"Mom, can I ask you something?" I wondered quietly as she stood behind me, brushing my hair. I smiled up at her in the mirror when she caught my gaze. My mom was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. It made me happy to think that I could see her in me. The eyes, especially.
It probably looked weird to outsiders. The fact that this eighteen year old was my mom, when I looked about fourteen years old myself.
"Sure Nes." She said simply.
"How did you and Dad met? I mean, you were human when you met, right?" I remembered.
Mom snorted and rolled her eyes. Over the years, they've faded from the bright red I remember from when I was little, to the same dark gold that matched Dad's.
"Yes. I was human up until you were born." She grinned, off shifting through dim human memories in her brain. "We were biology partners."
"Really?" I laughed, turning in the vanity chair to look at her. She chimed in too, her laugh a chorus of bells. "That's so . . . cute and clique."
"Tell me about it." Mom said with a frustrated laugh. "I moved to Forks to live with Grandpa when I was seventeen."
"You were with Grandma Renee?" I questioned.
"Yes, in Phoenix Arizona. Anyway, on my first day of school, I see Dad and your aunts and uncles all sitting at a lunch table. They stuck out like sore thumbs. Imagine them all in a room full of humans. It was completely obvious."
"Oh man . . ." I giggled lightly, imaging the scene in my head. An old memory, of my mother's face. It was red and wet, her brown human eyes staring down at me panicked. This was the first and only time I'd ever seen her human. There was mom and Dad's wedding picture hanging in the living room, but that's it.
"Exactly." Mom agreed. "Anyway, I thought he was so hot and mysterious. The bad boy." I laughed out loud for this part of the story.
"Oh please." I moaned delicately and she poked my arm. My mom was my best friend, so this playful conversation was nothing out of the ordinary.
"So, I walk into biology. And there he is. Edward Cullen. Sitting at a table by himself." Mom said, using these big dramatic hand gestures. "And I get assigned next to him and this boy is crazy. I thought he was going to kill me. He has this angry look on his face, his fingers are clenched against the desk and his eyes were like pitch black."
I gasped. "He was hungry? And he went to school?" I demanded.
"But the thing is sweet pea. That Dad apparently had never smelled someone's blood that he had wanted so much before. I smelled so good to him, he had to fight really hard to not to kill me. So I thought he hated me or was really mean because he totally blew me off."
Somewhere during her spiel, she plopped down on her bed. I went over to join her, settling into the squishy white pillows.
"But he didn't kill you." I reminded her obviously.
"Yes. Then he disappears. Wasn't at school for the next week. He went to stay with Aunt Tanya and Auntie Katie. But when he comes back, he's totally nice. Very friendly and chatting me up about Phoenix and how I liked Forks. It was all very intense. But then, he treats me like a leaper for weeks on end."
"Why?" I gasped, trying to imagine the scenario in my head.
"Because he knew he couldn't get attached to me. I was a weak little human that he had this thirsting craving for and he knew that if we began friends, something more would happen."
"So he just ignored you?" I demanded, suddenly a tad peeved my father had been such a jerk butt to my own mother. But the voice in the back of my head reminded me that here I was, a defiant example of how my parents got together. Yuck.
"Yep. But then, I almost died." Mom said it in such a cheerful voice, like it was old news to her or something.
"What?" I stammered.
"I was in the school parking lot and it had snowed. The ground was icy and dangerous to drive on. I was standing by my truck when I look up and see Edward looking at me. Then I hear this terrible, squealing tires and stammering engine noise, like in the movies. This van comes hurdling towards me and I just know it's going to crush me." Mom's voice grew more and more anxious as she could sense how into the story I was getting.
"Then what happened?" I asked, suddenly impatient.
"Whoosh. Here comes Edward, flying in front of me from across the parking lot. He pushes me out of the way and I fall down, smacking my head on the pavement. The van comes around and Edward puts his hands out and stops the car." She tells me.
"That is so stupid. He could have exposed us!" I said, using the present tense instead of the past tense when it was just Bella and Edward, not Mom and Dad. Mom laughs gently now, looking at the white canopy above us.
"He did. Well, not for the vampire part, but I saw it with my own two eyes. He tries to tell me that I saw things, I hit my head. But I knew he wasn't human."
"Then what did you do?" I demanded.
