Bella's POV
I avoided mirrors as soon as I had enough presence of mind to. The first year had just been a blur of red for me, thick in my memory with the sickening salt and rust smell of the blood that I had suddenly come to rely on. All the blood me sick more often than not, as the last remaining tatters of myself tried to live beside this new, brutal Bella. But my old self was fading fast, and in its last defiance wracked my body with total self revulsion for weeks. Sometimes my eyes went black with thirst, and still I could not bring myself to even look at blood, let alone think of consuming it. It was at those times that I would find a corner and remain there for hours. Edward, constantly by my side, worried.
Mirrors.
They scared me more than anything else. My face was not my own. It was contorted with blood lust, and a coldness that I did not recognize had come to wash over my eyes. My scarlet, predators eyes. Despite the fact that I was supposedly made of stone now, it still chilled me to my core.
Because when I looked into my own eyes I saw Victoria staring back at me. I saw what every victim had last seen in Seattle scarcely a few months prior. I saw thirst.
Call me whatever you like, but I frightened myself.
But I also was, am, hauntingly beautiful. Edward insists that there is no difference in his attraction to me, but I would beg to differ.
Perhaps I only felt that way because he was suddenly able to do what he liked with me. Anything he liked with me.
I remember that night a few weeks after my transformation, the first night Edward was able to get me alone without Carlisle constantly fussing over me . .
Even now I smile and curl my toes.
It was good.
And I also felt, for once, like I belonged within the Cullen family. Not gangly Isabella Swan, but Edward's wife and partner.
It was enough.
I sign now and drop my pen. I look at my white fingers and at the ink upon them. I guess I was squeezing too hard. It's difficult to write these days, for more reasons than this one.
It has been ten years.
And I'm ready to see Jacob again.
