PROLOGUE
Author's Note: Okay, I know what you're all thinking: she's already got two stories, which are incomplete to like, finish, and she starts another one? Well, I can't help it. I just thought of this, like, right now, and if I don't write it down, I am so fully going to forget it. So I shall type it up. The plot's sort of cliché, but the ending is going to be different from what you'd all think to expect. I probably won't actually post it up for a while—my internet's all busted, so yeah. For the record, I wrote this on Sunday, March 23, 2008. It might be a while before you guys see this thing go up, though. Anyway, this is enough of my really long, not to mention annoying, extremely pointless, and sort of useless author's note, which, so far, doesn't really tell you guys anything. This story is going to be done in Bella's point of view, and maybe Edward's if I get around to it. The ending might have a whole bunch of perspectives in it, like At Heaven's Gate, but so far, it should be just BPOV and EPOV. Thanks for reading!
I was alone. That much I knew. I had been alone for years. With no one to comfort me when I was hurt, and no one to tell me that they loved me. My family—Charlie, Renée, they had all stopped talking to me. I was very much alone. Ever since he had left me. I had been left, dying, bleeding, and hurt. Metaphorically, that is. He would never have actually hurt me physically, but it would've hurt less if he did. The hole in my chest had not gone away, it hadn't even numbed, in the last ten years. Give it another decade, maybe I'll start to heal. It wasn't likely, though. 'Forget about me,' he had said to me. Yeah, right! Like I could ever forget someone like him. I may have left behind the love, but I still had the hate. When you hate someone with a passion, you will never forget them, even if you would live for eternity. Which I would.
The day they left, Victoria had come for me. She had seen the hurt in my eyes—knew that Edward had left me behind forever. Knew that he didn't love me anymore. With no other option, she had given me this eternal life. Forever to dwell on the love that I had had for him. Perhaps, if I saw him again, I would begin to love him. Or... maybe not. I knew that underneath all of my hatred, I still loved him. But I tried to stop myself from loving him—knowing that it would only damage my already wounded heart. It would shred me to pieces the second he left me, even if it were unintentionally. I had not let anyone new into my life, either. I knew it was what he wanted, and he had no right to get what he wanted. This was what he deserved, I tried to tell myself. He did not love me. Probably never did. I was probably just another human girl—one of the many he would pretend to love in his very long lifetime. I now knew why he wouldn't change me himself: he didn't want me to stick around in his life, forever.
I sometimes missed the ability to cry. Humans had it so easy—when they get upset, the tears wash it all away, if only for a little while. My pain had never dulled. It had never subsided, never even gave me a chance to start again. I knew that he wasn't to blame, however. He had only left me, so that he didn't lead me on, into thinking that he would love me until the end of time. That wasn't possible. When you're a vampire loving a human girl, you would always leave them, somehow. Whether it's because you left, or because of their death, you would never be together, truly.
I spent most of my days musing the true meaning of love. Was it something that could be captured? Some essence that could be caught in a bottle? Or was loving someone something that only you mind could produce? My life is pathetic. I only hunted every once in a while, (perhaps every two weeks) when I could no longer control the thirst. I kept to the Cullens' 'vegetarian' diet. It was not Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Emmett, or even Rosalie that had hurt me. It did no good to mock them by hunting the one thing they swore they would never kill.
So, yes, it's been a decade. Even if he had lied, and left me to protect me, as I had hoped, he could not possibly love me anymore. A decade is a long time, even if you did live forever. A decade is all it takes for that love to wear out, to be replaced by someone new. Just like a broken toy. When it got old, and you couldn't play with it anymore, you'd throw it away. I was just like that broken toy. I was an old stuffed teddy bear sitting in a box in the attic. Forgotten, hurt.
After five years of training myself not to go after the humans, I allowed myself to enroll in a local high school. Of course, I wasn't in Forks anymore—there was always a chance that someone would recognize me, and question why I still looked like I had ten years ago, if more beautiful. Nothing had surprised me at all. No one there knew who I was. I wondered what it would be like if the Cullens came back. How would I feel? Would I be glad, or angry? Maybe a little bit of both, I decided. I had bought my own house—after living in one of those shelter places, and realizing how annoying those stupid girls were, I decided to get my own place. It wasn't big—I hadn't had the century's time to gather up enough money to buy myself a mansion. And if I had, people would probably get suspicious, so either way, this way was better.
I sighed. I was seriously, bored out of my mind. Ten years of taking the same courses, over and over. A decade of listening to those idiotic teachers drone on and on about unimportant things that would probably never matter—for me, at least. True, I didn't have to listen to what the stupid teachers said anymore, but now it was a matter of not writing too many correct answers on tests, instead of the other way around.
I sometimes wonder what it would be like if Victoria had not changed me. Would I have found someone else to love? A human? Would I have a family? Would I be coming home from work to be greeted by my three-year-old daughter? Would I still love Edward? Or would he have become someone from the past? After all, it was 'just a crush'... not! How had I lived all these years, knowing he didn't love me, I had no idea. I wondered what he would be doing now. Would he have found someone else? I hoped he had. I was angry at him for hurting me, that much was true, but I did not want to deny him happiness. If he was happy, I probably would be too. How would I feel, though? Happy? Glad that he was finally out of my life? Or jealous, that some other girl had took what had used to be mine?
Imagine how surprised I was, when, out of nowhere, I saw that tuft of bronze hair. Those beautiful topaz eyes that I had fallen in love with, now as deep an onyx as they could be? Those beautiful eyes, staring, unseeing, at the ground. Imagine how shocked I was that this had happened in the school cafeteria? Should I walk up to him? Tell him off for leaving me all those years ago? Run up to him and hug him? I couldn't stay in the room any longer. I picked up my tray of uneaten food, and dumped it into a nearby garbage can. If I were still human, I would've cried.
I noticed that Alice was with him. "Bella!" she said urgently, but very quiet.
I saw that he looked up, and scanned the room, but did not see me. He lowered his head again, and continued to stare at the apple in his hand, as if it were the reason for his troubles. I was shocked when I saw a single tear drop from his eye, before he angrily wiped it away. But... wait. That wasn't right! Vampires can't cry! I thought. But what if... what if he still loved me, and that love bypassed one of the most important rules of being a vampire? He looked down, and said, "She hates me, she doesn't love me, she'll never love me again," very quietly, almost as if he was chanting. Fat chance. Screw my stupid, dead, un-beating heart for still loving him even though my brain knew it was insensible.
I gathered up all of my belongings, and charged out of there as fast as I could without attracting attention, that is. I didn't even head up to the office to tell the teachers that I was leaving. When I finally got out of that wretched school, I dumped my stuff out in my car. There, I sat for hours, sobbing without tears into my hands. I had thought I would be braver. That I could at least handle the fact that they were only a couple of meters away from me. But I wasn't. I was a coward, a pathetic coward.
They did not come after me, though I doubted it would be long before Emmett and Jasper cornered me somewhere in the school. I got home, and just sat on the couch in the 'living room,' which was just a small, empty space with a TV and two couches in it, and stared out the window. I was mesmerized by the sight of him. I would give anything to know he still loved me. But I would not let him hurt me again.