Summary: Mating is when you're tied to someone forever. Being away from them hurts and their emotions become yours. You belong to that person body and soul, and they belong to you. When someone turns 17 they're officially mating age. Bella can't wait to leave Forks behind and find her mate and true love. Too bad her biggest fear comes true when her mate ends up being none other than Edward Cullen, her bully.

Disclaimer: This is for every chapter of this story. NONE OF THE CHARACTERS ARE MINE! They all belong to the wonderful Stephanie Meyer! No movies, books, or tv shows that I talk about or quote are mine. This is fanfiction, so it's safe to assume that almost nothing except for how the story is carried out and most of the dialect is mine!

Chapter 1

BPOV

I don't necessarily hate my high school. I just happen to hate almost all the people here, which makes it kind of difficult to enjoy the school.

My name's Bella Swan and I'm the resident klutz of Forks High School, this makes me the target of jokes, laughter, and bullying. Don't get me wrong, it could be worse. I mean it's not like anyone here has ever gotten physical with me beyond a slight shoving in the hallway, or a leg being stuck out to make me trip, and I'm not in a constant fear of being picked on, they do leave me alone most of the time, but that doesn't mean that it's fun. It just means that it's a lot of loneliness that's broken up with some misery.

One more year. That's my mantra as I once again pull up into the parking lot in the spot farthest from the school. It means more walking for me, but also that I'm not parked by the popular kids which makes it easier to go unnoticed when I leave. Showing up unnoticed is impossible when you have a truck as loud as mine.

As I park my car and hop out I can see that the Cullen's and Hale's and Emmett (or as I call them, the royals) are already here and hanging out by their cars, taking advantage of the nice weather. That means I'll have to walk by them on my way to the school. Fuck me.

The Cullen's, Hale's, and Emmett are royalty of Forks. I guess that's what happens when you're all ridiculously good looking and your families are filthy rich. It makes sense that they all mated.

Emmett McCarty, the good-looking athlete who is surprisingly smart and a decently nice guy, even to me. He might laugh the loudest when I fall, and make jokes at my expense, but he does it to everybody. I just happen to be clumsier than most, giving him more ammo. Even knowing that he laughs at everyone, it doesn't stop me from wanting to cry every time he laughs at me in the hall. His laugh is enough to make everyone pay attention and laugh along. He's the type of guy that thrives on that and has to make a cruel joke at my expense to get more laughs. He might be nicer than the rest, but he still isn't nice, and I'm not a fan of him. He's about 6'2'' with really dark curly short hair, brown eyes, and muscles that make me question if he's taking steroids to improve his game. He'd be the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen if it weren't for his dimples.

He mated to Rosalie Hale and if she wasn't so pretty, I'd feel really bad for him. To put it quite plainly, she's a bitch. She likes to trip me and push me around whenever she can. She's the head cheerleader and also annoyingly smart so she's able to get away with it as she has the whole school wrapped around her finger, even the teachers and principal. Rosalie is 5'7'' with a thin yet curvy figure that any girl would kill for. She has bright blue eyes, blonde wavy long hair, and the confidence of a girl who, well, looks like she does. While Emmett makes jokes to be funny, she makes jokes to be cruel, and she succeeds every time.

Rosalie's twin brother Jasper Hale is a spitting image of his sister, but in male form. He's 6'1'' with blonde hair that looks like a surfer, bright blue eyes, and a muscular body, but not nearly as muscular as Emmett. He's the quiet one in their group and tends to keep to himself. His jokes hurt the most because of how quiet he is. Sometimes I feel like he only talks when the purpose is to laugh at my expense.

His mate is Alice Cullen; she's the nice one. She's only 5 feet tall and has black short hair that points in all directions. Her hazel eyes are always bright, and actually show sympathy when her friends pick on me. Too bad she's never actually done anything to stop them or show them that she thinks it's wrong. In fact she even laughs along sometimes once she thinks I've gone and can no longer see her.

Then there's her twin Edward Cullen, aka the leader of the royals. He's the king of the school and my biggest tormenter. Edward's absolutely gorgeous at 6'1'' with hair the color of a shiny penny and eyes as green as emeralds. He's ridiculously smart, funny, and my biggest bully. He goes out of his way to cause me to trip because he thinks it's funny. He's as cruel as Rosalie with his words and has never shied away from tripping me on purpose. He's also the one that started everyone picking on me back when we were in eighth grade, before that I was able to trip in peace without being laughed at and called names.

He's also the only unmated one in the group. Every time a girl turns seventeen and doesn't mate to him their dreams come crashing down. I can't imagine why, I think he'd be a horrible mate. He's arrogant, obnoxious, and I don't think he'd ever put someone before himself. Lord help the girl that mates with him eventually.

