Bella age 17

I remember that day perfectly. I cried a little on the plane. I'll admit I was scared, if the kids of a small town were horrible then what would the kids be like in a city five times its size. And I was right, it was hell. I didn't think I could survive until I met my new family.

*Flashback*

I was pushed to the ground by a 15 year-old boy. I looked up at him, he was huge! He crossed his arms and it made his muscles bulge. My eyes grew even wider. I started to tremble and cringed when he reached down to grab me.

" Leave her alone!" a girl yelled.

Both of our eyes snapped up. There was a really pretty girl standing there, she had her hands on her hips. She had beautiful long black hair that went just past her hips. She had slightly tanned skin and stormy grey eyes that looked like they had a blue tint framed with the black eyelashes. She had a nice body: curves in the right places, good size breast, and muscles too, but not huge. How old is this girl? She has to like 15 to have a body like that.

" When are you going to stop following me?" the boy asked irritated.

" The moment you stop picking on kids smaller than you," she replied.

" I could always pick on you," he said taking a step towards her.

She laughed at him. " You can try."

They both turned their heads when they heard laughter. Eight more kids came to join our little 'party'. They all looked the same age, they stopped behind the mystery girl. They stopped laughing when they saw me on the ground and the huge boy standing over me.

" Ugh," one of the girls groaned, " not you again." She had shoulder length light brown hair, and bright blue eyes.

" Yes Danni," mystery girl said, " it's our best friend."

" Now can I kick his ass?" another girl said. She had jet black hair that reached the middle of her back that had purple streaks. She had pale skin, like me, she had thick black eyelashes too. Her eyes were a brilliant crystal blue color.

" Mila," mystery girl yelled. The girl, Mila, pouted but stayed quiet.

" Boys," she said, " if you would be so kind." She motioned her hand to the big guy that was staring at them with wide fearful eyes. The four guys grinned, and dragged the bully somewhere.

The girls stared after them until they were out of sight. Mystery girl sat down across from me. And a few seconds later the rest of the girls did too. There were five girls total. One was named Danni and one was named Mila.

" Hi," mystery girl broke the silence, " I'm Nali."

" Hi," I said back shyly, " my name's Bella."

She smiled and pointed to the two girls I didn't know. " That's Kira and Alyssa."

Kira had beautiful pale blond hair, almost silver. It was straight and went to the middle of her back, she had pale blue eyes. Alyssa was the shortest of them all. She had beautiful bronze wavy hair that went to her back. She had big dark brown eyes, and the most beautiful smile. ( I know I kind of stole traits from Bella and Edward but one of my friends matches that description and this character is dedicated to her)

The guys came back and sat down with us. " Hey," one of them said, " I'm Brent. That's Danju, Kai, and Tristan."

Brent was muscular, the biggest of them all. He had short sandy blond hair, and dark green eyes. He seemed like a really care free guy. One of those who loved to smile and joke around. Danju hand long black hair with almost black eyes, he was the other muscular guy. Kai was more laid back, one of those skater guys. He had light short brown hair, and honey colored eyes. And Tristan had curly dirty blond hair with very pale olive green eyes. He had a very claming presence, I can tell we were going to be close.

I looked up and noticed the darkening sky. " Thank you for the help," I told them, " but I better get home before my mom sends out the army."

They laughed and stood up with me. " Why don't we walk you home?" Nali suggested, " This is a pretty bad neighborhood at night."

" Yeah. How'd you find yourself out here anyway?" Danni asked.

" My mom and I had a fight," I said hanging my head, " so I ran out."

" What was the fight about?" Kai asked.

I told them the whole story about my miserable life in Forks, I don't know why. At the really bad parts the girls would gasp and the guys would swear.

" I'm going to tear those guys to pieces," Brent said angrily.

" Wait til I get my hands on those sluts," Mila snarled.

To be honest Mila kind of scared me. " It's nice of you guys to think that," I said quietly, " but you don't have to pretend to care."

" We aren't pretending," Alyssa said, " we always look after our own."

I looked at her confused. " We've all been through something bad," Nali told me, " and we look after each other." She smiled at me warmly, she put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. " And whether you like it or not, you're stuck with us."

I smiled at my fond memory. We were all 17 now. Everyone had changed in their own way. My body changed a lot. I had curves, boobs, luscious hair, full lips, and I had lost my extra weight. I finally fit in with my family. They all looked the same, they were still gorgeous. And I can finally be around them with out losing my self esteem.

