It isn't something you can control. Life, that is. It's just something that happens. Sometimes you can plan and you can practice and you can rehearse, and sometimes that'll help you go in different directions, but destiny is boss. She's got you. She's got you wrapped so tightly around her little finger you have no idea she's even there most of time. You have no control over the big paths your life takes. None whatsoever. So you might as well give up on any silly notion you may have of choice—because it's all bullshit. All of it.

Written in the journal of one Miles Swan-Addler.

AN: Rehash of a story I wrote/posted in 2008/2009. Better this time, less of a rewrite of Twilight and more of its own story. This is a story of a boy who isn't sure who he is, what life is, or where he fits into it all. This is a story of his growth, his discovery of those painful truths, and the whirlwind that comes along with that self-discovery. Throw in some vampires and things get fun.

Here we go.

Slash, OC/Edward. Warning for some strong language.

Prologue: I Promise I'm Not Crazy

I guess I'm one of those "messed up" kids you always read about in news papers or see on TV. The ones who "can't handle everyday life" or have "social issues" preventing them from being a part of society. You know the type, they wear all black and have ridiculous hair styles and cut themselves all up, spray paint things, break into cars, and all of that other delinquent stuff. As for me? I'm pretty tame. The most I do is hide in my room blasting Radiohead and Morrissey to escape from the constant headache humanity tends to cause me.

Don't get me wrong; it isn't that I don't like people. It's just that after almost 17 years of people not liking me, I decided it wasn't worth trying anymore. I think the final straw was when kids at school started calling me "the psycho" after a few little issues at school. Little issues, though. Really.

I mean, sure, there's my tendency to sometimes get a bit lost in my own head and space out a bit, but everybody does that, right? And it isn't usually too much of a problem, except for when I happen to be walking, that usually ends with me running face-first into someone. And that's only crazy when I happen to be looking at them when spacing out, which has happened a few times. Then I guess I might look a little bit crazy.

Or I guess when people are trying to talk to me and I just stare blankly at them, half the time not even noticing. I'm told I do that a lot, which can be a problem too. Maybe if they had something more interesting to say I would pay more attention. But I digress. For the most part I would say I'm pretty normal. Right? Or at least I thought I was up until recently, when the incident happened.

I'm not going to go into too many details, it makes me feel like a whiny bitch. I didn't do it for attention, I did it because… well, because I was exhausted. "Tired" is the wrong word, exhausted only barely begins to cover it. I was exhausted of feeling like there was no point, like all of life was just a big stage-show and I was the character that kept getting beat up for the entertainment of the main cast. The night it happened, I'm pretty sure I had been reading Albert Camus, and the absurdity of the universe became too much. I figured, if I don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things, why am I here? Why should I stick around if my only purpose is to be a target of ridicule and hate?

So I swallowed seventeen sleeping pills, wanting to be too dead to care.

For added bonus, and probably some dramatic flair, I simultaneously took an exacto-knife to my arms and sliced from the inside of my elbow down to my wrist.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least. I felt like I was watching from far away, like it was somebody else doing it. I won't go into too many details, it's all so contrived and narcissistic that I'll spare you the pain of listening. Long story short, it didn't go so well, obviously, seeing as I'm still sitting here talking. Or inner-monologing. Whatever this is.

I accomplished pretty much two things with this stunt. Number one, I have some pretty gnarly scars on my arms and wear almost nothing but long-sleeve shirts. Unfortunately the extreme heat in Phoenix kinda kills that option most of the time, so as much of a "Psycho" as I was before, now the kids at school have even more of an excuse for the nickname—and I'm fairly sure my parents have picked up on the nickname, if the looks they give me were any indication.

The second thing, with much more far-reaching consequences, is that my stepmom decided I was too much to deal with and convinced my father to ship me off to The Middle-of-Fucking-Nowhere, Washington. Population: me. Me, and a bunch of hicks, which includes my mother, her new husband and kids, and my twin-sister Bella. Our parents split up when we were just one year old, and it was a typical Parent Trap-style setup where I went with my dad and Bella stayed with mom in Washington. Both of them remarried not too long after, and since we had such little contact with each other, my stepmom basically took on the role of "mother" to me.

That's why overhearing the conversation that took place regarding moving me to Washington was a particularly harsh slap across the face. Imagine your own mother telling your dad that his kid was too much to handle, and that his kid was going to be a bad influence on her kids, and that his kid was causing too much tension in the house. It was a rude fucking wakeup call, that's for sure. Christine had always practically been my mother; I had only met my flesh-and-blood incubator-mom once and it had been awkward and uncomfortable for both of us.

What hurt the most was hearing Christine say those things. Acting like I wasn't her son, like she was just putting up with me because of my dad. But what also hurt was the way he seemed totally at ease with this, the way he almost seemed used to it.

For a kid who already felt like the world was indifferent to his existence, hearing his parents talk like he was just a large thorn in their sides was heart shattering. It sealed the wax on my envelope of apathy towards this move and towards life in general. So when my dad asked the weekend before I was officially to move if there was anyone I wanted to invite over to say goodbye, my only answer was "no, there's no one."

He looked at me for a long time, square in the eye, as though he was waiting for me to crack a smile and ruin the joke. But I remained stoic, blank, faceless.

He shrugged and left the room, leaving me to go back my brooding alone. He probably thought I was just being dramatic, that I had people here that would miss me and would be sorry to see me go. But he was wrong. There really wasn't anyone at all.

And so, on my last night in Phoenix, I sat in solitude. Not even enough in me to wish things were different; it was all just facts of life. Tomorrow I would be leaving this state for something entirely new, but it didn't feel like a change from the familiar into the unknown. No, it felt like a change from nothingness into… well, more nothingness.

More than ever that night, I was acutely aware that I was sitting on the brink of nada, of zip, of emptiness. That the place one kid calls home is meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe.

What could it matter to a universe, after all?

AN: Short prologue. Chapters 1 and 2 are done, and I have a few more edits to make before I post them. It'll probably be up tomorrow night. :]

Comments, criticism? Let me know.