This is the first Twilight story I think worthy enough to post and continue with. I will accept all thoughts and opinions, but please, there's no need for cruelty.
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. Do I own Ellie? Well, I guess I own her name.
Prologue: Crushing
Ellie
I don't like this. I don't like being here, in this house, this town, hell, even this city. All it ever does is remind me of everything that happened. Everywhere I look, I see her. I see some memory that I used to remember with such happiness now darkened, tainted.
I see IT.
It feels like I have some sort of phantom clinging to me that I can't get rid of; IT. That's how it feels; how it haunts me every fucking moment of my life.
And, if I wasn't mistaken, the phantom known as IT fancied carrying around a giant neon sign and positioning it right above my head. IT has changed me, changed how other people look at me. I hate it. I'm not a person to them anymore, if I ever was before. To some of them, I don't even have a name. I am simply That Girl. I hear the whispers around me all the time, feel the stares. "…Yeah, it's her. She's that girl. The one who got…" "Saw her on TV… looked fucked up." "Poor girl, having to go through that…" Those are the most common; the others are much less pleasant. But I won't get into that.
It's all because of that stupid trial. What the fuck! What was the point of that? Did they get some sort of pleasure out of it? Of parading me and my family and IT around like morbidly spectacular show horses? Why couldn't they have just sent her to jail, or an institution, and be done with it?
Why did they force me to look at her date after date, see her looking back at me with such…? That was almost worse than the Event itself, having to see her and know she was thinking about it and remembering it.
Her… That was what hurt the most. It was her. After everything we'd done together, every night we spent watching scary movies when Mom and Phil weren't home, every time we danced in our rooms to music that was too loud, every time she beat someone up for picking on me, it was still her.
I think I would have been okay if it was anyone else. Seriously, I would. Because at least then it wouldn't have caused such an uproar. There wouldn't have been a state-broadcasted trial. There wouldn't have been news broadcasts, newspaper articles, and even episodes of talk shows dissecting it and analyzing every horrific detail and then putting it in highlights. The fact that Phil was a famous baseball player didn't help matters at all.
And I would still have my friends and my family to support me and help me through it. I would've had her to help me through it. But now I have none of that. My friends back away from me like I have a plague. I can see it in their eyes; they know they should help me, but they think if they do, what happened to me might happen to them by association. My family is too broken and in shock to do anything. IT has shattered us. It's like we were hit by an atom bomb, and the weak and wounded survivors are fruitlessly trying to pick up the scattered pieces of our lives from before.
With all of this, I don't know if I'll ever be okay.
But I do know that I can't stay here, live here, be here, anymore. I have to leave. If I don't, I know for sure this place will crush me.
I feel like my very name is crushing me. Ellie Garner. That name is not mine anymore. Good thing too, because I don't want it. There is no more Garner family. We are far too torn and strangled to be what you could consider a family. And she called me Ellie. She knew I loathed being called Elizabeth, so she called me Ellie and eventually everyone else picked it up. It was ironic. My whole life I felt free with that name—or freer than I did under Elizabeth—but now I feel trapped in the most wretched and suffocating cage.
So I'm changing it. Soon, Ellie Garner will be leaving Phoenix, Arizona and Isabella Swan will be entering Forks, Washington. My middle name is Isobel and my father Charlie's surname is Swan, so there ya go. I've okayed it with Charlie. I will be registered in everything under that name and that name only. I hope it helps.
Tomorrow I leave. Mom and Phil are really sad, but they understand it's what I have to do for my own sake. And I know they'll be okay eventually, as long as they have each other.
Do I dare to hope the same for myself?
So honestly, how many of ya are interested? Interested enough to keep reading? Activate that hyperlink down there and see what happens. You know you want to.