A/N:

Many of you were probably expecting my next multi-chap, Washed Up, but I'm taking a quick detour first.

Beta is Lindz26. Pre-readers are Charmie77, Dinx, and tj123001. All the help was much appreciated, so thank you, ladies.

Like I said in the first chapter of MPMI, there's no Jacob, James, and hey, there's no Tanya, either. There is also no Mary Sue. Sorry, guys!

CHAPTER ONE
*TOGETHER*

Beginning of Summer 2005

My high school existence was no more. No more ridiculous tests, no more boring teachers, no more walking down the same monotonous halls, shoving past people I'd most likely never see again. I was done with it all. I felt free, the binds breaking as I ended a chapter of my life.

After I opened the front door of the house, I made my way outside and over to the mailbox.

Junk.

Junk.

Sweet.

I stuffed the junk mail back in the mailbox carelessly, smiled to myself, and quickly trekked up the driveway, walking alongside the wooden fence that separated my house from my neighbor's.

When I entered my backyard, I stood on the balls of my feet and peered over the tall fence, only to see a vacant backyard. I quirked an eyebrow, wondering if I'd gotten the time wrong.

Suddenly, a head popped up on the other side of the fence out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of me and causing me to stumble back a bit.

"Hey!"

"Bella," I scolded angrily, my breaths shallow.

She giggled, a wide grin on her face as she gazed down at me. She looked about six feet tall. How the hell was she so high up?

"Are you standing on something?" I asked.

"My dad's tool box," she answered sheepishly.

I chuckled and reached up to gently hit the top of her head with the envelope. "Come on, let's do this."

"Wait," she urged, and brought her hands over the fence. She was holding two pairs of sunglasses. "Which should I take with me? These?" She put on the pair of lime green, 80s retro shades she usually wore, flashed her teeth at me for effect, and replaced the glasses with these big, alien looking ones. "Or these?"

I wrinkled my nose. I didn't like the ones she was wearing. "You look ridiculous."

She pouted, appearing offended. "They're Hollywood sunglasses. I like them. Everyone these days has a pair."

I pushed them up to the top of her head. "You look better without. Now, can we please do this?" I questioned, waving the envelope in her face.

She reached behind her and made a weird face before materializing the same envelope I had. "Ready."

"Did you just pull that out of your ass?" I questioned with a smirk.

She snorted. "I had to hide it down my pants. If my mom saw, she would've demanded I open it in front of her." She began tearing into the envelope, not bothering to wait for me, so I quickly opened mine to catch up.

I pulled out a folded up piece of paper and opened it. My eyes scanned over the sheet, and I pressed my lips together, suppressing a grin. Looking up at her, she was frowning. "What'd you get?" I asked eagerly.

Her eyes were darting around the paper. "B, B, A, B, A, B…C…" Her voice tapered off the end sadly.

I furrowed my brow. This wasn't good. "What's the C for?"

She scowled. "Gym."

I sighed. "That's not bad, right? I mean, it's just running around and doing crap." My words hadn't helped, the frown still apparent on her face. "I'm sure it'll be fine, Bella. We'll figure it out."

She nodded and folded up her report card. "Your turn."

I showed her mine. "Just Bs mostly."

The smile she emitted nearly blinded me.

According to our parents, our grades had to be either As or Bs, otherwise we couldn't live our dream after graduation. Her C would probably be a problem, but we'd smooth talk her parents, just like we had when we hatched this entire plan.

"Edwaaarrrd!" a tiny but loud voice called out from the other side of the house.

I groaned and stuffed the report card back in the envelope, then shoved it in my back pocket. "Duty calls. I'll meet you at my car in an hour."

She saluted me sarcastically with her envelope before disappearing below the fence. I retraced my steps back to the front of the house, finding my little sister eagerly moving her head left and right, no doubt in search of me. She was ready, dressed in her youth soccer uniform.

"Right here, Ali," I assured, coming around the side of the house.

She had a soccer ball tucked under one arm, while her other arm was bent at her waist, her hand on her hip. "Where were you?" she huffed, her eyebrows pinched together. For just a nine year old, she managed to be way too nosey.

"None of your business," I said, and took the ball from her arms. "Now, let's go."

She quickly ran a few feet away from me, stopped, and turned around. "Ready!"

I set the ball on the ground and rolled it to her. As soon the ball came right up to her, she kicked it as hard as she could. It jerked to the side, landing in one of my mother's rose bushes. "No," I scolded. "How many times have we gone over how to kick it?"

