Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, any characters, story lines, etc. Everything's the property of Stephenie Meyer.

Alice glanced up at me as I stepped into the room and started squealing. "Oh my gosh! Rosealie look at Bella!"

Rosealie glanced up from the shirt she was hanging up and quickly dropped the shirt and hanger and came over to me with Alice. I was confused as they dragged me over to my bed and sat down with me in the middle. "Okay, spill. Who did you meet?" Alice demanded.

"Yeah, what happened?" Rosealie asked.

"What are you guys talking about?" I asked, trying to pretend nothing was going on—unfortunately I started blushing which instantly gave me away.

"Oh, don't try to play Ms. Innocent with us. You're face is practically glowing!"

"Well, it is cool outside," I said, but then I caved as soon as they both glared at me. "Okay, okay. I met this guy; he was really cute and nice and we walked around and talked. That's it—nothing else happened. Besides, it's not like he would be interested in anything other than friendship with me." I said the last part glumly.

I saw Alice look over at Rose and Rose nodded her head and Alice started bouncing up and down on the bed, clapping her hands. "We're going to help you get this guy! So we're going to take you shopping!"

I started to get nervous. I HATED shopping and Alice's obvious enthusiasm did not help make me feel any more relaxed. "Umm…you guys really don't have to do that. I think I'm okay with not shopping," I said.

"Don't be silly. We love shopping! This is going to be so much fun! We should do it on Saturday so we have the whole day…"

"Good idea Rose. And that gives us Sunday to help you with some other things."

"Whoa…why do we need a whole day of shopping? I don't have enough room in the closet for a lot, and I don't really have enough money either."

"Would you stop complaining already! Look, the closet space isn't a problem as you already know perfectly well because Melanie moved out, and we won't get you anything too expensive, but Rose and I need to go shopping for some stuff too. It'll be fun. Please…" Alice said, giving me what had to be the saddest, most pathetic face I'd ever seen and it instantly caused any will-power I might have had into dust.

"Oh, that is not fair to use that face. Fine. We'll go. I'll try to be good."

"Yay!" Alice cried, resuming her bouncing, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Okay Alice, as much as I love your enthusiasm, I'm thinking we might want to get ready for our tae-kwon-do class. I still can't believe I let you talk me into this," I muttered as we all changed into work-out clothes.

"It's gonna be great! Besides, didn't you say your mom's been bugging you to learn some kind of self-defense?"

"Well yes, but still—what if I have problems?" I asked, not wanting to say out-right my concerns.

Luckily, Rose seemed to understand what I was worried about and said softly, "You'll be fine Bella. Just take it easy and talk to the instructor if you think you're going to have any problems. Besides, tae-kwon-do is mostly kicking anyways."

I smiled gratefully at her, but I still felt a small share of nerves as we walked over to the gym. When we found our room it was occupied by people throwing each other on the floor. We were 15 minutes early, and we talked quietly until the instructor showed up. Alice gave me a small shove and said, "Go talk to him now, before a bunch of people show up."

I glared at her and shook my head. "No way, I'm not having his first impression of me be that I'm a whiny baby."

Alice and Rose both gave me a look, and I quickly added, "If I start having problems I'll talk to him, I promise. Besides you guys are the ones who said that it's mostly kicking, so I shouldn't have a problem."

We were about to continue our conversation from earlier when I heard a velvet voice that I would recognize anywhere. "Bella?"

I felt my face flame red as I turned and managed to squeak out, "Edward? What are you doing here?"

He smiled and I felt my own face break out in a smile. He opened his mouth to speak when Alice suddenly spoke, "What, no hello from my 2 brothers?"

I felt my jaw drop, as Edward rolled his eyes. "Hello, my short annoying sister."

"Wait wait wait…Alice, you and Edward are brother and sister?" I said, as I felt complete confusion engulf me.

"Yeah, Edward's my fraternal twin, and Emmett's our older brother," Alice said as she pointed out the big muscular looking guy standing next to Edward. I was going to have to corner Alice later, but there wasn't a whole lot I could say right now without embarrassing myself.

"Hey there, I'm Rosealie." Rose introduced herself speaking to everyone, but looking directly at Emmett, and I could tell by his face that the interest was definitely mutual. They walked down the hall talking quietly between them.

"Edward, you shouldn't be rude—introduce me to your friend," Alice said, looking at the tall blonde-haired guy who was standing next to Edward and had been quiet up until now.

"My name's Jasper; it's a pleasure to meet you," he said in a quiet voice that held a slight southern drawl.

"No, no, the pleasure's all mine. So walk with me and tell me about yourself," Alice said, and she looped her arm through his and pulled him the other way chatting at a pace that almost made me feel bad for him.

"So you never did answer my question earlier—what are you guys doing here?" I asked Edward, not quite sure where my boost of confidence had come from.

"Emmett mentioned the tae-kwon-do class he was signed up for, and it sounded like fun, so Jasper and I decided to join him. I'm glad we did," he said with a smile that had me blushing and staring at the floor.

I glanced at the directions our friends had gone, and smiled when I saw both pairs engrossed in conversations. "Well, everyone's getting along" I said.

