Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or the characters and this is just a re-interpretation of her work.
I rolled over in bed, throwing my arm out to hit the alarm clock that signalled the beginning of another day.
Another day alone.
They were gone.
All of them, gone.
It had been two weeks. Two weeks since Edward took me out into the woods and told me the entire family was leaving Forks, without me.
I stood there in shock as he broke my heart and when he left I sat down in the dirt and stared at the greenery around me.
'Not good enough,' he had said. 'A distraction,' he had called me.
I knew I should get up and go back towards the house, but I couldn't seem to make myself move. They left me here. How? How could they leave without so much as a goodbye?
Emmett and Alice had always treated me like a sister. They made me believe they loved me. Clearly I was wrong. They were merely trying to be nice to Edward's human pet. They could never have left me like this if they really loved me.
Edward had told me about mates once, and I realized as I sat on the cold, hard ground that I wasn't his like he had claimed. He wouldn't have left me if I was his mate. He couldn't have. He never said mates couldn't be separated, but it was fairly obvious. Wherever Rosalie went, Emmet went. The same with Jasper and Alice. Even when they were on the run from a murderous vampire, the mated pairs stayed together. But not Edward and I, I realized with a jolt.
I could feel my ire begin to rise as the sun began to set. He told me he loved me. He told me he would never leave. He told me I was special. Clearly, he had lied. I focused on channeling my anger into the effort to pull myself from the forest floor and headed back towards the house. Charlie was just arriving home from a long shift when I walked in the back door.
I leaned against the counter as Charlie grabbed a beer from the fridge, and stood, staring off at a point on the wall where the paint was starting to chip.
"You alright, Bells?" he asked after taking a swig of his Vitamin R. I turned my gaze to meet him and I knew he was worried by the scrunch in his nose and the frown on his face.
"They're gone, all of them," I said dumbly and continued my perusal of the paint on the opposite wall.
"Who's gone, Bells... What are you talking about?"
"The Cullens. They're all gone. Edward came over after school and broke up with me. He said the rest of the family had already left."
Charlie frowned even harder and I knew I would be laughing at the face if I wasn't so upset.
"I'm sorry kiddo, that's mighty rude of them to just up and leave like that and not let Alice and Emmett say goodbye. I haven't heard a thing about them moving, and that kind of thing usually gets around in a small town like this."
I nodded in agreement. It was rude to up and leave, but I couldn't tell him they had chosen to leave me because they didn't care anymore. He would probably try to shoot them, immortal or not.
Charlie gave me a pat on the shoulder and told me I could stay home from school for a few days to "deal with my feelings".
Two weeks went by and I never returned to Forks High. The truth was that school had no appeal now that the Cullens were gone. I had become so wrapped up in them that I lost most of my other friends and I couldn't bare to start over again.
Not only that, but I didn't want to deal with the inevitable barrage of questions that would occur if I returned. Why did they leave? Where did they go? Will they come back? Did you breakup? What was I supposed to say? I couldn't explain the supernatural reasons that my ex-boyfriend and his family had left and I was an abysmal liar.
After the first couple of days at home I began to research to see if there was a way I could graduate early. Luck was in my favor, as my numerous AP classes I had taken in Arizona made me eligible for early graduation as long as I passed some competency tests required by the state. So that was what I planned to do: take my tests in the next week and get my diploma.
Charlie and Renee were a little worried about my response to the Cullens leaving, but seemed grateful that it had pushed me into a productive phase instead of a catatonic depression like some people seemed to expect from me.
I knew people thought I was devastated at the loss of Edward, and I let them believe that. I couldn't explain that really it was the loss of an entire way of life that had rocked me to my core.
After a week I realized that I didn't need the Cullens to fulfill my dreams of becoming a vampire. Edward had told me of the Volturi and their rules, ones he had obviously had no compunction of breaking. He let me, a human, know about the existence of vampires, and if they knew that they would either change me or kill me.
The idea of going to Volterra thrilled me, but it came with a big risk. They could easily decide to kill me. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought the risk may be worth it. If I stayed here, danger would eventually find me. Besides being a danger magnet, I knew Laurent and Victoria were still out there.
When the Cullens killed James they insisted that Laurent and Victoria were not a threat and wouldn't come after me. I wasn't so sure anymore. Clearly Edward had no qualms about lying to me for his own convenience, so why wouldn't he have lied about this to save him the trouble? No, the more I mulled over it, the more I became convinced that I needed to leave Forks to protect Charlie and those I loved.
I was going to take a gap year and travel across Europe, or at least that's what I told Renee and Charlie. Grandma Marie had left me quite the inheritance, and this was just the occasion to use it. I would go on a tour of Europe and if I just happened to end up in Volterra, well, what a coincidence that would be.
I knew I had to avoid making any final decisions, in case Alice was still checking on my future. Though I doubted that she was, surely she never could have left me that way if she cared about me.
It was time to take my destiny in my own two hands.
I would miss Renee and Charlie, but they had chosen their lives and now it was time for me to live mine.