"But I did kick it right," she countered.

"No, you didn't. Go get the ball," I demanded.

In response, she let out a subdued groan and leisurely walked to the bushes.

"Alice, hurry up," I reprimanded. "This is why you're the slowest girl on the team."

She stopped, turned around, and stomped her foot angrily. "I am not!"

I wanted to groan. She'd turned into such a brat lately. "Get the ball and come over here," I ordered, getting fed up.

She picked up the pace and retrieved the ball. Once she was next to me, I properly showed her how to kick, with the side of her foot, not with her toes.

We went back to our original spots, and this time, I kicked it to her gently. Of course, she kicked the same exact way and it wound up going over my head and into the neighbor's front yard. I sighed and turned to go get it.

Once I walked down the driveway and onto the sidewalk, I saw the soccer ball resting idle in the middle of the stone path, leading up to the front door. I bent to the ground, grabbed it, and stood. My eyes caught movement and automatically flitted up.

Bella was in her bedroom, by the window, looking at a T-shirt she held. I couldn't help but stand still, watching. She suddenly grabbed the hem of the shirt she was wearing and lifted it over her head. The thin tank top she wore beneath rose up halfway past her chest, showing the expanse of her smooth, white stomach, as well as a light blue bra. I could just make out the swell of her breasts, until she pushed her tank back down.

Bad thoughts. Go away. Not good, I chastised to myself, blinking rapidly and swallowing thickly. My thoughts were beginning to enter that dangerous zone I'd tried hard to suppress. I mean, I'd seen her in a bikini more than once. This was exactly the same, right?

"Edward!" Alice called out.

I turned away quickly and jogged back around the fence and to Alice, who looked impatient. We resumed and got into a flow of kicking the ball back and forth. She was still struggling to kick with the side of her foot, but with more practice, she'd get it.

Finally, the front door opened and my dad walked out, holding a brown paper bag.

"Let's go, Alice," he said, walking to his car.

"I'm hungry," she whined, with a pout.

My dad held up the bag. "I brought you bagels. You can eat them on the way."

Alice's face lit up, and she regarded me again. "One more kick," she requested.

I gently kicked it to her. She wound her leg back and then brutally crashed her foot forward. The ball narrowly missed me, bouncing off my used Ford Focus and landing in the street. She was bent over, cackling.

"You little brat. You hit my car!" I growled, and glanced over to my dad, who had an amused smile on his face. He wasn't going to say anything?

I took steps to her and hooked my arm around her shoulder, bringing her to me. My knuckles came up her head and began roughing her hair. She hated knuckle sandwiches.

"No! Stop! Stop!" she yelled, trying to get out of my hold. Her little hands began tacking big whacks at my body.

"Alright, you two. Enough," my dad intervened.

I let go of Alice, pushing her away. She ran her hands over her hair frantically and shot me a heated glare. She gave me one final whack, right in my gut, causing me to bend over slightly and let out a winded moan.

"I'm getting the ball, Daddy," she spoke, and skipped over to the street.

"Alice!" Dad and I shouted in unison.

"Stay out of the street!" he ordered.

Not listening to either of us, she walked onto the road and grabbed the ball. There was a loud car horn that blared. I turned my head swiftly, seeing a car speeding down the street. She was going to get hit!

Not wasting a second, I hastily ran to her and grabbed a hold of her upper arm, tugging her roughly back onto the sidewalk. The car passed, the angry driver glaring at us.

"Do you want to get killed?" I questioned in a pant. How could she be so careless? If anything had happened to her…

"I was just getting the ball," she said, her voice sunken.

Dad was suddenly next to us, bending down to Alice's level. "What have I told you about running into the street?" She didn't answer, choosing to pout instead. "Answer me."

"Don't go into the street without you, Mom, or Edward," she said sadly, as if rehearsed.

"Come on," Dad ordered with a sigh, tugging on her arm.

"Can I still have bagels?" she asked, her voice taking on her usual false sadness in order to manipulate him.

Rolling my eyes, I went to my car and inspected the part where the soccer ball had hit. Thankfully, it hadn't done any noticeable damage. After my inspection, I leaned against my car, waiting patiently.

Only a few minutes later, Bella walked into my driveway, a smile lighting up her face.

