I shudder at the memory of that day, a day I remember with the perfect clarity of a vampire's mind. A monster's mind. That day, the day when I first took the life of an innocent. In retrospect, I should have stopped it. I should have been stronger. Emmett, Esme, Jasper, Alice, they all tell me that it doesn't matter. That it was just a mistake, that even the best of us make them. Even Carlisle's disappointment faded quickly. Rosalie, she was grumpy about moving, but even she understood.
That day, the day I sat in biology, prepared for the absolute tedium that was the norm. That day, when the new girl stumbled into the classroom. The new girl, Bella, the destroyer of my life. It's almost fitting that I was the destroyer of hers. Her unbelievable scent, the scent that ripped away every shred of my humanity, turning me into a savage. Her mind, unreachable to me, a mystery that I never bothered to solve. Her eyes, brown and deep, eyes that were full of trust as I led her to her next class, eyes that were wide with terror as I led her in the wrong direction and ended her life with a bite to the neck. That day, the day I feel remorse for, remorse that haunts me in every moment of my existence.
After that day, my family went one way, and I went another. I hid out, away from civilization, as my eyes turned slowly from burgundy, to dark gold, to amber. When at last the tint of Bella's blood had disappeared from my eyes, I returned to my family.
We lived in Canada for a time, in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a place that holds the distinction of having even more overcast days a year than Forks. From there we moved up north, staying with the Denali coven in Alaska for a while before starting up a new life elsewhere.
A few decades went by, and although I still remembered that day with perfect clarity, our existence began to sink back into its rhythm of daily school tedium and nightly vampire activities. We were living in Juneau, Alaska, when the rhythm was once again thrown off. I saw the girl.
She had died, of that I was sure. I had taken her life, drank her blood until not a drop of its sweetness remained in her poor corpse. But there she was, walking into the classroom more than two decades after she had taken her last breath. She wasn't exactly the same: her eyes a shade darker; her hair a bit lighter; her eyebrows slightly more arched; but she was without a doubt the girl. Her mind was empty space, blank, unreadable. And her scent. Her scent was unbearable. History repeated itself. The girl, the second Bella, she died. Her blood stained my eyes deep burgundy, and our family left Juneau.
This time I did not run away. I faced my family's scrutiny head on. Jasper and Emmett sympathized, Rosalie raged, but their emotions barely penetrated my remorse. I had taken the life of an innocent for the second time.
Centuries went by, and the pattern continued. Every few decades the girl would pop up again, and every few decades I would end her life. She took different forms each time; once she appeared as a red-headed southern belle, another time her guise was that of a blonde daughter of a Swedish immigrant. But three things were always the same, no matter what form the girl took: her mind was unreadable, her scent was unbearable, and her name was Bella.
I knew that Carlisle was losing faith in me, a fact I saw clearly in his mind but he denied with a fierce resolve. Esme knew that the girl's repeated reappearances were causing me to lose faith in myself. Alice's powers were useless; she could not see how I could stop the girl from returning. Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper were all unhelpful; they were not exactly apathetic towards my problem, but not quite caring either.
As the girl's reappearances continued, and my tally of innocent lives taken rose in number, I knew what I had to do: I'd theorized that her early death was the cause of her reincarnations, so if I could prevent myself from killing the girl, my anguish would finally end.
The next time the girl appeared, we were living in Nanortalik, Greenland. Her hair was light brown, her eyes shimmering and hazel. Her mind, as always, was a mystery to me. And her scent, her scent was much stronger than I remembered. My willpower crumbled under its weight, and it took every ounce of strength and humanity in my soulless body to run away. I took the first plane out of Greenland, putting as much distance as I could between me and the girl, the girl who must live lest she torment me for the rest of my existence. I hid out in the Australian outback for the next century or so, with little contact with humans and other vampires. My family stayed in Nanortalik; Alice would have been able to find me if she tried, but they all knew I wanted solitude. They called once in a while, trying fruitlessly to persuade me into returning. I knew that if I left the exile I had created for myself, I would seek out and kill the girl.
After the century had passed, surely enough time for the girl to have grown up, lived her life, and died of old age, I reunited with my family. They were living in Forks once again, the place that felt more like home to us than anywhere else on the planet. I was greeted warmly once I returned, and I was content to believe that my life could revert back to the pattern I had thought to be tedious centuries before. But that, of course, was not the case.
The girl returned. She was exactly as she had been the first time I laid eyes on her: the same impenetrable mind; the same simple beauty; the same eyes, brown and deep; the same maddening scent. But this time, I did not kill her. I did not run away. I suffered in her scent, and revelled in the pain it brought me, for as long as I burned, she lived. We became friends, and I watched her sleep at night. I fell in love with her, and she with me. She learned my secret, but she did not run. Danger shadowed her every move, but together we overcame the darkness. The girl, she was never again reincarnated, because she had finally reached the path that was her destiny. She became a vampire.