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A/N: This used to be part of a much longer chapter that I broke down. It's a little short, but it was the best part for a break.
Chapter Three
We left Chicago for New York City, partly because Carlisle knew how Edward and I favored city life, partly because he favored it himself. In large cities, it was easier for him to stay longer than he might in a small town, and if he were forced to, he could move to another neighborhood or borough with little fear of being recognized or remembered.
It was almost like being in Chicago again. We lived in Brooklyn in the middle of a row of brownstone townhouses in an upper-class neighborhood; we made quick trips to the Catskills or the Adirondacks whenever we needed to hunt. Fortunately, Brooklyn was also unusually sunless that year, so we even continued to revel in being able to leave the house during the day.
So life went on for us. Carlisle spent his nights at the hospital while Edward and I tried to pass the time as best we could. Sometimes we argued for hours as we struggled to compose a single piece of music on which we could never quite agree; mostly, however, we ended up reading, translating and memorizing every book we owned into every language we knew. When we ran out of books, though, we sat silently, our thoughts focused on Carlisle's, six blocks away at the hospital.
We were at peace with this cruel existence of ours. It was a fragile peace, as fragile as the humans we could so easily hunt, yet we were determined to protect it, just as we were determined to protect the humans from ourselves.
And in return, it shattered into shards of dust at our feet.