Love Story
Prologue
I'll never forget that first summer there in Forks. The weather was odd for that time of year; warm, certainly less rainfall then there had ever been. I think the sun shone more between April and June of that year then it had ever in all the years combined. Like—strangely—the heavens were opening for us. Beauty and brilliancy for the angel's to sing of.
I'm Bella, by the way. My formal name is Isabella Marie Swan, but everyone just calls me Bella. I was 17 that summer, turning 18 in the fall.
Being truthfully honest, I'm just your average girl. Pale skinned with mousy features and a heart shaped face, the only thing that set me apart from the other kids my age was the fact that I was always falling. Stumbling. I didn't have much equilibrium. My flat brown hair matched my deep brown eyes, and I lived in sneakers and t-shirts.
Yes, perfectly normal, perfectly average; nothing worth talking about. But as plain and normal and ordinary as I may be, nothing could have prepared me for those first few months.
And this…well, this is my story of how everything fell into place that perfect summer.
My mother and father had divorced when I was very young—an infant. They were the result of a high-school romance, two teenagers so swept up in love they got married and had me. And divorced within a year of my birth.
My mom Renee built a small home with me, and later her second husband Phil in Phoenix, Arizona. I flew up to visit my father every summer for two weeks since. Until I was ten, that is, that monumental year the very one where I'd demanded that my father come visit me.
I hated Forks, detested it even, and I had to draw the line. And I was sick of going up to visit a man who was so consumed in his job as Chief of Police, his idea of fun was taking me in to the station with him. That was the opposite of what I was.
I was a sun-worshipper; I loved how the sun's rays felt against my skin, lived for the heat of the dry desert and laughed at my mom's failing garden annually.
Charlie kept his promise—two weeks every summer co-existing with Renee for my sake, all for his baby girl.
My decision to move to Forks was entirely my own. When Rene needed to travel with Phil, I'd needed to transfer, mid-semester, to Forks. I had even applied to the local college there since my funds were incredibly non-existent.
It wasn't like I'd be alone, either. I had made two good friends through my childhood there; Jessica Stanley and Angela Weber, who lived on my block. I had kept in touch with them, both eager to see me and rekindle what we had before.
Everyday Forks was looking better and better; practical independence, college and my bright future right ahead and even friends to fill the gaps in between. Yes, my move to Forks was everything I had planned it to be.
Everything, that is, except for him.