Today, July 18th 2010, is my one year anniversary on FF :). Celebrating by typing up a new story idea *rolls eyes*. It's also by birthday :D

I really should stop creating new stories. Can't help it though.

Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns everything. I own five used tickets to see Eclipse.


"You're a little weird..."

Ugh. Story of my life.

I did my best to smile at the little girl sitting next to me in the plane, and turned around as politely as I could to stare out the window, effectively shutting off the discussion.

Thanks to the short attention span of eight year olds, she quickly turned to her dad and asked for another set of colouring pencils.

Thank God. There was not one minute of my life where I wasn't reminded of the complicated situation I was in. I partly blame it on Renee. Had she not been so flighty, compelled with changing her mind every five minutes, I would have not got in the situation I was currently in.

When I was barely a year old, mother dearest decided she didn't want to live in the stuck up miserable town of Forks for the rest of her life, and took me to Phoenix without notice to my father – who came home that evening to an empty house, devoid of wife, kid, and half the furniture. A quick divorce followed, and I had barely started school when Renee decided there was more sun in Los Angeles.

I spent five years of my awkward life there, not fitting into the stereotype that was accepted in the city. I wasn't tan, or an athlete, thin as a stick, or have siblings, have two parents, or rich, no famous relatives, no condo by the beach or on the hills, and had no family in the state of California. I spent most of my time by myself. Renee was out enjoying life, jumping off mountains one day and diving with dolphins the next, while I was stuck doing my homework with the babysitter.

Just before my tenth birthday, Renee came home one evening, bawling her eyes because Ross, her most recent boyfriend, had broken up with her. The babysitter was quickly ushered out and before I knew it, the moving vans had arrived and tickets to Florence, Italy were shoved into my hands. Renee had decided that moving to another state wasn't enough, but moving half the world round would suffice.

Arriving in Italy was beautiful, surrounded by the picturesque landscape that was only seen in magazines and travel guides, so it was easy to understand the appeal. A year of renting villas around Tuscany later, we were both near fluent in the local language, and Renee had finally purchased a house using her divorce settlements' money.

One sunny day, when I was an innocent fourteen and being dragged along the streets of Volterra souvenir shopping, we entered an antique store on a desolate street. I was ordered not to touch anything and stayed by the door while Renee inspected the 14th century priceless pieces when suddenly a commotion started outside the shop. Through the dirty glass windows I could see a fight going on in high speed, which mesmerised me. It seemed I could almost see the trails of their motions as they threw punches too fast for humans.

One of the men picked up the other one and threw him through the shop window, his body landing near a shocked Renee. Before I knew it, he was on top of her, sucking at her neck, and draining all life out of her. I barely chocked up on a scream before it was all over.

The rogue vampire killed the shop's owner and turned on me, but men in black cloaks rushed in to grab him before he could touch me.

The cloaked men started ripping the body apart, throwing the limbs all around the store, while I stood wide eyed in a corner, silently terrified. The shock of the situation meant my body had frozen on me.

Soon, they had started a fire, and purple smoke was rising from the flames.

"I'll deal with her," one of the men said referring to me, dismissing the others with a wave of his gloved hand.

"No." A voice rang out.

A dark haired man had leant towards me.

"Leave the girl alone," he said.

They took me back to their castle after I fainted – they told me later. Aro, the one who had saved me, told me later of what they were, and explained the loss of my mother. They were all surprisingly compassionate, given they had told me they were vampires.

They had tried to wipe my memory of the incident, by using Aro, and Jane, then Alec, but none of their talents worked on me. Aro smiled at the end and clapped his hands together, telling me they were "just going to have to keep me".

The other vampires of the castle weren't happy with the idea, but Aro seemed quite pleased with himself as he took me to one of the upper rooms of the castle and sat me down. He told me they would not kill me as long as I kept my mouth shut about everything. That was enough to shock me into silence for a couple of days.

Sulpicia, Aro's wife, was very kind to me and regularly gave me what she referred to as baby food, and slowly introduced me to their way of life. I inquired about what happened to all my things and my mother's house, and all Aro said was that he had sold everything and put the money into an account for me to have later on.

I took me some time till I came around to the idea that I was in fact stuck with vampires as my family. It didn't offer easy sleeping, and I still had nightmares regularly for the first few months. Jane was the first of the guard to become my friend, and she became the sister I never had. We often took off on long vacations together to various European locations, and she bought me gifts whenever she could.

I was quite aware of the diet that the vampires adhered to, but I talked myself out of being disgusted by them by thinking that they had no other choice. Needless to say, I definitely didn't talk to humans outside the castle anymore unless I had to, afraid they would've been lunch by the same time tomorrow.

I became very interested in the arts and history, since most of the educational material that was taught to me was centred on that. Felix taught me sports, Alec loved teaching me psychology, Sulpicia educated me in the discipline of fashion design, Marcus showed me all the art around the city, Caius about the government and vampire laws, Demetri enlightened me in the sciences, and Santiago taught me the maths skills I would need to know.

They were like the family I never had.

At seventeen though, I demanded to see my father one more time before the inevitable happened – they would turn me into one of them.

Well – it was either that or be killed, permanently.

And that's what brought me on the plane to Seattle.

I imagined the look on the little girls face next to me if I told her I hung out with vampires.


I have a few chapters of this story written so far, so hopefully I will be updating soon!

Please, please, please review. If you are a writer on this site, you know how important and heart-warming it is to receive a review. I will reply to each one of them.