I have always loved to write. And, while I go through phases where I write more than others, I like having something to work on at all times. I started writing this in 2015 which is crazy to think about but I am finally almost done with it and decided now was the time to post. This story is separate from the other two worlds I have created on here and is a stand alone as of now. Enjoy~

Living in a trailer had always been temporary. It was something my mom said often. "Oh baby girl, I'm going to get this job and we're going to move somewhere real nice and we won't live in a trailer anymore!" She'd say it so enthusiastically and like she honestly believed it, that I had believed it. But I was eighteen now. Today to be specific. And we had been living in a dump of a trailer park since before I could remember. I was destined to be trapped in a trailer park for the rest of my life. Eighteen years wasn't temporary and as I sat on one of the rickety lawn chairs that had been put in front of the stained kitchen table in our trailer, I realized that this was where I would always be.

Maybe I wouldn't be here specifically, maybe I would be in a different town's trailer park, but it would still be a trailer park. A trailer park with druggies and people who drank too much. A trailer park where there was always a dog barking or glass breaking or someone screaming. A trailer park where I wouldn't even have a real kitchen table with chairs. Living in a trailer had never been temporary.

And it was my birthday.

I didn't allow myself to feel self-pity often but I felt like I deserved it today. It was my eighteenth birthday and I was by myself in this dumpy trailer park in No-Where-Forks, Washington. All I had to show for it was a three pack of mini, possibly expired cupcakes from the gas station where I worked and a large candle placed next to them that I used for light most nights to cut back on the electric bill. It wasn't the same as having a birthday candle inside of a cake, but it was the closest I could manage. It would still have the same affect, right? I'd still get a birthday wish, right? I'd hoped so.

I wish…

I wish for…

I wish I was…

I wish I had…

But I didn't have anything to wish for and now I just felt silly. Silly and down $1.03 for buying the stupid cupcakes. This large candle sitting next to the stupid cupcakes on this disgusting table just made me feel sad.

I didn't deserve a birthday wish.

Because all I'd ever be was that girl in the trailer park.

So I just sat there for a long time, long after the candle had burned itself out.

I wasn't dumb. I had figured out how things worked two moves ago. I hadn't had any friends until I was fifteen. I figured out that people didn't like the girl who looked like her mom didn't take care of her. The girl with the ill-fitting clothes, with the messy hair, and who didn't show up to school with a lunch. No one wanted to be anywhere near that girl, but they wanted to talk about her. Two moves ago I figured that out. We'd been in Idaho and I had been getting off the bus at the trailer park there and one of the boys a year older than me called "smell you later" as I walked past him. The shame and horror I had felt had been instantaneous. I had gone back to the little trailer with the leaky shower head and cried for hours.

For the record, I didn't smell. I was so careful to make sure I didn't smell. I showered twice a day and made sure my clothes were always clean because I was the type of girl people expected to smell. It was just that no one had ever taken me for a haircut and so I had long hair that tended to tangle easily. I didn't know that there was hair products you could use or that blow dryers existed. My mom had never taught me to comb out my hair when I got out of the shower to keep it from knotting or that you needed conditioner to use after you shampooed. And, although I knew everyone else's clothes were nicer than mine, I didn't realize that just because my jeans were a tad too short and my shirt a tad too tight, that I looked like a smelly girl from a trailer park.

We had moved two weeks after that to a town on the eastern side of Washington and in those two weeks before I started at a new school, I had remade myself. I took the money I had always hid from my mother and went to a local hair salon. I got my hair cut, still keeping it long but shaping it nicely and getting any dead ends chopped off. I had bought a blowdryer and two-in-one straighter and curler from goodwill. I bought myself a brush (not from goodwill, from a Walmart) along with a cheap smoothing product that would keep my hair shiny and frizz-free. I learned to scavenge at goodwill, savers, and other second hand stores, to find clothes that would fit me properly. I bought makeup. A black eyeliner I could smudge out smokey around my eyes and a clumpy mascara that would open my eyes up.

