At first light it was like a bullet lodged in my chest, Luc's name carved crudely in to the side of it. My tears were like blood. My body was an open wound. I raged, I wailed, I tore my hotel room apart. The broken glass glittered like starlight. Deep inside my chest I held on to the last sliver of grief, angry at the thought of parting with it. It was late in the evening when my fury finally died down, my eyes finally dried. I wrestled the remaining heartsick shard with shaky hands. And then it was done. Then, I knew the worst of it to be over.
At the hotel reception I pay extra for staying in past check-out time. Charges for damages will surely come later.
I drive for hours through the dark. Luc's ghost is like a passenger beside me and somehow I know that it always will be. Somehow I know I will always carry this part of him with me. It will make me strong. It will make me brave. I roll down the windows and turn up the stereo, long fingers clutching the wheel too tightly, wind slipping under my skin like the touch of so many cool, clean hands. The roadside is dotted with little white flowers. I sing loudly and off-key, my fingers drumming hopelessly out of time, and I smile. It feels defiant. It feels too soon to smile again; too long since I last smiled. Then I am laughing and blushing and trying to remember the exact definition of hysteria.
It takes two more songs, four more dopey smiles, and one inelegant yawn for me to close in on the town of Forks. I pull into a rest stop and turn the key in the ignition. The headlamps blink off, the stereo goes silent, the world around me plunges in to darkness. For a time all that exists is the sound of my own breath and the stunning purple sky. Spindly green vines cover the lamppost, strangle its busted globe, and grow through the length of chain-link that separates me from the wilderness. I feel a pull. I know not what it is, only that it wishes to draw me close, longs for me to wander in to those woods and never come back. I close my eyes. When I open them again I am outside the van, white-knuckled hands gripping the rail of the fence. It's like sleep walking. It's like a siren's song born of the trees and whispered to the wind. Then I hear it: my name. The sound is hollow, like an echo, as though it only exists in my mind. Then louder, more insistent. Then it is there, behind me, and as real as the gravel at my feet.
"It's good to see you again."
I close my eyes expecting to wake up. I do not. Instead, when I turn to face him he is standing far too close, his hazy shadow smothering my entire body. I whisper his name. It is a question more than a greeting and the fear it holds makes him smile. He delights in my dread. For the first time since meeting him I am able to truly reconcile what Jasper is with the way he treats me. He is a predator. This is predatory. Without the numbness to douse my fear I am left to wonder if his civility will always transcend his hunger. It seems cruel that even now his smile makes my chest ache, makes my knees weak. His eyes are enough to set the sky on fire, to deafen me with the roar of the flames.
So his companions went unnoticed.
They stand on either side of him, a few steps back, a comfortable distance. The woman—more beautiful than Bella; the man—more intimidating than Jasper. I mumble some sort of greeting, the words stumble over my lips, taste bitter with fear, and hang dead in the air. Be brave. You were brave once: when he had his lips on yours, when he clutched you in his hands. I square my shoulders. I raise my chin. Each gesture is, I am sure, as transparent as it is futile. Cold air draws shakily into my lungs and when I finally find the strength to speak he silences me by taking my hand in his, twining my fingers in his own.
He eases me forward. He draws back his hand. "I'd like you to meet some people."
Flawless. Each curve and dip of her body, every length of hair, every scrap of skin has been chosen with an artist's eye, moulded with a master's hands. Rosalie is such an alluring apparition that she makes my stomach twist in to knots, and my palms greasy with sweat. She is undoubtedly the most stunning, most unnatural creature I have ever laid eyes upon. I want her to speak. I want her to smile. She appears likely to do neither.
Even next to her the brute with the boyish smile is captivating. He is a giant, a behemoth. He is a colossal wall of twitching muscle and I do not know how his skin manages to hold it all inside. I do not think Emmett is a mind-reader, but when I imagine him crushing my skull in his hands he smiles a little wider, dimples frame his thin lips.
"It's nice to meet you." I say, but it comes out in a stutter.
I edge towards the van. Cold, nervous sweat trickles down my spine, dampens my rigid neck. There is no deception to my escape attempt, no practised nonchalance, and when my gaze sweeps back to Jasper his usually stoic features seem pinched. I am not so deluded as to believe that what I see there is concern. It is offence. For which of my crimes against courtesy I am not sure. I do not care. He asks if I am on my way to see Bella. I nod.
"And where are you three headed?" I reach the van and pull open the door.
"Why?" Emmett's smile draws up on one side. "Offering us a lift?"
No. I climb inside, I close the door.
The siblings speak softly, quickly, privately. Wind whistles and wails, hides their whispers from my ears, and whips at the little white blossoms lining the road. Their petals pull, their stems strain. The whispers stop. Turning to me, the behemoth waves his farewell with a sort of mock salute. I sigh in relief, raise my arm to copy the gesture. Before my hand can return to the wheel I register the sound of the passenger door, feel the bench seat depress. I keep my eyes on the trees, on the chain-link fence, anywhere but on the creature beside me. We pull out of the rest stop. We edge on to the road. We carve our way through the night.
When I open my mouth there is no sound but the wind. My eyes pinch closed and my throat clenches as I try to swallow the persistent lump lodged within. It freezes, and burns, and cuts like crushed ice. I choke it down. My eyes water. Remember when it was easy. The muddy dress, the ruined book, your legs brushing against his. The courteous killer. I take one deep breath, then another, then one more as I replay that afternoon in my mind. And that is how I think of him: in long silences perfectly punctuated with pointed teeth.
