A/N: See profile for the skinny…

Chapter 1: Little Miss Sunshine & Mr. Thundercloud

Smile like you mean it
Smile like you mean it
Smile like you mean it
Smile like you mean it

(Smile Like You Mean It – the Killers)

"Okay, so...you look entirely lost."

I whipped my head around to see who it was making this incredibly astute observation, having to tilt it slightly downward in order to focus on the tiny girl who'd been standing behind me. And I thought I was short. No way she was clearing five foot. I immediately assumed she was an underclassman...her appearance just gave off that young sort of vibe. Her dark hair, somewhere between chestnut and black, was cut into an angled, chin-skimming bob, her creamy skin was free from any trace of blemishes, and her grey eyes, flecked with specks of gold, seemed to be laughing. But it was her outfit that primarily made me question her age. She wore black ballet flats, clearly not interested in boosting her height, low rise crimson cords that made me wonder how they were hanging on to her nonexistent hips, and a tight white baby tee. Bearing the words "Little Miss Sunshine" and a picture of the corresponding character, the smiling yellow blob with the blonde pigtails tied with red bows. The girl who was now awaiting a response had a friendly grin that matched the cartoon's on her shirt. Little Miss Sunshine indeed - she seemed to radiate friendliness and helpfulness. But I doubted she could help me. After my quick assessment, I pegged her as a freshman. She was probably as lost as I was and just looking for someone to commiserate with.

She continued to stare at me expectantly, expression steady, and I worked on wiping the look of confusion off my face as I glanced helplessly around the crowded halls of Forks High School. I finally nodded. "Yeah...yeah, I think I am. Officially lost." I stabbed at the paper map, already soft and worn after only two days, and shook my head. "See, this should be the room I'm looking for, but..." I glanced around one more time, as if the numbers I'd been looking for for days were magically going to appear, "none of the rooms are marked. I follow the map, but then I get here, and have no idea if I'm going to walk into the right room."

She rolled her eyes and smiled again. "I know, right? Stupendous system they've got going on here. No numbers. Like they expect us to be psychic or something." She tapped a bright red fingernail against her temple, three times.

I laughed quietly, and decided I liked her, even though it was unlikely that she was in my grade and we'd actually spend any time together. That I actually may have found a friend. "So, umm...do you happen to know if this is room 304?"

"I do," she said, nodding confidently. "I've spent a lot of time in room 304, and that's where I'm heading too." She tilted her head in the direction of the doorway. "Come on, let's go. Before all the big tables get snatched up."

I stood in place for a moment before remembering to follow her. Okay, so I was wrong. Clearly, she knew her way around. Not a freshman. But a sophomore, tops. No way this girl could be older than fifteen.

I followed her into the crowded art room, unsure if she'd actually extended an invitation to join her at one of these apparently desirable "big" tables. I glanced hesitantly around the room as I entered, taking in the misshapen ceramic busts and the kind of lousy, dark self-portraits only adolescents could possibly produce. If it were up to me, I never would have taken painting as an elective. But turns out most other juniors had submitted their schedule requests last spring, and newcomers were stuck in classes where there were openings. Like painting. I assumed this was for a reason, that most juniors would indeed rather make monkey bread in home ec or hammer away in wood shop or have an extra day of flag football per cycle than do this. I agreed with them, but didn't put up too much of a fuss. It could have been worse. I could have gotten stuck with an extra gym rotation.

Little Miss Sunshine was still talking to me as she flung her bookbag onto one of the high tables, so I followed her. My eyes were drawn to a tattered fuchsia ribbon, bearing the words "T.D. - I Remember" in faded purple, the color standing out sharply against the black nylon of her bag. "I'm Alice, by the way," she finally introduced herself. "You wanna sit here?"

Grateful for the clarification, I nodded and smiled at Alice. "Yeah...thanks." I pulled up one of the stools and sat down on it, grimacing as I noticed it wasn't entirely steady and I teetered a bit. "I'm Bella. Swan. I just started here this year."

