Werewolf or no werewolf, I thought I deserved to know why my parents had kept everything from me for so long. As soon as I got back to Charlie's, I ran over to the phone and angrily dialed home. I heard ringing echo over the line three times before the answering machine clicked on. Frustrated, I left a message. "Hey, it's Allison. I was digging around for pictures in mom's old room and found some…weird stuff there. Maybe you could come over for dinner or something?" I paused awkwardly, then finally hung up.
I went upstairs and flopped down on the bed, kicking my shoes off. The stress of the past couple of days was starting to get to me. My eyes fluttered shut of their own accord and I slept.
I was in the middle of a forest. The complete silence surrounding me told me I was alone. Instinctively, I knew I was in this night-darkened place for a reason. I stood completely still for a few moments, listening for any hint of my purpose here. The crushing silence endured.
I finally decided to begin moving, but before I had taken one step, I heard the crash of underbrush as someone, or something, made its way toward me. Curious, I stalked toward the noise. I quickly encountered the noise's source. It was a young woman, roughly my age, standing a few inches shorter than me with dark brown hair. I was close enough to hear her panicked breathing as she continued to crash clumsily through the underbrush in an oddly familiar way. She was directly in front of me when she stumbled. Without thinking, I caught her, preventing her from sinking completely to the ground. She stared at me with a reflection of my own eyes. I knew who she was.
"Mom?" I ventured to ask. Her wild, desperate expression became confused. Of course she would be confused, I thought. Mom was in her late teens here. I tried again. "Bella?" Her face cleared somewhat, although the painful haunted expression remained. What happened to her? Through the barely masked pain, I saw she was carefully examining my face, lingering on my eyes, exactly identical to hers.
"Who are you?" she whispered. I flashed her a smile, happy she was trying to focus on something else. She reminded me a lot of Edward, always focusing on painful things and making himself feel much worse in the end. I opened my mouth to speak, but the landscape dissolved rapidly around me. Before the dream dissolved completely, I saw realization dawn on mom's face.
I woke up with a jerk, feeling as if I'd fallen into the bed. I sat up, rubbing my temples. I'd never seen mom that…fragile. I had the distinct feeling I had yet to hear the full story. What could have happened to her to make her look like that? It's almost like someone died. I came downstairs to find mom and Charlie sitting at the dining table. I compared her to the broken person I had seen in my dream. Mom had a few more lines in her face and a few gray hairs scattered among the brown, but something made her seem younger her eighteen-year-old self. Her eyes weren't panicked and desperate, but seemed happy, laughing and smiling when she did. All of this seemed rather odd considering that, in the present, she was almost thirty years older, her daughter had recently been threatened by a vampire, and her son had begun phasing into a werewolf. That brought only one logical conclusion. Whatever had happened to her when she was eighteen must have outweighed what was happening now.
I sat on the stairs, just out of view, until I heard Charlie head to the living room, presumably to watch some game. Normally, I would consider joining him, but I had more important things on my mind at the moment. I sped down the stairs and gestured frantically to mom to come upstairs. As soon as she followed me to her old room, I crossed to the loose floorboard. I pressed a couple of the pictures I'd saved into her hands. She frowned at the first one, the one with her and dad on the couch, but had a much stronger reaction to those remaining. The other pictures were those of her and Edward in high school. The pictures slipped through her fingers and her hands starting shaking. Uh oh. Maybe I shouldn't have come off as strongly.
But she wasn't depressed. She was angry. Her fists were clenched at her sides, shaking, nails biting into her hands. I could hear a quiet string of curses run from her mouth, though nothing distinct. She finally managed to calm herself down enough to form a coherent sentence.
"Where did you find these?" she asked in a whispery hiss.
"Well I was working on my photo album when I tripped over a loose floorboard. I found all sorts of weird stuff in here," I said, opening the board and handing her the pictures and other items. Once everything was out of its hiding place and spread out in front of her, I closed the board again and sat in front of her, waiting for her to speak. We stared at each other for a long minute before I spoke.
"I know about the Cullens," I started, watching her for a reaction, "but I have the feeling something's missing. Something big." Mom sighed and sat on her old bed, patting the spot beside her. She gave a half smile when I sat down.
"Get comfortable. This might take a while," she said, "When I moved back to Forks to live with Charlie, I met Edward. Strange things started happening, things that made me decide he was anything but human."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he came out of nowhere and stopped a car with his hand." Subtle. "I found the truth about him and his family shortly after that. You obviously know that we were…dating for part of high school, although dating doesn't seem to be the right word for it. I was young and naïve, and I thought after only a few months that I'd found something that could last forever. Although he refused to change me, thinking he was protecting my soul by doing so, he gave every impression he felt the same way,"
"That spring, I was attacked by a nomad vampire and his mate," she gestured toward the prom picture, "The vampire was killed by the Cullens and I was able to enjoy a relatively uneventful summer; you know, uneventful considering my boyfriend was a vampire. I changed. I became desperate to have him change me; I was terrified of growing older. Needless to say, when my eighteenth birthday came, I was not in the mood to celebrate. But, the Cullens, Alice specifically, insisted I needed to have some sort of party." Her eyes glazed over as she presumably thought back to that day.