"Scheherazade."
"Scheherazade?"
"Your story," he says, "ever think you'll get around to telling it?"
There was a bargain struck. My story for my safety. "You asked me what was in Seattle, I told you: my family. You wanted a story so I gave you one. I told you the big things, the important things. What more could there possibly be?"
When I fix my eyes on him I expect to see a smirk, hear a laugh. But there is no condescension, there is only his steady gaze locked on mine. Something about that shames me. I assume the worst because of what he is, assume I must to stay alive. Be cautious, be careful.
"But that wasn't really your story, was it?" He possesses an insight humans are incapable of. My heart beats in my throat, makes me sweaty and faint. "I know what it means to have your life defined by someone else. That story was about your brother. That story is over."
I should cry. I should scream. I should slam on the brakes and beat my fists against the wheel but all I do is sigh.
"Tell me," he continues, "the first thing you did—first decision you made—that had absolutely nothing to do with him."
It should be easy. There should be one million answers, one million memories, one million little things that Luc didn't touch. But when he drew breath my brother was my world.
"I'll be sure to tell you when I do."
I have wasted my life thinking I was half of a person, half of a pair, half of something whose value is only as a whole. But I can no longer be burdened by my brothers greatness. I can no longer live as his shadow.
The beast at my side is cool and still like stone, ashy and pale against the purple night. Tender and terrifying as it suits him. Catching his eye is easy, catching my breath is not. I apologise for being rude, for trying to flee from his friendly introductions. A ghost of a smile. A trace of amusement. Behind his curt nod is a genuine acceptance. It pecks me to pieces and stitches me back together, washes my guilt away.
"And about the other day..." I remember the heat in my chest, his breath on my neck. As foolish as it was I would do it all again.
He tells me that I have nothing else to apologise for. We continue our journey in perfectly imperfect silence.
Light cuts through the wall of glass, barely concealed by papery blinds. The room I have awoken in is familiar. Similar but not the same. Edward's room. His couch replaced by a bed: broad but plain. An attempt by Bella to make me 'feel at home', give me 'my own space'. I wonder how long she thinks I will stay.
When I arrived the previous night I had only the time to turn off the van and pull my keys from the ignition before I was wrapped up in Bella's stony embrace. She scolded me in a mothers voice, stroked my hair with a mothers touch. Guided in to the main house under her sheltering wing, I soon noticed the masculine simplicity of Edward's former room had been transformed. I didn't comment. Folded in her arms, I cried myself to sleep.
Teeth clean. Hair tidy. A fleeting glance in the mirror. If I look any longer I will see his face, and there could be no crueller thing than that. I distract myself by folding the bedroom blinds neatly, pushing the windows open wide. Sun covers my face and heats my skin: brown and warm behind a tight, cold smile.
There's a rumbling like thunder, a laugh, and a growl that draw my attention downward. Three impossible creatures grapple in the tall grass. Shimmering skin. Stretching shadows. They run at each other with arms like masts, teeth bared like snarling hounds. Then they drive their hands into each others bodies. Over and over. A punch, a push, pummelling each other in a savage stream of fists. Emmett is stronger. Jasper is faster. Edward is three moves ahead. They crash together in violent waves, slam into the dirt, and begin again. The brutal display makes my heartbeat throb in the tips of my fingers. I press them to my lips. It feels like a half-remembered kiss, an imagined surrender. I keep my eyes closed tight until the feeling stops. It stops too soon. When I look again the ashen figures are gone.
There is a knock at the door. The sound is so soft it seems almost imagined. It opens to reveal Bella wearing a faded shirt and torn jeans like a costume. Nothing from her old life suits her newly crafted skin. "Come downstairs," she says, her voice a sublime invitation.
The family sit around the living room. They are each folded neatly in to the furniture, posed like mannequins. Their beautiful, bloodless bodies make me ache.
"Tea, dear?" Esme asks, her voice as soft as the consoling smile she wears. I nod and take a seat at her side, waiting for the inevitable consolation. She does not disappoint. "We're all very sorry to hear about your brother."
This is where I should thank her. For the tea, for the room, for her kindness. But I don't. There is nothing affable or courteous left inside me. All I am is rotten and ruined.
"It occurs to me," I say, "that there must be a price. What exactly does it cost me to know your secret?" The question hangs crooked in the air, unsightly and strange against the pristine walls of their home.
I wring my hands, grind my teeth.
When the doctor finally speaks his voice is a sombre, distant sigh. "Not quite so much as it once did." A truth he seems resigned to. "It's a long tale," Carlisle tells me, "even for those of us unhindered by time." He embroiders his story with a cheery romanticism it scarcely deserves; an undead government, shadowy enforcers, the conception of an impossible child, and a narrowly avoided war. This story—Bella's story—is terrifying. None of them seem to notice. "Of course, these days our family is afforded a little... lenience."
My head throbs. I pull at my hair with both hands. Here I am in a straw house, flicking matches at the wall. If I say the wrong thing now I could set this place ablaze. "And why is that?" There it is. The smouldering ruin of my human curiosity.
Edward twitches, ticks, and shifts his eyes. Where his family is perfectly impassive, he is a tornado . "My sister," he says, "Alice."
