Chapter 1: A Small Affair

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"I want to fly,

Into this beautiful life,

I think it'd be nice with you."

Cider Sky – Northern Lights

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It was a small affair.

I watched as the newlyweds danced their first dance, blissfully unaware of their surroundings as they got lost in each other's eyes. They gazed at each other lovingly, as though they were the only two beings on the earth at that very moment.

"Do you think you'll ever want that?" I asked, turning my gaze to my left, where my best friend Bella sat fidgeting with a loose thread on her dress.

"What?" she asked, blinking rapidly as her mind came back from her internal thoughts.

"Love." I sighed, "A love where, when you're together, it seems like the whole world just disappears." I explained, glancing back at the happy couple.

Bella shrugged her shoulders, "I haven't really thought about it." She mumbled. "Have you?"

"Sometimes." I started. "It's kind of hard to live with my parents and not think about love."

"Yeah. I guess they just hit lucky."

As I turned to my morose best friend, I couldn't help but notice that she seemed quite miserable. Not because she didn't want her mother to re-marry, but because I knew she often viewed herself as a burden. And to be honest, it wasn't exactly a new trait for her.

Bella and I had been best friends since we were seven years old. Ever since my first day in Phoenix.

I was originally from Ireland, and when I arrived at my new school in Arizona, it was obvious that I wasn't from there. Not only because I had a different accent, but because I was the only pale one in the room. Well, all except one other person; Bella.

I could tell that she was an outcast from the second I laid eyes on her. She had been sat alone in the corner of the room, eyes cast down. In an instance, I walked on over and started talking to her. I could still remember the shock in her eyes as she realised that someone was acknowledging her existence.

Becoming friends with Bella had been quite fortunate for me. Due to her love of reading, we used to spend most of our time in the library or in each other's bedrooms. That meant I didn't have to spend too much time out in the sun; the sun which I loathed. I supposed that my distaste for the sun and the idea of getting a tan also set me apart from the other students at the school.

Their friendship was probably the only reason why I hadn't broken after a week, begging to be taken home to Ireland.

And yet, Bella often apologised to me; feeling as though she was holding me back from making more friends, from having an exciting life. And no matter what I said to try and calm her down, to reassure her, she just never seemed to listen to me.

Her feelings of being a burden only heightened when Phil came into the picture. Now she felt like she wasn't just holding me back but holding her mother back too.

She knew how much her mother wanted to travel with Phil for his job as a minor league baseball player. Renee constantly reassured her that everything was fine and that she didn't want to travel, but both Bella and I knew better than that.

"Bella, I know you're not happy. I know that you feel like you're going to be a burden but you're not" I said, trying to comfort her. "You know you could always go and live with your dad?" I offered.

"I haven't seen Charlie in years, Lex." She sighed. "I don't even know if he'd want me to live with him. He's probably busy; has a routine that I'd just get in the way of."

Taking her attention away from the newlyweds, I tried to reason with her "You know you won't be a burden to him… He doesn't want to leave Forks, and I'm sure he wants to see you more. You saw his face when you stopped going to Forks to visit him. Hell, the poor guy even leaves to come visit you every now and then."

"You don't understand. It's such a small town... The old ones will remember me and anyone our age will just look at me like some kind of alien." She explained "I don't want to act like I know people that I clearly don't remember."

"I'm sure it wouldn't be that bad, Bella."

"Why do you want me to go anyway? What would you do if I wasn't here?" she scoffed, playing with another part of her dress. She wasn't really a girl who wore dresses. "I'm the only person you bothered to make friends with."

Taking a deep sigh, I knew that it was time to tell her the news. The news that I had been tormented by for the past two weeks, trying to figure out the best way to spring it on my best friend. "That's what I've been meaning to talk to you about… I'm not going to be staying in Phoenix much longer." I explained, eyes squinting in worry, waiting for what her reaction would be.

"What?" She asked, eyes filling with panic as she leaned towards me. "What are you talking about? Where are you going?"