Alice seemed to skip over my last sentence, a weird, slightly pained look marring her features when I said my last name. "You're Chief Swan's daughter?" she asked quietly.

Way to go, Bella, I thought. Guess it's not the coolest thing in the world to announce that your dad's a cop. Surely the party invites would roll right in with that little admission. I could practically feel the blush creeping into my cheeks, and did my best to beat it back. There was no reason to blush at every little thing. I lifted my chin and looked at her directly. "Yeah, I am."

Alice now shook her head, as if she were physically trying to shake the troubled expression off of her face. "That's cool!" she now remarked, the strained enthusiasm in her voice evident. "You know what? I heard you were moving here. And you're, what? A junior? Senior?"

"Junior."

The forced elation was gone when she spoke again, as if a storm had passed by quickly. "Me too!" she squealed. "So maybe we'll have some other classes together."

I felt another blush warming up, and hoped she didn't press to see my schedule. Maybe I should be proud of the fact that most of my coursework was of the Senior A.P. variety, but in this moment, I wasn't. I liked this Alice person, and was afraid that revealing myself as the Chief's daughter as well as resident dork wasn't the greatest foundation for a friendship. I just nodded instead. "Yeah. That would be cool. I haven't met very many people here, so..."

Alice rolled her eyes. "I'm sure. The joys of moving to a small town, where everyone has known each other forever. Knows everything about you." Again I caught the slightly troubled look drifting into her eyes, but she pressed her lips together and was able to will it away as quickly as it had appeared. "But..." She busied herself, reaching into a drawer beneath the table and pulling out an assortment of brushes and testing them with her fingertips, clearly at home with the utensils. "...there's a lot of really nice people here, too. Just give everyone a few days to get caught up and talk about who got a terrible haircut and whose boobs got bigger over the summer and who broke up and who got back together, and then...then people might actually be friendly and talk to you. Pez?"

I accepted the tiny grape-flavored candy that she popped out of Nemo's head and into my hand, laughing at her assessment, because she was right in many ways. So far, I'd felt like no one had really noticed me. They all seemed so...busy...with each other. I felt invisible, like Alice was the first person who had even seen me in the hallways. "I hope so," I shrugged. "Otherwise, it's going to make for a pretty lonely two years."

Alice smiled sympathetically. "Oh my gosh. I can't even imagining transferring junior year. That must be hard." Then she bounced her head back and forth, and Little Miss Sunshine seemed to bounce on her shirt along with her. "But you know me now." She giggled. "And in case you didn't notice, well, I tend to talk a lot. So your days of feeling lonely are officially numbered. In fact, by the end of class, you may be begging me to shut up and leave you the hell alone."

Now I laughed loudly, probably the first real laugh I'd had since coming to Forks. I felt almost giddy. I always got along best with girls like Alice, girls who were comfortable doing most of the talking so that I was able to hang back and take it all in, the way I preferred to do, without having to sit in awkward silence. I was indeed hopeful that Alice would be a friend, because Forks High School seemed like it would be a much more interesting and lively place by her side. So I gave her a real smile. "I'm pretty sure it won't be like that, Alice." I glanced down at my hands, feeling shy now. "It feels really nice to talk to someone."

Alice smiled one more time. "Cool," she replied simply, before returning her attention to the canvasses and brushes and paints on the table before us.

I saw Alice a lot over the next few days. In fact, I saw her so much that I began to wonder how I had possibly managed to remain unaware of her presence my very first days at school. Alice seemed to be everywhere at once - zipping back and forth between the cheerleaders and football players and the more artsy looking kids in the lobby before school, cuddled up with one particular tall, cute football player that I assumed to be her boyfriend against a locker between classes, cheerfully making the morning announcements that were piped into every single homeroom. She was always surrounded by several people, most of whom seemed to at least try to hang onto her every rapidfire word, so I had no idea how she always managed to take notice of me if I was passing by.

