Represent

By Revolutionary Girl Suzue

When she first meets him, Isabella Swan cannot help but be dazzled by Edward Cullen. Few people can. All at once he is magical and mysterious and alluring, and although she initially tries to deny it, Isabella wants him. Her father has always said that 'love at first sight' is a myth, something that only dreamy and romantic people really believe in, but Isabella knows that he is wrong when she sees Edward for the first time. It is real, and she is experiencing it.

When she actually gets around to talking to him, she begins to think otherwise, but in almost no time at all she is back in love, head over heels and then some.

For Isabella, Edward Cullen represents beauty, passion, and so much more. He represents that day in the meadow, when their relationship finally became a whole, concrete thing. He represents twilight, that airy, misty space between wakefulness and dreaming.

More than anything, what he represents is love. Whole, unchanging and perfect.

For a time, they are happy. She occasionally worries about their relationship and about the inevitable time when Charlie has to the truth know about it, but these worries are always swept away by the sight of Edward's face. She has him. It is enough. There will be a day when Charlie will need to be told, but it is not this day. This day is for them to be together.

"Edward," she says one night, as they sit together in her room, "Do you love me?"

He seems startled. After a bit of blinking, he replies, "Of course." Then he frowns. "I would have thought that was obvious, Bella."

"I know," she says playfully. "I just wanted to hear you say it."

He smiles at her and she feels her heart flutter within her chest, as it always does when he is near.

Then, a few months later, suddenly and jarringly, he leaves her. One drop of blood, one mistake, and he is gone. She cannot believe it. She refuses to believe it. She spends months in mourning for the things he took with him when he left: her heart, her happiness, her sense of self. Even when her father insists that she stop 'moping,' she grieves in secret. There is a hole in her soul that cannot be filled by anything but Edward, and it does not look as though Edward is coming back.

The hole grows in the time he is gone. It begins to suck Isabella in. She does not resist because she no longer has the will to. She is empty.

Her emptiness is partially filled by a boy named Jacob Black, a Native American from La Push. He is like Edward, but also unlike him. Where Edward is cold, Jacob is warm. The vampire is hard, but the boy is soft. Bella begins to think that maybe, just maybe, she could get used to him. He is not Edward. Not even close. But, she thinks, perhaps this is a good thing. He is human. He does not make her feel awful and pathetic when she compares herself to him. Most importantly, he is not dangerous.

It eventually turns out that Jacob is dangerous and inhuman. He is a werewolf. Bella is enraged when she finds out. This is partially because he is determined to push her away, and partly because she cannot help remembering all the times that she reminded herself he was not like Edward.

Well, Bells, it looks like the joke's on you because they're exactly the same You're doing a good job of falling love with monsters, aren't you?

Her two loves are like mirror images of one another: opposite, but still irrevocably alike. Isabella finds herself furious, thinking that she can stand neither of them. She has had it. This is the last straw.

Now, Edward represents everything in her life that has been spoiled. He brings to mind the furious, blood-red skies of sunset, of encroaching darkness. He is love lost and love betrayed. He is a parasite who has sucked her dry and left her to expire. More than anything, he is now despair. Shifting, distraught, and hateful.

Lo and behold, however, he comes back. She can't help but be thrilled to see him. Like some kind of undead Prince Charming, he sweeps her off her feet, takes her on a nerve-wracking adventure, and then deposits her safely back at home. They pledge their eternal love to each other once more. It becomes clear to everyone that now they are more in love than ever before, and that the hatred Bella shortly nursed for Edward gives her feelings of love an even greater fury. She is desperate not to let him go again. She needs him.

Slowly, insidiously, an unwelcome realization creeps up on her. She needs him. Without him, she is nothing; even less than nothing. Isabella denies it for a time, but after she graduates from high school and is left with many days to think, she eventually realizes that he has become her whole self. Her entire being is shaped by him. She has abandoned the few thoughts and desires she had of her own in order to make him happy.

Isabella supposes that it is genetic. Her mother, Renee, is the same way. Even though she declared complete and total independence upon her divorce from Charlie, she later married Phil. She does not know how or who to be without others, or more specifically, a man, around her. Isabella constantly worries about Renee's well being because the woman simply cannot be left on her own.

Is this what I am? She asks herself. Is this all I can be?

She ponders the question for a long while. She is vaguely aware that things are happening around her, but her thoughts and her moments with Edward seem to be the only things to penetrate her mental haze. During said moments, she scrutinizes him carefully. She takes note of everything he does and everything she reflexively does in response. Then, when he leaves, she stays up late and thinks.

Edward is beautiful. He is graceful. She used to think he was gentle and kind, and in some ways she notices that he still is. He does not care what other people think about him.

He is everything Bella wishes she could be.

One night, while the Forks air is full of the moisture and tension of an upcoming rainstorm, Isabella finds the courage to ask Edward, once again, if he loves her. This time, his answer comes even more slowly. He pulls her close to him, gathering her in his arms, and presses his cold lips to her forehead. A single hand trails itself through her hair.

"I love you, Bella," he whispers. He sounds choked, as though there is a great block in his throat around which he must push the words. After a moment, he repeats: "I love you."

Isabella wishes she could respond in kind.

Two days later, when the storm has finally begun and rain lashes the windows of her car, Bella leaves him. She has a plane ticket clutched in her hand, allowing her a one-way trip back to Arizona. She already apologized to Charlie, who she will miss, and Jessica, who she will not, saying that the best thing for her is to go back to her mother. She will be home in time to meet Renee and Phil when they return from wherever he played his game of the season. Being back in Phoenix will be good for her, she has told Charlie and Jessica. She wants to be at home.

She wants to be away from Edward.

Even though she loves him, she cannot stand to be around him. She does not want to watch him be the way she wants to be instead of making progress to being that way herself. She does not want to watch him live the life, think the thoughts, and have the things that she has always wanted.

Instead, she will make herself better. She will be independent. She will learn to be confident. Maybe she will even start to like herself.

And maybe, just maybe, she will go back to him one day.

But for now, Edward represents the past. He represents a dream of love, a sweeping tale of desire, and the fresh smell of newly fallen rain. He represents what used to be good, what she fell out of love with, her fears of herself and of being without him. He exists for her, but exists in stasis. He does not change. He has never changed, not since he became a vampire.

Bella will change.

She will make sure of it.

Note from the Revolutionary: Mostly, this is just an experiment with the present-tense style. I want you guys to be brutally honest with me!

+-+Revolutionary Girl Suzue+-+