#bella gets a normal childhood
In a world where Renee Swan left her daughter Bella with Charlie when she left, Bella got to visit the nursing home every day with her dad, and in the evenings he made steak and potatoes until Harry Clearwater begged him to feed his child a vegetable. In a world where Bella was raised by Charlie, she maybe cooked or cleaned a bit more than the average kid, because her dad was so busy, but she wasn’t worried about paying the bills or reminding her dad when she had to go to the doctor. Bella got to be a kid, and she got to have a relationship with her grandparents before they died when she was in kindergarten. On those summers where she visited Renee, she saw how hectic her mother’s life was, although fun, and was relieved for the stability and boring nature of Forks.
In this world, she grew up playing with Leah, Seth, and Jacob and his sisters. She went fishing and spent weekends at the beach and got to scrape her knees hiking on a monthly basis. She went to school with all the kids from Forks and the Newton kid got over his crush on her in like a week, cause she wasn’t all that interesting since she played pirates with him in second grade. Bella’s best friend was Angela but Jessica was a close second, although the two of them had a more on again off again type of relationship. She and Eric game together, because once he and Mike had a fight and he had nobody to hang out with him for a month. Lauren is a frenemy that Bella loves to hate.
She is a klutz, but Charlie watches her like a hawk and usually catches her before too bad of a fall. Her grades are killer and when she’s thirteen Charlie takes Bella and the girls to Seattle for a painful day of shopping. (Bella didn’t want to either, but she wanted the right of passage and wanted to make her friends smile). Bella and Jacob become the best of friends after a particularly bitey spring and their dads are always off fishing together. (Leah, Rachel, and Rebecca are too cool for a while and Seth is too much of a puppy dog). Maybe they think about dating and maybe they don’t, maybe they’re best friends and don’t care. Well adjusted, happy, perhaps a bit prone to melancholy, depression, and insecurity, Bella is in a much healthier place when the Cullens arrive in early high school.
She doesn’t even get a chance to meet them.
Edward reported to Carlisle with some urgency after their first day in Forks that Chief Swan’s daughter may be his singer. There is no suggestion that he just kill her or test his resolve. Bella Swan is too beloved, too known, too surrounded and ensconced in the community. If she died or went missing, there would be no forgetting this girl. She had been here since birth. It didn’t matter that she has a quiet mind, Edward realized shortly after that Charlie’s mind is murky and hard to read as well, shrugs his shoulders because there’s something off with the Swans. But his possible singer? A slip up would destroy the town and likely expose his family.
The Cullens leave in the night. The locals blandly gossip that a better hospital in Alaska offered double for Doctor Cullen’s services. Life goes on, and Bella believes that the supernatural is just a myth or legend, like she hears about at the bonfires with Jacob and her dad. She decides she’s going to make Charlie eat more greens.
