-JASMINE-

How do you mourn your own death?

I was only seventeen, and I had been trying to figure that out for months.

The problem was, I wasn't truly dead. Sure, my heart no longer beat, and I could hold my breath forever if I wanted to, but I wasn't dead. I had a body, one that could be torn and hurt. I had a mind, one that was filled with memories from a past life that truly wasn't all that long ago.

Was I really mourning my death, or the loss of a life I never got to live?

These were the thoughts I had while I laid on the living room floor, listening to Edward play the piano. I had no idea what song he was playing, but it was slow and pretty. A lackadaisical melody to go with my wandering thoughts.

"Carefully," Edward whispered. I let my head loll to the side, watching him play. He moved along with his music, his shoulders swaying back and forth, his head bent over his keys. I almost wasn't sure that he had spoken, he looked so focused on his playing. "You mourn yourself carefully, so it doesn't consume you."

I liked to paint the faces of my family. It kept them fresh in my mind. We were a small family, but we had been close.

My dad still wore the same Coke-bottle glasses he had been wearing since before I was born. They sat on the bridge of his nose, too big for his long, thin face. But the contrast was nice, familiar. Dad's glasses stole the show, since he kept his hair cropped short and his face clean-shaven. The rims were silver, striking in their contrast against his dark skin.

Mom's mane of hair, the earthy brown struck through with gray. Before I became a vampire, I was trying to grow out my natural hair to be as long as my mother's. Hers tumbled down her back, all of those curls moving fluidly with her. My own hair would forever hover around my shoulders.

My older brother, Adrian, who I was convinced was the coolest person ever. He was the reason I pierced my own nose, just a few months before my life changed, because I was jealous of his own golden hoop.

I painted them over and over. I had a whole collection of my family's faces—hell, I probably could have opened an entire gallery with them. This was the only way I could think of to keep their faces from fading. Everything from my human life was fading away. Everything. I wasn't going to let them fade away, too.

You would think that living with a mind reader would be annoying. That's what Edward could do, read minds. Apparently, some vampires get extra powers on top of being a vampire. Carlisle called them 'gifted'. Two of Edward's siblings were gifted, too. Alice could see the future; Jasper could feel and manipulate the emotions of others.

But, anyway, Edward's mind reading. You would think it would be annoying, but it actually kind of came in handy. He knew when to leave me alone, based on my thoughts, and I appreciated that. He was surprisingly not nosey at all, even though he could hear every thought inside your head.

"If I ignore it enough, it's just a buzz in the back of my mind," he explained to me. "If I want to listen, I just pay better attention. Most of the time I don't want to listen—especially around Rosalie and Emmett."

He shuddered for effect when he told me that. Even with the snow swirling all around us, I knew he wasn't cold, because I wasn't cold. Well, I was, but it didn't bother me like it would have if I had been a human girl sitting on the roof in the middle of the night in Alaska. But I wasn't.

I picked up a handful of snow. It didn't even melt in my palm. Using my finger, I carved a J into the little snow pile.

"I think I would hate it," I admitted. "I can't even block things out that aren't in my head."

Here's the terrible thing about becoming a vampire in the modern age: Google. The Internet was something I had grown up with, but now I could see it the way that my grandmother used to. It was an evil, ever-present thing. How easy it was for me to open a web browser on a laptop, or my phone.

How easy it was to type in my own name. Jasmine Collins.

How easy it was to read news articles about myself or watch news clips of my family making pleas for my safe return. Hearing your own name wrenched out of your mother's mouth that way really does things to you.

It tore me up from the inside out. I couldn't even cry about it, because apparently vampires don't produce tears. My eyes just stung, and my throat became raw from my dry sobs.

I didn't bother to say any of that out loud, knowing Edward would see it in my mind as clearly as I did.

"How did you stand it?" I asked him after a long silence.

"I didn't. Both of my parents preceded me in death."

Preceded me in death. I couldn't help the smirk that tugged at my lips. Of all the Cullens, my new family, Edward and Carlisle were the two who were most stereotypically 'vampire'. Both of them were more formal than the others. Jasper had his moments where he lapsed into more formal speech, but it was nothing like Edward and Carlisle.

"You were an orphan?" I peeked over at him. Already, it had been almost a year since everything had happened with Maria. I wasn't sad at all to see her go, but transitioning from her newborn army to a family made me realize just how frozen in time we were.

Not once had Edward needed to cut his unkept copper hair. Even now, a lock flopped lazily across his forehead, falling into one of his golden eyes. He flicked it out of the way with his hand.