My attitude has changed a lot too. I'm not the defenseless little girl anymore. I have attitude and I know how to use it. Don't get me wrong I'm not heartless, in fact a lot of the old Bella is still in me, I just added a little kick to it. Oh, they don't call me Bella anymore now my name is Izzy. I like it. It shows that I'm a new person, and it shows the change I went through.

Since we went through puberty, a lot of the family have paired up. Tristan and Alyssa, Danni and Danju, Kai and Mila, and Kira and Brent. Yup, that leaves me and Nali the only single ones. I've dated a couple of guys, but none were the right one. But Nali's never dated anyone, even though she got tons of offers. I think it's because she's to busy taking care of the rest of us.

Something I forgot to mention was the fact that everyone, besides me, was an orphan. I remember Tristan telling me one night that the only reason any of them knew each other was because Nali had found them all and offered to take care of them. That day when they walked me home they met my mom. She was very wary about them at first, honestly they did look a little rough. But after her and Nali had a private conversation, she understood completely. And since then all of us have been inseparable, they even moved into our house as soon as Renee saw their house.

Renee even said that we were all her kids, and everyone of us called her mom. When we turned 15, she met a guy named Phil Dwyer. She married him a couple of months later. He was ok, a minor league baseball player who had to travel a lot. Renee refused to leave us alone. But as the time went on we could all se that she was unhappy.

" Izzy," Nali called. I was in my place, no one knew where it was in the house, I found it when we played hide and seek one day.

" Coming," I yelled.

When I went downstairs the family was waiting in the living room for me. " We're going to eat," Brent yelled excited. I laughed at his enthusiasm.

" Where's mom?" I asked.

" Phil's in town," Kira answered.

We all groaned, whenever Phil was home none of us could go to sleep at night. If you catch my drift.

" Let's go before the energizer bunnies gets here," Mila said with a disgusted look.

" There's nothing wrong with them expressing their love," Alyssa defended.

" Of course not," Tristan agreed with her. Those two were the fairytale couple.

" Just as long as we don't have to hear it," Kai complained.

We all laughed again. " Ok guys," Nali called us to order, she was like our mother even more of one than Renee, " let's go get some food in you." A chorus of excited cheers erupted.

" What are we taking?" Danju asked.

" You guys go in the cars," I said, " I want my bike."

It may sound a little weird that we have more than one vehicle. Especially since all of us are only 17, and Renee doesn't work. Well, we all kind of rebelled when we turned 15, we started street racing. We were good. So good, that we won 4 cars and 2 motorcycles. All of the couples shared a car, while me and Nali took the bikes.

Nali and I treated our bikes like babies. No one was aloud to touch or ride them except us. Mine was a 2009 Kawasaki Ninja 250R. It was midnight blue with black streaks. Nila's was a 2009 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14, it was blood red with black streaks. Tristan and Alyssa were the calmest out of all of us. They had a silver Ferrari F430 with black leather interior. Danni and Danju were the quietest, they hated attracting any kind of attention. So they wanted a simple Ford Mustang GT, it was dark red. Now Kai and Mila were the most exotic, they loved attracting attention. So they had a silver 2010 Lotus Evora, I'll admit that car was gorgeous. Now Bent and Kira were both very outgoing, and they loved big cars. So they had a black Hummer.

" Hold up," Kai said throwing his hands up in the air, " where exactly are we going?"

That stopped us, we all looked at Nali. She shrugged. " I feel like partying," she said, surprising us all. I'm pretty sure our jaws dropped when she said that. She rolled her eyes at our expressions. " Don't look so surprised," she grumbled, " let's go to the new salsa club."

We were still in shock, Nali never wants to go to clubs, especially ones where it involves dancing. I shook my head trying to wrap my head around the fact that she wanted to go to a club.

" Uh," Kira said, trying to break through the shock, " okay."

We all made sounds for our agreement, too shocked to speak. " Finally!" Brent yelled, throwing his hands around. " Proof that Nali is a normal teenager!"

We all busted out laughing, finally being brought through the shock. Nali was shaking her head I heard her mumble 'honestly'. We ran outside heading to our vehicles. " Hey," Nali called out. We turned to look at her. " Losers buy the food!"

Something was seriously up with her, she never acted like this. But all thoughts were lost when I heard everyone already heading out on the road. There was no way I was paying for dinner again. I jumped on my bike it started with a roar. I threw my helmet on and sped away from the curve.

It didn't take long for me to catch up to them. Nali was in front, then Brent and Kira, Danju and Danni, Tristan and Alyssa, and then me. I passes Tristan and Alyssa easily, I don't think they were trying, they never really liked us racing. Danju was a good driver, but he had dark tinted windows, it was hard for him to see my dark bike. Now Brent was definitely the hardest, only because he had the biggest car. But I faked left and swerved around the driver's side, he looked pissed. I giggled, he was always a sore loser.