But she always did. It seemed like anytime I was within a twenty-foot radius, Alice was able to establish missile lock and hone right in on me. "Bella!" she'd nearly scream, sometimes practically pushing people out of the way in order to get to me before I skirted away, her trilling voice unnecessarily loud, immediately causing a blush as several people turned to figure out who the hell Alice was shrieking at. Then she'd link her arm through mine and insist on walking with me to my next class so that I didn't get lost, or ditching her second period study hall to come hang out with my in the library during mine. Don't get me wrong; I appreciated her overtures and enjoyed our blossoming friendship. I was just a tiny bit puzzled regarding the fervor behind it, why Alice seemed so entirely enthusiastic about being my friend. Sometimes her lips would press together as she approached me, her eyes would grow all intense, and she'd appear very much a woman on a mission. Alice seemed to already have more than enough friends, so I was just lost as to what that mission was.

And slowly, I worked on getting acclimated to my new surroundings. Alice had been right - I was starting to assume she was right about many things - and people were slowly warming up to me. I'd started sitting with a very sweet girl named Angela in my English class, and I got the sense we had a lot in common. Guys would talk to me every now and again. One, Mike Newton, always made a point of doing so, but I got the impression he was simply talking to me for the sake of being the person to talk to the new girl rather than displaying any actual interest in me as a person. I was getting lost less, no longer having to devote full attention to navigating the hallways and making sure I didn't trip over people as I searched for classrooms.

As a result, I was actually able to pay more attention to the people who attended my new school. It was pretty easy to figure out the social structure of Forks High School. Some of this was simply because it was obvious that the people who made time to talk to me were the ones closer to the bottom. Then there were those evidently near the top. I sometimes heard them saying their names confidently during roll call in classes - "Rosalie Hale" or "Emmett McCarty" or "Lauren Mallory" - and I often heard the same names called frequently in the hallways or in the lobby. They were the people who were the prettiest and had the best bodies and wore the coolest clothes and seemed entirely consumed by one another. They had enough going on in their lives, and clearly didn't feel the need to expand their social circle in any way by talking to me.

Alice was really the only exception. We only had art class twice a week, but it seemed to have been established that we would sit together. Amazingly, Alice remained quiet when the teacher was actually giving instruction, which I was grateful for. I had absolutely no doubt that my work would be pitiful, but at least I could try to incorporate the techniques if I worked really hard at following along with what the teacher was saying. Then we'd get to work, and while I struggled to get down a straight line on the canvas, Alice went nuts on her, blending colors beautifully, swirling them together into mostly abstract creations, often peppered with what may or may not have been random thoughts or words. Sometimes they seemed sweet and romantic, like on the first day when she wove the phrase "You...make...me...feel..." into the golds and bronzes and midnight blues. The other time, they seemed to reflect pain, and I glanced quickly away from her side of the table after seeing "there...is...no...new...year..." standing out in white against a background of deep crimson and black.

On that day, Alice's mood didn't seem to match up with what she was working on, and I quickly got the sense that she tapped entirely into her subconscious when creating a piece, as if she were barely even aware of what her mind was churning out and her hands were producing. Otherwise, it seemed hard to believe that she was still managing to give me a cheerful tutorial on her fellow classmates while creating such a stark project.

She was giggling. "It's so cliched, right? That the cheerleaders are in fact the most popular girls here and that most of them are in fact dating guys on the football team? Like a freakin' CW show!"

I continued to focus on my straight line as I responded. "But aren't you dating someone on the football team too?"

She nodded. "Oh yeah...well, I am." A huge smile lit up her face and she bit down on her lip before continuing. "Jasper. But I am probably...the exception to the rule. I mean, it's very vanilla around here. People don't really "mix" between groups too much."

I looked at her in confusion. "It seems like you're friends with everyone."

Alice appeared thoughtful. "Well, I try. I just...I find it so much more interesting to know people that are into different things." She rolled her eyes. "I mean, since I started dating Jasper, I do end up spending a lot of time with those girls, and they're nice and all, but a person can only take so much gossip and so much talk of nail polish colors and so much worrying about looking perfect." She shrugged. "I'm as much a girly girl as the next person, but I only have so much patience for people who are entirely consumed by that stuff, ya know?" She smiled at me. "I can tell you're not like that."

