I have spent the first few weeks of this summer vacation trying to follow Alice's advice to stay busy and to lose myself in reading. Besides, it is easier to escape into the pages of a book than to be fully in the present, even if the literature I have chosen panics me.

Most days and nights find me curled up in the corner of my closet reading and trying to forget the feelings I have for her and the enduring shame over what I have done. Everyone feels too close and my room feels too large. I feel safer in the smaller space somehow.

Alice's suggestion to understand more about the female perspective has started to make sense to me. I find myself needing to discover more contemporary ideas of feminism. The last I even vaguely registered the notion was some 30 years ago, and of course it was with my trademark derision. Reading with a little humility may allow me to better understand some of what I missed.

I know nothing of women, despite being surrounded by them. I have learnt so very little despite having lived long past a lifetime. I have dedicated myself to reclusion, and have thought the voices surrounding me as to be no more than the bothersome whine of mosquitoes. I know nothing because I have been solely devoted to sequestering myself in an ivory tower, in hopes of ensuring I never be threatened by encountering ideas that contradicted my own.

Now I am an anachronism, a veritable bonsai tree of personal growth, root bound and warped. I have not grown since 1918 and I find the world around me much changed and myself without any place within it.

As yet, I don't know the concerns of those around me, and I fear I would collapse if I threw myself out into public in my current state. Reading is some small step I can take in seclusion to find out. Even merely that leaves me feeling raw and off balance. I am scared of books. Books!

I suppose I am scared of discovering just how wrong I have been. Most likely a warranted fear.

A/N: Please leave a review! High time Edward updated his views on women AMIRITE?

Just a reminder that Edward cannot continue being so atrocious to everyone indefinitely. It is time he ate some humble pie. He will come back to you in his trademark Bonerward/Prudeward style, but he needs to have a difficult adolescence first. Thanks for bearing with him.

I plan on uploading the chapters without comedy in batches so that those who are here for the laughs aren't too alienated by the tonal change and can whizz through them. I sincerely hope you will fall in love with him on the other side of all of this. The only way out is through.

Thanks to the creative, kind and funny wh1teow1 for being the best beta for this story please show some love and read Moirai, a reimagining of Twilight for the new decade!