A Lady of Infinite Possibility

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Have you ever had this urge?

It's not easy to describe.

Just that feeling you get sometimes, when
you want to shatter that calm sphere that surrounds you
to spark up some electricity from the friction you can create
with just one word, to inspire fireworks in mediocrity?

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Chapter One

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A Lady, The Knowing

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I was having lunch in a lovely Italian restaurant when Jacob Black stood up from his seat and got down on one knee. The table cloth was a checkered red and white and it wouldn't look out of place under a dusky summer sky studded with nightingales, with lovers' faces lit with pure delight. There was a movement in the corner of my eye as Jake took out a small, black box from the back of his jeans and I felt a thousand pairs of eyes rest on my face.

"Nessie, I've loved you from the moment I laid my eyes on you-"

I could not endure it. The glances from our fellow patrons turned into outright stares and while many had a small smile on their face, some looked rather annoyed at having their meal interrupted. My creamy pasta cooled rapidly in its fine clothes of bone-white china, uneaten. For a brief second, I contemplated what would happen if I said yes. He would be happy, so incredibly happy, and when Jake was happy it felt like the sun spilled out of his smile. His face would look radiant, I would imagine. And yet even as he smiled, would I be able to return it? In his happiness, I could only be unhappy because even as I loved him; I was not in love, and that made all the difference. My fist clenched at my side. Sorry Jake, but I will never forgive myself if I live a lifetime of deceit!

"No," I said.

A man jumped up and down, cheering and clapping his hands loudly, shattering the stupefied silence that followed my words. His wife pulled him down, whispering furiously in his ear all the time. People expected a 'yes' all too often when it came to proposals. Perhaps this expectation was borne out of desperation of needing to find somebody to share the rest of your dwindling days. On that face which I loved so well was a look of shocked misery, as if I had cleaved his happy world in half.

"I'm very sorry."

I did not think, I simply took my bag and walked past him as calmly as I could, past the red sports car he drove, past all of the memories of happiness we shared. Why did I say no? I do not share the well of desperation that seems to spring in every man and woman. I do not share their affliction; a number that only grows with time- unhappy, unhappy age!

Jake did not run after me. In hindsight, perhaps I should have paid for the bill. It would have been the polite thing to do after the rejection of a marriage proposal.

Why did I say no? He did nothing but love me, after all. No one could see that perhaps that was part of the problem. I drowned in his love, how could I even touch him when he placed me upon so high a pedestal? Often I wondered what it would be like to say something so horrible so as to shock him out of his devotion to his image of me, to show him for a fleeting second who I had genuinely become.

I was sorry, of course. In my childish state, I hadn't understood the type of love that he held for me. And that horrible moment of clarity when I realised that I could never return his affections led me to believe this was the only way forwards. Mothers should warn their daughters about such things.

"Reneesmee, I really don't understand," my mother said, an utterly bewildered expression on her face. And bless her- I don't think she ever will. Dad held her hand securely in his, preventing her from flying at me from her seat. He gave me a knowing look and tapped the side of his head, and I tried my best to articulate my thoughts in my head for him.

There was more to life than this, this marrying and having of children; oh yes, I understood the nature of the imprint, and what was expected of me through that bond. I think that I'm not ready to have children, not now, and perhaps not ever. And not with Jake; never with Jake who was more my beloved brother than a rutting husband.

"I don't regret it," I said and, trying to disguise one unpleasant truth with another, "I don't think I can stay here anymore."

I'd like to travel and meet interesting people whose language I didn't even speak, I wanted to conquer oceans, and feel the rich sand of the Sahara slip through my fingers. I couldn't stay here in this house of empty memories, not with that look on Jake's face still fresh on my mind. In loving each other, we had hurt each other as badly as possible.

I don't mean to make my mother as deeply unhappy as possible, but no matter what my decision it seemed inevitable that it ended up being like this. She was disappointed, she didn't understand, and she didn't approve, she looked to my dad for his support and upon finding none, dissolved into sobs.

"You two were destined to be together," my mother said quietly, still in that tone of quiet disappointment. How I loathe that word- destiny! I refuse to believe that the future of someone who hoped to live forever was already planned, how I would meet people whose grandparents had yet to be conceived was beyond my level of understanding. I refuse fate, I refuse destiny, yet I could not refute the fact that Jacob and I were irrevocably linked in a way that I could not easily escape.