I glanced down at my plain light blue three-quarter length top which I'd paired with skinny jeans and my own pair of ballet flats. "Thanks," I said smiling wryly. "Is that your polite way of telling me that I'm a fashion disaster?"

She giggled again. "Nope. Sorry. That's not what I meant at all."

Well, it may not have been what she meant, but it was still hard to not feel like a fashion disaster sitting next to Alice. True, she didn't have the look of several of the girls here, the ones that looked like they'd copied their ensembles from head to toe from Teen Vogue. But her outfits were colorful and original, almost like art projects of their own. Today, for example, she was wearing a champagne colored tiered tunic with a handkerchief hemline, complete with some kind of lace embroidery and beading. I got the impression she'd added these embellishments herself. A shell pink scarf was tossed around her neck, and her short hair was pulled into two tiny pigtails below her ears, which resembled the ends of the brushes she was now working with.

She looked up at me, and the excitement in her eyes gave her away. "But just so you know...if you do ever want to go shopping, I'm your girl. I just prefer the boutiques and thrift shops and stuff in terms of putting stuff together. I mean, I'd definitely say I'm more Free People and Urban Outfitters than Nordstrom or Express."

I shrugged helplessly, not quite sure what she was even talking about. Stores, I assumed, from the Nordstrom reference. "Hmm, well...than I guess I'd have to say I'm more Old Navy than anything else."

For some reason, this response seemed to charm Alice, as she suddenly reached over and gave me an impulsive half-hug. "Oh, Bella," she laughed, clearly amused. She stared at me for a minute. "Come hang out after school today, okay? Jasper has practice, and I get really bored in the afternoons."

"Yeah, sure," I answered, smiling hugely inside at the invitation. "I could hang out for awhile."

That's how two and a half hours later I ended up following Alice's yellow updated Beetle convertible into the driveway of one of the hugest houses I'd ever seen, in Forks or anywhere else. I wasn't sure if people still referred to houses as mansions, but if they did, that's surely what I'd call this place. It was set back from the road, nestled among the trees, having a modern rather than classic architecture with its large glass panels taking up nearly entire walls and odd angles. I parked my hand-me-town truck behind Alice's car in the circular driveway, tucking my hair nervously behind one ear as I stepped out. Even with my beat up car and non-designer clothes, I had never felt inferior in Alice's presence. She had never given me any reason to. But as I glanced up at her home, for the first time I realized I might have reason to feel self-conscious. And this realization for some reason prompted a pretty rude summation to fall from my lips. "Wow, so...you're rich," I blurted out suddenly.

Alice winced a bit, as if apologetic. "My dad's a surgeon," she explained. "And my mom's an architect. That's really the reason why we have such a crazy house. She designed it."

"Wow, that is so cool!" I exclaimed as I thought about this. My mother could barely pull together a tuna noodle casserole, let alone a blueprint for an entire house.

"It is cool," Alice agreed. "We only built the house about five years ago, so I was old enough to actually be involved and stuff, like help with what my room would look like." Her eyelids fell closed, as if she were thinking dreamily about her space. "I love my room. Wait til you see!"

I smiled at her and raised an eyebrow. "Lots of closets?" I guessed.

Alice giggled. "Yes, okay, lots of closets. But that's not even what I'm talking about. I have, like, a makeshift studio in my room too. I can work whenever I feel like it, it's all right there when inspiration strikes."

"Wow, that does sound really...fun." And for the first time, I felt just a tinge of jealousy. I was starting to realize that Alice seemed to have it all. She was adorable and popular, easy friends with everyone. She had a cute boyfriend that seemed to love being by her side. She was sweet and funny. She was clearly talented. Apparently she never had to worry about money. It sounded like everyone in her family was successful. Successful and happy.

