Chapter 2:

The Sex God and The Ugly Duckling

- or -

The Day Edward Cullen First Spoke To Me

I have lived in Forks my whole life. I had a good childhood, for the most part. I was always a little chubby and was never outgoing, but that didn't really seem to matter in elementary school. I was friends with the girls in my class, simply because we were there together.

It wasn't until middle school that things started to change. Jessica Stanley was the popular girl in school, and for some reason, she didn't like me. No matter what I did, it was the lame thing to do. If I picked chocolate milk at lunch, suddenly chocolate milk was uncool. Jessica, followed by the rest of the girls, would choose white milk. If I put the chocolate back and got white milk instead, I was suddenly even more lame.

If I ate cake, they would make fun of my for being fat. If I ate carrots, I was teased for being on a diet. It wasn't sudden or anything, I still considered them my friends for a long time. They would alternate between being nice and being mean. Until they stopped being nice altogether.

I don't know what I did to make them pick on me so much. It hurt a lot when I was younger and I guess I started to eat my feelings, until I was really struggling with my weight and body issues.

By the time high school started, I didn't really have any friends. I had been struggling to lose weight all summer and thought I had done a pretty good job. I thought high school could be a new start. But it was just the same as always.

That was the year Edward Cullen moved to Forks. He was a freshman too, but was two years older than anyone else in our grade. No one knew why, and the mystery surrounding him was enchanting to every female student in the school.

First of all, he was gorgeous. He was the perfect mix between confident bad boy and sheepish sweet-talker. Even at sixteen he was incredibly muscular. He had tattoos on his bicep and who knew where else. His green eyes could be piercing yet playful at the same time, and his grin was lopsided.

Needless to say I had a hopeless crush on him, but so did every other girl, even most of the seniors. Immediately everyone wanted to be his friend, but he remained aloof. He had this unique ability to be popular and a loner at the same time. I don't think he considered anyone a friend.

Well anyway, we were in Biology together and it was a lab day, which I always dreaded, since we had to pick partners. Everyone was partnering up, but I just sat with my head down in the back, waiting for whoever ended up stuck without a partner.

"Hey Swan. Partners?" Edward asked, sitting down next to me before I could give an answer. I felt my cheeks turn red and tried to hide it with my hair.

"Umm. Okay." I fidgeted and tried not to look at anyone. I couldn't believe that he wanted to be partners with me, or that he even knew my name.

There was very little conversation between us as we looked over the handout and started to do the lab. I ended up doing most of it, but I didn't mind.

It's sort of pathetic how much that little encounter meant to me. Edward Cullen was nice to me, he even acted like we were friends or something.

I kept waiting for him to talk to me again, but he never did until next lab day, when he asked to be my partner again.

"So, what kind of stuff do you like to do?" he asked between questions on our handout.

"Umm. . . what?" I asked, my face turning red, like it always did when he spoke to me.

He tapped his pencil on the desk and leaned casually back in his chair.

"Well, you know, hobbies. What kind of music do you like?"

"All kinds," I answered lamely.

"What's on your ipod right now?"

"I don't have an ipod."

"No kidding?" he asked, and then abruptly turned his focus back to the worksheet. I felt like I had messed up somehow. He was being nice, giving me a chance to have a conversation with him, and I was messing it up.

"What kind of music do you like?" I asked.

"I guess I like all kinds, too." And then he grinned at me, a sort of special grin, like we shared a secret or something.

Next time we had a lab, he came and sat next to me automatically, without even asking. We chatted a little, but this time the lab was fairly involved so we focused on that, I still did most of the work.

At the end of class, I reached into my bag to pull out my notebook, and a loose paper flew to the floor. Edward leaned over to pick it up for me and stared at it for a moment before handing it to me.

I stared in complete horror at it. Drawn all over the paper were little hearts with Edward + Bella and Edward and Bella Forever written inside of them.

"This isn't mine!" I told him rather urgently.

"Okay." I couldn't read his expression. He didn't seem upset or embarrassed, he just seemed normal.

"Really, it isn't."

"Okay."

I felt like I could have died from embarrassment. At the next table, Jessica and Lauren were snickering to themselves and I knew they must have slipped that in my bag. I was so mad and embarrassed I could have cried, and thankfully the bell rang and I ran out of the room.

The next lab day, I skipped school. When we had lab again, I came in late and Edward was working with Ben, and I worked by myself the rest of the semester.