Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Her first day at Forks High School was something that Bella Swan had a lot of mixed feelings about.
So far, that could also describe her emotions about being back in Forks in general.
Despite her mom’s rather slapdash parenting style and her tendency to both overshare and get so caught up in her own life that she lost track of what was going on in her daughter’s, Bella still missed her.
She hadn’t had that long to get used to being around Charlie again, but so far it seemed like his parenting style was going to be a combination of caring, aloof, and traditional.
Which she guessed made sense considering he wasn’t used to having a kid around full time, but was used to being an authority figure as the town police chief.
Since they were still in their transitional period, she figured it was the right time to be open with him about something that was pretty important.
So at dinner the night before as she picked her way through the spaghetti Charlie had made (dry meatballs and slightly overcooked noodles), she’d decided to just…make an announcement.
“Charlie?”
“Hm?”
“I’m gay. Mom knows, so I thought you should know too.”
Charlie chewed his spaghetti contemplatively, swallowed, and took a long drink from his bottle of beer.
The seconds ticked by.
Eventually, he spoke, sounding pretty unruffled overall.
“Well, thanks for telling me Bells. Does that mean you’re uh…only interested in women?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
She eyed him carefully.
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, no problem with that. I guess I don’t need to worry about accidentally becoming a grandpa, so that’s something.”
She smiled down at her plate.
“Yeah, that’s something.”
And that was that.
He’d given her a hug after they’d finished doing the dishes and she’d gone up to her room to make a new entry in her journal.
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As she pulled into the high school parking lot for the first in her ancient pickup truck, her heart started to beat a little faster.
Maybe she was being paranoid, but it felt like everyone was looking at her.
She parked in the first open spot she could find and carefully hopped out of the truck, then slammed the door shut behind her, wincing at the loud creaking sound as the hinges protested. She really needed to see if Charlie had some WD-40 somewhere.
Walking towards the school, she was quickly intercepted by a blonde boy who jogged over and then stayed by her side, matching her pace as she approached the building.
“Hey there, are you new?”
“Yeah. I just moved here. I’m Bella Swan.”
His eyebrows raised as he obviously recognized her name.
“Oh, right, the police chief’s daughter. I’m Mike Newton. My parents own the sporting goods store in the middle of town.”
“Yeah, I’m Charlie’s kid.”
By now, they had reached the building, and he quickly reached out to pull the door open for her, nearly bumping into her in the process.
She managed to dodge his elbow and tried not to look too annoyed.
“Um thanks. Hey, do you know where the office is? I need to check in and get my schedule and everything.”
Mike nearly tripped over his own feet, suddenly seeming like an excited puppy.
“Of course! I can take you there, and show you around if you want.”
Before Bella could come up with a way to politely decline that offer, a new voice helpfully interrupted.
“Or I could do that and you could get to class and avoid being tardy for once in your life.”
Bella turned and saw a girl with long brown hair giving Mike an annoyed look.
Then her eyes flicked over to Bella.
“I’m Jessica Stanley. And you must be the new girl.”
“Must I be?”
Jessica didn’t seem to find that amusing, so Bella ran a nervous hand through her hair and quickly added, “I mean, yep, that’s me. Bella Swan.”
The other girl just nodded.
“The office is this way.”
Jessica led her down the hall and through an open door, greeting the older woman who was sitting behind the desk and then gesturing to Bella.
"I brought the new student. She needs to get her class schedule."
Only a few minutes later, Bella was back out in the hallway, clutching a packet of paperwork and already feeling overwhelmed.
Mike was still lingering, but she ignored him in favor of listening carefully as Jessica gave her directions on how to get to her first class.
It was math. Gross.
A bell rang and she watched Jessica hurry off in the other direction, dragging Mike along with her.
“Come find us at lunch!”
Then she was alone.
She readjusted her backpack straps on her shoulders and started walking.
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Nothing of note happened in math class, which was fine with her because she never wanted math class to be either exciting or surprising.
Her next class that day was history, and she barely made it on time after taking a wrong turn to get there.
Bella was still aware of people looking at her, but overall it seemed that they were just curious about the new student.
Forks wasn’t a big town, so maybe a new person was big news.
She was also aware that her style meant that she didn’t really fit in, at least not with the girls that she’d seen so far. Her flannel shirt and worn in Converse weren’t that much of an anomaly, but her haircut did stand out.
Last year she’d chopped her hair off and since then it had grown out a little bit until it barely touched the top of her shoulders. She usually kept it swept off to one side and added enough product to give it a bit of a messy wave.
This morning she’d been nervous and had added more product than usual.
She thought it looked pretty good, but also kind of gay compared to the long, straight hair the majority of girls at the school had.
So far, she hadn’t seen anyone that she’d clocked as super queer looking, but she planned to make it her mission to find the outcasts, or whoever counted as an outcast at this school.
After history was biology, and thankfully, she made it to the right classroom without any trouble.
The room was set up with two person lab tables, so she quickly scoped out the space to see what her options were.
A few boys looked at her hopefully, but she quickly walked over to a lanky dark haired girl who was perched a little uncomfortably in her chair.
“Hi there. Is it okay if I sit with you?”
The girl looked up and gave her a shy smile as she fiddled with her glasses.
“Oh, sure.”
Bella sat down and arranged her things on the table in front of her.
The other girl watched her out of the corner of her eye but didn’t seem inclined to break the silence.
“I’m Bella by the way.”
“Angela. You just moved here, right?”
Bella couldn’t help but chuckle. It still felt weird that her arrival in town was such common knowledge.
“Yeah. I’m living with my dad. Charlie Swan.”
She paused and regarded Angela for a moment. So far the other girl seemed nice enough.
“Did everyone know about me in advance or something?”