I learned that I could register for a state-provided lunch. That part made me mad. For years I had been going to school, sometimes with a granola bar or pack of peanut butter crackers, and sometimes with nothing, and my mom could have signed me up to receive a sandwich, apple, and bottle of water every single day.

When I had showed up to my first day of school in Walla Walla, Washington, people had acted differently. Girls had shot me jealous looks but had wanted to be my friend and boys had followed me around, hanging on my every word. I was overwhelmed with the attention and the fact that people were talking to me and it wasn't always an insult. It didn't take long for the girls to label me a slut (which I wasn't) and start talking behind my back, but those first few weeks had been glorious. And being called a slut from a trailer park was better than being called smelly or homely.

My mom and I had moved to Forks, Washington a year and a half ago to a different trailer park. I liked Forks. My mom complained about the rain and was still saying that she was going to get that waitress job her latest boyfriend had promised her but I had made a real friend. Sarah Adams was the most popular girl at Forks High School and not because she was a cheerleader, or slept around, or was really pretty. Sure, she was all of those things, but she was also the nicest person you'd ever meet. And she had chosen me on that first day I had walked into Anatomy as a junior. I had looked great that day. I had still gotten on the school bus at the trailer park but I had a new pair (goodwill) of dark denim jeans that fit me perfectly, a plain black v-neck shirt that showed just enough cleavage, and white sneakers I had scrubbed to make them look like they were brand new. My hair had been long and glossy and I had perfected using eyeliner and mascara.

Sarah had been talking to Veronica, another cheerleader and popular girl at Forks High School, not as nice as Sarah. I don't remember what anyone else in the classroom had been doing but I had noticed Sarah immediately. She had turned away from Veronica, her hair not quite as long and glossy as mine, and had made eye contact with me.

"Go sit next to Lily." Sarah had told Veronica.

"What?" She had asked, confused as to what had changed in the last thirty seconds.

"Go sit next to Lily." Sarah had repeated, authoritatively and slowly like she was talking to someone stupid. It would have been incredibly rude if she hadn't paused, added a big smile and said, "Please."

Veronica had gotten up and moved one row back to sit next to Lily, shrugging. Sarah had continued to stare at me and casually patted the desk next to her, as if she had known I would be coming and had saved the seat for me all along. The anatomy teacher finished signing my attendance sheet and had handed it back to me, saying I could choose any seat I wanted. I walked up to Sarah, sat down next to her, and she smiled.

Sarah had chosen me. She didn't care that I lived in a trailer park. She was the only popular girl I'd ever met who didn't have to worry about being popular. She didn't seem to realize that the other girls in her group were constantly worried they were going to do the wrong thing and be shunned or embarrassed. It didn't matter what Sarah did, she would always be on that pedestal. And she didn't even realize it. She had smiled a perfectly straight, white smile at me.

"And what's your name?" She had asked, flipping her blonde hair behind her shoulder.

"Emma." I had answered, offering her an equally straight and white smile back, though I had suspected hers had more to do with braces and mine had more to do with genetics.

"Emma." She had repeated. "It is so nice to meet you."

"Happy birthday, Emma!" Sarah all but shrieks, rushing up to my locker. My birthday had technically been yesterday but on Sunday's Sarah had cheer practice all afternoon and her squad then went to the little bowling ally downtown and ate pizza. Sarah and I never hung out on Sundays. She would ask me if I wanted to come most weekends and I would say no. She never pressed. It wasn't the money. I had money that I could spend to rent a pair of shoes and buy a piece of pizza. It was just that the other girls didn't like me. They didn't like the attention Sarah or the guys at our school gave me. While Sarah saw me as a friend, they saw me as trailer trash. It was fine. I understood and I gave them space to be just with Sarah on Sundays.

