Chapter 1: A Small Affair
-x-x-x-
"I want to fly,
Into this beautiful life,
I think it'd be nice with you."
Cider Sky – Northern Lights.
-x-x-x-
It was a small affair.
As the newly wed couple shared their first dance of their new marriage, they were blissfully unaware of the world around them, staring at each other lovingly as though they were the only two beings on earth at that precise moment.
Sat in the corner of the room, Alexis Hanson watched with admiration and longing as the couple swayed to the tune of violins and a smooth voice that sang of everlasting love, her eyes drifting to watch the way Renee's gown softly swept across the dance floor.
"Do you think you'll ever want that?" She asked, turning to the morose looking brunette by her side, Bella Swan.
"What?" blinking rapidly as she tried to come back from her internal thoughts, Bella's eyes slowly came into focus.
"Love." Lexi sighed, chin lowering to rest on her hand. "A love where, when you're together, it seems like the entire world disappears."
Bella awkwardly picked at a loose thread on her dress, shrugging her shoulders. "I haven't really thought about it." She mumbled to the ground. "Have you?"
"Sometimes." Lexi replied, eyebrows furrowing in thought. "It's kind of hard to live with my parent's and not think about love."
"Yeah, I guess they just hit lucky."
As Alexis turned to her downtrodden best friend, she couldn't help but notice that she was quite miserable; not because she didn't want her mother to re-marry, but because Bella often viewed herself as a burden. This wasn't exactly a new trait for the girl, Lexi knew, thinking back to when their friendship had first started.
Alexis had moved from Ireland over to Phoenix, Arizona, with her family when she was only 7 years old. When she had first started at her new school, she instantly stood out as the new girl who wouldn't really fit in because she was pale in a room full of children with natural tans from the constant sunshine; because she genuinely preferred the rain and was very obviously saddened by the bright daylight that shone through the windows.
She had almost broken, almost asked for someone to call her mother, when she spotted another small pale girl in one of her classes; Isabella Swan.
The brunette had been sitting quietly in the corner of the room, awkwardly fidgeting with her hair when Alexis had sat down next to her. Lexi could still remember the slight widening of Bella's eyes as she realised that someone had chosen to acknowledge her existence.
It had turned out that Bella found it too uncomfortable to try and make friends or socialise; but Lexi wasn't about to let that change anything. For some unknown reason, the little red-haired girl had felt an instant connection to Bella, as though they were destined to be friends, though she didn't know why.
Luckily, their friendship seemed to come quite naturally to both of them, the pair choosing to spend time with each other whenever possible; in a library reading new books, in each other's homes as they ate dinner with their families. All they really needed was each other.
Bella often voiced her apologies, feeling as though she was holding Alexis back from having more friends; from having an exciting life. And no matter what Alexis said in return to try and soothe her, Bella would just shrug it off without truly accepting that her best friend was being honest.
And that friendship is what led Alexis to Bella's mother's wedding.
It had been a beach wedding, Renee dressed in a flowing dress that seemed to blend with the ocean waves when the wedding photos were being taken. Her and Bella had been the bridesmaids, dressed in a pastel blue to match the bright morning sky.
It was a beautiful day, a day where Bella should be enjoying the party and ecstatic for the new addition to her family, but it appeared that it just wasn't meant to be.
"Bells." Alexis started, "I know you're not happy, and I know that it's because you feel like a burden but you're not." her hand smoothing over the girl's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. "You know, there's always another option, you could always go and live with your dad for a while?"
"I haven't seen Charlie in years, Lex." Bella sighed, shuffling forward in her seat. "I don't even know if he'd want me to live with him. He's probably busy; has a routine that I'd just get in the way of."
Taking her best friend's attention away from the newlyweds, Lexi tried to reason with her. "Bells, your dad travels all the way out here to see you once a year, even though leaving Forks makes him super uncomfortable, I'm sure that he would love to have you stay with him. And besides, you know that he never wants to leave Forks so there is no possible way that you could end up being a burden to him."
"You don't understand, Lex. It's such a small town, all the old ones will remember me and people our age will look at me like some strange foreign alien." She explained, shaking her head as she twisted a section of her hair. "I don't want to act like I remember people who I clearly don't, and you know that I hate being the centre of attention."
"I'm sure it won't be that bad, Bella." Lexi scolded slightly.
"Why do you want me to go, anyway?" She asked with a slight scoff, fingers nitpicking at the sandwiches still left on her plate. "I'm the only person you bothered to make friends with, what would you do if I wasn't here?"
Picking at her nail polish, Lexi grimaced, she had planned to surprise Bella once she'd agreed to move in with Charlie, but apparently that wasn't going to happen without one final push. "Well, I'm not going to be staying in Phoenix much longer, Bells." She explained, eyes looking anywhere but at the suddenly startled brunette. "I was going to tell you sooner, but I thought I might convince you to leave first."
