I sit here in a crowded dive in on Sixth Street in Austin, the darkness safely descended, allowing me to pursue the fiend who is bent on destroying my Bella.
Bella. The very thought of the name causes me physical pain. I haven't felt much of that in over eighty years. If I were honest, until Bella inexplicably entered my existence, I hadn't felt much of anything since Carlisle took my life in an effort to save me and fulfill a deathbed promise to my mother.
Like my Bella, my mother was a surprisingly perceptive, intuitive woman. Also like my Bella, she wasn't in my life long enough. Perhaps, just perhaps, she could have helped me navigate this situation I find myself in now. Perhaps she would send me running home to take Bella in my arms, beg her forgiveness, and do whatever necessary to secure her hand. This was assuming of course that she hadn't moved on as I intended her to.
Before the disease took us all, a quick if not merciful executioner, my mother had always expressed the hope that I would find someone. At seventeen, I was more than old enough to begin looking for a woman with whom to share my life. Happy with my father and saddened by her brother's own lonely confirmed bachelorhood, she did not want me to miss the joys that came with sharing complete, total, selfless love. It worried her that I was more amorous of the promises of glory and adventure promised to young men like me at the time. The price for these things seemed simple enough. All I had to do was fight for my country in a war that I wasn't altogether sure we really belonged in to begin with. This was, by all accounts, a European war. Or at least it was until Germany forced our hand by sinking the Lusitania. I shake my head as I remember how naïve I was at that time. I had no idea that glory came at the price of surviving horrors, if a man should be so lucky. All forms of immortality have their price. I knew that only too well now. My Bella had known this, too, but had been willing to give her life, to become what I was, in order to share my life with her. To prevent this, and to save her from the harm that my kind pose to her—I had told her many times that she was too desirable for her own good—I had made the excruciating decision to leave her. I could not justify the taking of her soul, or placing her in danger by keeping her in tantalizing proximity to my kind.
In spite of this, I can't justify the look in her eyes, the brokenness, the betrayal, the desperation, the pain, that I had caused with my words. As much as I've tried to convince myself, I can't justify leaving her. Now, after so many months of tracking Victoria, I'm slowly beginning to believe that I can keep her safe. Now, all that prevents me from returning is the knowledge that I betrayed her so fundamentally. Would my sudden appearance cause her joy or break her beyond any hope of recognition?
In my stubbornness, my arrogance in my belief that I knew what was best for my Bella, I have hurt her, betrayed her, and isolated myself from her and my family. I have excommunicated myself from those who love me, with full knowledge of what I am, of who I am. I can't stand the sadness that has become entrenched with a stubbornness matched only by my own in the eyes of my loved ones, especially in Alice's. From their thoughts, I know they respect my decision. I know that they understand my decision. However, the only one who agrees with my decision is Rosalie. She sees my suffering as deserved, the product of my own folly. Perhaps she is right. I had no right to want Bella, to desire her. However, I wish she would admit that I was driven by the same instinct that has driven each of us to find our mates. She had as much right to Emmett, to change him, as I had to want Bella by my side. However, her 'gift' of tenacity, as Carlisle tactfully chooses to call what I see as Rosalie's pigheadedness, prevents her from doing so.
Alice, in contrast, never ceases to remind me, hands on her hips, eyes full of fire, that Bella is destined to become one of us, that my guilt is only causing the two of us and everyone around us pain, and that the decision was made the moment Bella and I saw each other, tritely enough, from across a crowded room. However, things become trite because there is a truth to them. All I'm doing now is fighting what has already been set. The future, Alice says, is fluid enough, but some things are inexorably inevitable. Destiny, the humans call it. Though she will respect my decision and not interfere unless absolutely necessary to, as she puts it, keep me from killing Bella or myself from my own stupidity, Alice will never agree with it.
Perhaps there's a truth to the phrase the inhabitants of this state, with their strange mix of Spanish and English are so fond of using: Qué será, será.
Is there any point, really, to my fighting what Bella and I both have already decided long ago? Is there any point to my prolonging my pain? Is there any point to allowing the sadness and loss that I see and hear especially sharply in the eyes and thoughts of Alice and Esme to settle in even more deeply than it already has?