Sarah had offered more than once to cancel her usual Sunday plans for my birthday but I had declined her offer. I had picked up an extra shift at work which she would have been mad about and I had made some excuse about my mom wanting to have dinner with me which was a lie considering I hadn't seen her in days.

I was convinced our friendship worked because I had never asked Sarah for anything. I had never once complained about anything and I had never asked her for even the smallest thing like a hug or a ride to the grocery store. Sarah gave and gave and gave to me but I never asked. And I wasn't about to ask her to change her planned day to accommodate me and my birthday.

Sarah thrusts a card and small box into my hands.

"Sarah…" I sigh. I had told her I didn't want anything for my birthday.

"Oh shut up, you bitch! Open it and tell me you love it and me!" She was grinning and exuding her carefree happiness that got everyone to smile with her and love her. I pull the lid off the box, fighting a smile. "Don't you love it? I got myself the same one!" She sticks her wrist in my face before I even have a chance to fully see what is in the box.

"Thank you." I laugh, pulling the silver bracelet out of the box and slipping it on. Ride or Die was engraved in loopy cursive along the top.

"Because you're my ride or die." She explains, taking it from me and snapping the clasp around my wrist. I open the card. It was a standard birthday greeting you'd find at any convenience store. The words 'Happy birthday, Bitch! Love, Sarah' are printed neatly on the inside.

"Thanks." I repeat, shoving the box into my locker but taking care to put the card in the back of one of my notebooks so it won't get bent. I grab my English book from the second shelf and kick the door shut. She loops her arm through mine and drags us towards our first class.

And, not for the first time, I wonder when Sarah would stop giving and giving and giving. I wonder when she would realize that even though I wasn't asking for anything, I didn't have anything to give her back.

"Hi, Hun!" My mom calls, walking down the cement blocks arranged as steps in front of our little trailer. I have just gotten off the school bus and am heading towards her. She is holding her only purse — a knock off of some designer that had been a gift from a boyfriend a few moves ago — in one hand and a case of beer in the other. I almost didn't recognize her. Her hair is a fiery red that can only be described as Little Mermaid. I hadn't seen her in almost a week and it had been a bleach blond with dark brown roots when she had left. "Happy birthday!" She awkwardly wraps her arms around me in a hug while still managing to keep hold of her bag and the beer. "Sorry I wasn't around yesterday, you know how it is." She shrugs like I do know how it is but I really, truly don't.

"Where are you going?" I ask, eyeing the gruff man leaning against a pickup truck at the end of our dirt 'driveway'. He is smoking a cigarette, seeming to not have a care in the world but I don't miss the way his eyes look me up and down, assessing.

"Trevor is takin' me on a vacation!" She explains excitedly. We had lived down south for most of my childhood and my mother had never quite been able to shake that accent. While I watched myself to make sure it didn't slip out on certain words, she embraced it, saying it made her one of a kind in the northwestern part of the country. It really just made her sound uneducated when she left out key words in sentences, but I let her think what she wanted to. "We're going to go to the casino in Snoqualmie!" She squeals, sounding like a teenager whose crush has just asked her to the movies.

"That's an awful long way away, Mama." I start, cringing as the name 'mama' comes out of my mouth. People in Washington did not call their mothers 'mama'. She shoots me a look as if wounded by the idea I am not happy for her.

"Well that's selfish of you, Emma Mae." She starts towards the truck. Trevor opens the passenger door for her and lets her toss her bag in before grabbing the case of beer. He pulls out a can and pops it open, taking a big gulp and shoving the rest of the case on the ground of the passenger seat. "And after I left you a birthday present on the table." She turns away from the truck and crosses her arms accusatory. The only thing that manages to do is push up her boobs and show even more of her stomach. Trevor takes another gulp of his beer and shamelessly stares down her shirt. She looks good for a mom. She has an okay figure and she should considering she is only thirty-four but, unlike me, she doesn't care to buy clothes that fit her properly. Her jeans are two sizes too small and her t-shirt is low cut and shows off more stomach than anyone with an eighteen year old daughter should.

