Every good story has a definite beginning, middle and end, but Alice's did not. How could anyone write the story of Alice when she had no beginning to speak of? It was not hard to see that the chance of her story being written by anyone but herself was unlikely. Nevertheless, she pondered the idea that an author might persuade a reader to sympathize with the misfortunes that had befallen upon her. The idea amused her.

It was this amusement which brought a smile to her face as she watched a woman spill boiling hot soup all over her bare arm. When the woman looked up Alice was lost in thought with a giggle about to spill from her lips.

Whatever events had led to this woman's unfortunate second degree burns were irrelevant. All she knew was that Alice was a worker in the grocery store who had apparently gained joy from her pain.

"What the hell are you looking at??!!! Is this funny to you?? Is this funny to you??!!!" shrieked the woman, as she charged at Alice. Her squatty legs were moving as fast as she could as she leaned all of about 250 pounds into her tackle.

Before Alice even fully awoke from her daydream she had been shoved repeatedly in the chest area. It seemed to be as high as the stout woman could reach. Alice could see a crazed look in the woman's eyes and for a brief moment she wondered if the woman was possessed by some sort of demon.

"Calm down ma'am, just calm down..." Alice's attempts to be heard were futile.

She felt her body finally give to the repeated pushes and she tumbled to the floor at which point the woman started kicking at her ribs. It was a miracle that her slender frame could handle the abuse considering how small she was, but she really didn't mind the pain. It seemed... familiar. She finally closed her eyes and just waited for it to be over.

"Irena, we need to go honey, we need to go! They callin' the cops! You hear me Irena?" An unfamiliar deep male voice was apparently trying to convince the stout Irena to make a run for it.

Sure enough, the pummeling ceased. It was replaced by a dull ache where her head had hit the floor and the familiar feeling of bruising all over her body. There was also this feeling of pure violation, knowledge that someone had once again entered her personal space only for the purpose of abuse.

"Are you freaking kidding me? Alice, are you ok? Please tell me you're ok, I'm already short a cashier today!!" squeaked Jessica, the ever compassionate store manager. "If you're not ok I'm not sure who'll cover for you!"

"I'm fine" said Alice, as Jessica helped her up off the floor. "Can I just take my lunch at least? I need to pull myself together."

Jessica nodded her reply as Alice walked slowly back towards the ladies room. On the way she noticed that there were customers gawking at her. She shook her head in disgust that not one of these customers had offered to help and then she stopped shaking her head because it just made the pain more intense.

In the bathroom mirror she noticed that she was not only shaking but there were tears streaming down her face. When had that happened? She did feel herself crying. In fact she hadn't felt herself cry in years. Huh. Surprisingly the tears made her topaz eyes look brighter than usual. Almost... pretty. She ran her fingers through her spiky black hair and felt the back of her head. It was bleeding a little but didn't seem too bad.

She washed her face but was still shaking, almost to the point of shivering. She went to her locker and grabbed the sweater that she kept there for the days when chilly wet Washington state air was too much for her. She felt instantly better. The sweater smelled sweet. Like lavender mixed with vanilla.

Alice didn't have much of a memory of her previous life, but she remembered that scent. Her first encounter with it since her memory loss or her "rebirth" as she liked to call it was at a Laundromat. She had accidently opened up the wrong dryer door and instantly she knew that it wasn't hers, even before the woman on the bench had yelled "hey bitch, get away from my clothes!!!" She had been flooded with emotion over the smell of freaking dryer sheets. She managed an apology and made a mental note of the brand on the ladies box of softener.

Ever since that day she had always used that brand. When you have no ties to the first 19 years of your life, you take nostalgia in any form, even dryer sheets. And even in an inexplicable affinity to maraschino cherries which is why her lunch consisted of a jar of cherries and a Caesar salad.

"Alice to your register please, Alice up front to your register!!!!" Jessica never would allow a lunch break to go uninterrupted. Popping a couple pain killers into her mouth she tossed her garbage in the basket and took a leisurely paced walk back to the front.

