[author's note - okay, so this is the first story I've ever published on here. It's actually part of a biography I'm doing for someone's myspace account. I mainly just wanted to see if the upload worked! Anyway, please read and review, I'm not the most confident of writers!]

[**edit - obviously I don't own Twilight, OR the characters! I just make them do different things :D]

Carlisle's POV

Maybe I was meant to be alone?

I had lost track of how many years I had been 'alive' after the first century. There was no point in remembering. I knew I could if I wanted to. But I didn't. What reason would make me remember the day that would symbolize the years passing in this world? Passing in loneliness and despair. Did I really need to remind myself of just how alone I was?

Yes, I had Edward, and he was everything I could ever ask for in a companion. But I wanted more than that. I wanted to know love. My…overwhelming desire for a simple loving touch seemed to have become reflected in my thoughts. Edward was becoming increasingly worried about what he considered to be my incoherent, sometimes even frightening thoughts.

Is it so wrong to long for loving hands?

I sometimes laughed at myself. There I was, striving to be the perfect gentleman, and all the while, my thoughts were filled with a longing desire to even just hold a woman. Of course, I was quite sure I would have many 'volunteers' if I was to suggest such a thing. Edward deliberately did not bring the subject up very often, finding my thoughts both wearing and pointless. He argued that even without my constant thoughts of unconceivable love and passion, I still 'drove him mad' because when we sat down and talked properly about the possibility of creating others for more than just companionship…I knew I could never turn someone for my own pleasure. In being so…noble, I was condemning my own fate before it began, and seemingly, Edward's as well.

My thoughts mirrored the weather on that night perfectly. The sky was particularly dark and stormy, and the grey storm clouds looked swollen with moisture. I was on the night shift, working in a small hospital in the centre of Columbus. The assisting nurse, Amanda, had failed to turn up for her shift that night, due to a family member passing away. I was alone. I sat in Amanda's chair by the dim light of the oil lamp, reading the works of Edgar Allen Poe. My feet were gently propped against the desk. I shivered. Alone…I wondered on more than one occasion that night what Edward would make of me perhaps just going to the house we shared together, and saying hello. No…he would think I had finally lost my mind. And maybe I had. Maybe the tortured, broken soul inside of me had finally taken me over.

I turned the pages of my book restlessly. I had read it before - many times - and I could remember every word with perfect detail. I was merely keeping up the pretence of doing something human, but it was a mystery to me why I even bothered. There were no humans around to convince…Even so, I continued to turn those pages delicately with my strong, cold fingers.

The familiar words seemed to fade in my mind, to again be replaced by my previous thoughts. My mind was certainly restless. I wondered vaguely how a dead heart could feel so much pain. Not physical pain...that was almost too mild, compared to this. Emotional pain had always seemed to me to be the worse of the two. After all, there was no real cure. It all depended on strength of will, and mine had been weakened considerably. After all, even my human life had been far from a happy one. I was never the son my father had wanted, and he had always resented me, because my poor mother had died giving birth to me. It felt like I was fated to live this harsh, lonely existence as some punishment for an awful deed I could not recall I had done.

Pressing my hand over my chest, my throat seemed to get tighter when my fingers failed to detect a heartbeat. I was not alive. My body had been 'dead' since last quarter of the seventeeth century. Maybe only humans - only truly living creatures - deserved something as beautiful as love? From the moment my creator had sunk his impossibly strong, furious teeth into my neck, I had been damned for eternity to be this cold, unfeeling creature...but I was not cold, and I did feel. Perhaps more strongly than any human in the world. That, however, was not the impression people received of me. It - it was at that point that I realized I had begun to truly hate my existence.

What is the point of my being? Why can't I just die?

A slight shudder ran through my body when my over-sensitive ears picked up the thud of my book on the floor. So it was possibly to surprise a vampire? I almost managed a small smile. I had certainly never felt so human before. My eyes dropped naturally to the backs of my hands, and I laid them palm-down on the desk before me. My skin was perfectly smooth, and a brilliant milky white. Un-natural. Certainly not human. My realization of the fact brought me gasping. I was not human! I would never be human again! I was a vampire. A monster! I had tried to be good. I had tried to find meaning in this existence. Oh, I had tried so unbelievably hard…but all my efforts had proved futile. What good had I ever done in this cruel world? Nothing. My...existence meant nothing at all.