"Forks." I simply shrugged, giving what I was sure could only be described as a pitiful smile. "My dad can see how unhappy my mother is in a city, Bella. I'm not exactly happy about living here either. We both miss Ireland, so my dad got a job at the hospital in Forks; he thinks it'll help me, and my mum enjoy what America has to offer."

"But Forks, Washington? Why would you go there? It's wet and it's cold and…" Bella trailed off as the realisation hit her. "And a lot like Ireland. That's exactly where you would go."

"Exactly." I sighed, starting to doubt if I'd really be able to convince her. "Please, B. You've been my best friend for 10 years, I really don't want to finish school without you. I think you should at least give it a try."

"I don't know." Bella mumbled, fidgeting with her dress once more, clearly still uncomfortable in it. "I guess that I could try and see if Charlie would let me move in for a couple of months or something… Maybe until the end of the school year?" She offered. "Mum would be able to find her dream home in the meantime, maybe."

A small smile tugged at my lips as I noticed she was starting to come around. "Bella, I'm telling you, I think this could be really great. I mean what have we really gotten from Phoenix? There isn't really anything here for us except each other and soon I'm not going to be here." I explained looking back at Bella's mum still dancing "She'll be able to travel for a while, so you'll feel better... I'll still have you in my life, so I'll feel better... Sounds like a win-win to me."

Bella sighed once more, looking down at her feet, eyebrows furrowed in thought.

I knew how difficult it would be for the brunette to try and reconnect with her father again. It was clear to see where she had inherited her awkward nature from. I once went with Bella to visit her father in Forks when we were 8. Charlie was a genuinely kind man, always trying to make some kind of awkward small talk. But unless you know about sports, there just wasn't much he was capable of talking about. Luckily, having grown up with an older brother, I quite enjoyed sports.

As I thought back to my small time in Forks, I remembered that the small rainy town was where the dreams had first started. The dreams that would continue in some form or another every night for the following nine years on my life. The subject being golden eyes the colour of hot amber.

"I'll call him in the morning." Bella finally announced, bringing me back to the current situation. "Check if he's okay with the idea before I mention anything to mom."

Unable to stop the grin that made its way onto my face, I drew Bella into a tight hug. "I swear that this will be great for us!" I assured. "I promise. I can feel it. Even if I have to do some drastic things to make you enjoy it there."

With that, Bella let out a small laugh, already starting to relax at the idea of returning to Forks.

Looking over towards the table where my family sat, I locked eyes with my father, giving him a small thumbs up. He beamed in response, turning to talk to my older brother Adam. They all knew exactly what I was going to ask of my best friend; in fact, it was why my father had applied to Forks in the first place. He had known that the best possible way to get his daughter to relax in a new town was to have her best friend by her side. This way, there was a possibility of everyone being happy.

My father, Oliver Hanson, was born in the USA, moving over to Ireland in his late teens to study medicine away from home. It was there that he would meet the girl of him dreams, Maeve, my mother. After a few years together, they married and had their two children; me and Adam. But our father started to miss home, so we moved over.

Forks was a compromise between the couple, the environment and general ambience of Ireland whilst being situated in the United States.

Seeing how my mother animatedly spoke to the people around her, I knew how excited she already was. I knew that my mother had missed painting the trees, the rain hitting the dark waters of a river in the middle of a shadowed forest. We would often sit and reminisce together, talking about my few memories of our home. The main thing we would find ourselves laughing about, was our tendency to get sunburnt in Phoenix no matter how much we tried to avoid it; it wasn't the safest climate for the pair of us.

I just hoped that I would be able to keep my promise to my best friend. I hoped that Bella wouldn't regret going with me to her old home town. I hoped that something great would happen in Forks; a miracle.

After all, you never know what can happen.

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A/N: Thanks for reading the first chapter, next chapter we'll be on our way to Forks, getting closer to Jasper.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Feel free to leave a review with any constructive criticism or opinions you may have.

Thanks again,

~fawningfantasy x