"For the love of all things holy Alice, think you could walk any slower??!" Jessica Stanley had the most annoying whine to her voice.

"Quick movement seems to make my head hurt worse Jess…" Alice drawled slowly "Maybe I should have this looked at."

"Oh no honey, you just take your time waiting on people, I'm sure you'll be ok... in fact take the express register." The syrupy tone to Jessica's voice almost made Alice laugh out loud. She had a way of predicting people's reactions and had a knack of manipulating with her ability to read people.

The rest of her shift passed fairly quickly. The little grocery store in Port Angeles never really was that busy except during the holiday season, and September had no real holiday to cause busyness. As the last few moments of her shift arrived she started to dread her return home.

An empty house. A home that wasn't really hers. Another sleepless night. This is what she was thinking as she walked out to her old beat up pickup truck.

Lately she'd been dreaming a lot at night, and the dreams were disturbing her. Since her rebirth she had not had a man in her life, and she didn't have any true memory of one before that. Recently her dreams had presented a man, who seemed to be harmless… yet for some reason she woke up scared to death.

Her shrink had been telling her that there was a strong chance that she had been abused in her previous life. He probably was right. Carlisle was a great doctor, but was even better at reading people than she herself. She always felt like he had experienced hundreds of years worth of stuff, that he was much older in experience than he was in actual years. She had never wished for a psychiatrist, but she was glad that the one forced upon her had been Carlisle.

She remembered when she had arrived here in the spring. She had woken up in an alley. She had no idea where she was, how she had gotten there or who she was. It was clear that she belonged somewhere, although the where was unrecognizable. As she stumbled out onto a main street she had heard a voice say "Miss, are you ok?" When she turned to see who was speaking she couldn't shake the fear she felt as she faced a police officer who looked none too friendly.

Her first instinct had been wrong though. Chief Swan had been friendly. And helpful too. He took her into a diner about a block away and bought her breakfast, all the while talking to her. It became obvious that she had no answers. Her clothes appeared to be brand new, and she carried an army surplus backpack.

Chief Swan had asked to take a look inside the bag that Alice had been oblivious to carrying. What he found was a typed note that said:

You are Alice Smith. Your birth date is 6/18/89. You have no past. This is your future. Good Luck.

The note was accompanied with a bank envelope of $10,000 cash, a birth certificate with the same identification, some bottled water, a change of clothes and a sweater. That same sweater was the one that she wore as she drove home to Forks that day. Whoever had picked it out for her had done a good job. It was warm and it fit her perfectly.

She pulled up in front of the Swan house. It turned out that Chief Swan had an apartment above his garage. It wasn't much but it wasn't like she had other options. Chief Swan, who she had agreed to call Charlie, ran extensive background checks in pursuit of her past. He found nothing. Alice was a mystery.

Climbing out of the truck she realized that Bella was home. Bella was Charlie's daughter, and had become Alice's friend. Alice had recognized right away that she and Bella would be close, although she had no real reason for it.

Bella was a fairly plain young woman with a desire to remain unnoticed the majority of the time. She was pretty, but not beautiful. Slender but not athletic. Just average.

Alice was anything but average. While Bella's appearance may have been typical, Alice's was not. She was petite, slender with a most unique face including topaz eyes that seemed to strike extremes with people either making them uncomfortable or making them entirely at ease with her.

Maybe it was the fact that she didn't have a past to look back on, or expectations about what her future should hold, but Alice was quite comfortable in her skin. If only she could shake the desire to know where she came from, she might have been quite happy in Forks.

Instead of heading up to her apartment she skipped up the steps to Charlie's house and rapped on the door.

"Bella!!?" she chirped.

"Alice!!!! I'm upstairs, come on up!" was Bella's reply.

"Bella, what on earth are you doing?" Alice walked in the bedroom to find Bella's clothes strewn everywhere.

