It had been a little over a year since the Cullen family had left Forks, and subsequently her. At first she had become little more than an animated corpse; dragging her feet along the floor as she moved, barely talking, barely eating, and taking little to no interest in personal care. After a period of two and a half months spent in this state, or what she liked to refer to as her 'zombie state', she moved onto indignation. She wasn't furious, she didn't have the energy in her to be, but she was annoyed, and rightly so, at the way she had been left so callously. He, Edward, had taken her into the forest behind her home and had told her, quite clearly, that he quite suddenly no longer wanted her. It had almost broken her when he said that she had just been a distraction in his immortal life, but she knew that, with closure, she would be fine. She came to find out seconds later that she would receive no such comfort.

"They've already left, Bella." He admitted.

With those four words he may as well have ripped her still beating heart from her chest. Then he had kissed her forehead, and simply turned and left. She had crumpled to the ground with the realisation that she had lost her first love, best friend and second family all in one devastating blow. And that was what annoyed her.

Besides Edward not one of the Cullen's had said their final goodbyes, and even then she wasn't particularly fond of the way Edward had said his. Not one of the six others had come to her to say farewell, not that she had expected Rosalie to.

This state of indignation had continued until the last few months of her high-school career. She hadn't simply woken up one morning and thought, 'Well aren't I being silly!". No, she hadn't had one of those lightning flash moments. It had been a gradual build, going from fleeting thoughts to solid ideas. She realised that she had been wasting her time thinking about the Cullen's, even if it wasn't a major part of her day, when she could have been doing so many other things. This was what had spurred her into action.

Her grades had gotten better once she had dug herself out of her melancholy state, so she hadn't needed to worry about them. However, when she had been thinking about her school work she immediately afterwards thought about her friends. She had gotten to school one day with the intent to reconnect with them, but found that they were no longer interesting. They held no allure; having no grand stories to share, or beautiful memories to relive via conversation - she realised that she had just lost the connection she may have once had with them. She had been disconnected from them, and connected to the Cullen's for too long. She had wanted to blame the Cullen's for making her old friends seem boring, and for distancing her from them, and she somewhat did, but she knew she was also somewhat to blame. She, Bella Swan, had been an introvert since birth, and that was no one's fault, not ever her own. She had just never really liked being around people, or rather too many people at once, unless she knew them intimately. And since falling out with her old friends, she no longer felt that she knew them well enough to be comfortable with them.

So she had isolated herself, determined to keep to herself until graduation. And she had. She'd sat alone, at a too small table, at lunch times. She'd rushed to her car and driven home straight away after school, just so no one could stop her and try to talk. When she got home she cooked dinner, did her homework and went to bed. There was only one time when there had been a break in her routine. It had been when a teacher of hers had stopped her after school. They had asked if she had sent in any college applications yet, reminding her that the deadlines were approaching.

"I haven't applied anywhere yet," the teacher grimaced, "I think I'll take a year or two off. Maybe travel, or work."

So set in her idea of taking some time away from school, it surprised her when a letter came from Dartmouth just about three and a half weeks before her graduation. 'Perhaps,' she thought, 'perhaps this is some sort of recruitment form, or advertisement trying to lure potential students'. However, when she had opened the thick manila envelope the contents were not as she had expected.

"What the fuck?!"

Inside the deceptively simple envelope had been an acceptance letter. She had no memory of ever applying for Dartmouth, or applying for any school at all. The only time in the last year that a college had been brought up was when she had been talking to Edward. 'Of course the conniving bastard would forge an application'. Then, as quickly as the contents had been taken from the envelope, they had been shoved back inside, and had been promptly lit on fire in the kitchen sink. In retrospect she supposed she should've taken the document outside to burn, but her anger at the Cullen's, in particular Edward, had briefly overtaken her.

Her father, Charlie, had come home that day to the front door, and all of the first floor windows, open with the smell of smoke lingering in the air. At first he'd panicked, rushing inside to check on his daughter, only to be calmed by said daughter when she had explained the situation to him.

"The little shit!" he had exclaimed, "He would have had to forge your signature for that application. I can charge him for that. Do you want me to charge him for that?"

