All your base are belong to Stephenie Meyer.

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Alaska

I didn't get in the car right away. I calmed myself first, and filled my growling stomach with water from the bathroom tap. My heart beat like a rabbit's - up to 325 beats per minute, I'd read somewhere - and it took several deep breaths before I could even trust myself to walk down the stairs without vertigo.

Given all this, it was irresponsible of me to try to drive home. I had to get there somehow, though, so I kicked my truck into gear and made my way slowly to the closest gas station to eat something. After that I could only drive home while my brain resumed working.

Alaska, it said, over and over. You should have figured it out long ago. Where else would they go that it'd be so overcast, and Carlisle could still practice medicine with an American degree? It had to be the US. There's no point in moving to Europe just to get away from you. That last one stung. I tried to shake the internal dialogue and focus on the road instead, but my mind went on: Besides, he can't run from you forever. But if he doesn't want to be around me, how can I justify following him at all? Alice obviously left you a clue so you'd follow it, my brain replied to that. My decision to leave for Alaska was obviously not up for negotiation. In a way it was a relief: the imperative to get to Alaska as quickly as possible was too strong to argue with, and in a way that left my moral considerations out of it. I would have to deal with the aftermath afterwards, but I was willing to do so if it meant I would be free of the uncertainty about how it really was. I had to know if there was a way to fix things with Edward, and if Alice really had wanted to leave. If she had ever, in fact, considered us friends. I had to get there right now, just to square things with anyone I could.

I would have gone straight to Seattle if I had thought I had the strength for the journey right away. The sensible part of me knew better: it told me I would need preparations, no matter how summerly it was up there. My plan was forming already. I would roll up my necessary clothes in a bag (I'd read that the military packed clothes that way; it made better use of space), buy a plane ticket, eat well before leaving and perhaps sleep on the plane. It felt like I could rest now, that I had a goal and a purpose again. There was no telling how long my sense of purpose would last, of course; maybe I would get there and find they had left again, leaving no more clues for me to follow. After all, even if Alice had seen me find the note only to do the most obvious thing, she might have changed her mind later... Or she had left it there on a whim, but with what little I knew of her gift it seemed unlikely that she could do anything without seeing the consequences. Something about that didn't seem right, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I tried to jump out of the car after I'd parked in our driveway, but ended up stumbling awkwardly instead. My legs felt weak. I felt dizzy. I decided to eat first, then pack. Inside I met another obstacle: my father. I hadn't even thought about what I would say to him. Hi, Dad. I'm just going to Alaska to find my ex who didn't want me because I disobeyed him. You won't have a problem with that even though I'm still underage, right? I didn't say that. Instead I said: "Hi... Dad," to which he gave an absent nod. He didn't seem very interested in being around me anymore, probably because I was thin and ugly... What a horrible thing to think! I reprimanded myself silently. Charlie had ducked into the living room before I had finished thinking that, which somehow felt even more like rejection. I went to the kitchen, quietly telling myself that I was being silly and that my father still loved me, although he was even more awkward than I in terms of dealing with emotions. Neither of my parents were great at that, I reflected while pouring milk into a glass. That must be why I responded so impulsively to feelings, although I was fairly rational in other matters. I cooked and ate something - possibly oatmeal - while lost in thought. What did this imply about my relationship with Edward? Could it be why he left me without so much as a good-bye, instead of because I had risked my life by confronting another vampire. It occured to me that I had never thought much about why, mostly because it had been too painful to think about. I had just surmised that he'd meant what he said about holding me responsible for it if anything happened to me and done so when something did happen to me; and that, with his possessiveness toward me, he had been jealous of James in a vampiric sort of keep-off-my-food kind of way. It had been strongly implied from the beginning that the reason he cared about me at all was that I smelled better to him than anyone else ever had, and that he felt protective of me because his code of ethics compelled him to. If he had been like James, he would just have eaten me and been done with it. Since he wasn't like James, he found some way to care too much about my well-being to hurt me - and I never knew how he accomplished that, it must have seemed impossible, but with his supernaturally strong willpower he had done it.

I walked upstairs as I tried to think about this. So, had he left me because I was a poor girlfriend? It made sense, in a way, but then why didn't he leave me sooner? I got to my room, but couldn't find the resolve to pack right away. I had to think, and to rest. I felt more tired than I ever had in my life. I crawled into bed with my clothes on and went out like a light.

When I woke up the next day, I felt more rested than I could remember feeling. The alarm clock said it was just over 1 in the afternoon. I rose out of bed with renewed strength.

