I tried to keep the truck at a reasonable speed. After all, she had trusted me enough to allow me behind the wheel. It wasn't too hard however, considering it couldn't accelerate over 65 mph. I kept my left hand on the wheel at all times, but I kept my right hand on my heart. Bella. Our hands were intertwined between us on the seat. I was euphoric. There were no words to describe how I felt at this moment. I never imagined I would find a counter part in this world, and here she was, one hundred years in my future. I hardly focused on the road; I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I allowed my eyes to trace her shape, to drink in her coloring. Her coffee colored eyes would occasionally rotate in my direction, our eyes would meet and she would look away quickly like a shy schoolgirl. Her actions made me smile, and I looked out the car window. Everything was in Technicolor now. I began to notice the different shades of green in the trees; the sky was bluer than I could ever remember. My world was a better place with Bella in it. The open window filled the cab with her floral scent that I inhaled deeply and my heart began to sing. I reached for the ancient radio knob and clicked it on, cranking it to the oldies station and stumbled upon Nat King Cole crooning the tune Mona Lisa, and before I knew it I began to sing along.
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you. You're so like the lady with the mystic smile. Is it only cause you're lonely they have blamed you? For that Mona Lisa strangeness in your smile? Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa? Or is this your way to hide a broken heart? Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep. They just lie there and they die there. Are you warm; are you real, Mona Lisa? Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art? Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa? Or is this your way to hide a broken heart? Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep. They just lie there and they die there. Are you warm; are you real, Mona Lisa? Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art? Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa.
"You like fifties music?" She asked me.
"Music in the fifties was good," I chuckled. "Much better than the sixties or the seventies. Ugh!" I groaned remembering all of the hippie nonsense. "The eighties were bearable."
"Are you ever going to tell me how old you are?" She continued to interrogate me. How would I explain to her that I was older than any living relative that she had ever known?
"Does it matter much?" I smiled at her in an attempt to avoid answering her question.
"No, but I still wonder…" Her voice trailed off. "There's nothing like and unsolved mystery to keep you up at night."
"I wonder if it will upset you." I reflected aloud. I looked away from her and out the window, observing the position of the sun. It was setting and the day would soon come to an end. How would she react knowing that I had lived a whole century without her? Would she understand? Would the notion intimidate her? We didn't speak, and sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Try me." She said, breaking the silence.
Hadn't she ever heard the phrase, curiosity killed the cat? Yet I indulged her prying. I sighed deeply, and looked into her chocolate eyes. They were sweet, encouraging and yearning for knowledge. I knew I would be at her mercy. I wouldn't be able to tell her no. I didn't want to see the look on her face when I told her. I didn't want to be disappointed, and I most certainly wouldn't be able to handle the look on her face when she realized what I really was. And then I spoke.
"I was born in Chicago in 1901." I stopped and peered at her reaction from the corner of my eyes investigating whether or not I should continue. Her face was calm and patient. I couldn't help but let a smile creep across my lips when I realized she wasn't going to leap from the moving vehicle in terror. "Carlisle found me in a hospital in the summer of 1918. I was seventeen, and dying of the Spanish influenza." I stopped as she gasped. Had I said the wrong thing? I looked into her eyes again. They held nothing but care and concern for me, so I continued still. "I don't remember it well – it was a very long time ago, and human memories fade." I stopped and stayed quiet for a little while. I didn't want her to think all human memories faded. I wasn't a complete monster. I remembered many things about my human life. I remembered my parents. My mother's copper hair set in curls, and the pink floral hat she wore to church and my father's small black round spectacles he wore on the end of his nose when he read the paper.
"I do remember how it felt, when Carlisle saved me. It's not an easy thing, not something you could forget." I muttered darkly.
"Your parents?" Bella asked.
