I got home as the suns rays hit the tops of the buildings. I was met by a joyous Lucky who did a running leap into my arms. He licked my face happily as I let him outside.
I sat on the blue chaise in my room and turned on a CD. The music was familiar and comforting, it helped me think.
I wouldn't say I felt at home talking to Julian's family, but I didn't feel like an outsider either. This wasn't my family, but I supposed it could be. I'd be like the crazy adopted sister, whose eating habits were different from the rest of the families – a lot like the years Carlisle had lived with the Volturi. I could feel accepted. If we won this battle, I'd have a place to live for the next few hundred years, with familiar faces to welcome me home. I didn't have to be alone.
Suddenly, the forgotten hole in my chest started to fester. It twitched almost painfully, as I wrapped my arms around my middle and fell to the floor.
I knew why – I was replacing my family. The Cullens seemed less than a dream, less than a faint memory. Julian's family was here, right now, and they wanted me with them.
I was forgetting them, slowly but surely. Their faces mixed together in foggy patterns as I tried to remember them from my mundane human memory. The only sure face that still stood out was…
Edward.
His face rose to the surface, perfectly formed. I would never forget his face.
After all the years I had spent at Anne's, doing my best to forget him, I knew I never could. I remembered the promise I had made to myself, to live for the person I loved.
Here in New York, fighting a turf war with vampires resembling a burgeoning Volturi government didn't seem like something he would want me mixed up in.
This put a new perspective to the trouble I was getting myself into. If I were to be killed in this battle, this stupid fight over someone else hunting grounds, I would never be able to see him. Never again.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that if I wandered enough, and lived long enough, someday I might see him.
I picture it now, the surprise in his face as he first saw me and took in what I had become. He'd see how beautiful I was, and all that I had gone through just to get to where I was now. He'd take one or two short steps, before closing the distance quickly. He'd lift me up into his arms and…
"He doesn't want you anymore," I said aloud. This shocked of hearing the words aloud pulled me out of my day dream. All of my thoughts of the Cullens vanished as I again thought of the promise I had made.
I had been adopted by a new family. I would grow to love them just like the Cullens.
I would fight with them, however; I would run if I had to. I would not die for a war that up until a few days ago had nothing to do with me. After that, I would decide what to do. That's all that I could plan for – to survive.