My life was so very different. I may eventually make some other friends here besides just Alice, but I was self-aware to realize it would take awhile, that I was not the type of person who made friends easily. Boyfriend? Um, no prospects there. Sure, some of the boys were starting to stare a second longer than necessary when I walked by, but it felt like little more than ogling. Few of them had actually spoken to me, or started anything that resembled an actual conversation. And I did worry about money. I mean, not really in the here and now - I didn't lead a very extravagant lifestyle - but I did worry for the future, if I would have enough to go to the college or my choose, if I would have enough to go to college at all. And my family. Could I even call it that, as small and fractured as it was?

I followed Alice into the house, hoping a morose mood was not setting in that would make Alice think I was anything less than thrilled to be there. But staying somber in Alice's presence was pretty much an impossible task, so it wasn't long before the mood lifted and I was having fun again. Alice gave me a tour of the first floor of the house, saying, "I'm gonna save the upstairs for later," as if it held some great surprise. Quirky girl. She then hooked up her ipod to a speaker unit in the kitchen, and we sat down at the table to work on our homework. We were only seven minutes in before Alice jumped up from the table, already distracted. "Let's bake cookies!" she cried.

I glanced down at my biology homework, briefly considering. Oh, why not? I could finish it quickly at home later, and besides, I was still hoping to transfer out of boring track I Earth Science into the A.P. Bio class as soon as just a single senior decided it had been a poor choice for their final year. I nodded in agreement, and joined Alice in the kitchen where she was pulling out baking sheets and two containers of ready made dough from the gleaming Subzero. Twenty minutes later, we were still giggling over our glasses of milk as we continued to eat more raw dough than actual cookies in between waiting for our batches to bake.

"Oh my God, I am being such a pig!" I exclaimed as I stuffed another spoonful of uncooked dough into my mouth, relishing the grittiness of the brown sugar and the cold crunch of the chocolate chips. "That's probably because I ate like, an apple as my lunch."

Alice turned her head toward me and gave me a quizzical look. "Hey, what lunch do you have anyway?"

I swallowed around the dough in my mouth. Crap. Busted. I knew it. "Um, I think it's called second lunch?"

"Well, yeah, that's what I figured. Most juniors, including myself, have second lunch." She bumped her hip against mine. "So why haven't I seen you in the cafeteria, huh Missy?" A teasing grin spread over her face. "Have you already set your sights on some guy and are having hot makeout sessions out back or something?"

I nearly sputtered. Hardly. No, the truth was much less exciting. Actually, I'd been holing up in the library during my lunch period, taking comfort in rereading some of my favorite books for about the fifth time. I didn't want to explain this to Alice, I didn't want her to think I was totally socially retarded. Because I wasn't actually trying to avoid social contact...it was just that by lunchtime I felt like I needed a little break. A break from feeling like the new girl who drew attention and whispers. I liked feeling that for a few minutes so one was looking at me, that I didn't have to monitor the expression on my face. I knew it was stupid and I knew I couldn't keep doing it forever, but right now...well, I seemed to keep finding myself there. "No, no guy," I told Alice. "I just...I've just been trying to be really careful about keeping up on my reading and my work, since I'm new here," I explained lamely.

Alice shook her head firmly. "So not okay, Bella. Tomorrow. You're coming to the cafeteria and sitting with us. I am not allowing you to keep hiding out in the library."

I smiled halfheartedly. "I'm not hiding out," I protested.

"You're totes hiding out. Keeping up on your reading? Please. I saw your schedule. I know you're taking all of the smarty pants classes. I'm not buying that one."

It seemed pointless to try to refuse her. I had a feeling this was a losing battle. So I gave in. "Okay," I sighed. "Cafeteria tomorrow. I'll be there with bells on."

She swirled her spoon in her mouth and pulled it out with a loud pop. "Good," she said simply. "Thought so." Then her eyes widened suddenly as a new song came blasting through the speakers, the new Shakira. "Oh my God, I looooove this song!" she cried. And that was it before she was dancing me through the kitchen, spinning me around in the narrow space between the island and the sink, insisting that I move my hips as she moved hers, even if my rhythm was much less graceful.

Between the music and our laughter, I didn't hear the door open, didn't know someone else was approaching until I heard the door slam loudly against the wall behind it when it swung open forcefully. I jumped at the sound, my heart instantly racing as I turned to look at the intruder. Then I actually saw him, and my heart rate increased even further.