"I'm sorry. Thank you, Mom." I swallow the lump in my throat. "Have fun." Her anger melts away instantly and she flashes me a smile that is actually really pretty.

"I'll see you real soon, baby girl!" She calls, jumping into the cab and letting Trevor shut the door behind her. He throws his now empty beer can on the ground before walking to the other side of the truck. It makes a sputtering sound as he starts it but rumbles away before long.

Mom never even looks back.

"You sure you wouldn't rather be with your friends?" I ask Sarah as she peels away from the trailer park, going fifty miles per hour in what is clearly marked a ten miles per hour zone.

"Oh please!" She rolls her eyes. "You are my friend and, besides, they were boring me. You never bore me." She turns to me, flashing that Sarah smile that makes girls fight to be her friend and teachers give her those two extra points she is always arguing for.

Sarah liked to do this. She would show up randomly and beep the horn outside the trailer to pick me up. We would drive somewhere or nowhere and she would have a hot chocolate waiting for me or a warm cookie. I knew what she was doing. She was getting me out of the trailer park and giving me a little while to feel like her but I couldn't find it in me to be mad.

She always beeped.

In the year and half we had been friends, she had never once come inside the trailer or even stepped out of her car into the disgrace of a yard we had.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"I'm going to take the one-oh-one west until we reach the coast." She declares. "The cup without the lipstick mark is for you." I grab one of the styrofoam cups out of the center counsel.

"Thanks." I sigh, the heat from the cup warming my fingers. The heater had broken again in the trailer. "So we're going to La Push then." I summarize.

"Well it doesn't sound nearly as exciting when you say it in that tone." She pouts, using her turn signal to get on the highway.

"We're going to La Push!" I shriek, flinging the hand that isn't holding the hot chocolate into the air.

"Woo!" She echos, laughing at my over the top excitement. It normally is a twenty-five minute drive to La Push but with Sarah's unnecessary speeding, we reach it in just over fifteen minutes. She pulls into the First Beach parking lot and yanks the car into park, jumping out. "Come on!" She calls, already running towards the beach. I abandon the rest of my hot chocolate in the cup holder and chase after her.

It is actually freezing out here. It is October and while the temperature is still in the high fifties during the day, it is in the thirties at night. I only own one jacket and it isn't very warm but I pull the sleeves over my fingers to try to preserve some of the warmth from inside Sarah's car. Sarah has stopped part way across the beach and is now looking at the waves. In the distance I can see a bonfire going and hear the laughter of a group of people.

"Let's move right here. To this very spot and build a house." Sarah exclaims, grabbing my arm when I am close enough. "Right here in the middle of this beach and we can watch the waves every morning. We can go get waitress jobs at that diner down the road and you won't have to go back to that trailer and I won't have to talk to anyone in high school ever again." My breath catches in my throat.

Sarah and I are from two different worlds. She would be going to college next Fall. She had been accepted to everywhere she applied but had chosen Washington State. I hadn't even applied anywhere. I knew I didn't have the money. I was saving everything I could from my job at the gas station and lying to my mother about how much I made but I was still paying for most of the rent, electric, and water bills monthly. It was very rare my mother bought me food so I was paying for that too. And soon my state provided lunches and treats that Sarah brought me would be gone and I'd be spending even more money. Applications weren't cheap either. I didn't have fifty dollars to spend to apply to a school I might not get into and that I could't afford to go to anyways.

I unzip my jacket and toss it on the ground, kicking off my socks and shoes behind it and reach for the hem of my shirt.

"What are you doing?" Sarah shrieks.

"Being not boring." I smirk at her, stripping the rest of my clothes off and running towards the water. I hear her coming after me only seconds later. We both shriek and laugh at the freezing water.

