Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now...
Every single letter was opened. The envelopes torn open carelessly to see what else was left to say. I had been thinking that there were no words left, that we ha said them all. I was always surprised, of course. The letters never varied in length, always a two or three paragraphs. Each one growing more and more angry, as if everything was my fault.
Every single letter was thrown out. Crumpled up as carelessly as the envelopes had been opened and tossed into the recycling bin, never looked at, never read again. Every single line, every single word had a hidden message about a boy that loved a girl. I wasn t oblivious to that, but I was ignorant. I hadn t left Forks only to receive countless letters from my past, I had left Forks to leave my past in the past.
I don t remember the days leading up to the day that I packed my belongings and left, only bits and pieces of what I could only assume would be the most horrible and excruciating week of my entire existence. I knew that even if I did live forever, nothing would ever be able to compete with that amount of pain, with the extent of emotional wounds I had received.
I remember the day that caused that pain perfectly, of course. As if life after that day wasn t going to be unbearable enough, I had to remember exactly what caused everything in my world to crumble to pieces.
It was raining, just like it usually always is in Forks, Washington. Jake refused to go to the front door of the cottage. Instead, he honked the horn, the windshield wipers beating rapidly against the glass in an attempt to battle the rain while I ran outside with a sweater over my head in attempt to protect myself from the downpour.
I hadn t even made it to his car, for he was already standing in front of me. His large hands gripping my upper arms gently in an attempt to stop me from running into him. The moment I tore my eyes from the drenched, muddy driveway to look up at him, I knew something wasn t right.
According to him, things hadn t been right for a long time. He explained to me that although an imprint promises a bond that can never be broken, that doesn t guarantee a relationship. That our relationship, only six months old, wasn t what he had been expecting.
He had been expecting fireworks every single moment that we were together. Much like the fireworks that I saw each time I looked up at him. He was wanting those butterflies in his stomach, the same butterflies I got in mine every single time he touched me.
I had no idea that during our time together, I was the only one seeing sparks fly every time that he smiled. I had no idea that he was wanting something more. Something that wasn t me.
I didn t bother to listen to anything after that, I was too busy thanking the rain for hiding my tears. He wouldn t suspect weakness with rain drops already streaming down my face. I wasn t sure why I was crying. Was it because I was angry at everyone around me for failing to explain imprints properly? Was it because I was mad at the werewolves for telling me I was, and always would be with Jacob? Was it at myself for believing that in this horror-story life I lived, a fairytale was possible?
Anything he said after that was simply lost on me. My body had shut down so effectively, I barely remember watching him drive away. I barely remember standing there, staring at the empty driveway as my parents called to be from the dry front porch, or my father rushing out to wrap a coat around my drenched body before leading me inside.
I stayed in bed for a week, though it only felt like a day. I knew I hadn t slept at all, I could feel it. It was a constant battle just to keep my eyes awake, but I knew that if I closed them I d forget. I d drift off into a peaceful sleep where I was still his, and the rain wasn t beating against my window. I d be somewhere where I was happy again, and the moment that I woke up my heart would break all over again.
I was thankful to have such an amazing father. I had always been closer to him than my mother. She had always had a problem with her best friend and he daughter falling in love with each other, whereas my father had learned to accept it as it happened.
I didn t remember him sitting beside my bed through the night, but I remember feeling him there. Just his presence, watching over me. I wasn t sure if he was there just to keep me company or to make sure that nothing else tried to hurt me more than I already was. Either way, I knew he was there.
I also remember the sound of my mothers feet against the hardwood floor just outside of my bedroom door. Pacing back and forth frantically as if the hours were just seconds to her. I guess in a way they were. Time passed differently for beings like us.
She was angry, angry at Jacob. Angry for letting him close enough to break my heart, much like my father had done to her years ago. Things had worked out for them, but I just knew that it wasn t going to be the same for me. I wouldn t have a happy ending.
I knew my parents thought the exact same thing. I could hear my mother each day explaining to each family member that if Jacob ever attempted to contact me, that she would kill him herself. I knew that wasn t likely, but the fact that I actually kind of enjoyed the visual was enough proof to know that things weren t ever going to be okay.
The seventh or eighth day was when I simply had enough. My body ached from laying in the same position for so long. My stomach was completely empty, begging me to give it something to work with. I had no tears left, I had cried them all. I was simply exhausted and in no way looking to spend anymore time than necessary in Forks.