It's been almost three full months since he turned seventeen and he still hasn't mated. I could only hope that he doesn't mate until after the school year ends, because knowing him he'd end up getting his mate to join him in bullying me. Then again, maybe if he mates it'll distract him enough to leave me alone.

I didn't even realize I was so lost in thought until I feel a hard body knock into mine and I go sprawling down onto the pavement. My hands sting and as I get up I can see the scrapes on both palms. Thankfully there's no blood. Passing out is never fun.

"Shit, I'm sorry Red, I didn't see you there." Edward says with a smirk on his face that makes it obvious that not only did he see me, he bumped me on purpose.

No don't help me up, I'm fine. I roll my eyes behind my hair so that he can't see and then get off the ground as quickly as I can and scurry off with my hair covering my blazing cheeks. He always calls me Red because of my blush; I don't need to show him that he's causing it to happen. I hear laughing behind me as I quickly walk into the school. That wasn't too bad, maybe they'll leave me alone for the rest of the day now.

I could only hope.

"Bye Dear, have fun in class."

"Thank you Peggy, see you tomorrow." I smile at the librarian who's the sweetest person at this school.

I leave the library with five minutes to spare so that I can get to biology before the halls fill with people leaving the cafeteria. I always eat lunch alone in the library so that I can avoid the time that I'm most likely to be made fun of. I made the mistake of eating lunch in the cafeteria freshman year of high school. By the end of the first week I vowed to never eat there again. The royals managed to get my lunch spilled all over me all five days. Safe to say I pack my own lunch every day now.

Food isn't allowed in the library, but the librarian has grown fond of me over the last four years and allows me to eat there as long as I stay quiet and clean up after myself. The first week I decided to not eat in the cafeteria I didn't eat lunch at all, too afraid to go into the cafeteria and knowing that I couldn't eat in the library. I spent the week with my head down silently crying with my stomach growling every so often. That Friday Mrs. Rogers, the librarian, told me that I could eat lunch in there if I wanted, and I've been eating there ever since.

I smile at Mr. Banner as I walk into class and he greets me as I take my seat. When the bell rings I have my book out and head down as I wait for the rest of the class to enter. The one redeeming thing about this class is that I don't have a partner. Shocker I know. But it means that I get to work alone whenever we do group work so I love it.

I feel a foot kick the side of my chair and don't even have to look up to know that it's Edward. He sits behind me and starts every class by kicking my seat and making a joke that the whole class always finds hilarious before going to his seat.

"Hey Red, we missed you in lunch today." I don't even look up from my desk. Yeah right, as if anyone even noticed that I wasn't there besides his friends, and they only noticed because they weren't able to make fun of me.

"No really," he says, "Mike tripped and it wasn't nearly as funny as it would've been if it had been you." He says with a his classic crooked smirk and the whole class bursts into laughter, no doubt remembering Mike tripping, and imagining if it had been me.

"Shut up Cullen." Mike grumbles from his seat at the table next to mine as his lab partner and mate Jessica consoles him softly, by cooing about how great he is. Gross.

"Aw don't worry Mikey, it was still funny!" Edward says in a teasing tone and walks to his seat.

What a jackass.

"Good one Edward!" Lauren Malloy says as she takes her seat next to Edward. "Isabella falling would've been amusing, but at least we got to see it this morning thanks to you."

Edward laughs at the reminder. "Very true Lauren, maybe if we're lucky there'll be a repeat performance tomorrow morning." I can hear the smirk in his voice and I already make plans to get to school early tomorrow with the hopes of avoiding him.

"So, it's my birthday this Saturday." Lauren says in what I'm assuming she thinks is a sexy voice. "Seventeen."

Edward hesitates before responding, "Yeah, right, I knew your birthday was coming up." His voice sounds strained and I can't help but turn around and look at his face.

I almost burst into laughter at his expression. He has an obviously forced smile on his face, but his eyes show fear. It would serve him right to be mated with some vapid bimbo like Lauren or her right hand girl Jessica. Both of them have had their sights on Edward since puberty and they were convinced that one of them would mate with Edward. Now that Jessica and Mike mated this summer Lauren is pretty confident that there is no way that she won't end up with Edward.

"Come to my party? My parents are going to be out until past midnight and said I could do whatever I want to celebrate. The whole grade's invited." Like that was hard. The whole grade consists of only about seventy kids. "Well anyone worth inviting anyway." I knew that last comment was directed at me, but it's not like I care.

I'm not the unpopular girl that's waiting around for everyone to finally accept me and invite me to hang out. Even if Lauren had invited me I wouldn't go. I have no desire to spend time with a bunch of people who've never been nice to me. So I just roll my eyes and breathe a sigh of relief when the bell rings and Mr. Banner finally starts the lecture.

"Hey baby! How was school today?" My mom calls as she walks into the house at 4pm.