"They had already died from the disease. I was alone. That was why he chose me. In all the chaos of the epidemic, no one would ever realize I was gone." I remembered when my father died. I was too ill to have any very last memories of my mother before she passed, but I remembered when she fell ill. It was shortly after my father passed. She had been a mess for a little over a day, crying over my father's passing. There was nothing I could do to console her. I remained at her side, bringing her warm tea and soups. Then she began to have headaches, followed by a high fever and chills. She had a horrible cough, was too dizzy to stand, and I knew she needed see a doctor. I was so concerned about her; I failed to notice my own symptoms until it was too late. And then there was Carlisle.
"How did he … save you?" Bella inquired. How would I explain to her that what Carlisle did for me was the most horrifying thing I had ever experienced? I had to choose my terms very carefully before I spoke.
"It was difficult. Not many of us have the restraint necessary to accomplish it. But Carlisle has always been the most humane, the most compassionate of all of us… I don't think you could find his equal throughout all of history…" I paused to take a deep breath, remembering the excruciating feeling. "For me, it was merely very, very painful." At that I pursed my lips together and that's all I was willing to divulge. I could tell she had more questions by the way she fidgeted about in her seat, yet she respected my body language and did not pry further. As I continued to observe her squirm, I decided I would pacify her curiosity with a small amount of information, to ease her spinning mind. After all I didn't want her to assume wrong and I didn't want her to think poorly of Carlisle.
"He acted from loneliness. That's usually the reason behind the choice. I was the first in Carlisle's family, though he found Esme soon after. She fell from a cliff. They brought her straight to the hospital morgue, though, somehow, her heart was still beating."
"So you must be dying, then, to become…" Her voice trailed off. She had yet to say the word vampire, like she was afraid it would send me flying off into the sky like a bat.
"No, that's just Carlisle," I continued, my answer practically finishing her question for her. "He would never do that to someone who had another choice. It is easier though, if the blood is weak." Or at least that was what Carlisle had told me anyway. I looked down the road. I had told her too much. I could feel my features turning solemn.
"And Emmett and Rosalie?" He question rang through the cab of the truck.
"Carlisle brought Rosalie to our family next." I answered, remembering that fateful day. "I didn't realize till much later that he was hoping she would be to me what Esme was to him – he was careful with his thoughts around me. But she was never more than a sister." The thought of being with Rosalie cause me to roll my eyes in disgust. I cared for her like a sibling but she knew how to push me over the edge. "It was only two years later that she found Emmett. She was hunting – we were in Appalachia at the time – and found a bear about to finish him off. She carried him back to Carlisle, more than a hundred miles, afraid she wouldn't be able to do it herself. I'm only beginning to guess how difficult that journey was for her." I said, my eyes meeting Bella's eyes. I picked up our clasped hands and brushed the back of mine gently down her intrigued face.
"But she made it." Bella said quickly breaking my gaze. I could tell that I truly did dazzle her.
"Yes, she saw something in his face that made her strong enough. And they've been together ever since. Sometimes they live separately form us, as a married couple. But the younger we pretend to be, the longer we can stay in any given place. Forks seemed perfect, so we enrolled in high school." I couldn't stifle another small laugh. "I suppose we'll have to go to their wedding in a few years, again." I stressed the "we'll". Hopefully she caught on to it. I couldn't imagine doing anything from this point on with out Bella at my side.
"Alice and Jasper?" She asked.
"Alice and Jasper are to very rare creatures." I began. "They both developed a conscience, as we refer to it, with no outside guidance. Jasper belonged to another… family, a very different kind of family. He became depressed, and he wandered on his own. Alice found him." I pictured Alice's memory of finding Jasper in my mind. She was sitting at a counter in a small diner, Jasper entered and she hoped off of her stool, took him by the hand, and that was history. "Like me, she has certain gifts above and beyond the norm for our kind."
"Really?" Bella interrupted my story with a look of wonder in her eyes. "But you said you were the only one who could hear people's thoughts."
"That's true. She knows other things. She sees things- things that might happen, things that are coming. But it's very subjective. The future isn't set in stone. Things change." I saw Alice's vision again. Bella's blood red eyes. Bella as a vampire. Not as long as I was around to stop it. I felt my jaw lock up with hostility.