Prologue

I Just Don't Want To Remember

They say you can never go home. I used to think that was true. I thought, like most people, that after leaving I would never come back. But I, like most people, was wrong.

I guess everyone always goes home at least once. And if they don't, they really should. Maybe not to stay. Maybe just for a quick visit to see if it's still the same and reminisce of the days that shaped us into who we eventually became. But eventually, we all need to go home. And as much as I don't want to be, that's where I am now. Home.

The neighborhood hasn't changed much. I can still see the window looking into my old bedroom from the backyard. The same window I had sneaked in and out of so many times before. The tire swing I used to play in still hangs from the old Maple that I had used as a ladder to and from my window. The trusty old tree house still stood next door. All the houses in the neighborhood look the same as the day I left, even if it was over eight years ago. But the physical appearance isn't what has me captivated. It's how strong the memories are now that I'm here, sitting in the old tire swinging on the fraying rope, listening to the creaking as I slowly sway, the spring breeze blowing my hair into my face.

In my lap I hold a medium sized box. I grip the edges of the box tightly, my knuckles turning white. This box holds memories of my old life, my life as Bella Swan; my father's old records, my mother's jewelry, the old photo albums. I can't bring myself up to flip through the pages of the albums. I don't want to see it. All the faces that I'll never be able to see again. And in this moment I don't think I need them. I can almost see everything play in my mind again, like a movie, just like it all happened yesterday; the voices, the laughter, the screams. All the things I had worked so hard to forget about and put behind me are now creeping back up on me. But it's time to face my past demons and move on with my life. I can't dwell in the past any longer.

He's standing behind me. I can feel him. Just watching me. Waiting nervously until I'm ready to leave. I know it's hard for him to be back. To be so close to everything he prays to forget every night. I told him he didn't have to come but he did anyway. He wants to face the demons too. Because after today, we have no reason to come back. We'll be free from everything but the memories.

It was the summer of 2000, right before the start of my senior year of high school that changed my life forever. But before I get into that I guess I should start earlier than that.

I was born and raised in Forks, a small Washington town. The city was divided into two sections, the extravagant half where all the well off people lived. Then there was the other section, the one where I lived. It wasn't anything impressive. Everyone there had just enough to get by, most of the time. I lived next door to the Blackwell house. Long after the Blackwell's left the house the name stuck.

In every neighborhood there is always that one house. The house that legends are made of. The Blackwell house is that house. There were stories told about that house. In the seventies a man hung himself from the rafters and no one knew about it for days. Children dared one another to spend the night and no one ever made it, claiming ghostly figures and spooky sounds. I spent a good portion of my childhood in that home and didn't see any signs of a haunting, but that's what the power of suggestion does to people. The house transferred from person to person before the Masen's finally moved in.

The Mason's moved in the winter before I was born. There was a lot of mystery that followed that family for many different reasons. The Mason's had a lot of children that came and went, they were foster parents. Edward was their only natural born child and his birthday was exactly a week before mine. Our mother's were pregnant together and they bonded over that. I spent half of my childhood with Edward at my place and the other half over at his. Most of the foster children were temporary, coming and going so quickly that I barely even learned their name before they were gone again. But there were a few that stood out to me, not enough to make much of an impression or feel the need to keep in touch. And then came Jacob Black. His mother had passed away while he was very young and his father had been in a horrible car accident that left him immobile. His father struggled with the loss of his wife and job and his confinment to a wheelchair and he turned to a lifestyle that involved more drinking and drugs than it did caring for Jake. So at five years old he was placed in foster care with the Masen's. He spent some time visiting his father and there was always hope that he would go back but as he grew older it didn't seem like that was a possibility, his father just couldn't get his life back on track. Not that living with the Masen's was any better at all.

My family photo albums were filled with pictures of me and Edward bathing together, playing outside in the old tire swing or just goofing off together. Since I didn't have siblings he became my brother and I being the only child in his life that stayed constant, became his sister. Because our birthdays fell so close together we liked to pretend we were twins, even if we didn't look alike. And when Jake came along, he became our third twin, even if he looked even less like us. But as we grew up we learned everything about each other. We were more than just childhood friends. We were family. We were there through thick and thin and nothing was going to change that, or so we thought.