School was actually pretty tolerable until last period gym. I have it with all the royals and Lauren, aka the people that just love to make me miserable. Today was volleyball day and the six of them chose to be on one team, and of course every time the ball came over the net it was a spike at me. Not that Coach Clapp cared, even when it was obvious that even my team was lobbing it over to set them up for a nice spike. Sadly we'd be playing volleyball for the next few weeks. I don't bother telling any of this to my mom though. There's no reason to get her worked up or worried about me. My parents know that I don't have any friends and that I don't always get along with everyone at school, but I try to make it seem better than it is so that they don't worry.

"Good, how was school for you?" I look up from my homework to see that she has paint all over her face and I can't help but laugh. "Do a fun art project?"

"What?" She lifts her hand to her face and it comes away with purple paint causing her to laugh. "Oh yeah, it was a great day! It was Meagan's birthday so we all painted her cards! It was so cute! Josh made his with hearts; I think he has a crush! Maybe they'll be mated one day!" Mom gushes as she sighs dreamily.

"I think kindergarten is a little young to be deciding who people will mate with mom. Even at an older age you never know. Plus, they could always mate after high school at an older age."

"Yeah, but wouldn't that just be such a cute story to tell their kids one day? To say that even from kindergarten they knew they were destined." I roll my eyes but don't let mom see. She's a sucker for a good love story, even when it's all in her head.

"Speaking of mating, did you notice any cute unmated boys in school today?" She asks with a little smile as she settles next to me on the couch.

"You've asked me this everyday since the beginning of the school year and I'm going to give you the same answer I always do. No, and I don't want to-"

"Because if I'm lucky I won't mate until college, yes yes I know. But a mother can dream right? My little girl is going to be mating age in a week! I want grandbabies!"

"Jesus mom, I'm not even 17 yet, I think babies can wait."

"Well obviously, but you want to be able to have some fun before the kids come and you never have alone time again." She laughs as I grimace and cover my ears.

"On that note, I'm leaving." I say as I start to pack up my stuff.

"Oh calm down, you can stay, I have to go take a shower anyway. Your dad's working late tonight so it's just us. Pancakes or omelets?" I can't help but smile, it's a tradition of ours to always have breakfast for dinner when my dad's working late. Mostly because it's the only thing she can actually cook, but I love it all the same.

"Omelets, I'm craving cheese." I respond, but my mind really isn't on food, which is unusual for me. All I can think about is our conversation about mating.

It's not like it's a new conversation. I mean, everybody mates, so it's something that's always talked about. But ever since this school year started it's been thrown in my face. So many people in my grade are either mated already or of age to be mated. All anyone can talk about is who they think will mate, and who won't. One guess who most people think is doomed to be mateless for all eternity.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me. All my life I saw mated couples and dreamed about what my mate would be like. He'd be my best friend, my confident, and my biggest support. He'd stand up for me and make me smile even when I'm sad. He'd love me unconditionally and I'd love him in return. That's why I can't imagine myself mating to anyone in Forks High. I can't imagine anyone that could make me happy to go to school.

There also isn't a single person that hasn't laughed at me at some point, so I can't really imagine ever falling in love with one of them.

You see once you mate to someone you're stuck with them. You're whole world is tethered to them forever. It's painful when you're away from your mate for extended periods of time and you can feel what they feel to an extent. After a while the pain fades to a point where you can be away from your mate for maybe a week at a time allowing business trips and things like that, but any longer than that and the pain will start up again, and the longer you go being away from each other, the more the pain grows until eventually you pass out from it. At the beginning being separated for as little as an hour can cause pain, and discomfort will always be present unless you're touching in some way. There's no way to break the bond unless one dies, and the other one is usually a shell of themselves for rest of their life.

The reason why I've been thinking about mating so much lately is because my seventeenth birthday is this weekend, meaning next Monday I could potentially meet my mate at school. The thought terrifies me.

I don't want to become mated to anyone here, and I don't know what I'd do if I did. But it's not like I have a choice in the matter. All I can hope for is that I like the person that's chosen for me to spend my life with, and that they like me back. And that it happens far away from Forks.

A/N: Hello lovely readers! Welcome to Cruel Desire! Mating stories are some of my all time favorites so I decided to give it a go with the bully to love theme!

Warning you all right now. This will NOT be an easy ride to Bella's heart for Edward. He was cruel to her FOR YEARS and that doesn't go away just because he suddenly starts being nice. My Bella is no pushover and Edward is REALLY going to have to work for it to get her to even tolerate him, let alone love him. I hate stories where Edward is just forgiven as soon as he smiles at Bella because he's cute, so this is not one of those. If you can't handle a slow burn, where Edward actually changes and becomes a better human being, this story is not for you.

That being said, I'm really excited about this story and I hope you all join me for the ride!

Sorry if this chapter isn't the best, but it was written late and on a whim with little checking over! From here on out though everything is going to be planned ahead!

Hope to see you all next chapter!

-Gingy