"Perhaps for about an hour, I could be considered an orphan. My father passed first—Edward Masen Sr. I was named for him. My mother, Elizabeth, was next. We were all suffering from the Spanish Influenza. I had a fever so high that I didn't realize the burn of Carlisle's venom was anything different from the hell I was already in for a whole day. My mother…she asked Carlisle to change me, to make me like him. I don't know how she had puzzled out what he was, but she was desperately trying to take care of me, still."

His face was softer when he talked about his mother. "I can't even remember her face. Sometimes I envy you. Electricity was still a luxury for quite a few people in 1918. I would give anything to be able to look up her name and see her face, the way you can."

"Don't bother." I pushed myself up. Me and Edward had our own house, next door to Maisie and Jasper's. Lining my toes up with the edge of the roof, I raised my arms. "It sounds like a great thing, but trust me, it blows."

I let myself fall forward. The air whizzed by me on the short fall; I landed in a snowbank along the house. It cushioned me and slowed my fall so I didn't crash against the ground.

"I'll give that an eight out of ten."

Edward was instantly by my side, extending a hand to help me up. He was so fast, probably because he was technically the youngest. Edward was smaller than his brothers, Jasper and Emmett. His youth showed in the curve of his cheeks, in his crooked smile.

"It would have been more impressive if I had actually hit the ground." I let Edward take my hand.

"I don't know, I think it deserves a nine at least. More style would have bumped it up to a ten." We both turned at the sound of Emmett's voice. He punched Edward in the shoulder when he reached us, Rosalie and Alice trailing behind him.

Emmett gave me a hug and Alice pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. Rosalie, though, held back. She didn't like me, but that was okay. I didn't like her, either. She was colder than the Alaskan weather and always had been toward me.

"You guys ready to celebrate our little changeling tomorrow?" I felt my eyebrows bunch together. Emmett and Rosalie were living in New York City, attending NYU. Alice had taken it upon herself to have a 'gap' year and travel around Europe. Had they really come to Alaska just for Maisie's birthday?

"How has she been?" Alice asked, her large eyes flicking across our yard to Jasper and Maisie's house. "I have a feeling she lies to me."

Edward held the back door open as we all filed in. "She does. I think only Jasper really knows how bad it can be on her. By the end of the second week, she aches so badly it's all she can think about. Carlisle agrees with me that she should shorten the time between drinking, but we all know Maisie's stubborn."

Maisie was clinging to her humanity, and I couldn't blame her. I watched Alice shake her head, letting a duffel bag slide from her shoulder. For the first time, I noticed the two suitcases Emmett held in one of his huge hands.

"Are they coming here tomorrow?" I tried to ask Edward quietly. Maisie had to drink human blood; an animal blood substitution would do no good for her. Even with the blood in sealed bags, inside the refrigerator, I couldn't stand to be in their house just for the smell of it.

"Yes. We've got it all planned." Even as he spoke, Alice and Rosalie were flitting around our living room with decorations.

I couldn't decide if I liked Maisie or not. She was stubborn, like Edward had said. Half the time, she only had eyes for Jasper—she was always fawning over him. Hell, I wasn't sure I liked Jasper either. He was always tense around me. I knew he was waiting for me to slip up. But if I were being very honest, I would have to admit that it had less to do with them and more to do with me.

Maisie was still human, whether she drank blood or not. She was still aging, as evidenced by this birthday party. Her body changed—it was subtle, but the blood-supplemented diet had caused her to gain a little weight. Maisie still had a menstrual cycle, and her skin could bruise and tear and repair itself without leaving thick, ugly corded scars.

Jasper's scars were a constant reminder of what he was, of where he had come from. In another life, he had been Maria's second in command. He had suffered the same abuse from her, and maybe that should have made us bond, but it didn't. Not when his eyes always followed me, his muscles coiled and ready should I become too weak and go after Maisie. Not that I would; she had a heartbeat, but she smelled like a vampire.

"Jasmine!" Alice's bright voice pulled me out of my dark thoughts. "Come help us!"

I knew I couldn't return to my family, no matter how often I opened Google or Facebook to keep memorizing their faces.

The Cullens were my only choice, but I wasn't so sure I fit in.

A/N: Look at me putting out a chapter a day after saying not to expect consistent updates. I'm trying to get as much out as I can before I get super busy!

Anyway, Jasmine is still a bit of enigma for me. Beginning to flesh her out has been fun, but I'm honestly not sure where she's going to help lead this story. I hope y'all are enjoying the change in perspectives each chapter, it's been really fun to write this way!