My eyes immediately roamed down her body against my own will. "You changed," I noted. She had gotten rid of the jeans and opted for a denim skirt with pink leggings, including her green sunglasses in the scheme. She'd kept on her purple tank, which I remembered seeing on her through her window. I darted my eyes away, her blue bra vivid in my memory…

Shit.

"Yeah, I was dying from the heat," she said with a shrug and opened the door to the passenger side. "Are we going?"

I hopped in and turned on the engine. Her fingers instantly went to the radio, switching it on and turning to one of the annoying pop stations she always listened to. I let her, though. I could listen to my alternative rock anytime I wanted.

"Just think," she yelled out over a loud Kelly Clarkson song, "this time next year, we'll be livin' the dream."

I smiled to myself and reversed out of the driveway.

One of the best things about my friendship with Bella was that we always wanted the same things. We met in our freshman year, after I moved here with my family from Chicago. I had no friends, but was wary to get to know her, just because I was stupid and embarrassed to be friends with a girl, but when I realized that I actually got along with her more than others, it became easy to hang out with her over the rest.

And the bonus was that she was my neighbor.

We had other friends, of course, but it came down to the fact that we relied on one another more than people realized. Like when Bella had a huge fight with her dad for missing curfew one night in our sophomore year. She was banned from going to the school dance, which was to be held later that week. We'd grown so close by then that it wasn't even a question whether I'd skip out on a fun night to stay with her. I spent most of that evening making her forget about the dance and what a grump her father was.

"Guess what?" she prompted, and turned down the music.

"You finally got busted for having those porn magazines."

"Shut up," she reprimanded, with a laugh. "Cosmopolitan isn't porn."

"Suuuure," I teased, and wondered briefly if she'd ever even looked at porn. Maybe I didn't want to know. Maybe I did…

"Anyway, my aunt said we could stay with her."

"Really?" I questioned, surprised. "Even with your cousins there?"

"There's only one spare bedroom, but I figured you could just take the couch."

I snorted. "Great."

Bella and I were those types of people in school who were noticed by some, and unnoticed by others. We were average. Our grades were average. Our school involvement was average. Our social life was average. We weren't popular, but we also weren't losers. I didn't mind, and neither did she. We had fun together, and that was what counted. But our dream was to no longer be average after high school. We wanted to be seen, to be heard. The thing was…we didn't exactly know what we were doing, but that was all a part of the excitement of it.

After we bought our subs from a nearby Subway, we drove back toward our neighborhood, choosing to bypass our homes and go to our usual spot.

I drove the car up the incline of the steep hill, rising higher and higher to a deserted cul-de-sac where there were a couple abandoned houses in the process of being built. They were practically mansions, definitely bigger than ours. For several weeks now, we'd been coming up here to see how much further along the houses were.

I parked right along the curb of a vacant lot that had just been sold. We both got out, taking our sandwiches with us. She hopped up to sit on the hood of the car and began eating, while I stood next to her, looking up at the big houses.

"When these rich people move in, it'll change the neighborhood," she remarked. "Couldn't they have found somewhere else to live? Why here?"

I shrugged in response as I bit into my sandwich.

"Dad says he can hear the construction all the way to our house," she said, setting her sub down on a few napkins, and brushed her hands together to wipe off the crumbs. There was a wicked gleam in her eye that I knew well. "You think we'll get in trouble if we go on that empty lot?"

I smiled and placed my sandwich next to hers. "Not if we don't get caught."

She laughed. "I like your style."

I held my hand out to help her down from the hood. She placed her fingers on my palm, and I wrapped mine around her small hand, trying my best not to rub my thumb along her soft skin.

Slowly, she placed her feet on the ground and looked up at me from under her thick lashes. "Thanks," she spoke quietly, and walked past me.

I looked after her for a moment before I followed. We took careful steps through the overgrown weeds of the vacant lot. Since we were on a hill, a good portion of Forks could be seen from here. It almost felt like we were somewhere else other than this small, boring town.

When she stopped walking, I stopped, as well. My arm was brushing up against hers, causing goose bumps to rise on my skin, so I took a smell step to the side, trying not to look too obvious.

"The rich ones always get the good view," she analyzed.

"Who would want a good view of Forks?" I asked with humor.

"True," she said, and chuckled. "It's better to be rich in LA and have a good view there than in a hokey town like ours." A small dimple formed in her cheek as her smile grew. "I can't wait. Can we go now?"

I laughed. "Our parents want us to stay until the end of summer, remember?"

She groaned, rolling her eyes. "Oh, right. There are too many rules."

