Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, or anything created by Stephanie Meyer
This story isn't like your typical story. It starts out nice and even blossoms into something even more amazing. But as I now know, happy endings hardly ever happen.
This story starts when I was in still in school, at the prime age of sixteen. It was early 1918, and I was shy, and knew nothing of the world except sadness and pain, my mother having died a few months prior. My father in denial, moved us away from the warmth of Phoenix to the cold bitter city of Chicago where the war had hit hard as men were leaving their families and high casualties were at its best.
As I was shy, I thought it would be hard to meet new kids my age, especially with the war going on, and teenagers rushing to be part of the thrill that the posters promised us along the walls of the city. But much to my dismay, I was welcomed into the school and part of the family; it would have been much easier to leave if they had ignored me like I thought they would. The new private school I went to was a mix of both genders, which was completely new to me. In Phoenix I had gone to an all girl's catholic school with sisters who wiped our wrists if we were outspoken.
I met people and became fast friends with the girls in my class, too shy to even look at the boys in the other classes. My new friend's told me all about the boy's they liked and which ones they kissed. I felt like I was behind everyone else, but luckily, my marks in school showed otherwise.
One special day sticks out to me the most. I was standing in the line-up at the cafeteria with my friend, Jessica. I had a packed lunch as usual, but I liked to stand and wait with her, to keep her company.
"Don't look now Bella, but Edward Masen is staring right at you." She said smugly.
My face immediately started to burn and I could feel the flush automatically rushing up my neck. "Don't be ridiculous, Jessica. He's probably looking at you. Besides, he has never paid me any attention before." I told her refusing to look over at the table I knew he was sitting at.
Edward Masen was the type of boy who never paid any girl like me a single glance. He was the top of his class, and extremely good looking. The very first day I had come here, he was the very first person to talk to me. He introduced himself, and showed me to my first class. I had been watching him ever since at the cafeteria sitting with his friends at the table at the very front, to the right.
I was slowly brought back to the current time, when I heard Jessica laughing; "No, my dear Bella. I wish he were looking at me, but he is most definitely watching you." She said smiling in his direction. "You should go over and say hello!" She said excited.
Had she forgotten that she was talking to me? "Jessica. I- I can't…" I stumbled for wording.
"And why not?" She asked, one eyebrow cocked up, as if she knew something I did not. She laughed once. "Look for yourself Bella, and see how his eyes follow you."
I slowly turned in the direction I knew he was and caught his eye. My instincts told me to look away quickly, but our eyes were locked, and I couldn't turn my head. He was getting up from his table, all of his friends from the baseball team talking and laughing with each other, but Edward's eyes stayed on mine, not paying attention to the friends around him. After a moment of our staring, he looked away embarrassed, his eyes hidden by his long lashes, a faint blush reaching his cheeks.
I turned my face away at the same moment just in time to see Jessica wipe the smirk off of her face and get her food from the lunch ladies. She started walking towards the table where our friends sat and I rushed after her to keep up. On my way over to our table, I tripped over a foot that was thrown onto my path and fell into the body of somebody conveniently placed beside me. The strong arms grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me back onto the floor.
I looked up to the face of my saviour to thank them, but words were unable to come, for I was looking into the face of the boy I had been watching only a few moments earlier.
He kept his strong hold on my arms, and his green eyes bore into mine. "Are you alright?" He asked, his voice showing a little panic and unsteadiness. I found it hard to find my voice, or maybe I just knew I would say something I would regret, so instead I just stood there staring at his beautiful face. He seemed content with that answer, because he smiled the crooked grin I had seen many times, but had never been directed at myself, and I couldn't help grinning back.
After that day, things had changed for me. I loved school, and I loved Edward. I was happy for the first time in a long time. The lunches weren't long enough for me to learn about him, or for him to learn about me. We started meeting after school and eventually, we both started to see our friends less and less. We were completely rapped up in each other; we cared nothing of the world.
Eventually the school term ended, and my father took me away to Forks, Washington for the summer. We stayed in his parent's large mansion and I was lonely. There were a few kids there my age, but I wanted none of them. I only wanted Edward.
I wrote to him everyday, and he wrote to me everyday telling me great things of our future, and how he would come save me from my boredom.
And he did.
He had somehow convinced his parents to vacation here in the quaint, sunny town of Forks, Washington. We spent everyday together. My grandparents and father thought I was spending time with a boy called Mike Newton, whose parents owned most of the town, and were trying to set us up together.
Our favourite place to hang out together was a field we had discovered together on a hike we were taking on an especially sunny day.
It was beautiful. Wild flowers spread all around the clearing, the trees canopying over the field, giving us the protection we secretly wanted. That was the place where he first kissed me. It was the same place where he promised me he would marry me one day.
I told him I would keep him to his promise.
The summer passed with a blur, and before we knew it we were back at school and seventeen, and talk of the end of the war was still there lingering above us.
Edward talked about it the most, always bringing it up in conversation. I always hushed him; I hated all talk of war, for it was the only thing I had heard for four years. He talked of trying to sneak in, as it was ending, to put in one final help. I cried endlessly, begging him not to go, but he was determined to help his country. He promised me he would not be killed because there was only a matter of months before the war would be over, and the allies would have won. I still begged him not to go, right up to the date of his departure. He was not 18 yet, but they were desperate for helpers, and so he was sent to the front line the day after my seventeenth birthday on the 14th of September.
I wrote to him everyday for thirty-six days.
On the thirty-sixth day was when I heard the news of his death.
I sent the letter anyway. I was on my way to the post office when I saw his crying mother and father on their way to the government building where they were to talk business with the military, seeing if they had found his body. He was reported missing in action, and the Masen's were trying to find any way to get his body found, and brought back for a proper burial.
I was in shock.
I walked the few blocks to the post office, sent my love letter to Edward like I had done for the past thirty-six days. Had he received any of them?
I thought of my Edward lost somewhere over seas, sad and lonely, writing to me as often as he could, hoping for a letter in return, some slither of hope as the sadness and the death all around smothered and closed in on him.
I don't know when, or where, but somewhere along my walk I collapsed and ended up in my own bed at home.
The day was the 20th of October when I heard of his death. On the 11th of November, less than a month afterwards, the war had finally ended and celebrations were going around our school and our city.
I wasn't the only person not celebrating.
I was happy that the war was over, so that the dying had ended, but what had it been for? The war hadn't resolved anything. His sacrifice had been for nothing.
I stopped going to school after that. Instead I stayed home and kept my father company in the dark dew of what we had once called a home. He didn't see a difference in me. He had hardly noticed anything, not even the way I had cried myself to sleep for months after that day, not stopping because the sadness of his death had subsided, but because my body had run dry of tears.
Edward's parents died shortly after him. I think it was because of heartbreak, but I heard that they were sick with the Spanish influenza that had spread throughout the city, attacking the families of the friend's I had once known through school.
My father and I left Chicago almost exactly a year after we had gotten there. He said we left so that we wouldn't be killed by the Spanish influenza, but I knew there was nothing in the dying city for us. He decided it was time for us to go back to Forks, Washington. A place where I had once found welcome, had been hopeful.
Forks, which had once been the sunny city I had loved that summer, had become a rainy dreary place.
I thought the weather would be sunny again once the summer came.
But it just kept on raining.
Thank you so much for reading,
I'm going to try and update soon. Please review and I will be even more motivated! Thank you