BPOV

I pulled my hair down for the hundredth time tonight and then put it back up again. The frustration inside me was building unbearable; I had been struggling with my hair for the past two hours, and nothing tolerable had come out of it.

"Let's just face it, Bella, you are hopeless. Better just shave it all off", I muttered to myself, but not quietly enough. My big (literally, big) brother Emmett heard it and popped his head out of the bathroom, just to see me standing in the hallway with a comb in one hand and a can of hairspray in the other.

"Want some help with that?" He grinned and waved his hand with a shaver in it towards me, "I'm the hottest hairstylist in all Washington." I just rolled my eyes at him. Would he ever grow up, find a decent girl and move out? He was now 20 years old, with more experience on dumb-fucked bitches than Hugh Hefner himself had, and it looked like he was going to occupy the biggest bedroom in the house for at least another twenty years. He probably still made mom wash his dirty underwear, and trust me, when I say dirty, I mean it. "Ha, ha, Em. How about you just let me punch you in the face? I bet it would actually make you look better."

"Cut it, Bella", our mom interrupted. She came out of her room, putting on a necklace, "you two still fight as if you were in kindergarten."

"Oh, but isn't Emmett?" I smiled sweetly. "Bella", mom gave me a warning look. I turned to look at her. Our mother Renee was 42 years old but looked ten years younger. I compared her shiny auburn locks with mine, and wondered whether I was a changeling. My dark brown hair hung lifeless around my face, which was, in one word, dull. I wasn't even pretty, let alone beautiful. My mom was gorgeous, father handsome, and I guess even Emmett was considered good-looking since all the girls were drooling over him, but I? I was one of those girls whose pictures people see in the yearbook and say "who the heck is that, I've never seen her before".

It's not that I am ugly, but I just don't stand out from the crowd in any way. I have this fairly long, slighty curly brown hair, brown eyes, rather pale skin from spending all days inside reading books, and simple features. I don't have a great smile or a dazzling body. My nose is small and slightly pointed, my mouth is regular-sized, and my lips are bitten. Bad habit, I know. I am slim, but not bones-and-skin. I blush easily and don't talk when I don't need to.