I remember Edward holding me while I cried after another neighborhood boy ripped the head off of my teddy bear, Charlotte, when we were four. Edward had been my first kiss. The three of us were playing in my backyard in the old tire swing from the old Maple when we were six and I just marched right up to him and kissed him. Jacob teased us about it for years. Edward was so mad at me he didn't talk to me for four days. And the only way I got him to talk to me again was to agree to kiss Jacob too, so I had. When we were seven I was the one that called an ambulance when Edward fell out of the maple tree got a concussion and broke his right leg. The following day he was released from the hospital and we all decorated the cast for him, plastering it with pictures and our favorite song lyrics. I remember the first girl Jacob asked out in the school yard in fifth grade, Angela Webber, turned him down in front of her group of friends along with several nasty words. When he ran off, holding back the tears, I punched her. Sure I got in trouble, but it was worth it. Later on that year we all shared one of Mr. Masen's cigarettes and we've been smoking on and off ever since, never getting caught once. In sixth grade they helped me bleach my hair blonde. My parents through a fit and it was dyed back to its original brown color. But I protested by cuting all my hair off, it was ugly and choppy and looked horrible. Edward and Jacob helped me to even it out after my parents finally realized there was no holding me back. I was determined to get what I wanted and they learned to trust me on it. In seventh grade they helped me out when my parents divorced. In eight grade when Bobbie Hart broke up with me, they both showed up at my front door as soon as I told them with a pint of vanilla ice cream and threw me a pity party better than any girl friend would have. They were there for me though my parents divorce and custody battle. And in freshmen year they cried with me at my grandfather's funeral.

But when we hit high school things started to change. They started to see me as a woman instead of just one of the guys. I had develped breasts that despite being only average in size they couldn't tear their eyes off of. I had curves in the right places. And was blessed with a good complexion and smooth, plae skin that rarely showed a blemish at all but despite my best efforts in my youth it never held a tan. They grew up well too. Edward was tall and had a well defined athletic build. His hair was a mess of copper, but in a good way. He had the same place skin tone as me that also rarely ever got a pimple. Jake kept his Native Americna tanned skin that I was envious of and he was average height but he filled out his clothes with very defined muscles.

Sometimes it got a little awkward but it didn't keep us from being the three twins. We were still as inseperable as ever. But we didn't just change physically. Things started to feel different. Not just like we had passed a big milestone and made it to high school, things just didn't feel the same anymore. There was a lot of mystery to life then. But I just shrugged it off and went on with my life. No use dwelling on things was there?

As life got more complicated for us we acted out. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. But we were hardly ever cought. There was a party to go to every weekend, and we made our own every weekday. We were always sneaking out and around. I don't know if it was because we always had to or if it just made things more fun and exciting that way. Edward always was the wildest. The three of us went to the same parties, Jacob and I drank and smoked as much as Edward did. Did the same drugs. Or at least we thought so. He always did disappear after the first hour of a party only to reappear before dawn the next day back in his own bed. He never really told us what he had been doing, but we had a pretty good idea. Jacob and me still managed to have fun though. It was different without Edward always there, but who were we to stop him from having his fun? And we could have just as good of a time without him. But sometimes it was more of just routine, more of just going through the motions than actually having fun. I guess I should have known more of what was going on. Maybe on some level I did, I was just too stupid to admit it. I didn't want to have to know about it. I didn't want to have to deal with it. I wanted to keep on partying and having a good time. I didn't want anything to bring me down, even if I already was there.

None of us were particularly good in school. We weren't stupid or anything. We just didn't care. There was so much more to life than paying attention in class, doing homework, studying and getting good grades. There were parties to go to, alcohol to be consumed, drugs to be taken. It's not like we were bad kids. Just caused minor mischief, maybe sometimes a little more. But that didn't make us bad kids. We were average teenagers leading average teenage lives, full of experimentation and rebellion. And school just didn't seem too important at the time. Looking back, it still doesn't. Maybe I'll never mature. But I like it that way. Life is so much more fun. Don't look back. Never regret anything. Just let life happen and go with it. No matter how hard it may be to do.

I waitressed at the neighborhood restaurant in my spare time. The pay was shit, but the tips were usually pretty decent. Half of my money went to helping my father pay bills. And what was left over was mostly saved for my emergency fund. Most kids would call it a college fund, but I didn't see that in my future. But I did see needing a stash of cash for an emergency situation.

But things have changed since then. I'm no longer that girl anymore. But isn't that supposed to happen to everyone? We all grow up and change. It's a nice theory, but I don't believe it. I've known too many people incapable of changing. Sadly they never make it very far. But I welcome change at every change I get. You need to if you want to survive. You need to change just like to need to go home.