Twilight and its characters are not mine. No copyright infringement intended. I simply wish to bring my twisted interpretation of it to life.
Fate.
I believed in it.
I just never believed it could do me any good.
Until now.
-x-x-x-
I loathe it when people stare. I feel like a freak. Not one that has the power to destroy lives and fabricate new ones, but one who shares shoulder space with a second head.
I knew before I even started here that I'd be a commodity; I didn't need Alice's vision to tell me otherwise. A new girl with bright fox-fur coloured ringlets down to her twenty inch waist starting in the middle of the semester would hardly go unnoticed. Maybe I should just quit, now, before the whispering starts. Get right back on the motorbike and drive away. Go hide up a tree, and ignore the gloats of 'I told you so' from Seth. And preferably a tree that can't hold the weight of Jacob. Even if I can't do this, I'm still eighteen now, officially. I'm nobody's baby, and I don't need people to hold my hand.
And I don't need to prove everybody else right.
I will do this.
I can do this.
Fuck, I'm actually doing this.
I pocket the keys as I hear the whispering start.
… Anorexic? A few people start hissing, along with other words that I don't want to hear. For once in my life, I find myself cursing my inability to stomach nearly anything with saturated or hydrogenated fats: unless of course, they're in somebody's bloodstream.
Thank God Jake isn't here, otherwise I would look even tinier compared to him. Although, if he was here, I doubt anybody would have the guts to whisper so openly. Little do they know that sometimes, the most formidable things are hidden in small packages: take dynamite, for instance.
A girl with peroxide spikes gives a derisive snort as I huddle closer into Jake's old biking jacket. At least it doesn't flaunt my curves, or, rather, lack of them. If dad was here, he'd be practically snarling at these highschool boys for the thoughts that flit across their faces – from awe to need to cocky arrogance, and then pride when I catch them staring.
"- bet she's a virgin. Twenty says you'll change that, Al." I hear the blonde state crudely.
And then I make my first mistake. My head whips up, and I glare into her granite blue eyes. I hear her intake of breath, and the obscured boy's vague reply, telling her to up it to fifty. I force myself to look away, and practically throw myself through the double door entry. I screw my eyes and every single muscle in my body tight for a fraction of a second, but it doesn't get rid of all the tension I now feel running in a chill up my spine.
How could I have been so stupid?
Invisible to everybody with murky human eyesight, the blonde was standing inside, watching my arrival through a second story window.
-x-x-x-
I never imagined myself to be the kind of girl to hide in a high school cubical, trying desperately not to hyperventilate. Trying desperately not to breathe at all.
I now know half the people in the school, not by their names, but by their scent. There's one girl, Fresh Blood, as I have called her, is, I would assume suicidal, or close to it, judging by the seeping self-inflicted cuts she conceals underneath her long sleeved jumper. It tortures me with how I can barely stop myself from leaning into her direction whenever she is near. And it doesn't help she's in most of my classes. If I'm not careful, she won't be the one to end her life. And then there's Klutz, with cuts on his knees from where he must have fallen over. The stale scent of his scabs doesn't deter me from tracking his movements through the school.
I wish I'd never come. But I will not back down now. I've overcome everyone else, I will overcome myself.
But this is so much harder than I thought it would be.
-x-x-x-
By the time the bell rings at the end of the day, I already have my story solid. Of course everybody stared, I'm paler than anybody here, but nobody was hostile. The teachers were welcoming, and I wasn't picked on constantly for answers. Today went fine. Today was perfect. Everything I wanted it to be.
I remain perched on the edge of my chair, conjuring a few images of my 'wonderful' day whist everybody around me stampedes for the door. Soon, the room is empty, apart from a dark haired teenager whom, judging by her body language - cocked hip, proud chest, slightly tilted head, twirling a strand of hair in her tanned fingers - has an obvious crush on the teacher. It's unrequited of course. He barely glances at her as she tries to share her theories on 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.
