Shades of Grey
A/N: Just so you are all aware, I will rate each chapter individually, so you know what to expect. It's a pet peeve of mine when people neglect to do this. This fic is rated M because there will be later chapters with explicit content. You are warned.
Chapter Rating: K - K+ {Does NOT Include explicit language, sexual references/situations, drug use, or gore/macabre}
Disclaimer: I did not create Twilight, the characters, nor did I have any part in the making of them. But everyone knows that anyway. Disclaimers may be stupid, but I'm not one for conflict, so here this is.
Prologue: A Safe Distance
Edward, 1st Person
LIFE DOESN'T ALWAYS go as planned. I think everyone knows that. Circumstances change, of course, for the better or for the worse. And yet no matter how hard we strive to make everything perfect, to live the way we'd like to…everything dissolves. The novelty of perfection is sluffed off the shoulders, shoveled from the mind.
Do most of us care what happens? I'd like to think so.
You see, the two of us were doomed from the beginning, I assume. Her whole being was a secret. I understood her story, and I understood everything about her, but I never knew her. She was something that was normal to most. No matter how hard I try to banish her from my mind, though, I find it difficult. She left an imprint on me. A permanent fixation, she is. Her voice resonates in my mind constantly. The touch of her hands will always be on mine. Her memory remains and always will remain within my own being.
I didn't always know her. I'm glad I didn't know her for that long, to be quite honest. She was one of those that you love and despise at the same time. She was strange, but not a stranger to me. The day I first saw her I didn't believe that she was real. She frightened me, enthralled me, and took my very breath away. No living thing had ever had that effect on me, and hasn't ever since we parted. Isabella Swan--she was an imperfect perfection.
I saw her just as another human being, at first. Well, one that made me exceptionally thirsty. I tried my best to avoid her, but she intrigued me to no visible end. And, naively, as I was very naive back then, I befriended her. I talked to her. I even helped her, as one can only help something that doesn't seem real. Worse than those things, though, I was senseless enough to fall in love with her. It was the worst mistake of my life; yet surprisingly, it doubled as the most rewarding experience I can remember.
I regret many things that have happened in my century of life, but leaving her is not included in that. It was something I had to do. It was like my very soul required it. I know in my mind that she'll be fine. She is a strong mortal, stronger than I had ever been, from what I remember.
Yes, I feel immense pain and heartache. No, I don't think I can go on existing. Maybe I'm being too overdramatic, even for someone so "picture-esqe". But let me tell you this: don't ever expect an easy answer, because easy isn't real. To get somewhere in your existence, you have to embrace difficulties. You have to expect the unexpected. But most of all, I hope you realize, we all walk through paths of fire each and every day. And we get burned.