I could never beat Nali, after a few blocks we came to the newest club, El Amor por el Baile. Nali and I parked on the curve, while everyone else had to go park in the parking lot.

They came around a few seconds later. " Nali what's that mean?" he asked, pointing to the sign over the club.

She repeated it in perfect Spanish, I guess it helps if you're Hispanic. (I'm not used to saying Hispanic, in my family we say Mexican but I don't want to offend anyone) " It means 'The Love of Dance'," she told him. He nodded his head. We reached the entrance only to be stopped by the guard outside.

He and Nali started talking to each other in Spanish, which unfortunately none of us knew. After about two minutes, she crossed her arms over her chest raising her eyebrows. The guard looked….scared? He gulped before stepping aside to let us in. once we were inside we all looked at her suspiciously.

She gave us an innocent look. " What?" she asked.

" Cut the shit," Mila said.

Nali rolled her eyes. " I have my connections," she said vaguely. We were about to question her some more, but we were all silenced when a guy came up behind Nali. " Mi amor," he told wrapping his arms around her waist. For the second time tonight, our jaws dropped.

She turned in his arms to smile up at him. He was one of the cutest guys I had ever seen. He was tall, about 6 foot. He had short smooth black hair. He smiled showing two dimples on each side of his mouth. He had bright hazel eyes. He was looking at her with love and adoration evident in his eyes. She looked at him with the same expression.

" So that's why you wanted to come clubbing," Danni said. They looked away from each other surprised, and then they looked embarrassed when they realized they had forgotten we were there.

" And this explains where you've been disappearing to," Alyssa added.

" And you sudden interest in shopping," Kira smiled.

" And why you're always daydreaming," Mila smirked. We giggled when we saw Nali blush. Wait. Nali blushed? Wow, this was one weird day.

The guys walked up behind us. Brent tsked her. " My, my," he told her, " dear Nali. What have you been hiding from us?"

We stood there waiting, she looked at all of our faces and sighed. " This is Sergio," she introduced, " he's my boyfriend."

" Since when?" I blurted out. Great, now I was the only single one.

" About six months," she whispered.

" What?!" we all yelled.

She sighed and led us to a booth on the second floor, it overlooked the dance floor. She told us how she met him, their first date, how for six months she this from us, and why. She didn't want us to get used to someone who might not stay around. I snorted, we were all teenagers, but still she acted like our mother. I could see how happy she was, but I was still a little sad that I didn't have anyone. I looked around the table, the girls wrapped in the arms of their men.

I sighed and remembered when Edward would hold me. He used to hum his piano pieces to me whenever I was sad. I think that's when I fell in love with him. Stupid right? Fall in love with your best friend, and stay in love with him even when he was an ass to you. But I couldn't help it. I loved everything from his untamable hair, to his crooked smile, to his sparkling green eyes. I sighed, I wanted my Edward back. The one who was there for me when everyone teased me. What happened?

I looked around the table to see I was alone. I walked to the railing that overlooked the dance floor. I saw my family dancing, having the time of their lives. I couldn't help but be happy with them. My phone buzzed, telling me I had a text. I looked at the screen, it was from Emmett. Oh, I forgot to mention that. A week after I moved back here, he called me begging for my forgiveness. Being the angel I am, I forgave him. Now we talk all the time, but he promised not to let anyone know.

Emmett Izzy

Hey Iz.

Hey Em. What's happening?

Nothing much. Sick of this stupid town.

What happened?

Lauren and Edward causing drama, won't leave the poor freshmen alone.

Sucks for them. But they need to learn how to grow some balls.

Like you did?

Yeah. I gotta go. The family needs to get home. Talk to you tomorrow, love ya.

Love ya too.

I smiled. Yeah I know what everyone has been up to. Emmett kept me up to speed. I know some of the people hooked up, but I didn't want to know who.

I saw my family laughing when they walked to the table. They looked at me and I plastered a fake smile. I sneaked my phone in my back pocket. No one noticed, or at least I thought so, but then I saw Nali looking at me knowingly. I sighed, I knew we would be talking later.

We all left, everyone racing back home. But I made a detour, I went to one of the coolest places in Phoenix. It was a little mountain that overlooked the city. I looked at it and saw the sparkling lights from the night activity. Then I looked at the stars twinkling softly. I sighed, I don't know what to feel anymore.