Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or its original characters. No copyright infringement is intended with the posting of this story.
A/N: Surprised? I know I was when this plot bunny hopped right on into my head and refused to let me go while on vacation a few weeks ago. This will be my first jab at a "coming of age" story with a twist, and it will be pretty heavy in the drama and angst department, but there will also be plenty of fluff to help balance things out. It's a story that will take place during the summer months throughout several years of Bella and Edward's life.
Because it takes place during the summer, I really wanted to get it up and rolling before the actual summer ended. *heavy sigh*
The title of this fic was inspired by the poem, 'Nothing Gold Can Stay', written by Robert Frost. I still remember having to dissect his words, line for line, in my Creative Writing class back in High School. To this day, whenever I hear it mentioned, it always brings me back to those angst-filled teenage years ... where every day felt like it could be your last because all that mattered was the 'now' since the future seemed far off and distant, filled with vast unimportance.
Lots of people to thank with the opening of things; SunflowerFran beta'd this prologue and parts of chapter one for me when I was having a hard time finding someone to take on the job, but also feeling super anxious to get things started. Many many thanks to her for that! Snoopylover60 helped me figure out the summary, because she's awesome like that, and those things never come easy, (since I'm such a wordy be'otch). My pre-readers BPLemons and myonlyheroin rock like nobody's business, and they also keep my sanity in check by letting me vent out all of my frustrations.
I cannot thank those four women enough, because, without them, this story would still be sitting in my head, and in my Google Docs driving me nuts to share!
I've got the first couple of chapters complete, but they're not all beta'd yet, so I'm not quite sure of an update schedule. The words are flowing for these new characters though, and there's no sign of that letting up any time soon!
Nothing Gold Ever Stays
*Prologue*
On my very first birthday, at the tender age of one, I met my soulmate.
It also happened to be his first birthday.
Sixteen years later, after we'd blown out our candles together in tradition with our families, he'd whispered in my ear that he'd also met his soulmate on that very same day.
Figuratively speaking, if I were a hopeless romantic, that would mean a piece of our hearts had lived outside of our bodies at the same time since before either of us could walk and talk.
Hypothetically speaking, in a perfect world, I would be able to say, 'And we lived happily ever after.- The End'.
This was not a perfect world though, and at seventeen, I also made the rational decision to never ever become a hopeless romantic … ever again.
On the day we'd turned one, we'd each had identical smash cakes. Both of them chocolate and covered in rainbow sprinkles with the typical store-bought number one candle, top, and center.
As the story goes; I'd only wanted his cake, and he'd only wanted mine.
Eventually, we'd shared and painted each other's face with icing, sprinkles, beach sand and seaweed.
Of course, I don't actually remember any of this vividly ... but there are pictures.
So many pictures.
Through the pictures, I'm able to remember.
We've celebrated almost all of our shared birthdays together, him and me.
There's a photo album for each and every one of them … except for the year we turned eighteen.
Because that was the year I hid.
Oh, and the year we turned twenty.
That was the year he hid.
To this day, our families still spend six weeks out of every summer together on a private island, not far from Cape Charles, Virginia.
We have all of the basic luxuries on that island, minus easily accessible, outside communication, or cable television.
Wi-Fi?
Forever non-existent.
It was a small island, and we'd named it Prima, because it was an island meant for firsts.
Our firsts.
That had been decided on our ninth birthday, just after we'd blown out our candles and taken off together back down to the beach to wash off our faces and hands to share our first pop kiss to the cheek.
Prima was our island.
Well … it wasn't, but it was.
Almost every summer, for six weeks, we were stolen away from the rest of the world to be together with our families, and one another.
For six weeks, every summer our families became one.
Eventually, he and I became more.
… And then we were nothing…
… And then we were more …
Then nothing.
Then more …
No matter how wrong it was, sometimes, the more would always find its way back in.
It was never supposed to be this way - this less than normal existence of ours.
We'd always known we'd eventually have to grow up.
'The choices we make when we're young, decide who we will be when we're old, Bella. One right choice can change everything. One wrong choice can take everything away.'
Those were my father's words.
He used to say them often.
At this point, I think he's given up on me.
At this point, I can't blame him.
I am, after all, the virtuoso daughter who was supposed to become something and do so much more with her life.
What happens to a person's destiny though, when they decide all of the wrong choices don't have to alter their entire existence by taking everything away?
What happens if that person refuses to re-route, or accept all those changes that should have been made?
That's the question I've been asking myself since our nineteenth birthday, once everything began to really blur and spiral out of our control.
In order to understand how we'd gotten here, and where it might take us next, we would first have to go back to the very beginning of it all.
Back to when pacts were made, dares were met, and we'd learned to follow our impulses without the fear of unwanted repercussions ever seeping into our seamlessly-braided, short-term realities.
A/N: So this is the start, but this was not the beginning. *wink*
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Are we intrigued?
***Reviews make me smile, and who doesn't like to make someone smile?***
*If you leave me your words, I'll pay it forward with a sneak peek, right away in your inbox, for Chapter 1.*
P.S. If you're waiting for the next Aliases and Avatars update you can expect to see that within the next 4-6 days.