Esme

Life Begins

I was born Esme Anne Platt to Anne and Mark Platt on May 3, 1895. They told me it was a beautiful sunny day when I was born—apparently, the weather would have an effect on my personality; at least, that was what Grandmother Esme, whom I was named for, told me—and I was immediately doted on; for I was the only child my parents had who was born alive and survived infancy.

However, it was not until I was six, when I learned to read, that I began to exist. Suddenly, a whole new world was opened. I no longer had to wait for Grandmother Esme or Grandmother Caroline to tell me a story. I no longer had to wait until bedtime for one of my parents to read me a story. I could take a book and immerse myself within its plotline.

My love of reading came as a considerate relief to my mother, who was beginning to think that she and my father had given me too much free reign as the only child. Prior to my discovery of books, I ran around everywhere. I fell into the nearby creek too many times to count and my father was constantly lifting me out of tree branches when I could not climb back down.

And so, I devoured books. I read Heidi and demanded to sleep in the attic on a mattress of hay (my mother set her foot down on that one. She would not have hay in her household). I read The Wizard of Oz and decided that I would someday go west and get caught up in a cyclone so that I might return in a hot air balloon.

But, it was not until I accidentally stumbled across a book of Greek temples at the library in Columbus my parents took me to once a month, that I became truly alive. At age nine, I fell in love with the Pantheon of the Roman gods and Athena's Parthenon. The rose windows of the Gothic cathedrals fascinated me. And, I begged my parents to take me to Egypt to see the Great Pyramids.

So whenever my friends—Rebecca, Cynthia, Irene, and my second cousin Harriet—and I discussed our dreams for our futures and our dream houses, I always sketched for them a peristyle temple with a frieze and towering Corinthian columns. As I grew older, I knew it was a silly fantasy; but it was a nice one.

Though the one thing I swore to remember on my deathbed was not even related to architecture or reading. However, the incident could be blamed on a book.

It was 1911, I was sixteen years old, and I had finally secured a copy of Anne of Green Gables from the library to read. I wished to read the books uninterrupted, so I did something my mother thought she had finally snapped me out of. I climbed a tree.

Not just any tree, but the tallest tree a quarter mile radius from our house.

I made myself comfortable on the wide branch and began to read. And I laughed through all the scrapes Anne got herself into to. By the time I arrived at the episode where Anne escapes a certain drowning during a play-acting of Elaine, she had already broken her slate on Gilbert's head, intoxicated Diana, starched the handkerchiefs, served the minister's wife liniment cake, and dyed her hair green. And I was laughing. I laughed so hard, that I fell from my perch in the tree, and my laugher quickly turned to cries of pain and calls for help when I discovered that I could not stand due to the streaks of white-hot pain whenever I tried to stand.

I must have fainted, because when I opened my eyes, it was growing dark and I was on my way to the first hospital my parents could reach in Columbus. Our local doctor had gone to see his first grandchild, which forced my parents to take the hour-long drive to the city.

Except the ride did not take the whole hour. Forty minutes later, my parents spotted a smaller hospital that they had completely forgotten about; they were going to take me to the larger hospital in the middle of the city, but once they remembered this hospital, they rushed me inside.

That was when I first saw Dr. Carlisle Cullen—the man who would help make my existence hell, and heaven. I smiled at him through the pain before I blacked out again.

A/N: First Twilight fic. I feel that there aren't enough Esme fics out there, and most of the ones that are aren't completed. So this is my contribution. Reviews are appreciated and constructive criticism is loved!