"Then it must be destiny that led me to reject his proposal," I said, with only a touch of bitterness in my voice. It was ridiculous, it was all so ridiculous, this concept of destiny and presupposed happenings. I couldn't stand it. I looked imploringly at my dad, at his impassive expression, and gave him such a look of helplessness in spite of myself.

"Bella," he said in his even voice, "I think you're making too much out of it. I trust Reneesmee to make her own decisions."

"But are they the right decisions?" my mother demanded, "How do you know she is not making the biggest mistake of her life?"

"I don't have the answer to that," he said simply.

When my mother turned to me, I realised that neither had I.

For as long as I have lived, my family's wealth has never been denied to me. It was fairly easy for me to book a flight on that very night to Cairo, Egypt. I loved my family and I would miss them, but I knew that for now it was best for me to be alone for a while. It was my own fault that I felt like this, disembodied and half torn away. I was the cleaver that had chopped our bond irreparably and in some way, I know that Jake will never quite forgive me for it. Today I have tested how far anyone can stretch unconditional love.

"I've seen you in the future Reneesmee," Aunt Alice took me aside just before I got into the car to the airport, "you look very happy."

"I'm glad," I said truthfully, letting her pull me close.

"So am I, but I wish you could have been that happy here with us," she whispered, and I felt my throat constrict at her confession. In the face of such naked truth, I did not know how to express myself. For the first time in a very long while, I placed my hand on hers and let her feel all of my deep-seated heartache, the heaviness of my thoughts and the uncertainty of my nebulous future.

Before, my future had been clear and blindingly bright. I was to fall in love with Jake, marry him and have his children and be blissfully happy for the rest of forever. Somewhere along the way, I had deviated from my original path. I am the one in control of my fate; I will no longer suffocate gracefully under the will of others.

Aunt Alice holds me tight, sighs softly as she pats my shoulder. She sinks against me like a dying butterfly, and I know she understands. I try hard not to use my gift, but I can't deny how useful it is. I think grandfather Carlisle once described it as the perfect method of communication, but it isn't really. I never did quite understand Jake.

"I see. You've grown up," she said, her golden eyes bright with suppressed emotion. "I'm very proud of you."

I don't understand why, as the only thing I seem to have done was to cause misery to those whom I loved. It was inevitable that I grew, and lost faith in fate.

That was nothing to be proud of.

The drive to the airport was spent in a tense silence between my mother and I. The time for accusations and grievances had come and gone, replaced by terse requests to 'be careful', and to 'let us know how you are doing', meaningless expressions like that. It was annoying, being seventeen and still impossibly smothered by one's own mother. I stretched out on the backseat with my iPod on, only to listen to the songs Jake had downloaded for me. I gritted my teeth and yanked my headphones off my ears.

Jake, how are you feeling? You didn't even chase after me, or even call. How long did you stay at that restaurant on one knee, your brown eyes wide with shock at my impossible refusal? I'm sorry.

He was- is a friend of mine, the closest friend I have ever had. The way I had treated him was not how anyone should have treated a friend, or even the poorest animal. I am a coward for running away like this, I know, to put continents between us rather than to sort things out in an adult manner.

"Reneesmee, you may want to take a look at the car behind us," my dad said in an even voice, his gaze fixed steadily on the road ahead. I shut my eyes briefly, as if by doing this I could shut out the entire world and this hard reality I was faced with. Yet I couldn't stop myself from slowly turning my head around and opening my eyes.

There, with his large hands furiously gripping the wheel in his Lamborghini and the ugliest expression on his broad face, was Jake. His mouth gaped wide and worked furiously, as if frozen in a feral scream of the same syllables over and over. I must have only glanced at him for a few seconds, but that was enough time to work out what he was saying. I sank far down my seat, my heart pumping quickly at the shock of seeing him in such a state, mouthing the same word again and again and again.

RENEESMEE

RENEESMEE

RENEESMEE

I clapped a shaky hand over my mouth sharply to muffle my gasp. He looked- he looked as if he was ready to kill me. Could he? What use had he for an imprint who had rejected him in the worse way possible? In that short moment, he looked at me as if I was his hated enemy.

I don't want him to look at me that way.

"Reneesmee? Are you alright?"

That look on his face.

I gritted my teeth, trying hard to wipe away the hot tears trickling down my face. So his feelings turned from the deepest love to a burning hate, as was expected from the most monstrous of beasts! Weren't wolves renowned as the most fearsome and aggressive predators of the forest? So Jake wants to kill me now. The thought of it made me sick, but this wasn't the time for weakness, it was time for me to harden my heart and push onward with no regrets!

"Please drive faster, I think he intends to chase us!"