I gather my books and stuff them into my bag, bashing my hip into the table as I leap up, but too intent on escaping the room and the girl's racing heartbeat, I don't look back to see the dent I left behind.
I try not to run down the corridors, but my idea of running and a human concept of running is completely different. To them, I must seem like I'm fleeing the school at top speed. Let them think what they will; I can't wait to get away.
The crush of students pushing through the exits creates a barrier between me and the door to the unpolluted air I crave so much. The words,
"Come on!" escape unbidden from my lips; a burst of annoyance. Patience never was my strong suit. I can almost see the heat radiating off of the bodies around me, see their chests pulsating underneath the flimsy material of their clothes, see their –
"Hot date?" Someone chuckles behind me. I freeze – easy enough for a person frozen in time to do. Please, please don't be talking to me. I hear the person behind me, male; judging by the raspy baritone, pause his breathing, waiting for a reply. Nobody answers him.
Shit.
What do I say? Do I deny, do I affirm, or do I not reply at all? Do I risk becoming even more of a freak by blanking him, or saying something truthful, but stupid and hurtful to humans - No, I just want to get away from you people!
What the hell is even going on with my brain! Just laugh – laugh!
I hum in a way that would suggest amusement, keeping my eyes on the door. I don't trust myself not to open my mouth without sounding hysterical.
"Let me rephrase that, a super-hot date," The human says, as he gets pushed right into my back by the throng of students behind us. I would have laughed at that, had I not felt his pulse leaping between the contact of our skin. His temperature seems to sear me, which is stupid, because I sleep beside Jacob every night for fucks sake. This is nothing. But it is everything. The venom pooling in my mouth, although harmless in itself, is a sign of danger to us all.
I press forward, wanting to carve a path for myself through these breakable bodies.
"You could say that, yeah," I mutter.
"Boyfriend?" He replies, stepping in close, filling my ears with his heartbeat. I whirl around, words buzzing, flipping through my head too fast to form fully so I can deter this stupid persistant child! Can't he just back off? I need space goddamn it, goddamn it, or I'll…
He flinches away, eyes snapping shut, and open. I take him in before he has a chance to refocus on me.
Wide, smooth lips, thin almost, but not reedy: Cheekbones that could cut through steel, equally chiselled jawline: straight nose that blends seamlessly into a smooth forehead: Dark brown hair, lighter at the tips, each strand about the length between the heel of my hand and the tip of my little finger: Matching coloured eyebrows that cut horizontally across, and thick eyelashes a shade darker which frame olive green eyes, peppered evenly with ember-like dots of gold. And, of course, a pulse to rival a racing horse pounding through his jugular.
Fuck.
He smells like butter on popcorn; one of the only human things I'll eat.
And I'd gladly eat him.
Crap, did I just think that? I have to get out – now!
Say something – don't scare him any more than he already is! You look like you're about to rip his head off!
Well, I kinda am.
Focus!
"Bike." I state. "Don't like being away from it for long." I offer a shaky smile – it's all I can muster without it being a snarl. Then I feel it, a sharp breeze on my back. I turn and stumble out the door, into a solid wall of flesh that should have collapsed beneath my force unless –
"Jake!" I cry, never having been so relieved to have seen him in my whole life. He must have heard the tension in my voice, because he holds me out arms-length, fingers curved around my hipbones, inspecting me. I push an image of me, sitting bored in a lesson, faraway look on my eyes, and a sigh of 'Jacob' through my skin.
I missed you. I whisper through where we connect.
It's enough for him. The worry in his face fades as quickly as it came, and he gathers me in an embrace, chin resting atop my head.
"Missed you too," He mumbles into my hair. He places a kiss atop my forehead, and that's when I notice everybody staring. The human from the corridor included.
"Nice bike," The human quips, and saunters off, one eyebrow raised.
I can't say the whispering starts again, because it never stopped, but it practically reaches a crescendo.
