Chapter 2: Resolve

I didn't hear anything else after that, by the time I managed to utter the words, "Edward, I'm not human!" he was gone. Having disappeared from my sight.

And I collapsed onto the ground, a gaping hole in my chest, ripping me apart.

I let out a scream of agony, so piercing, birds flew out of the woods for miles, clawing my fingers into the ground, grabbing fistfuls of dirt. Tears tumbled out and the human façade fell, and revealing my true form in the middle of the forest amidst my emotional turmoil.

Edward, the love of my life, had left.

And from what he said, he wasn't coming back.

~.~.~.

I walked around the house in a stupor for the next few days, unwilling to show my face around town, settling on ruminating over my pain in my true form.

I never knew that he would leave me just as I was about to unleash the biggest secret of my life onto him.

I had never anticipated that this love he said he had for me could vanish just as quick as it appeared.

Edward was overprotective of me—or at least he had been. It was one of the outstanding features in him that I admired with every fiber of my being.

At the same time, I had an incomprehensible hatred for it.

Every time he mentioned the fragility of humans, the gullibility, every time he came to the conclusion single handedly that I was in need of protection, I would feel a flash of indignation. Then again, I had to accept it; it was part of the human façade.

But slowly, as our relationship progressed, I grew used to his nature. I had learned to come to terms with the fact that Edward was the single most protective being on Earth.

And then again, Edward was an Adonis. He was a demi-God carved out of stone and thrown into the 1900s. He was the very essence of perfection and chivalry. And who was I but a mere human to him; a plain Jane; a wall flower; a passing fancy?

It made sense that he didn't love me anymore. We were from two different worlds in his mind. And I was just the girl with a mute mind.

I suppose it really didn't help that we were from two different worlds, just not the way the Cullens thought it was…

Jasper giving into his bloodlust when I got that paper cut was just the catalyst of this all; it had long been coming.

It didn't make sense, not in this life or the next, why Edward would have ever wanted to stay with me.

Charlie kept on buying me an endless supply of vanilla pudding and hot cheetohs, one of the human creations that I had become completely addicted to. It was strange, actually being treated like a human girl going through her first break up. Yet, if the shoe fit…

For a year, Edward had been my life. He was the center of my universe in more ways than just one. I never thought I would get over the monotony of my existence, but then, when I tried to start high school with Charlie, I immediately met five extraordinary beings.

At first, I didn't really know what they were. I had my suspicions, but I never really had a chance to interact with vampires in my life. I had never known any to take a permanent residence or join me in the human façade.

Fate had a funny way of handling things. At first when I saw the black, hateful looks the bronze haired Adonis kept sending my way, I thought he had discovered what I was; after all, I had no idea about the inner workings of his mind. It had turned out, he was just extra sensitive to the potent scent my kind carried when in our human forms.

Then, after an incident in Port Angeles, he saved me, right as I was about to unleash my wrath on some humans for trying to come after me. After that, I got some insight on the vampire named Edward Cullen.

We fell in love: quick and hard. I didn't have a chance to catch my breath as our love grew.

I just couldn't help it, every time I looked into his smoldering eyes, every time I ran my hand through his copper always-untidy hair, every time his lips quirked up into my favorite crooked smile, my heart seemed to flutter and my cheeks blush.

And he was mine, for a time at least.

Because of my stupid decision to hold off telling him I wasn't human, he lost interest in me. Whatever little bond we had going on was as irrevocably and inconceivably broken as I much as I had first thought that what we had was irrevocable and inconceivable.

Now I knew that it was every bit as fickle and imaginable as a common human relationship.

But my mind still strayed to dark places.

As I popped another hot cheetoh into my mouth and stared at the screen of my wheezing computer I entertained the horrible possibilities, Would he have stayed, had I told him what I was?

A cynical part of me, a tiny voice, whispered that he would have lost interest anyways. I wasn't that special to be the mate of Edward Cullen. I was just me, Bella—I was a single entity that could no longer hold the attention of something as perfect and viciously beautiful in everyway as a vampire, as a lion could likely mate with a common domestic house cat.

It had been a month since Edward left, and Charlie called Renee, concerned about me.

We had been getting countless calls on the phone from people all over town. Everyone asking what I was doing, and some of the messages on the answering machine was the down right rude and unsolicited advice of some of Fork's parents.

"I know Bella must be going through something, but maybe she should see a therapist if she's in so much pain over the Cullen boy."

"Hi, Chief Swan, it's Angela Webber, is Bella alright? Everyone's been asking."

Calls from the Newtons, the Mallorys, the Stanleys and Yorkies, just about everyone in Forks deemed it necessary to call their Chief to make sure his daughter was doing fine.

"No, I don't think she should join you over there, Phil still hasn't gotten approval to learn of the secret, and I really don't think he ever will with his career," Charlie said firmly.

That was one thing about being what we were. We had a series of higher positions, "desk jobs" you could say, and to tell a human that the supernatural was real, required a hell of a lot of clearance. It was practically unheard of to get approval for a human considering most Guardians, which was what Charlie and Renee were, were usually soul mates that just went through spats every now and then.

I didn't need clearance with the higher ups to tell the Cullens what we were. They were already a part of the supernatural world. So to tell them was like a vampire going up to a child of the Moon and telling them that shape shifters existed. It just wasn't that big of a deal. Of course, vampires didn't know we existed. And once they knew, we usually have to swear them to secrecy.