He was going to respond when the instructor called the class to order and quickly went over the basic guidelines of the class. The he had us start stretching and I realized that tomorrow I would probably be fairly sore. He had us run/jog around the room for a few minutes, which really wasn't too bad, especially considering that Edward stayed next to me the whole time.

Then we got into a large circle; I had Edward on one side, Alice on my other side, and Jasper was right next to her. Our instructor insisted on us calling him Ron, and then he had us do some knee-ups, some leg lifts, and then he said something that caused my heart-rate to double and all of the blood to leave my face: "Do 50 push-ups and 50 crunches."

I turned my face towards Alice and she instantly saw the nervousness that I'm pretty sure was stamped all over my face. Then I heard Ron continue talking and I calmed down when I heard him say, "I just want you to try to do 50 each. You can modify them if you need to."

So we all started doing push-ups. I was able to do about 10 regular push-ups and then I had to do modified push-ups, and even then I only ended up doing around 30 total push-ups and I could feel the muscles in my arm shaking. The crunches weren't as bad but I could tell that I would feel it the next day.

Then we were told to break into pairs and practice punching—one person holding their hand out as a target for the other person to aim at as they did 15 punches with each arm. Ron said that if we wanted to be brave we should try partnering up with someone of the opposite sex. I could see most of the girls eyeing Edward when Ron said that and I tried not to let the jealousy I was feeling show on my face.

'You have no right to be jealous—he's just a friend' I kept chanting over and over in my head. Unfortunately, that didn't really help. I couldn't help but feel extraordinarily happy when Edward turned to me with his eyebrows raised and a silent question on his face. I nodded, smiling, and he smiled as well. He was about to walk closer to me when an over-perky fake red-head suddenly appeared in front of him.

"Hi! I'm Jessica and I'm going to give you the privilege of being my partner."

My hand started twitching as the over-whelming urge to smack her overcame me; luckily though Edward spoke before I could give in to my urge. "Gee…thanks," he said in a sarcastic tone, "but I already have a partner." And with that he walked up to me and said with his crooked smile, "Shall we?"

I couldn't help smirking at Jessica and then Edward and I got started practicing. "Ladies first?" he asked, ever the gentleman.

I blushed as usual, and said "Sure." I started with my right arm and did 15 punches which weren't too difficult, and then I switched to my left arm and started punching. Outwardly I tried to keep my face smooth, but inside I was wincing with each punch by the time I got up to 7 punches. I completed the set as quickly as possible and then it was time for Edward to practice.

He wanted to start with his right arm, so I held out my left arm as a target as Ron had indicated for us to do. I was amazed I didn't start drooling while he was practicing. His punches were graceful and seemed effortless and the speed of his punches made mine look like they had been in slow motion.

I got so caught up in watching him that I didn't even notice the fact that my arm had started shaking slightly until I went to flip arms so he could practice punching with his left arm. I quickly switched and hoped that he hadn't noticed. Luck seemed to be with me, although I did notice a slight crease in his forehead, but I brushed it off as his concentration. He finished and we bowed to each other and then watched as the other pairs wrapped up.

It was amusing to see the tiny petite Alice and Japer practicing together. She was practically buzzing with energy and he had a slight smile on his face as he held his hand down for her to aim at, seeing as she was at least a foot shorter than he was. I noticed that as they practiced the entire time they had their eyes locked.

I looked over at Rose and Emmett and started laughing as I watched them practice. Emmett seemed so hesitant to have his fist go anywhere within a foot of Rose, and Rose was taunting him, saying things like, "What? Are you afraid my hand's going to bite you?" Then when it was Rose's turn to practice punching—she wasn't afraid to get close to Emmett's hand, and she ended up accidentally hitting his hand pretty hard. What made me laugh was Emmett's face—he looked shocked and he flinched slightly when she punched his hand, but he didn't say anything.

Ron wrapped up the class and we left the classroom, bowing as we left. "So can we walk you girls home?" Emmett asked, looking only at Rose as he asked.

She responded quickly, answering for me and Alice as well. "That would be great."

I couldn't help chuckling quietly and I heard Edward's musical laugh next to me. "Great, well, let's head out, shall we?" Emmett asked, looking at Rose. She nodded and they quickly walked off.

"You guys go ahead. We'll catch up" Alice said, struggling to get her shoes on. Jasper offered her his arm to use to help her balance and she looked up with grateful eyes. I looked towards Edward, not wanting to interrupt what seemed like a semi-private moment.

Edward extended his hand towards me and I took it quickly, blushing lightly, but thrilled with the contact. We left the building and there was a slight rain falling that felt incredible as it washed the sweat off of my face that had accumulated during the work out. We walked slowly just enjoying the rain and the company, and at that moment I felt no stress, just complete peace and happiness.

Okay, let me know what you think of this chapter. When I saw that people had actually looked at my story and that someone had added my story to their favorite list, my eyes actually welled-up; yes, I am that sad. But I've been having some stressful weeks, and I'm not really sure about this story, so seeing that helped a lot.

Oh, and just so you guys know, the experiences in this story are somewhat based on my real life experiences, but obviously there's some changing around too, seeing as this is fiction and everything. And I apologize if I'm confusing anyone, but I promise I'm going to try to clear up any confusion in the next couple of chapters.