Disclaimer: If I owned Twilight, Alice would figure far more prominently in the story.

When I awoke the next morning, I was disoriented, looking around frantically for my old room. I wondered why there was no sun coming through my window. For the first moment I thought that maybe I had woken up before the sun, but a quick glance at my watch told me that such was not the case. Slowly my memory of where I was and what I was doing trickled back to me. The reason for the grey sky was the low-slung layer of clouds. I was not in my own room because I was here, in Seattle

My early morning musing's were interrupted by a loud banging next door. I seemed like someone was pounding on their door. Putting on my bathrobe, I went out to investigate. What I saw was a large man, seemingly in his early twenties. He had curly, dark brown hair. That may sound fairly normal to you, but believe me, when I say large, I mean large. He must have been a body builder. Possibly even a steroids abuser. He was pounding on the door of my next door neighbor's apartment. His huge fist made loud thumping sounds on the flimsy wood.

My first instinct was to go back to bed, avoid confrontation. But wasn't I was here break out of my shell, move outside of my comfort zone? Besides, I reasoned, He need to be told off. Everyone on the block could hear him, I was sure. Straightening my shoulders, I marched up to him and tapped him on the back. He swung round so fast I had to duck to avoid him.

"I wish you would be quieter" I informed him. "You are going to wake up this entire floor if you don't stop" There, I said it! I walked right up to someone and said something, out loud! I grinned internally at this small accomplishment.

For a moment he looked disoriented, as if he was wondering who had spoken. Then his eyes found mine and he smiled, not unkindly. "I'm awfully sorry I disturbed you" He said politely. "But Alice here," he pounded on the door again. "Ought to have been up already" Almost before he finished his sentence, the door creaked open, and out stepped a slight girl with spiky black hair. Compared to the tall man she looked like a pixie. It was obvious that she had just gotten up, and yet she was beautiful enough that she could have just stepped from the pages of an airbrushed magazine. She had dark circles under her eyes however. And the way she glared at the tall man was more reminiscent of a tiger than a pixie.

"Emmett." She ground out between clenched teeth. "What the hell is wrong with you? It's a Sunday!" She stared at him through narrowed eyes.

"Hey, Hey, hey!" Said Emmett, backing away with his hands up. "You were the one that said that we should get together for breakfast this morning."

"Yes, but I didn't mean at 7:30 in the morning!"

I decided that I had had enough of this particular argument, and returned to my apartment. I had planned to sleep in this morning, but since I was already up I figured that I might as well start my day early.

Looking around, I decided that unpacking could wait for later. Right now, I needed to get dressed, and then to find my way to some sort of grocery shop to pick up ingredients for breakfast.

One breakfast of pancakes later and I again looked at the pile of boxes. I did a bit of unpacking, but my heart wasn't really in it. I knew that I ought to get things done before work tomorrow, but, I reasoned with myself, the whole point of moving across the country was so that you could break out of your box? Responsibly unpacking first was something the old Bella would do. I knew that if I continued to follow that line of thought I would never get anything done. But it seemed a good enough excuse for now.

I walked down to a small coffee shop I had seen earlier when I went to the grocery store. I walked in, and ordered an ordinary back coffee. Sitting down, I warmed my hands over the cup. My thin Arizona clothes were not doing a very good job of keeping the heat in. I decided I would have to shopping soon.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a melodic voice asking "May I please sit down here?"

I looked up to see the pixie girl from across the hall. She seemed to have recovered from her bad mood this morning, and was smiling widely.

"Oh, yeah sure" I answered. She grabbed a chair and sat down across from me.

"I saw you this morning. Did you move into the apartment next to mine?" She asked me. I nodded. "Did Emmett wake you up?" she asked sympathetically.

"Yeah, he did. I actually came out to tell him to quiet down." I responded. She grinned at me companionably.

"I'm Alice Cullen"

"Bella Swan"

"Your new around here, aren't you?" She asked.

"How could you tell?" I laughed.

"Well for one, that fact that you just moved in is a dead giveaway. For another, you clothes aren't anywhere near warm enough for this weather."

"I noticed" I answered. "I'll have to go shopping soon" As soon as I said the word shopping, Alice's eyes lit up.

"Oh, can I take you!" She exclaimed

"Where?"

"Shopping, of course!" I was unsure how to respond to that. What do you do when a total stranger offers to take you shopping?

"Well…" I trailed off. Alice was looking at me with the saddest expression on her face. Her eyes were big and her lower lip quivered like she was about to cry.

"Alright" I finished. Instantly the hurt expression left her face. She smiled so widely that I thought her face might split in two. I'll meet you at my apartment in half an hour. And she was gone, leaving me in her wake wondering exactly what had just happened.

AN: Yay, another chapter! Aren't I just so productive! And just to clarify, Edward and jasper are not going to be gay for each other in this story. Jasper just doesn't exist, and Edward….well you'll find out more about Edward later.