"Edward has invited me to dinner with some old friends and I have no clue what to wear." Bella replied as she wrapped Alice up in a big hug, a hug that put pressure on the bruises from Alice's encounter at the grocery store.

"Ow... don't..." Alice grumbled.

"What's the matter?"

Alice debated whether to share. Finally she decided that Bella would be ok with it. She proceeded to describe her attack, while Bella's jaw dropped to the floor.

"And she wasn't arrested or anything? I mean, what on earth is going on down there at Stanley's? Did you tell my dad? You need to tell Charlie!"

"Relax Bells, it's all over. And it didn't hurt that much. It was just some scum sucker. I probably served as her anger management therapy for the day," Alice tried to joke. "Besides, I get the feeling that I've probably lived through much worse."

"Alice you know that doesn't make her any less guilty," Bella retorted. She sensed her friend's desire to drop the whole thing so she said "Just don't be afraid to talk to Charlie about it ok?"

"Agreed." Said Alice, "Now do you want to borrow a dress?"

"I thought you'd never ask. Just nothing too flashy ok?"

Alice giggled, "Bells, my sense of style is trendy yet classic. I don't do flashy. I'll find you the perfect dress."

Later that evening Alice sunk into a hot bath and felt the effects of her bruises as the blood pulsed to the spots on her ribs and arms chest where Irena the midget had assaulted her. Oddly enough it wasn't the physical pain that was bothering her though. It was her lack of normality.

She had watched Edward Cullen pick up Bella from above the garage. Edward was... well he was beautiful. And he was a fantastic guy. He was in fact the son of Carlisle, Alice's favorite shrink. Edward adored Bella, and Bella adored Edward.

From what Alice had gathered, Carlisle had moved his family to Forks just a couple years prior to when Alice had been reborn. Bella had stolen Edward's heart from the start. She now wore a beautiful 2 carat diamond on her left hand and as soon as college was over they were set to tie the knot. Alice was to be maid of honor.

Alice, whose life was so painfully obviously different from Bella's. Alice whose pathetic life consisted of working in a grocery store, freelance writing, living above Bella's garage where the sports car that Bella's boyfriend had bought her was parked, while Alice drove Bella's hand-me-down beat up truck.

She really was happy for her friend, but it was hard to ignore the fact that she coveted much of what Bella was blessed with. There were holes in Alice's being that were left gapingly open. There were times when the loneliness was just too much to bear. It was an awful feeling knowing that not only does no one around you know the real you... but you don't even know the real you.

Then there was the lack of a relationship. Watching Edward wrap his arms around Bella as if nothing else could ever complete him was just another reminder of how incomplete Alice was. Had she ever been with a man? Had she ever loved? Even she didn't know. But it was hilarious to her that she would desire a relationship when even the potential love interest who had been meeting her in her dreams had sparked an awful sense of fear.

She dried herself off and curled up on her bed with her laptop, carrying out her nighttime ritual of googling her own name. She knew it was pathetic and useless but she did it anyway. Charlie had explained to her that the identity that she had been assigned by whoever dropped her in the alley had obviously not been hers so there would be nothing to be found under the name "Alice Smith". Charlie had searched for any missing person reports, any criminal reports... any clues that might have led to information about her past. There were none to be found. Whoever had created her so-called new life did not want her to resurface.

Charlie. Charlie had been wonderful. He'd spent the last 7 months becoming a father figure. He had extended hospitality, love and dirt cheap rent. He'd even asked her to take his and Bella's last name, so now she was Alice Swan. His only stipulation had been that she agreed to seek help from Carlisle. Deep down Alice knew she needed it anyway.

The softness of her feather pillow was too much and she finally surrendered to it, in spite of her desire to avoid the fear she knew would come with her dreams. She shut down her computer and allowed herself to be pulled into sleep, sleep with visions of a tall, messy haired man who seem to affect her greatly without even coming near her.