"Omigod, omigod, omigod!" Sarah chants over and over again. "Emma, you are crazy!" We stumble out of the water, shaking and teeth chattering, but laughing. I pull my underwear back on and my sports bra over my head. Sarah is just pulling her t-shirt over her head when I noticed two figures walking towards us in the dark light. I grab my tank top and pulled it over my head just as they step closer.

"What are you girls doing?" The first guy greets. "Do you know how cold it is and how dangerous those waves can be?" The second guy hangs back, staring at his feet.

"Hi!" Sarah greets, as if the guy had said it was nice to meet us, not practically yelled at us for going in the water. She squeezes some of the water out of her hair. "Isn't it beautiful out here?" The second guy snaps his head up to give her a quizzical look and then glances to me. He is beautiful. Both of the men in front of us are beautiful but the second guys features are still soft, not hard like the first guy's.

"We were being not boring." I explain as though it is the most obvious thing in the world. I pick my sweat pants up and pulled them on, not really feeling much of a difference.

"Do you want to come warm up in front of the fire?" The second guy asks in a rush. He is staring at me, asking me.

"Well only if I can sit in your lap." Sarah says, buttoning her jeans and scooping up her expensive and warm North Face jacket.

"Oh well I—" The mystery guy starts, eyes flickering between the two of us.

"We should just go back to your car." I interrupt, picking up my own cheap and less warm jacket, pulling it on, but Sarah has already grabbed her uggs and socks and is making her way towards the bonfire. The first guy looks towards Sarah, then to the second guy, then to me.

"Well, shit." He says matter-of-factly before following Sarah back towards the group. The second guy and I just stare at each other.

"I'm Seth." He explains.

"Okay." I nod, scooping up my socks and shoes and following Sarah. Not because I necessarily want to, but because I don't really have a choice. The guy falls into step next to me.

"That was Sam, don't worry about him, he just gets nervous about people drowning. He's like an honorary police officer but he doesn't mean any harm by it." Seth explains.

"Okay." I respond, feeling in a daze. Or maybe I am just in shock from the cold.

"Um…" He trails off. "Do I get to know your name?"

"Oh, well, I'm Emma." I explain, reaching the group. I realize there are more people here than I originally thought from a distance. I scan them all, realizing I don't know or recognize any of them and breathe out in relief. I like being a nobody in a group. I like just being the girl with the hair or the long legs or Emma instead of worrying that everyone is thinking I am just the girl from the trailer park. Sarah has already squished herself between two boys who are eager for her attention.

"I'm Collin." One of them is saying, already hanging on every word out of Sarah's mouth. I do my best to hold back a smile. Sarah created followers and friends everywhere she went without even meaning to. I sit down across from her in a free space and Seth quickly sits down next to me. I start pulling on my socks over my sandy feet, hoping to warm them up.

"Emma, stop pouting." Sarah scolds from across the fire.

"I am not—" I start to defend myself.

"You're sitting next to a very hot guy, smile!" She chides.

"You look too much like an Abercrombie and Fitch model for my liking." I assure Seth, pulling my hair away from my face and into a pony tail. He looks absolutely crushed for a second and I bump him with my arm to let him know I am only kidding. He does look like an Abercrombie and Fitch model but that doesn't mean I don't think he is totally gorgeous. All the guys sitting around this bonfire are gorgeous and the girls equally as pretty. They are all definitely locals.

"Do you all sit out here every night and yell at girls for skinny dipping?" Sarah muses, leaning closer to the fire to warm her hands. The one Seth had explained was Sam is scowling at her.

"These waters are very dangerous and you two obviously aren't locals so how are we to know if you are strong enough swimmers. You could also get—" Sam doesn't seem to realize she has already forgotten him and has turned back to talk to her new friends.

"Sarah doesn't understand authority figures." I explain to Seth. "If that is what you guys are, that is."

