Reese Bennett's whole life is uprooted when her family is forced to move to a small town in Washington for her father's job - where she meets a mysterious family - more importantly, Alice Cullen, who teaches her a lot of new things about herself.
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REESE DOVE HEAD FIRST into the pool, her body flowing elegantly as it entered the water, gliding with it. In just a few hours, she would be flying with her family to their new home in Forks, Washington, leaving Miami behind. She wasn't going to have this pool anymore. This pool where she spent all of her sixteen years swimming in. She loved her pool – it was the one place on the planet where she could truly be at peace. All Forks would bring her would be anger and sadness.
She swam and swam, from one end of the pool to the other, over and over again, her own way of saying goodbye to her favorite place, her favorite part of their home. Forks would never be home. It would always be Miami that held that title.
When she needed to rest, she swam over to the edge of the in-ground pool to take a breather, seeing that her best friend, Laila, was standing there, her arms behind her back, and a small smile on her face.
"Hey, Reesey," Laila greeted, sitting down criss-crossed on the ground next to the pool's edge.
Reese smiled wide at her, but there was a twinge of sadness behind it. Laila saw it immediately, a sad smile coming over her lips. "I'm gonna miss you, Reese."
"I'll miss you even more, Laila," Reese said, sighing. "I wish I wasn't moving to some dumb, small, rainy town in the middle of the damn woods."
"You can always come back and visit whenever you want," Laila suggested, trying to be optimistic. "Winter break, spring break, summer break..."
"Yeah, I know," Reese said bitterly, "but I still have to live in that stupid town all year round, even if I get a couple weeks out of the year to escape. I hate it. I hate the whole thing."
Laila nodded sadly, looking down at the ground. "I'm sorry, Reese," was all she could say.
"The worst part is I won't have you and Mary-Ann anymore." Mary-Ann was the last piece to Reese and Laila's trio. Despite the flack that trios often got, they truly were all equal parts of their friendship. But that trio was going to become a duo now, against all of their wills, because Reese was moving all the way across the country.
"I know," Laila pouted. "Enjoy your swimming. I know you're going to miss your pool the most. I'll stay and watch."
Reese nodded, quickly turning and diving back in, continuing her endless laps, comforted by Laila just being there.
Later on that day, after dinner, Laila and Mary-Ann came over to help Reese pack the last of her things. Reese and Laila were fighting tears the entire time as they moved around her room, putting her things into bags. Mary-Ann was always tougher than them, but it was obvious that she was upset over it, too.
Finally, the thing that Reese had been dreading the most arrived – she and her family had to head to the airport. She cried in Laila and Mary-Ann's arms as she said goodbye, all of her bags in the car waiting for them outside. Her mom had to come in and force her to get moving, even though it broke her heart to see her daughter so distraught. Reese didn't even get the chance to say goodbye to her boyfriend, seeing as he was working, and he couldn't get out of it, despite how hard he tried.
As they walked through the airport and boarded the plane, the tears just kept on falling. They kept coming, even as she fell asleep on the flight to Seattle, her head pressed against the window of the plane. Her mother held onto her hand the whole time.
For the much shorter flight from Seattle to Port Angeles, she felt herself growing numb. It was almost eerie for Hila-Mae, her mother, to watch. Every time she glanced over at her daughter, Reese was just staring blankly at the back of the seat in front of her.
Reese didn't utter a single word as they landed in Port Angeles, and for the hour-long taxi ride into Forks. When they stepped into their new home, the moon shining high in the black sky, filled with drizzle, Reese reluctantly went upstairs to her new room.
She barely even had the chance to put her bags down on her bed before she sprinted into what she hoped was the bathroom– luckily, it was– and threw up into the sink. Hila-Mae rushed after her after hearing the commotion, and as violent sobs wracked her daughter's body, she held her on the cold, hard tile of the floor.
She was gently shushing her, desperate to try and calm her. "Oh, Reesey," she said sadly.
"I can't... I can't," Reese gasped sharply, hyperventilating so much that she couldn't properly speak. "I can't... live here... Mom. You can't– You can't make me do this!" Another sob broke through her words, hot tears sliding down her bright red cheeks as she continued to fight for air to enter her lungs. She was shaking harshly in her mother's arms.
"I'm sorry, baby." A silent, singular tear slid down Hila-Mae's face, too, but she wiped it quickly so that Reese didn't see it. "Your dad had no choice. If he didn't take the job here, they would have fired him altogether, and then he'd be out of a job. If we could have stayed in Miami, I promise you we would have."
Reese knew it in her bones, in her very soul that her mother was telling the truth, that they couldn't have stayed in Miami, no matter how hard they tried. But it didn't make that pain, the throbbing in her chest, go away in any way.
They stayed like that, on the bathroom floor, Reese hyperventilating and Hila-Mae doing her best to keep it together for her daughter, for around a half hour. They were lucky that Cyrus, her little brother, had begged her father to explore the town a bit. The last thing they needed was to worry Cyrus and Owen.
Reese's big, shallow gasps for air slowly simmered down into smaller ones. The tremors going through her whole body became small shakes. The tears slowed down on their furious path out of her eyes. Hila-Mae pressed her cheek against her daughters, pressing a soft kiss to her temple.
"Let's get you to bed, my love," Hila-Mae gently said, helping Reese up to her feet. As she walked, she was wobbly, leaning on her mother for support while they walked to her bare and empty bedroom.
"Tomorrow, we can work on decorating your room, okay?" Hila softly said once they laid down on the bed together, Reese's head on her chest. She began lightly stroking her blonde hair. "We can do whatever you want. I also wanted to tell you that there's plenty of beaches within a half hour from here, so you can still do your swimming. And one day, when we're more settled here, eventually, we can get a pool in the yard. How's that sound?"
Reese nodded, a small nod, but Hila felt it nonetheless. She knew that swimming was her daughter's form of therapy, her way of self-soothing when she was overwhelmed, sad, angry, stressed, happy – anything. Reese expressed her feelings by swimming.
"Baby, I know Miami was the only home you had ever known in your life. And it will always be a part of who you are. But sometimes, exploring and learning new places is nice, too. You never know what Forks may hold for us, for you. I know it seems like a small, unseeming town, but you truly never know who you'll meet here, what bonds you'll make. You'll always have Laila and Mary-Ann as your best friends. You have FaceTime and texting, and I'm sure the three of you will see each other any chance you get. Plus, I know you'll all go to college together.
"Your life isn't over just because we moved. You're only sixteen. You're going to go through a lot of changes in your life, so it's best you get comfortable with them now. Give Forks a chance before you completely write it off. You'll make new friends here. You're my little social butterfly, my happy girl, who could make friends with anyone. Just because we left Miami doesn't mean it's erased. It just means that we're flipping a page over to a new chapter. You have so much life to live ahead of you, Reese. Your future is bright, and so promising."
Reese nodded again, doing her best to let Hila's words sink in as best as she could. She really wanted to just be okay with everything, like Cyrus was. She wanted to just accept her new life and take it in stride. But she was just so stubborn, her subconscious especially. No matter how many times she said it to herself, her mind never seemed convinced that she would be happy in Forks. It was set on the fact that Forks would be her own personal hell.
She didn't see how it was possible that she could ever be happy again, even though she was still so young.