Angela smiled a little.
“Your dad told some people that you were coming, and then they told some other people and then everyone knew. Forks is just like that. News travels fast.”
“Gotcha. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Bella looked around to see if there were any familiar faces, and her eyes stopped on a boy on the other side of the room.
He was looking at her, but unlike the other curious glances she’d been getting all day, his gaze was unwavering.
It also wasn't very friendly. In fact, he looked totally disgusted.
She scowled at him and then quickly turned away. Maybe he was homophobic.
Bella had been hoping that being on the west coast would mean that people would have a fairly liberal mindset, but it was still a small town, so there were bound to be a few small minds.
The teacher started his spiel about the curriculum for the year and focused on that instead.
She had better things to do than worry about weird dudes who thought it was okay to stare like creepers.
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By the time she got to lunch, she was ready for a break from people, but as she walked into the bustling cafeteria, she knew that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
She made her way through the line and got her lunch, then stood and clenched her tray, feeling incredibly awkward as she stood at the edge of the room and surveyed the crowd.
It was a relief when she saw a hand waving at her and realized that it was Jessica.
When she got over to the table, she found that Mike was also there.
He immediately smiled at her, but she ignored him, sitting down and looking over at Jessica instead.
“Hi again.”
“Hi Bella. How is your first day going so far?”
She shrugged.
“It’s fine so far.”
Jessica was about to ask a follow-up question, but then two more students walked over and sat down.
Bella was pleased to see that Angela was one of them.
“Oh, hey. Fancy meeting you here.”
Angela smiled and introduced Bella to the other boy whose name was Eric.
They all went back and forth for a few minutes talking about their classes and some general gossip, though Jessica and Mike seemed more interested in the gossip aspect than the other two.
Bella wasn’t able to contribute much to the conversation, but she was fine with nodding along as she ate her lunch.
But then she felt a weird prickling sensation on the back of her neck, like a premonition that she couldn’t quite articulate.
She turned in her seat to see if she could figure out the cause of the weird feeling and saw a group of students walking into the cafeteria.
They were all eye-catching in different ways and they moved together like a wolf pack, ignoring all the students who were suddenly focused on them.
They all sat down at a table along the edge of the room and started to converse amongst themselves, none of them so much as acknowledging anyone else in the room.
Bella recognized the weird boy from her biology class, but not any of the others.
Thankfully, he wasn’t looking at her now. Instead, he seemed to be staring absently at the table, picking at the food sitting in front of him.
The rest of Bella’s new friends had also looked up to see what she was staring at.
“Those are the Cullens,” Jessica offered before Bella could ask the question.
“They’re all adopted kids of Dr. Cullen and his wife. And apparently most of them are dating each other? Alice is the one with the short hair, and Jasper has his arm around her. Then there’s Rosalie and the big guy is Emmett. He’s apparently her boyfriend.”
“And the guy next to him?”
Bella asked the question, but was immediately distracted when the blonde girl looked up and Bella saw her face for the first time. She was very, very pretty.
Jessica was answering her question, but Bella barely heard her.
"That's Edward. He's totally gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him."
The words registered belatedly and Bella tore her eyes away from the beautiful blonde.
“Wait, what?”
Now Jessica sounded a little impatient.
“Edward Cullen. I was saying not to waste your time on him.”
“Oh, I wasn’t looking at him,” Bella replied before she even realized what she was saying.
That comment drew the attention of everyone at the table.
Jessica’s eyebrow raised.
“You weren’t?”
Bella had a quick internal debate about whether or not to just come out to all of them right here, right now. But she was already exhausted from meeting so many new people and did not feel like dealing with any follow-up questions at the moment.
So she decided to keep her response brief and vague.
“Nope,” she replied, and then returned her attention to her lunch.
She missed the looks that the other four exchanged, but was pleased when they decided to move on.
Bella ignored the Cullen table for the rest of lunch, but couldn’t help but sneak one more glance when she stood up from the table in preparation for leaving the cafeteria.
The blonde girl was facing her direction, and Bella swore that for just an instant, their eyes met.
It sent a little zap of energy through her body, but then the girl looked away again and the moment was over.
Feeling an odd sense of disappointment, Bella turned away and followed her new friends.
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The rest of her day was fairly uneventful.
Her next class after lunch was French and the only person she recognized was Alice Cullen who waved at her in an oddly vigorous way when she caught Bella looking over.
Bella waved back, feeling rather awkward, and that was the extent of their interaction.
She had gym class with Jessica, Angela, and Mike, and Emmett Cullen was there too, smiling but standoffish.
He certainly was built, Bella thought, idly taking in his broad shoulders.
She imagined him wrapping one of those beefy arms around Rosalie and scowled.
Mike caught her looking over at Emmet and leaned over to say, “All the coaches keep trying to get him to play a sport, but he won’t.”
He paused and gave Bella a sideways look before adding, “But, you know muscles aren't everything.”
“Yeah, for sure dude,” Bella replied absently before walking away from him to stand next to Angela.
She pretended not to overhear Jessica telling Mike, “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Maybe she should come out to her new friends before Mike’s current interest had a chance to grow into something even more annoying.
But that was a problem for another day. For the moment, she crossed her arms and pretended to listen to their gym teacher explaining the rules of basketball.
Her last class of the day was English, and she was pleased to find that she shared the class with Angela.
She was much less pleased to see Edward Cullen walk in the door.
He ignored everyone and made his way to a seat at the back of the classroom, nose in the air.
Clearly he was a jerk who thought he was better than everyone.
Bella crossed her arms and ignored him, glad that she had made it to her last class of the day.
When she got home that night, she went straight to her room and collapsed face first onto her bed, not getting up until she heard Charlie get home from work.