"Sam and Jake are authority figures I guess. They like to boss the rest of us around, especially Jake. He thinks it's funny." He rolls his eyes as if I should understand what that means. "That's Jake." He points to a guy sitting a few guys down. He is staring right at me, assessing me. I sit up a little straighter under his gaze and he offers me a smile.

"Where are you guys from?" Jake asks, directing the question to me.

"Los Angeles." Sarah buts in. "We're up here visiting. We're actually going to be starring in a reality show coming out soon: Two Sisters, One Ocean to Skinny Dip In." She sounds so genuine.

"Is she for real?" Seth mutters, leaning closer to me.

"No!" I laugh. "We're seniors at Forks High School." He grins at me. "It's a game she likes to play. She makes up a dramatic story and sees how many people will follow along with it."

"Does it usually work?" He asks.

"Look at her and tell me." I say, nodding my head in Sarah's direction where she's talking animatedly about our times in LA. While the other guys are kind of smirking like they know what I've said to Seth, they are still listening to the story she is is slowly weaving with just the right amount of details.

I understand what Sarah means when she says her other friends bore her. It's not that she doesn't like spending time with them or that they're not friendly to her. It's that they're too friendly, they are too happy to please her, and while they may follow her around, they don't take charge in situations. If Sarah had ripped off her clothes to go skinny dipping, they would have followed, no questions asked, but they never would have gone in first. They would have been too afraid she wouldn't have followed. While I focus my life around Sarah in my own way, I don't need her to make my choices and I'm not afraid to lead.

"Can I uh…have your number?" Seth asks, smiling at me with a perfect smile.

"Oh, um, no." I answer, shrugging and turning to head over to Sarah where she is standing next to the drivers side of the car. My heart aches.

"Give him mine!" She hollers.

"Well that's really nice, but I actually wanted Emma's." He says, scratching the back of his neck.

"Emma doesn't have a phone." She explains. "You can reach her from mine."

"Oh, okay." He says, still grinning at me with that hopeful smile. My cheeks flush and I hope he can't see or thinks it is just from the cold. I hope he isn't thinking wow this is girl is too poor to have a cell phone and is just thinking maybe she broke it or her parents are probably super strict. "Can I have Sarah's number? You know, incase I find a new location for your skinny dipping reality show."

"Well when you put it that way how can I say no." I smile, telling him the only phone number I have memorized as he puts it in his phone. On impulse I reach out and trail my finger tips down his right forearm, feeling electricity.

"Bye, Emma." He calls as I rush to Sarah's car.

"I told you things were never boring with you." She breathes out, starting the car and letting the heat blow strongly on us. "That boy is so hot, it's not fair."

"You seemed pretty content with the boys on your side of the fire." I accuse, feeling irrationally protective of Seth and our banter.

"Oh, I was!" She promises, backing out of the little parking lot. "I mean that you both are too beautiful. It's not fair. Beautiful people shouldn't be allowed to be together, it just makes all us average folk feel bad." I laugh, taking a sip of my now cold hot chocolate.

"Please, you are not 'average folk' and, 'sides I'll probably never see him again." I decide, shrugging.

"What! Why not?" She gasps, pulling back on the 110, this time going east. "He was so into you."

"Guys that look like that aren't interested in girls who live in trailer parks." I explain. "And if they are, they only call at 2:00 am."

"Shut up." Sarah scoffs, "He was very much so interested in you and I'll bet he calls tomorrow to ask you out."

"Whatever." I mumble, not wanting to start an argument with Sarah. Yeah, maybe he would call tomorrow but he wouldn't call if he knew where I lived. Not everyone was like Sarah. In fact, I was positive Sarah was one of a kind.

I've been working on this story a lot in the past few months and I am finally ready to start posting it. I would love to get some feedback and find out what you guys are liking/not liking as it may affect how I edit future chapters I already have written. I'm not positive how often I will be posting — it will likely depend on the level of interest for this story. I really do hope you all enjoy as I am very excited for you to read and get to know Emma. :)