Work Text:
1.1
First Beach
Bella
It starts, as so many things have since she moved to Forks, with her name.
“You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?”
“Bella,” she says with a sigh.
Maybe she should start wearing a name badge, she thinks. She is so sick of repeating herself, bored of every introduction playing by the same script. Two months she’s lived in Forks now and she still has to correct people. Maybe in two years, when she's no longer the newest face in town, nobody will remember that Bella is just a nickname.
Two years in Forks. She can hardly imagine it.
She doesn’t want to imagine it.
“I’m Jacob Black.” The boy tentatively holds out his hand, polite and friendly in the way that boys from Forks have so far resoundingly proved not to be.
(All except one, maybe.)
(Bella hurriedly pushes the thought of Edward Cullen away before Jessica Stanley—or, heaven forbid, Lauren Mallory—misinterprets the expression that undoubtedly always settles on her face whenever he crosses her mind. That’s how rumours start. Given Jessica's propensity for gossip, Bella does not doubt that she'll be the talk of the school within a week if anyone suspects she has a crush on a kid she met on the beach. It’s attention that she doesn’t need, or want.)
“You bought my dad’s truck?” Jacob Black hedges after an awkward beat of silence.
“Oh!” She shakes his warm hand, relieved. “You’re Billy’s son. I probably should remember you,” she says apologetically.
A girl nearby lets out a harsh, unfriendly laugh, the kind that would make anyone feel uneasy, even someone less prone to anxiety than Bella on a good day. It's a sudden flashback to middle school, that all-too-familiar sensation of becoming the target of an unkind joke.
And therein lies the problem.
Bella quickly releases Jacob’s hand. Retreating into her jacket might be an overreaction, especially since she's now seventeen and surrounded by friends, but old habits die hard. Blending into the background has always been a reliable tactic.
At least, it was until she moved to Forks.
She peeks over her collar.
Sure enough, the girl is looking directly at her. Laughing still.
The other girl is . . . older. Perhaps her own age, give or take a year, but undeniably older than Jacob and the majority of the group he's hanging out with. She's incredibly pretty, strikingly so—beautiful, even. Beautiful in the way that makes Lauren green with jealousy and leaves Mike gaping in awe, his jaw hanging close enough to the ground that Jessica’s eyes narrow as she sizes up the competition.
Jacob, on the other hand, seems totally unfazed by her. “What’re you laughing at, Leah?”
The name rings a bell from the deepest parts of Bella’s memory where she has tucked her childhood away. With effort, she vaguely recalls the summers she spent with Charlie—the ones she spent with him before she turned fourteen, anyway, when she stopped visiting Forks and asked to spend her vacation with him in California instead. Before then, a summer with Charlie in Forks had meant going on a lot of fishing trips with his two friends, Billy and Harry, who had often brought along their daughters and thrown them all together to keep them busy whilst they fished.
“Leah Clearwater,” Bella suddenly recalls. “You’re Harry’s daughter.”
Leah stops laughing almost instantly. Her eyes snap to Bella, her expression turning dark. “Surprised you remember,” she says coolly. “You never stuck around long enough to make friends.”
Bella chooses not to mention that she’d always felt like Leah and the twins didn’t seem to have any extra space in their little gang. Then again, she had kicked up enough tantrums to end the fishing trips by her eleventh birthday that she supposes she’d never really given the other girls much of a chance either.
“I hated fishing,” she says instead.
“You hated Forks,” Leah argues.
“Shut up, Leah,” Jacob snaps with all the sullenness typical of a fifteen-year-old boy. “Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”
“No.” There is a dangerous smile on Leah’s face that says she is aware of the attention she’s attracting, and she’s enjoying it. “I’d much rather be here, watching you make a fool out of yourself.”
Someone laughs. Bella doesn’t want to know who.
“I mean, I didn’t expect her to remember me,” Leah continues, “but you?” She turns to another boy. “Imagine being forgotten by your childhood sweetheart, Sam. The shame of it.”
Sam looks at them. He must be at least twenty, Bella thinks; he is closer to man than boy, taller than anyone here, every inch of him seemingly corded with muscle—not as wide as Edward’s brother, perhaps, but equally intimidating. Much like Emmett, Sam carries himself with a type of confidence that is impossible to ignore, but it's the weariness etched onto his face that gives Bella pause.