I muster a memory of mine and Jake's house in the woods, and shove it at him so hard he winces.
He keeps his arm over my shoulder, which is mainly there as a restraint to keep me from running, and steers us to where my bike awaits. I unlock the chain and helmet, and chuck Jake the key to start the ignition. As is routine, he takes control of the bike, and I hop on behind him, helmet hastily secured; it's mainly for show anyway, and wind my arms around his waist.
Like a spider trapping a fly in its gossamer web, I cocoon Jacob in all the false positive vibes and memories I have weaved, keeping hidden from him the true horror of today, and my insatiable desire to return.
-x-x-x-
Rustled clothing.
Whispering lips that don't say a word
because they don't have to speak anything.
There is meaning enough in the touch.
-x-x-x-
Secrets. I owned my first when my family moved away. The secret was: I ached to go with them. But by the time I realised it, Jacob had his claws in too deep to ever let me go. Not that I knew it at the time. And that was my first mistake: believing I was free.
Two months after they left, the 'M' word started to be thrown around. I had only just reached full maturity, after twelve years of growing. Twelve years old, and marriage preparations were being made. Emily had even started making designs on the cake.
A little prematurely, perhaps, Jacob started calling me 'Mrs Black'; a nickname he adored, and I despised. At that point in time though, I loved him with every cell of my being, so I let it slide. Sometimes, I wonder how different things might have been if I had spoken up then, and stopped that circus before it reached the finale.
The wedding was all set out. Red flowers were scattered over the beach, a platform had been laid down so guests would not get sand in their shoes, a cloth ready to bind mine and Jacob's hands, and rings to ensnare our fingers. All the arrangements had been left to Kim, Claire and Emily. Jacob had taken me on a trip to see Zafrina and the other members of her coven, whom I had been wanting to visit for years. Not to respect my wishes, I now realise, but to keep me out of the way. She was the only one along that clamouring road to the big day who asked whether or not I, of my own free will, wanted to do this. With Jacob watching intently, expectantly, fearfully, I voiced the first lie I had ever been able to tell without getting caught out by my father. I should have smelled a rat, or at least, the desperation in my own voice.
The day of the wedding. I refused any makeup, let my hair tumble loose around my shoulders. One of the many silent rebellions that were to come.
The dress. Gauzy, floaty fabric that was nearly the same color as my skin, and did little to cover it. I felt like a meal wrapped in transparent clingfilm.
The guest list. Absolutely tiny: it consisted of the wolf pack, the imprints and the elders. Nobody other than that. Nobody. Not a single other person that wasn't Quileute. Not a single person that was a vampire. Of course, I only saw that when, on Sam's arm, Sam's, not my father's, I was led down the isle in a vice like grip.
Somehow, they had sensed this was not what I wanted, and they just didn't care.
Something crashed through me, like water cascading down a ruined dam, the patience, blindness, acquiescence, the placidness, washed away; I did not want this. And I had been the last to figure it out.
It was too much. They were trying to replace my family, they were trying to take my free will, they were trying to make me a bride, they were trying to keep me forever. And they had very nearly succeeded.
It was one of those moments, I suppose, when a person is defined forever. When a switch flips within them, and alters them so entirely on the inside, yet the only sign on the outside might be a narrowing of the eyes, a snarl leaping from the teeth, and a violent shove against the man you had come to love as an uncle, and a desperate, fury filled flight away from the place where your very essence, now revealed in its full, nearly died.
-x-x-x-
Of course, it wasn't long before Jacob caught me.
Obsession, after all, is a faster engine than rage.
But the thing with rage is, it can simmer for a very, very long time.
And manifest in terrifyingly ugly ways.
-x-x-x-
Hush now, I think someone can hear.
A/N… Love? Hate? Confused as a Buffy when the vampire she's about to stake starts to sparkle?
All will become clear.
Lady Luck