Silhouetted in the doorway was a boy who appeared to be somewhere near our age. His hair was messy, all wild and overgrown, brownish but glinting with accents of gold and copper from the setting sun working its way through the doorway behind him. His face...his face was gorgeous, almost too pretty to belong to a boy, all high cheekbones and pouty red lips. But he still managed to appear masculine, probably due to the aggressive stubble along his square jawline. Then there were his eyes. They were somewhere between green and grey, almost like jade stones, their color standing out in stark contrast to the red around them, as his eyes were entirely bloodshot.

He was dressed like a lot of the other jocks I'd noticed around Forks High School, wearing a pair of beat up Nike sneakers, loose jeans that sat low on his hips, and a grey t-shirt bearing the words "Property of Forks Football Team." Even though he was tall and somewhat lanky, I could make out the definition beneath it, see where the shirt clung to his chest, make out the slight definition of his biceps below the short sleeves. But a few things made me believe that whoever this person was was not an active member of the team. For one thing, at this time on a Tuesday afternoon, he should be at practice. For another thing, I didn't think it was common practice for players to walk around absolutely reeking of weed.

He remained perfectly still in the doorway, eyes squinting and mouth all loose, as he tried to make sense of the chaos unfolding around him. Geez he was messed up. He ran a hand through the crazy hair, and stared at Alice, giving a little chuckle. "Christ Alice, what the hell are you doing? You think you could keep it down? I could hear you two half a mile away." His voice had a lilting musical quality to it, with rough undertones, as if something had just grated on his vocal cords. I assumed it was from the smoke.

He sauntered through the kitchen, on his way to the rest of the house, and I noticed him lilting slightly to one side. For some reason, I couldn't move. I was frozen in place and he stared at me, hard, for a moment before finally making a move to go around me. When his eyes locked onto mine, my throat turned to sawdust.. Then he just shook his head like he was dealing with a complete idiot here, and moved past me.

"Edward." Alice's voice cut into my stupor, and I was shocked at the hard tone of it. I had never heard Alice's voice sound anything like that. My head immediately turned in her direction, and for the first time I noticed how my friend's demeanor had changed so entirely and suddenly as a result of this Edward's presence. Her back was rigid and her hands were curled into tight little fists. Her lips were pressed together into a thin white line. Alice was always on the paler side, but now she looked almost ghostly white, except for the spots of red that had appeared on her cheeks. Without looking away from the boy, she reached into a drawer in the island, produced something, and set it on the counter. Visine. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. "You should probably use this. And take a shower before dinner too. You reek." Then she turned her back on him, leaning against the sink for support.

Edward stood frozen in the passageway for a solid thirty seconds, staring at his sister's back. Then, very slowly, he walked over to the counter and picked up the Visine, waiting for Alice to turn around again. When she finally did, he raised one eyebrow and offered her a crooked smirk that lifted the left side of his mouth. "Alice," he began pleasantly. Then I watched as all the humor drained from his eyes, and they turned ice cold. His voice was frozen as entirely when he spoke again, sliding the tiny plastic container back across the counter so it landed against Alice's hand. "Fuck off." He glared at her for another few seconds before turning and finally leaving the room. He didn't glance back.

I glanced down, and realized at some point my hand had ended up pressed against my heart, which was still pounding in protest against my chest. I felt like I was having trouble breathing, as if the atmospheric pressure in the room had suddenly dropped, as if a thunderstorm had passed through and left cooler temperature along with broken branches in its wake. The music was still pounding around us, but now it seemed entirely incongruent, as if it's cheery beat had no business in this place.

Alice finally looked up again, her eyes glistening with unshed tears of maybe sadness or anger or embarrassment. Maybe all three. "So yeah," she finally stated in a shaky whisper. "That's my brother. He has some...problems right now."

I looked through the doorway he had just passed through, as if indeed I could still feel his presence hovering around us, making us rigid, bringing us down. Problems. Yeah. I'd say so.

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