class. Not because I liked the subject and definitely not because of the teacher, because god knows Mr. Banner was an awful human being. Personally, I think he's out to get me because he had a thing for my mom in their hey-days, but she dumped him for my dad or something. Charlie says he has to be over it, but from that look of utter loathing he offered me on the first day of school, I wasn't too sure about that. The realization that my biology teacher still has the hots for my mom twenty-something years later is unpleasant enough for me avoid Mr. Banner as much as I can.

Despite this, I really liked Biology because it was the only time I could talk to Edward, who happened to be my lab partner. We didn't choose each other, we were randomly assigned to work together on the first day. I sometimes wonder if Edward would have chosen me for a lab partner, though. Like the Mr. Banner thing, I try not to think too deeply about it.

I sat at a black lab-desk near the back of the room, and tried look like I wasn't waiting for Edward. I set my book bag atop of the desk and kept my earbuds in, This Charming Man began to play again and I tried my best to resist the urge to sing along, wincing at memory of this morning.

I'm such a fucking loser.

I got lost between the music and the doodle-pattern I was creating on my notebook, I really liked the way red sharpie looked on the yellow cover, but when the song ended I heard a familiar soft, chuckle. I ripped the earbuds out of my ear and looked over, Edward Cullen was sporting his cocky smile again.

"You keep scarring me," I growled. It was hard pretending like his presence annoyed me, when it reality our interactions are the highlight of my day.

He ran a hand through his silky, bronze hair and then shimmied out of his leather jacket, "Sorry, Bella. You're just really easy to scare." He smirked again, without looking at me this time.

I wanted to respond with something witty, but I realized I no longer had his attention.

Edward was looking down at a drawing on his arm. I leaned a little closer to make sense of it, which was fresh but smudged by the rubbing of his jacket, and it became clear after a bit of squinting.

It wasn't a drawing, but words written in red pen, "Tanya hearts Eddie 4ever!"

I frowned. I always hated his nickname.

I looked down at my notebook, the color red was no longer appealing.

I kept looking at him, willing him to look up from the scribble to make eye contact with me. Maybe if our eyes met right now, he would see how much I loved him. And he would realize how much he liked me.

But he never looked back at me, he just kept smiling at the scribble on his arm.