Ha! This is probably sooner than you expected, isn't it? Don't get too excited. Daily updates are the province of the organized (like, not me). A special nod to anyone persecuted by cats (like me). Oh, and I think I may be jumbling my tenses. Probably certainly.

PRIMARY ONE

ORANGE

A bunch of us are going bowling on Friday night; we're carpooling and meeting at the Skittle Shop which we do every now and again for revelry and mayhem. It's licensed, so one or seventeen beers make a disappearance, the boys take the bowling semi-seriously and the girls take the dressing-up-to-show-off-your-ass very seriously. Heaps o' fun. I decide to ruin it for everybody by inviting Edward No-Friends Cullen because now I am sorry for him.

"Is this going to be a date?" Jessica asked with some incredulity.

"No, but he gets left out of everything and it's not very nice, is it?" I said.

"Well, if the Cullens want to bowl they could just build themselves some lanes in between the swimming pool and the tennis court," Mike remarked and last week I might have laughed along with everyone else but not now. I know two things about Edward Cullen that the public at large don't know. One of them is what he told me; the other is what he didn't tell me. The second, unspoken thing is that he's lonely.

At school I let him know about the bowling party and ask if he'd like to come. He's pathetic. He frowns at the same time as looking as hopeful as a puppy at the shelter.

"Shall I pick you up?" he asked.

"I'm already sorted for transport, thanks," I told him. God, I'm not taking my kindness towards the socially-disabled program that far! Like I want to sit in a fucking car with him!

We all get there at pretty much the same time on Friday night and line up to get the bowling shoes. You can get red and white, or orange and black. I always ask for orange and black because I love them. I'd buy myself a pair to wear instead of sneakers if I could afford them, but they're really expensive. I've seen them in sports shops and they're a couple of hundred bucks, but here tonight they're ten dollars a game.

The music at the rink is so loud it's blinding - the sort of relentless pounding noise that necessitates you holler at the person right next to you, and governs your timing while you sashay down the lanes going for a strike but only managing to knock over one little fucking pin all on its own at the end. I am famous for my ineptitude and the boys crowd behind me to watch how crap I am. Of course, I know they're not only watching my bowling. They're like that with all the girls. It's a biological imperative isn't it? Moron males.

To my surprise, Edward Social Outcast Cullen pulls me aside after my first turn. I hadn't even seen him arrive.

"Bella, do you know what's going on here?" he demands.

"A game of mathematic precision, requiring nerves of steel and ending in the triumph of the individual?" I say.

"Bella, the guys are all just here perving," he states. "At your - well, at you."

It's that kind of place, and I don't care, but he's attracting a bit of perving himself from all the females around, including the family groups with girls surely as young as seven or eight, and even a couple of female janitors sweeping the floor who may be in their fifties. I can see guys perving on him too. He's oblivious.

"And you - last weekend at your party? What were you doing?" I demand.

"Nothing! What? Jesus! I was talking to you!" he splutters.

"Well, relax, and try not to worry about what other people are up to," I advise, without a clue as to why he's got a problem.

There was space left on one of the boards and I punch in his name, adding him into the game. He selects a ball and with his thumb and the second two fingers of his right hand in the holes he approaches the lane. Oh please God holy shit he's a fuckwit. The poor boy. He has the grace of a gymnast, his limbs are balletic, he sends the ball shooting with surety and the most perfect curve ever seen in Forks and knocks over all ten pins. He could have knocked over twenty.

The crowd from our school all fall silent, despite the fact that they cheer for each other. I suddenly hate everyone - him for being such a fish out of water and them for being so small town and petty.

"Hey, you got the lucky shoes, Cullen," I call, because besides me, he's the only person who picked the orange and black. "Tiger feet," I add.

Edward has somehow had a moment's clarity then, because even though it seems as though he could cream the entire game, the rest of his bowls don't go quite as well as his first. Thank fuck, he's picked up that it's not about winning, or about doing your best. It's about being part of the group and having a laugh and there's a camaraderie here where all the boys try to out-clown, not out-do. It's okay to win as long as it's not by any sort of margin. I like my friends, but I'm suddenly upset at Edward's having to hold himself back like this because no-one can stand the competition.

I take my turns too and I know I'll come last because I am some miraculous combination of pigeon-toed and duck-footed that the Great Almighty alone must answer for. I manage to trip over my own knee soon enough and Edward is the one who rushes to help.

"Are you all right?" he asks, his hands carefully on me.

"Ow! Of course I'm not!" I yell. None of the other boys would dare to try and pick me up unless they saw actual blood, and even then they'd call an ambulance first. Everyone's a little wary of me. Everyone except Edward.

I stagger back to the seats with his assistance and my knee is really hurting.

"Fucking shoes," I claim. "The soles are uneven."

"Well, they're all rented, you don't know who else has been wearing them, you should have your own shoes..." he murmurs while I'm rocking and clutching my leg like a great big baby.

"My own shoes. Yeah right, shut up, Cullen," I mutter, realizing that Edward Richboy I Could Buy This Whole Town has of course brought his own fucking bowling shoes.

He takes my turns from then on because I'm sulking with my knee and he bowls poorly enough to make me second to last, and himself third to last. He's got some class in there somewhere.

I'm getting a lift home with Jessica, and I say goodnight to Edward at the entrance.

"Are you sure your leg is okay? Do you need to go to the hospital? If there's swelling you need to get it checked out," he says like some over-concerned mother hen.

"I'm fine," I tell him. "Thanks for bowling for me."

"Any time," he nods. "Thanks for asking me along."

It's all a bit awkward because everyone's watching and everyone thinks I'm on a date which I am not.

A few days later a notice turns up in the mail that I have to go to the Post Office to sign for a delivery. My hippy mom sends me bizarre things like basil wands, "Try this! I used one to purify our hotel room!" or a baseball, "Phil scored a home run!" (Phil being her spectacularly boring sports-playing manfriend) so I go along expecting something underwhelming from dear mama.

I open the parcel, and fuck me dead, it's bowling shoes. Orange and black. What the - ?

The card says "Tiger feet".

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