"Then I went to the beach in La Push with Jacob." The sound of his name sent a flurry of butterflies to assault my stomach. "He was fifteen and I was older, so he was trying to impress me. We went for a walk on the beach and he started telling me some Quileute legends, trying to scare me. And keep in mind Nessie that this was before he turned into a wolf, before he knew they were true."
"Wow." I breathed, consumed in my own thoughts.
"What?" Mom asked.
"It's just weird. I know you and Jake are best friends and had a thing before you and Dad got married. But it's mind-boggling that you knew Jake when he was fifteen. That you were friends when you were both humans." I told her truthfully.
"Yeah, me and Jake go farther back then that. You know I've known him since he was born. But we don't really remember that. Our friendship came much later."
"So what was else happened at the beach?" I asked, getting back to topic. She laid back, getting comfortable to tell the tale. I sat cross-legged next to her, overwhelmed with interest.
"I flirted with Jake. I knew he was the only person to tell me who Edward was. What Edward was." Mom corrected. A small amount of anger assaulted my stomach. I knew Mom and Jake had been in love and I know they love each other to this day, but not in the same way anymore. I know they . . . kissed, but it still pisses me off to the slightest bit.
Not to the point where I was mad at Mom for kissing my boyfriend, or Jacob for kissing my mom. If anything had gone any differently, Jake and Mom could be together now and I wouldn't exist.
"Jacob was the one who told you Edward was a vampire?" I shouted with surprise. Mom burst out laughing, reaching up to tie her beautiful long brown hair into a ponytail. She nodded with a wide grin.
"Indirectly. He didn't mean too, but it helped. After I put two-and-two together and did a little internet scouring, I figured it out."
"Then what?" I asked greedily before breathing, "This is better than a soap opera."
"Well, we were in this weird, I like you but you're kind of weird phase. Where I knew he was something more and I knew I was already too attached to do anything. And then one night, I was going into town with some of my friends. We were going shopping and I headed down a wrong street trying to find a bookstore."
My mind drifted to the large bookshelves in our living room, full of old and new books. Mom always loved reading, but I never imagined that was one of the things carried over from her human life. It was weird to imagine her anything different then the eighteen year old beauty I knew her as.
"And . . . ?" I continued for her. She smiled.
"And there was a group of drunk guys outside of a bar. They circled me and we're going to hurt me." She said matter-of-factly. I could practically hear the real editing in her head. "And I'm panicking, thinking they are going to kill me, when who should come zooming up."
"Dad." I breathed with a smile.
"Yep, he rescued me. Again. Scared the crap out of those guys before driving away in a huff. He took me out to dinner. . ."
"That was your first date?" I interrupted. Mom giggled lightly.
"I never thought of it that way. But yeah, that was our first date. At a little Italian restaurant where the waitress tried to flirt with him but he ignored her. So I told him my theory about how he could read minds."
"What did he say?" I asked.
"He told me he could. He really couldn't deny it; it was obvious if you spent enough time with him. But he can't read my mind."
"Cause you're a shield." I said, mostly to myself.
"Yeah, but we didn't know that then." She reminded me with a patient smile. "And when we got into his car to drive me home, I told him that I knew he was a vampire and I didn't care."
"But how could you be okay with that?" The curiosity was gnawing away at me now. It was odd to think of my parents before me.
"Hey pretty girls." Dad said, breezing into the room then. Mom's face lit up when she saw him and I couldn't help but smile to myself. Dad had just come from a hunting trip with Uncle Emmett and Grandpa.
He winked at me before dropping down to kiss his wife. I know most kids usually think it's utterly repulsive when their parents kiss in front of them, but personally, I like it. You know how girls giggle over those adorable pictures of couples in love and intertwined. Those clique postcards with the young teenagers kissing in the rain or in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Most people put those pictures on MySpace or hang them on their wall. My teenage parents are like walking poster children for that young love.
Dad smiled at me when he heard what I thought.
"What are you guys doing?" he asked. Like he didn't already know.
"Just telling our daughter of our romantic journey." Mom teased, scooting over so he could sit down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. I smiled to myself.
"Oh, what part are you at?" He chuckled.
"In the car after Port Angeles." Mom told him.
"Ah, the big reveal." Dad teased.
"Keep going." I insisted. I was glad Dad was here now. It was like I could hear both sides of the story, which I know is much longer. I couldn't wait to hear the details.
"Okay." Mom said easily and continued.