As a child, I had never done anything as daring as stealing my father s credit card, but it was necessary. I didn t have money of my own, my family provided me with everything I ever needed as I grew up. Because of that, a job was never necessary, though I knew it surely would have come in handy when needing to escape the life I found myself in.
I knew it wouldn t take a single member of my large family very long to track me down, if one would call it that. The resources at my family s fingertips would be eerie to anyone outside of the family. To me, it was completely ordinary. The chief of police in Forks was my grandfather. My other grandfather was the world s greatest (and technically oldest) doctor. That wasn t even bringing into consideration the talented beings that my family could hire with their unlimited supply of money, or the fact that their unique abilities could easily keep tabs on me. My father s ability to read minds, Jasper s ability to feel emotions. Alice s visions couldn t find me, but that didn t mean that I was invisible.
I wish I was.
I had made it to my destination when they had caught up with me, I had arrived in New Orleans only an hour before they had. I had been expecting them to be irate with me. I was expecting the most horrible of punishments, though all I received were hugs and kisses from the most important people in my life. I received support, that s something I ll never forget.
I knew I had surely worried everyone by leaving. I hadn t moved from my bed for an entire week only to have them check in on me one morning and find me gone. Gone without a note, without a call without an explanation.
Instead of scolding me and dragging me back to my own, personal hell, my family had packed up their lives to help me start a new one. My mind was set on New Orleans and wherever I was, they were. As if dropping everything and leaving everything behind was as simple as switching classes in high school. As if everything back in Forks was unimportant.
My family didn t settle for two separate houses like we had done in Forks. My parents no longer had a small cottage of their own. Instead, we all shared one large house. I was happier like that, I m sure everyone aside myself could see that, too.
I was able to spend time with each individual member of my family rather than just my two incredible parents.
Spending time with Jasper wasn t a regular thing, but it was something I enjoyed. The two of us had never been extremely close, I always assumed that for some reason or another he hated me. It wasn t until later in my life I was told he wasn t being hostile, just cautious. That I still smelled like a human, that he was just trying to control himself until he was used to my unique scent. Unlike vampires, I still had blood pumping in my veins, I still had a beating heart that called out to him.
Time with my uncle Jasper consisted of the most normal, average activities. A lot of the time I would just sit at the large dining room table with him, staring at the chess board between us while I tried to memorize each skilled move that my uncle made. He had decades of practice whereas I only had a few months. I was determined to beat him. Someday.
Emmett and I spent our time together playing any type of sport out in the large back yard, or watching them on the flat screen in the living room. My three favourites were hockey, baseball and basketball. I always envied the girls that got up to sing the national anthem before every game.
Rosalie had taken time out of her day to teach me about cars. I was amazed at just how much she knew; cars were always a guy topic in my mind. I was taught how to hotwire a car, how to fix simple, common things that were more than likely to happen to me sometime in my long life and so forth.
My grandparents were amazing, as always. Esme enjoyed baking ever since she had gotten to know that the werewolves enjoyed (and needed) to eat so much, and ever since I had been pushed onto a human food diet. Carlisle enjoyed reading to me, even after I had grown up. Every single night he read to me, things from pieces in ancient medical volumes to classic novels that he adored. That was something I hoped that would never change.
The time I spent with myself was used to focus on the one wish I made for myself. In Forks, when things were so much different, when I was happy, I used to wish on rare four leaf clovers that Jacob and I would always be together. In New Orleans, the clouds didn t hide the sky. I began wishing on shooting stars that I could be somebody. Anybody.
Perhaps that was why I had picked up the guitar that my parents had given me for my sixth birthday only a year ago. Perhaps that was why I taught myself how to play by reading every word of material I could find on the Google search online.
I had gotten so caught up in witting and playing music that I was able to forget the girl I used to be, and the girl I knew I would eventually be. I was able to become someone else, someone that everyone looked up to, someone that everyone wanted to be.
That sparked a lot of additional time spent with my father and Alice, of course. My father was a musical genius. After I had perfected the guitar, he had taken the time to assist me in moving on to the piano which was evidently his specialty.
My mother never got directly involved because music wasn t her strong point, but she watched and praised me like every mother would, but when I had decided to take everything a step further and make a demo CD of my own, she was there beside me. Accompanying me to studios like the proud mother that she knew she would always be. She was my rock, in every sense.