"Everything was fine, if slightly uncomfortable, until I cut myself on some wrapping paper. Jasper lost control and moved to attack me, but Edward pushed me out of the way, into a glass table. Everything became awkward for a few days. Then it all came to a head. Edward took me into the woods behind my house and told me him and his family was leaving…without me."
"When I insisted he was overreacting and I was coming with him, he told me he didn't want me anymore, that I wasn't good enough for him. He left and I fell apart completely. I don't mean the way normal people fall apart; I couldn't eat for a week afterward and became almost zombie-like in the following weeks and months. I even had hallucinations about him." I couldn't imagine mom ever being so weak. It was unfathomable to me that she had thrown any part of her life worth living away over some boy. She must have caught my reaction.
"I suppose this all seems silly to you doesn't it? Don't forget that I was only eighteen and I thought he was my soul mate, someone I would hopefully spend the rest of eternity with. Losing that, and hearing he didn't want me to boot, broke me emotionally."
"In January, I started seeing your father. He helped me put myself back together into something human again. We were best friends, and we became even closer after I found out his secret, but I could tell he wanted it to become something more. I wasn't ready yet. I couldn't let go of Edward, although truth be told, I wasn't trying very hard to let go. Meanwhile, the mate of the vampire the Cullens had killed was trying to find me for revenge. She figured if Edward killed her mate, her killing his would be getting even."
"Your father and the rest of the pack were forced to focus on killing the mate, Victoria. I felt more alone then, without my one comfort to talk to. Trying to induce a hallucination of Edward, I decided to go cliff diving. I stood on the edge of the cliff, reveling in the hallucinated sound of Edward's voice, getting ready to jump." She smiled slightly.
"But I never got the chance. I was in the middle of some exaggerated swan dive pose when your father pulled me back from the edge of the cliff. I started thinking about how reckless I had been acting the past few months. What would have happened if I had accidentally killed myself cliff diving? I wouldn't only be hurting myself, but everyone around me. I guess the whole incident knocked some sense into me. I finally was able to let go and just…live again."
"It wasn't long after that I finally realized I was in love with your father. I was genuinely happy for the first time since the Cullens left. The only flaw was Victoria, continuing to hunt me. Despite the best efforts of the pack, she eventually got to me, just after graduation. She took me from my room into the woods." She paused, obviously editing her story for me. I could gather what had happened from the picture of her and dad on Charlie's couch though.
"I woke up in the hospital. I found out Victoria was dead. It seemed as if my life had finally resolved itself in a way, until Carlisle walked in the room. It was the last thing I had expected to happen. Evidently, Alice had a vision of me being kidnapped by Victoria and the whole family had come to Forks as fast as they could manage. They came too late to help destroy Victoria, but they were just in time to save my life the only way I would have considered anymore."
"I suppose the old me would have broken down again, but I didn't fall back into my depression," she smiled sarcastically, "I was furious. I did manage to accept the reasoning the rest of the Cullens gave, that Edward had made them leave in order for me to have a 'clean break'." Wow, when's the last time she's used air quotes on something? Yikes.
"But I wasn't about to immediately forgive and forget with Edward, no matter how awful he professed to feel already. He told me he had left me 'for my own good'," More air quotes. "He told me he still loved me and had never stopped. I told him I didn't feel the same way anymore, using some of the exact words he had used long ago. Then I told him exactly what I'd gone through during the past nine months. It felt darkly satisfying. Cathartic. The only thing that would have felt better at that point would be punching him, but frankly I had enough broken bones already."
"After I felt he understood what I had gone through, I was able to forgive him. He couldn't stay though. He left because he couldn't handle what I'd told him yet; he couldn't accept that I'd been able to move on when he hadn't. I felt some sympathy for him, I would have felt the same way in my depression had I found him with someone else, but I knew he'd brought this upon himself. The rest of the Cullens stayed this time, if only for a short period. I could tell Edward's pain hurt them too, and they didn't want him on his own completely for too long."
"I stayed in touch with Rosalie and Alice especially, but the family wasn't a permanent fixture in my life anymore. The next time I saw Edward, after seeing him at my wedding briefly, was twelve years ago, when you met the Cullens," she looked to the ceiling and paused, a crease forming between her eyebrows.
"Odd as it may seem, I believe if he hadn't left me on my birthday, I would be one of them now…in every sense of the word," she finished.