"Whatever. I'm just glad they're letting us take a year off until college."

"Well, when we go to LA, we'll just have to become millionaires so that we never have to go to college."

I chuckled, but knew that would be next to impossible for either of us. However, I had a feeling she actually believed she could. "Sounds like a plan."

She suddenly looked at me sadly, making me wonder what caused the shift. "But let's stay the same. I hear all these stories about people going out there and becoming a different person. I don't want you to be any different."

I furrowed my brow, my stomach starting to roll with the way she was looking at me. "I won't change. I promise." And I meant it. I hoped, in turn, she wouldn't, either. I liked her exactly the way she was.

We were quiet as we continued to look out at the view. I took the opportunity to sneak a glance at her. I'd been doing this a lot more lately, stealing looks when she wouldn't notice. It was strange. I never really bothered to pay attention to her as much when we were younger, but something changed around junior year.

Probably in the form of her body.

She got thinner, her hips filled out, and her boobs grew from nothing to something. I probably paid attention the most to her boobs, to be honest, not that I could help it.

She once was okay looking to me, and then I thought she was kind of cute…but now…I didn't know. She was almost pretty. She still dressed like a crazy person with her bright colors, but aside from all that, she had just…changed. And she made me laugh and smile all the time without even trying.

Yeah, I was sort of crushing on her.

I couldn't stop it, really. It was just there—this physical attraction to her. Of course, I wouldn't act on it. It was a stupid crush, I knew that. It was like that crush I had on a counselor at summer camp, because I knew nothing would ever come of it, and it'd probably fizzle. Plus, we were skipping town together soon. There were bigger things to think about than how the sun's rays were currently making her short, dark, brown hair look almost chestnut.

She abruptly whipped her head to me. Taken aback, I quickly looked dead straight.

"Stop looking at me, loser," she said, and giggled.

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, this crush would fizzle fast.

The sound of a distant car startled us, and Bella suddenly tugged on my arm, leading us quickly back to where I parked.

"Relax. We're not getting in trouble," I assured, but spoke too soon as Bella's father's police cruiser appeared and stopped right behind my car.

"Crap," Bella whispered, letting go of my arm quickly.

Mr. Swan stepped out of his cruiser, his scrutinizing eyes on me. "What are you both doing up here?"

"Hi, Dad," she greeted enthusiastically, clearly trying to disarm him. "We just got some Subway and were hanging out."

"Edward," he said curtly, completely ignoring her and gesturing for me to go over to him.

I glanced at Bella, whose eyes were narrowed at her dad, and obeyed his request. "Yes, sir?" I questioned softly.

"I'm not your father, so I can't tell you what to do, but I'm hers, and I don't want her up here, you understand me?" he asked, his tone stern, but also laced with noticeable concern. "This area isn't safe for either of you, with all the construction."

I scratched the back of my neck. I hadn't really thought of that. The last thing I wanted was Bella getting hurt. "I'm sorry, sir. We'll leave right away."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "You know, I'm letting her go out to California with you, because you're a good kid, and I trust you, but you'll be hundreds of miles away from your family, who won't be able to tell you what's right and what's wrong. Just have a little more common sense, that's all."

I swallowed thickly, knowing he wasn't just talking about physical safety. "Okay."

He nodded and opened his car door. "Bella, I'll see you at home in five minutes," he said over my shoulder. "Don't look at me like that." He got in his car and turned on his engine.

I waited until he drove away before walking back to Bella, who had a scowl on her face.

"Ugh! I can't believe him!" she exclaimed, stomping to the passenger side door. "He treats me like I'm two!"

We both got in and buckled our seatbelts. Before I could turn the key in the ignition, her hand covered mine, causing me to freeze.

"Hey," she said gently, "don't listen to him, okay? He's just being over protective, as usual."

I nodded in agreement, but knew what he said was right in a roundabout way. When we would go out to LA, I'd have to take care of her. I'd never taken care of anything in my entire life. Was I ready for something like that?

That was when I realized it didn't matter. She was my best friend, and I'd take care of her if it meant keeping her by my side. And that was all that mattered to me in the world.

A/N:

The next chapter will come around within the next few days, as I always do with first and second chapters. I'm not sure about a schedule, but it'll either be a week to week thing or every few days. I hope you continue. I believe with the next chapter, you'll really get an idea of the plot.

There's a Polyvore on my profile for this chapter.

Until next time…

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