I know now more than ever that my Bella was not only mine. She was a daughter to Carlisle, a little sister to Jasper and Emmett. Especially to Emmett. She was a daughter Esme never had, one she identified most clearly with. Bella's compassion, selflessness, vivacity, and capacity to love others very much mimic Esme's. She was Alice's best friend, besides Jasper, and someone she could not have loved any more had she the two been born of the same mother. This loss is not only mine. How much longer will I let this go on? How much longer can I let this go on?
I have a begrudging suspicion that Alice is right. This has gotten way beyond ridiculous.
Now, however, I must search for absolution in stopping the being that seeks to destroy my Bella. My breath, unnecessary as it is to my survival, unlike my Bella, catches painfully in my throat. Do I have any right to call her 'my' Bella, especially after having hurt her so? Does she already belong to someone else?
I shake my head, willing the thoughts away, at least for now. Regardless of what will happen, the fact of the matter is something grave is happening. And I need to put this threat in her grave, or into whatever it is that we are interred when we cease to exist. I rummage absently through the thoughts of the humans present in this crowded bar. There are such a variety of them here. Some are older men with nothing better to do. A few are women looking for a partner, dressed to attract, smiling coyly at those they find attractive from the bar, at the corner of which I am perched. To their dismay and disgust, I do not return any of their flirtations. There is only one woman I am interested in, and she, like a few brokenhearted men mourning over lost loves, is the reason I am here, though I doubt any of them are here for the same reason I am. Very few humans—or vampires for that matter—ever choose to patronize a piano bar in search of the monster who is systematically stalking their lost love, bent on revenge, preferably by slow torture. I smirk to myself as I find the humor in the situation, much in the same way my Bella would have. If she were here. If she were with me.
Quite a few of those present are college students—several with black, Magic Marker-rendered 'X's denoting their age inscribed across their hands (according to my drivers' license, I had turned eighteen on June 20 of last year), like mine, a warning to the bartender to serve them nothing fermented on pain of is job—wanting to escape, at least temporarily, the fear of the unknown and feeling that resembles the panic that informs one that one has lost one's footing; nothing will stop to allow one to regain it. They work, flirt, drink, explore, and pray their way to finding their permanent identity, a task they find daunting in this present culture. My world was, I realize now to the credit of those present, much simpler. I can also see how this would be an ideal place to look for distraction. The sounds issuing from the makeshift stage would cause anyone's thoughts to cease, in exchange for one: something resembling "Make it stop!" How on Earth has this ever been dubbed music? I'm not even sure it deserves the appellation of 'noise'. Though several young patrons and the few music agents present agree with me on that point, they choose to 'stick out' this assault on the ears in hopes that the next person on the lineup of rock star hopefuls will be better. It's too bad my mind is not as easily numbed, my senses not as easily assuaged by hope of something better to come, nor my thoughts as easily distracted. What I told my Bella was a lie in its basest form. As if anything could ever distract me from her…
At this point, a new patron enters the bar, a tall, muscular, man with shaggy blonde hair in his mid-twenties whose thoughts are exultantly shouting. He seeks out a friend he had previously arranged to meet here, and they sit across the bar from where I am hunkered down, avoiding people as much as possible. Though the music is loud and the minds here numerous, I can hear the conversation of these comrades with perfect clarity. Through the backslapping, congratulations, and ordering of bowls of Shiner Bock Amber, Brock, as I learn he's called, recounts his newest conquest to his friend, Jon. Though seated, the man fairly struts with rooster-like pride.
Suddenly, the image of 'Vicky' flashes in his head. Her hair is a brilliant shade of red, radiant against it her pale, translucent skin and black, snug turtleneck, complemented perfectly by her tight stonewash jeans and black stiletto boots. She is, quite literally, dressed to kill. Brock's mind fixates on Vicky's face and marvel at her glowing purple eyes. The use of the contacts is very clever, I'll give her that, though how she obtained them I'll never know. Any human who saw the ruby-red eyes set in the sinisterly beautiful face of Victoria would have been suspicious. She would have had to kill the doctor who fit her with the contacts, which, judging by the mysterious disappearance of a certain ophthalmologist by the name of Dr. Vishinu J. Awary, she may well have done. Brock, as I discover is to meet Victoria in a secluded park near the capitol at ten o'clock tonight. Brock thinks that this will be the night of his life, never suspecting that it will be his last. As I get up to take my leave and begin the preparations that for that night, I hear Jon congratulate Brock. I smile ruefully as I realize that Jon has no idea that he has just congratulated Brock on signing his death warrant.