Chapter 1- Jess

"Nicholas!" I yelled, looking toward the crashing waves of La Push beach worriedly.

My little brother has little instinct for self-preservation, and I always seem to be my parents' third set of eyes when it comes to my siblings. Even my older brother, who was the reason for our trip to Forks, Washington, had been under my responsibility since we were kids; because I had always been much more mature than he was even being two years younger than him.

Matthew had been looking into universities, and the University of Seattle was one of his top choices. He had wanted to 'check out' the university campus before replying to his acceptance letter (what he really wanted to check out had a little more to do with the female population of SU, I think), and my mother had suggested that we all come along and make it a family vacation. My dad, seeing how opposed his kids were to this "big family fun time", then suggested we make it a camping trip. My mom hates camping, but she agreed when it was clear we liked that idea so much more. In my opinion, cooped up with your family on a beach is much better than cooped up with your family in a tiny hotel room. Anyways, my dad had really liked the idea of camping on a beach, and my mom liked the Native American heritage La Push beach had, so here we were.

While I was thinking about his, and grumbling to myself about my reckless little brother, my little sister, Sarah, plopped herself down beside me and started playing on her IPod touch.

I looked over at her and rolled my eyes; it seemed as if she was always on that thing. I was sure I wasn't that distant when I was twelve-was I?

I turned around when I heard some voices coming from farther down the beach, and my annoyance suddenly turned to curiosity when I saw the copper-colored skin of some of the local boys. Now that was one of the main perks of this place-these guys were hot! They each looked twice as toned as the male models on the front of airbrushed magazine covers.

Trying not to be too obvious in my staring, I shifted so that my sister blocked their view of me and watched them walk down the beach. It was embarrassing how quickly I noticed two boys that weren't usually with the group; one that looked about the same age as the rest, and another, younger boy, who immediately jumped to the top of my list as the most good looking person on this entire reservation. He had the same perfect copper complexion and toned body as the rest of them, and he had beautiful curly black hair and a flawless smile.

Wow, I thought. This guy could be a shampoo, toothpaste, and abs routine workout model all at the same time.

I think my imminent attraction towards him could also have been the part of my brain saying, He looks about the same age as you! It was too bad that anyone this good looking would never give me the time of the day. I mean, I considered myself pretty, with an okay body, but I was in no way good enough for this guy to pay me any attention.

For an almost-sixteen-year old girl, I was pretty sure instead of growing out of my awkward phase, I'd just shifted into a whole new one. My size-ten feet, one of the most annoying things about me, were embarrassing. My un-teenager-like D-cup breasts were also embarrassing (and annoying) especially when bathing suit shopping and taking gym class (although they did seem to get me quite a lot of male attention sometimes). Judging from this, you'd think I was some sort of huge amazon. Nope. I considered myself pretty average height and size-wise; I was a size six in most places, and about five-foot-six. Probably my best feature would be my hair; I had dark brown hair that curled naturally into perfect beachy waves, and was usually pretty nice to me whenever I wanted to straighten or curl it. My hair was good to me.

Just as I was contemplating this, I heard my mom's voice call me from where her, my dad, and Matthew had pitched our tent. I sighed, stood up and glanced back at the group of boys, whose gaze was now on me. I quickly looked away, embarrassed and sure that they had known I was staring at them, and jogged over to our makeshift campsite.