“Leave me out of your games, Lee,” he mutters, sounding more tired than anyone of his age has reason to be.
Or perhaps it’s just Leah he’s tired of.
“Oh but Sammy, I’m having so much fun,” she croons. “Maybe Jacob and I should start a club.”
Sam turns away from her, dismissing her, and redirects his focus to the dark treeline at the farthest edge of the beach. He stares at it with such unwavering intensity that Bella begins to wonder if he can see something nobody else can.
“Leave him alone, Leah,” another boy pipes up
This one looks younger, as young as Jacob, although there is an underlying air of anger and meanness about him that Jacob and the other boys don’t have. If not for the way he speaks to Leah, anyone would assume he was her best friend. They seem like a perfectly matched duo.
Leah leans towards him, her grin widening. “Which one?”
He rolls his eyes at her. “He’s just got a crush, is all,” he says. “Haven’t you, Jakey-boy?”
There’s a flush of red creeping up Jacob’s neck and over his cheeks that Bella thinks probably matches the colour warming her face. He spins around, his eyes wide and pleading as he looks at her.
“I don’t have—I mean, not that you’re—“ he stammers. “But it’s not—not like that—”
Behind him, Leah cackles.
“It’s okay,” Bella reassures him.
(It’s not okay. Deep down, she wishes she had driven her truck here instead of relying on a ride, just so she could go home and forget any of this ever happened.)
“Let’s just—take a walk, or something,” she adds in a quieter voice, hoping that Leah won’t be able to hear. “It’d be nice to catch up.”
Jacob noticeably brightens at this, and Bella almost expects Leah to interject with another snide comment any second. But, naturally, it’s at this moment that the rest of her friends decide to join the conversation—although the term ‘friend’ is not something easily applied to Lauren Mallory.
“I didn’t realise you already knew everyone here, Isabella,” Lauren says from across the fire.
Typical, really, that it’s Lauren of all people who would notice how much she dislikes being addressed by her full name.
“We’ve sort of known each other since I was born,” Jacob replies, smiling tentatively back at Bella again in a way she’s been learning to recognise ever since her first day at Forks High.
“How nice for you,” Lauren drawls, eyeing Jacob speculatively enough that Bella does not doubt she’s heard everything that’s been said since the very second Jacob held out his hand.
Leah snorts. “Isn’t it just.”
Both Lauren and Mike smirk at this, though Bella suspects it’s for very different reasons. She shifts, feeling as if she’s been caught in the middle of a contest of who can make her feel most uncomfortable.
“Isabella,” Lauren calls then, watching her face carefully, “I was just saying to Mike and Tyler that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn’t anyone think to invite them?”
“You mean Dr Carlisle Cullen’s family?” Sam asks before Bella can respond, suddenly refocused on the conversation.
“Yes, do you know them?” Lauren asks in a patronising tone, turning only halfway toward him.
“The Cullens don’t come here,” he replies curtly, shutting down the subject and ignoring her question.
Thank goodness for Tyler, Bella thinks, who attempts to regain Lauren’s undivided attention by asking for her opinion on a CD he's holding. She is immediately distracted.
Moments pass, and Bella's gaze shifts toward Sam. His tone had implied something else—that the Cullens aren’t allowed; that they are prohibited—and his demeanour leaves a strange impression on her.
Thankfully, Sam doesn't appear to be aware of her openly staring. His focus is entirely on Leah, who, in turn, is entranced by the bonfire's flames, almost as if she sees something in the flickering and shifting patterns that she’s trying hard to decipher. She is entirely unaware that she holds his attention—a stark contrast from only minutes ago when it seemed as if she was making every effort to capture it.
Bella watches them with absent interest, mulling over Sam’s earlier comment until she’s suddenly struck with inspiration.
It is a stupid plan, but she doesn’t have any better ideas. She looks at Jacob, her mind racing.
She has much bigger problems than Leah Clearwater. Perhaps Jacob can help with this one.
“What?” he asks.
She does her best to imitate the way Edward looks up from underneath his eyelashes. She hopes this works.
“How about that walk?”