This story is rated M for adult language and future sexual content. If you have a problem with that please don't read.
Stephenie Meyer owns the characters of Twilight - I just manipulate them to do my bidding.
BPOV
Up until exactly 4 minutes ago, a school population of 357 seemed relatively tiny to me. I could handle being around 357 of my peers for a little over the year I am supposed to be here. After all, my previous school had roughly twice the number of students per grade. 357 was supposed to be cake.
That was 4 minutes ago; the exact time I was standing outside of the school entrance gazing up at the Forks High School sign above the two sets of glass double-doors that led to my new establishment of learning.
Knowing that 357 students is a small number is somewhat misleading when you consider that you are actually surrounded by all 357 students is such close proximity all at once. In Phoenix, even though the school population greatly surpasses the population of Forks, there are several different buildings, hallways and lunch hours that allow you minimal contact with the full student body. Here, in Forks-fucking-nowhere, you can't really escape.
I guess there is a different dynamic when you live in a town this small and go to an even smaller school.
When you are in a big city, you honestly don't really get the chance to make too many friends.
Big schools offer more classes; more classes means the likelihood of having the same people in multiple classes are slimmer. Finding people who share common interests or who simply don't annoy you so much that you want to punch them in the face is another factor. It's even harder considering you are basically limited to keeping friends with your fellow peers who live within a reasonable distance from you outside of school. Long distances don't really work when you aren't old enough to drive. This equation does not summate a long list of friends if you get what I mean.
So I guess the bigger the school, the fewer friends you have, but I might add that they are probably going to be more loyal.
Forks is small. Really small; too fucking small if you ask me. I guess when you live in a town this size, with parents knowing parents and kids growing up together, you take what you are given and make-do.
In Forks, it is entirely possible to be on a first name basis with every single kid you go to school with. You may not like them, but you will know them or at least know who they are.
It really is such a fucking cliché – a small town with its head up its own ass. News travels faster than the speed of light, everybody knows who sleeps around or who is still a virgin and life outside of this fishbowl doesn't really exist.
I wouldn't consider myself a big-city girl by any means, but I would certainly never willingly chose a town this small to live in, and this town is pretty low on my shit-list.
Listening to the stories from my dad, it seems that once you are a Forksian you are a Forksian for life. This idea is completely disturbing to me. The gene pool isn't that large for one. Makes you wonder…
For all these reasons, that is why when I stepped thought the entryway doors of Forks HS just 4, well now more like 6, minutes ago, I almost had a panic attack.
There were kids everywhere. Every-fucking-where. In addition, the first thing I noticed is that I, Bella Swan, a Forks expatriate and daughter of the beloved Chief of Police, was not going to fit in at all.