The Twilight Twenty-Five
thetwilight25 dot com
Prompt: Worthless
Main Character: Bella
Rating: M
Word Count: 496

I knew her name wasn't Jasmine.

Or at least, if it was Jasmine, it was going to be a bloody lucky guess.

I saw her talking to the redheaded chick with the great laugh. It was her smile that caught my eye. Straight, white teeth outlined with pretty red lips. Dark hair, dark eyes, bikini-string tan lines decorating her shoulders. She looked so happy, chatting and laughing with her friend. All lit up. I wanted in on the fun they were having.

Alec had introduced to me about fifty thousand people in the previous few days, but all the names and faces had melted together like crayons left out in the sun. Some people looked familiar, and certain names came to mind, but extracting the right name for the right face? No chance.

I was sure he hadn't told me her name, though. I would've remembered it, for sure.

Of course, he was nowhere in sight. Probably off with that blonde chick I'd seen him chatting up earlier. Sarah. Or Sally. Susan?

The smiling girl turned away from me, hiding her face, and that's when I knew I had to do something to get her attention. Before she disappeared and I never saw her again.

It was the breeze that did it. The hot summer wind was heavy with the scent of the jasmine that crept along the back fence.

"Hey, Jasmine."

She looked up.

I didn't learn her name until the next day, when Alec finally rolled out of bed, hungover and swearing he'd never touch another beer.

"Which girl?" He squinted at me, holding a cold can of Coke to his forehead.

"The one with the really great smile."

He raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? Half the girls who were here have great smiles."

Not like hers.

"She's about this tall–" I held my hand chin height "–and she's heaps tanned. Brown hair, brown eyes. Friends with a chick with bright red hair."

"Ohhh. Gotchya. That's Isabella. She goes by Bella but."

"I called her Jasmine."

Alec killed himself laughing. "Mate… You've got no chance."

"You reckon?"

"She let you call her the wrong name all night and didn't correct you? Clearly not interested."

My heart kind of sank. Like it fully felt like it had dropped out of my chest into my stomach.

Alec punched me in the shoulder. "Aw, look at you, man. All cut up. She give you her number?"

I shook my head, my stomach still churning. "Nah. Maybe you're right. Maybe she wasn't keen."

So that was that? She and her beautiful smile were out of my league.

But I could be a persistent little shit when I felt like it. And she was totally worth persisting with. So I'd give it another shot. She said she was at PLC, so I could probably manage to "run into her" at the station and suss out whether she was really as uninterested as Alec reckoned.

Yeah. That's what I'd do.

This was always going to be ch. 25. But I didn't plan on these two having a bit more story to tell. So we'll keep going...

Thanks for reading! Shell x