In the kitchen I found a note from Charlie, saying he'd gone fishing with Billy and was planning to stay over at the reservation so they could go fishing again early in the morning. Well, that's convenient, I thought. It was odd how things were just falling into place once I knew what to do. Maybe Alice had seen that, too? I didn't think she would have "invited" me to come on my own if she hadn't been known - at least with some probability - that it would be safe. But I could think about her strange gift later, if I wanted; now I just wanted to get going. Three cups of camomille tea later, because I couldn't bring myself to force my stomach to work right after the weird mixture of foods I'd given it yesterday, I went to my room to pack. I found hiking boots in the attic, no doubt Renee's, but still usable. I showered and found my laptop, which Edward had given me back when I saw how much my old computer slowed me down, which in turn explained why I hadn't used it since last March. I hesitated before hitting "order" on the airline's webpage: while I had been pleasantly surprised to find I had nearly 10.000 dollars in my account, having thought I'd spent more of it on gas and books, I realized I was uncertain whether I could buy a plane ticket for myself being under eighteen. I was too used to doing things myself, I just rarely considered it at all relevant that I was not yet eighteen.

After a bit of hand-wringing, I decided to chance it. I couldn't use Charlie's credit card details, although I'd memorized them in case he lost his card. There was the option of driving - through Canada. Problem was (1) it was probably too far for my truck, (2) I had trouble with road maps - although I was fine with regular maps - and (3) there was no telling what I'd need to prepare for on that hypothetical trip. I didn't know how much food I'd need to bring or what to do if I snowed in while driving over the montains. Maybe I'd run into more red-eyed vampires on the way - I was absurd that vampires' diets should change their eye color, animals had just as red blood as humans did - and it wasn't like I knew the whereabouts of James' friends or whether they would feel at all friendly toward me after what the Cullens did to their leader; and they were hardly the only ones out there. In the end I ordered a plane ticket to Juneau over the phone, which probably meant Charlie would have an easy time tracking me since I wasn't taking the phone with me, but hey. He had been a cop for thirty years, I doubted anything could keep him from finding his daughter if he wanted to. I only wished I'd had that same ability when it came to Edward.

By the time I boarded the plane, I had been through multiple checks. In the last minute I had thought of forging Renee's signature, and that probably saved me. On the plane I found that I was unable to sleep and went through the downloads of ebooks on my laptop instead. Then I suppose I fell asleep anyway, because a flight attendant woke me up and told me I needed to leave the plane, which was almost empty.

In the fresh air outside the airport I felt like I could think clearly again. I was tired - my sleep debt had gathered over months, and there was just no way a couple fairly good nights of sleep could make up for it - but renewed. Closer to Edward, at the very least closer to Alice. I knew roughly what direction to go to get to Denali from where I was - that was where I'd heard mention of the Cullens having vampire "relatives". I didn't know how to get there. I didn't think I could rent a car, even if I forged my mother's signature again, and even my conscience had limits. I couldn't afford to buy a car, not one that could take me from Juneau to Denali and maybe longer, anyway. Maybe I should have flown to Anchoage instead, but then I'd have had to wait one more day and that was out of the question. So much for being prepared.

Dizziness reminded me that I hadn't eaten in awhile. I ate, bought some more food to take with me, and eventually decided to take the first train or bus going north and just keep it up until I neared Denali National Park. Once there, however, what would I do? Wing it again? I supposed a national park was a good place to live if you were a vampire feeding on animals instead of people, but that didn't exactly help me with my current problem. How would I find them? Just go in and shout? More likely to draw humans than vampires.

I put the problem out of my mind and went to find the train station. I would have time to deal with it later. I had to find Edward; I would find a way. I just couldn't think of Edward right now, because doing so reminded me that he had left me, which was a thought so intensely painful that I had been trying to suppress it for months and I could not deal with it just yet. Not until I knew.

The train to Anchorage took several hours. I tried to put Edward and Alice and all the others out of my mind the way I was used to, by reading intently, but it turned out not to be so easy. I felt sure I was drawing closer to them with every minute, and though there were a number of interesting textbooks and too-old-for-copyright ebooks on my laptop I had a hard time not bouncing up and down in my seat for excitement. Maybe you'll see them again today already, I tried not to tell myself. Or tomorrow, for sure tomorrow. I had lost track of time: the midnight sun glowed on the horizon, and that was day enough for me. On the platform in Anchorage I almost fell over with exhaustion.