I felt like I was cheating the world. I didn t need voice coaching, I didn t need make up or fancy outfits. That was one of the benefits of being half vampire. I had an equally as alluring voice as my parents, equally as flawless features. I was one hundred and thirteen pounds and stood at 5 11 ; clearly getting my height from my father. My hair was a bright auburn and fell in thick , perfect curls down my back. My eyes that had once been as brown as my mothers in her human days had changed through my growth. Turning a brownish shade of green, to a bright green (much like my fathers when he was human) and eventually to blue. The color that his biological fathers eyes had been.
I was perfect, in their eyes.
I started out playing in coffee shops and local family pubs during the day. My style was so casual that people automatically knew that I was originally a small town girl. I d always wear my favourite blue jeans with the holes in the knees and some sort of t-shirt or another. A pair of sneakers on my feet, I didn t need to look any taller than I was.
The more I played, the more I got recognized in those small places. The more I got recognized, the more I was talked about, and the more I was talked about, the more I was invited to perform in other places. Places like nightclubs, carnivals I even got to sing the national anthem at he beginning of a Yankee s game. Emmett was never more proud of me. He had a field day with that one, literally.
Alice had a field day with this, naturally. With every person that said yes to me, Alice had yet more opportunities to create art of her own. Art in the form of luxurious dresses and various other forms of clothing for me with the computer programs that she and Rosalie had invested in.
Alice had wanted to create the clothing herself, she certainly had the money to do so, though always sent them off to friends of hers. Friends that worked for Gucci, Dior and other various designers.
Things were going amazing. I had been in and out of the studio for a few months now, constantly recording songs that I had written both the lyrics and the music to for my first debut CD. The music wasn t really like anything popular today, I was still just a small town girl with a guitar.
My band became my family away from home. Amos who played the bass, Mike on banjo and Paul and Grant who are both guitarists. Al on drums and Caitlin on the fiddle while Elizabeth worked the back up vocals. Out of all of them, I was truly the closest with Amos, Grant, Liz and Caitlin. They were my very human, very amazing best friends that had no idea what my family was. I adored it that way. I adored being normal.
They adored the bonds that we all formed, as well. Each and every single one of them were beyond spoiled, much more spoiled than any other band in the entire universe. They never had to dip into their own funds for clothing for Alice was having too big of a field day designing everyone s clothing. My father enjoyed spoiling each one of them with new and improved instruments whenever he felt the need to go out and do so. Transportation wasn t even an issue for the label, my family had invested in a (small0 private jet.
Our songs were on the radio, we were performing all of the time. Everything was taken care of. Everything was going perfectly.
Well, aside from the letters I received daily from Jacob The letters that were crumpled up and multiplying in numbers in the recycling bag. I had only replied to one of them, hoping it would be enough closure for him. After I had left everything, my past included, in Forks, I hadn t bothered to look back. My cell phone had been disconnected and every single letter tossed out. I knew I was still a small town girl, but I was no longer Jacob s small town girl.
Like all of the rest, I simply tossed the letter into the recycling. Everything written inside was old news. The only difference was the tone of each letter. Sometimes they were begging me to write back, other times they were begging for forgiveness. The rare times I could notice his growing frustration that eventually turned into him lashing out at me.
Jacob had a nasty habit of threatening to harm himself or toss himself into harms way in order to get what he wanted. He was persistent and determined like that.
My mother had told me during the days when Victoria hunted them all down, Jacob threatened to let her kill him should my mother not admit her non-existing feelings for him. It was no different with me. Countless times when we fought he would swear up and down that he was going patrolling and would make certain he wouldn t come back. That he d let a vampire have the upper hand. Other times he would threaten to go cliff diving and hit the shallow end instead of the deep waters. He never did any of these things, of course. Jacob had always been all talk.
It was evident that that didn t change, and if that didn t change, nothing else did.
Authors Note: For those of you who didn't already pick up on it, my version of Renesmee Cullen is based on my favorite gal in the entire world: Taylor Swift. I actually own a Twilight-themed role playing website in which Taylor Swift is the celebrity portrayal of Renesmee. Photoshop altering to her hair to make her a gorgeous red head. I couldn't resist bringing that aspect of her into a fanfiction. You can view my version of Renesmee by viewing my profile picture.