Bella had just laughed off his response, apologising for causing him to panic and telling him that she didn't want Edward, or the Cullen's, involved in her life – period. After a brief moment when her father had tried to reiterate that what Edward had done was technically illegal, they both moved on from the situation and had begun to talk about her graduation and subsequent trip.

"So where do you think you'll go first?" her had asked in a strained tone, evidently still not quite over the fact that her ex-boyfriend had forged her signature and had tried to force her into a college she hadn't chosen.

"I don't know. I guess I'll just go wherever feels right."

And when it was time to begin her journey, she did. She had stopped first in Seattle to stock up, and from there it was wherever her instinct led her. Though she didn't have unlimited funding, she didn't have to worry about money too much as Charlie, and her mother, had decided to help pay for the trip as a graduation present.

When leaving Seattle she made random turns, last minute decisions to go left or right dictated her travelling until she at first ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah. There she had visited the zoo and Fort Douglas, but had found that not much else interested her and decided to move on. From there she drove down the coast of California. San Francisco, her first stop along the coast, had been a blast. With the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Wharf and all the vendors that lined it, she had been entertained for upwards of two weeks. Los Angeles was next, and whilst it had been filled with many attractions and at least twenty flashy shows a night, she had decided that it was too crowded and moved on after three days.

San Diego had been another stop along the West Coast, but she had only gone to the San Diego Zoo before moving on. She drove across the country stopping only to see attractions, both popular and not so well known, and to sleep and get supplies. The longest she stayed in one place, other than San Francisco, was in Jacksonville, Florida, to see her mother. She had stayed there for a month, catching up and bonding with her mother, Renee, and step-father, Phil, before moving on once again. After staying in Phoenix and Forks for so long she felt like she needed to see more, to move more often so she could take everything in.

Her mother had suggested she go to New York once she had gotten further north, and she had gone there. But, like Los Angeles, it was far too crowded. She had seen two shows in as many nights before moving west. After stops in Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis she finally decided to take a leap and cross the border into Canada. Crossing Canada to visit Niagara Falls, various National Parks, the Rockies, one Art Gallery, and one theme park had taken her a whole month. Alaska, she decided, would be her final stop. With a population of roughly seven-hundred and thirty-thousand, its lack of people and beautiful, natural scenery had appealed to her from the very beginning of her trip.

She wanted to take her time in Alaska, so that she could enjoy the scenery that was mostly untouched by man. She had quickly gotten museum visits and tours out of the way before she decided to wander around the state. Stopping in the beautiful National Parks to admire her surroundings made Alaska one of her favourite places to visit. Deciding to be adventurous in one of these parks she decided to buy some camping gear and a camera, so that she could explore nature in all its raw and wonderful beauty and capture it so that she would have the memory of it forever.

After wandering for what seemed like an age she came across a place with no roads. Where she was there was no need for man-made paths when the slick frozen rivers became highways that would never thaw. She loved it. She couldn't stay too long, because her supplies would dwindle soon, but she decided here was where she would let go of all the things that were holding her back.

Society's expectations to go to school, to get a job, to have a family and to work until you die; as she photographed the frozen river and the forest surrounding it she let go of all of the preconceived notions that she once held. She stayed there for three days, thinking about what was behind her and liking the fact that she didn't know what was ahead of her before she decided that she would go back to a nice, warm motel in a small town somewhere. On her last morning in the majestic, frozen forest, as she was packing up, something fell out of a small pocket in her bag she had not previously known had existed.

"Oh." Her breath fanned out before her, and froze in front of her eyes.

It was a necklace she had almost forgotten had existed. Edward had given it to her for her eighteenth birthday, and as soon as she had gotten home she had taken it off her neck where he had placed it and had put it in a random draw. The necklace itself was an ornate, sapphire and gold piece and it was engraved with her name and birth date. She had never much cared for expensive, ridiculously decorated jewellery. 'What type of statement was a person trying to make,' she wondered, 'with such a ridiculous piece of junk'? She found no need to make a statement with something so expensive, herself preferring the simple things and words as her way of conveying what she wanted said.

With this in mind she began to dig a small hole, putting the necklace into it before covering it up again with dirt and fallen foliage. Turning back to her supplies, she finished packing up before gearing up and heading back into society, without even a second thought to the necklace, and her past, that she had just buried.

So… What do you think? Leave me a review while you wait for the second chapter!

- Ilska