"What?" Bella asked, eyes widening further with panic. "What are you talking about? Where are you going?"
"Forks." She replied, with a tiny shrug and what could only be described as a pitiful smile. "My dad can see how unhappy my mother is in a city... I've never exactly been happy about living here either. We both miss Ireland, so my dad got a job at the hospital in Forks; he thinks it'll help me and my mum enjoy what America has to offer."
"But Forks, Washington? Why would you go there? It's wet and it's cold and…" Bella trailed off as the realisation hit her. "And exactly what you love, that's exactly where you would go."
Lexi sighed, starting to doubt whether she would be able to convince Bella to go with her. "Please, Bells. You've been my best friend for 10 years, I really don't want to finish school without you. I think you could at least give it a try, right?"
"I don't know." Bella mumbled, fidgeting with her dress once more, clearly still uncomfortable in it; she had never been one for dresses. Then again, her discomfort could largely be put down to the idea of living with a man who was almost a stranger to her regardless of their blood relation. "I guess that I could try and see if Charlie would let me move in for a couple of months or something… Maybe until the end of the school year?" She offered, lips tugging up ever so slightly at the sight of Lexi's beaming smile. "Mom would be able to find her dream home in the meantime, I guess, maybe."
Alexis tried her best to hide the pure joy that had crossed her features as she noticed her best friend start to concede. "Bella, I'm telling you, I think this could be really great for us. I mean, what have we really gotten from Phoenix? There isn't really anything here for us apart from each other and soon I'm not even going to be here." She explained, glancing once more at Renee on the dance floor. "She'll be able to travel for a while, so you'll feel better… We'll still have each other, so we'll feel better… Sounds like a win-win to me."
Bella sighed once more, looking down at her feet, eyebrows furrowed in thought.
Lexi knew how difficult it would be for the brunette to try and reconnect with her father again, it was clear to see where she had inherited her awkward nature from. She had once travelled with Bella to visit her father in Forks when they were 8. Charlie was a genuinely kind man, always trying to make some kind of awkward small talk, but unless you know about sports there just wasn't much he was capable of talking about. Luckily, having grown up with an older brother, Lexi quite enjoyed sports.
As she thought back to her small time in Forks, she remembered that the small rainy town was where the dreams had first started, the dreams that would continue in some form or another every night for the rest of her life; the subject of said dreams being golden eyes the colour of hot amber.
"I'll call him in the morning," Bella finally announced, bringing Lexi back to the current situation. "check if he's okay with the idea before I mention anything to my mom."
Unable to hide the grin on her face any longer, Lex drew Bella into a tight hug. "I swear that this will be great for us!" She assured her best friend. "I promise, I can feel it, even if I have to do some drastic things to make you enjoy it there."
With that, Bella let out a small laugh, already starting to come round to the idea.
Looking over towards the table where her family sat, Lexi locked eyes with her father, giving him a small thumbs up. He beamed in response, his own thumbs shooting up in return before he continued his conversation with her older brother. They all knew exactly what she was going to ask of her best friend; in fact, it was why her father had specifically applied to Forks. He had known that the best possible way to get his daughter to relax in a new town was to have her best friend by her side. This way, there was a possibility of everyone being happy.
Oliver Hanson was born in the USA, moving over to Ireland in his late teens to study medicine away from home. It was there that he would meet the girl of his dreams, Maeve. After a few years together, they married and had their two children; Adam and Alexis. However, when their father started to miss home, they quickly moved over to the states.
Forks was a compromise between the couple, the environment and general ambience of Ireland whilst in the United States.
Seeing how her mother animatedly spoke to the people around her, Lexi knew how excited her mother already was. She knew that her mother had missed painting the trees, the rain hitting the dark waters of a river in the middle of a shadowed forest. They would often sit and reminisce together, talking about Lexi's few memories of their home. The main thing they would find themselves laughing about, was their tendency to get sunburnt in Phoenix no matter how much they tried to avoid it; it wasn't the safest climate for the pair.
Lexi just hoped that she would be able to keep her promise to her best friend. She hoped that Bella wouldn't regret going with her to her old home town, she hoped that something great would happen in Forks; a miracle.
After all, you never know what can happen.
-x-x-x-
A/N: If you are new to this story, then hello! I hope you enjoy further reading if you decide to give it a chance!
There will be moments from both the books and the films. I just really love different aspects from each and I've really enjoyed picking and choosing my favourite scenes from both.
Also, there will obviously be new, original story lines within the story for my original character(s).
Feel free to leave a review, I appreciate them greatly!
Thanks for reading!
~ fawningfantasy x