After all, no one wanted an overzealous vampire to see us in our true forms and decide we looked like a tasty snack.

"But it's not really good for her to be over there, and I'm perfectly capable of keeping her secret while she's over here," Renee kept on, her voice perfectly clear to my ears even though Charlie was talking to her through the phone in the kitchen.

"She refuses to throw on her human mask, Renee. She's convinced that if she had told the Cullens her secret. With all this Ache, I think the higher ups will start questioning."

Everything that they had said since then was something or other about what to do with me.

When I got tired of being spoken about in third person, I flashed down stairs, and Charlie didn't even flinch, having gotten used to seeing my blatant use of my true form.

"We're leaving," I said, my voice not quite the same as when I was human, but something like it.

Charlie turned to me, looking like the fish he usually caught with Billy Black when he didn't have to worry about me. "What are you talking about? Leave? You mean leave Forks?"

I gave a curt nod, "We need a change of location. I can't handle this town anymore, and we obviously can't risk exposing me to Phil, so we'll leave. We can start over. It's not like we can't; we have more than sufficient funds, and enough reason."

He gave a small nod of approval, told Renee, and then started arranging our affairs.

The excuse would be: "Grandpa Swan was sick and needed some extra help in the deep South, so we were moving over there permanently.

A hand gripped my heart as a thought crossed my mind. I took the keys to my truck off of the kitchen counter and mumbled a half-thought out excuse to Charlie.

Quickly, I let my body shift back into its human form, and jumped into my truck. I turned the car on, for what probably would be the last time, and made my way down the same path I had taken on the night of my birthday. My heart was pounding so hard; I thought it might jump out of my mouth.

I might've died from all the horrible scenarios my imagination was concocting; from the house vanishing as Edward had to squatters roosting in the house. I was surprised the house hadn't vanished when I arrived at the Cullen house. I walked inside, slowly, the hole in my chest wide and starting to pulse with all the reminders of a love lost.

Everything was how they had left it, but not a sign of life was present. The glass wall, the gurgling stream just off a few ways, the grand piano was gone though. Everything, except for the things that I supposed were too big to take, was gone.

I don't know what I was doing there. I must've simply stood in the living room of the house for hours without moving, but suddenly, I had the inspiration to write a letter. In case they returned for any reason. It was simple letter:

To the Cullens:

I'm not what you think I am. I'm more like you.

I. M. S.

By the time I came home, Charlie had a moving van picking up the stuff we were taking, the rest could be sold, I didn't care; as long as we left this small town with all of its festering wounds.

Charlie was leaning against the counter, checking some stuff off.

I stood by him, going over the final details of our move.

"Rich or homey?" he asked, tapping his pencil on the paper rhythmically.

"Upper middle class," I responded, used to the inquisition.

"School?"

I mulled it over. Did I want to go through school again?

On the one hand, it gave me something to work through instead of thinking about him, and it also gave me a chance to explore the school and make new friends. But on the other hand, getting a job and making myself a little older had the same benefits. I could always just pick something in the medical profession and help injured souls that way.

Pursing my lips, I answered, "We can go over that there, once we've scoped out the neighborhood."

He nodded, leaving that box blank. "Now last one, where are we off to?"

That one was clear in my head. "Anchorage, Alaska."

He paused for a second, but nodded again. "Okay then, that's the last of the tiny decisions, all that's left is to get our contact, and completely erase our tracks. I'm sure that'll be easy."

After that, he left me to my own devices.

~.~.~.

"Billy?" I asked surprised, turning around to look at the weathered old man in the wheel chair. "What are you doing here?"

Charlie was just locking up the house, leaving the keys in the mailbox for the realtor, when low-and-behold one of my Guardian's friends came up to us.

"Hey, Bella, I heard you guys were leaving," he said slowly, enunciating every word, as if in shock. He rubbed the back of his neck while he looked at us both.

I peered around him and spotted his son Jacob jogging up to join all of us, having parked his car a bit farther down the road.

Charlie intervened, before I could start an awkward conversation. "Yeah, we have some money saved up and Grandpa Swan is pretty sick so we have to go help him out some. Renee's gonna meet us up when we get to the house."

"Really? Where you moving to?" Billy asked.

I hazarded a glance at Charlie as he spoke. "Down south, we thought it'd be nice to see the sun for once. You know, don't get much of it up here."

The whole time Jacob was staring heatedly at me, as if he wanted to say something, but it was caught in his throat.

I never really got the chance to talk with him, but Charlie was always over at their house for some reason or another, watching a game or attending a bonfire. It was the social life he had built in this town. We had to keep some sort of contact with them. There were rumors that the people of La Push had some sort of spiritual background that garnered the attention of my kind.

"Is something wrong Jacob?" I asked, tucking a lock of loose brown hair behind my ear.

He seemed to have lost the struggle he was having, because right then he burst, "What are you, Bella?"

Well, crap.

All color drained out of Charlie's face as he said, "I think we had better discuss this inside. He unlocked the door, and ushered the Blacks in.

I grit my teeth, a delay in our getaway.

We sat down around the coffee table, we weren't going to take it, it wouldn't fit in with the new act we were going to put up in Anchorage.

There was a pregnant pause in which all of us were looking at each other, not knowing where to start.

Finally, after a long while, I addressed Jacob, taking note of the shadows rolling about in his eyes. "What did you see Jacob?"

A/N: Oh my! Jacob makes an entrance! What will happen now? Review please :)