Chapter 1: Parting

Time passed since the last time. I wasn't sure how much of it; days or months or weeks. I was somehow sure that I could have ruled out the passage of years because of my throat's flame. This burn was familiar, a marker. It had been weeks, more than a month but less than two. In that time, I had not fed.

My name is Edward Cullen, and I am a monster. You needn't believe me, nor will I attempt to prove it to you. The fact of the matter is that there are laws that govern my kind. They do not prevent me killing the likes of you, but they do prevent us from proving that we exist in any tenable way. For now, you must simply treat these pros as a piece of fiction, while I assure you, every word of my story here is as true as I can honestly be.

I am a vampire, as I have been since the day of my death, when I was within the seventeenth year of my human life. The change was not something I care to relive. The most apt description I can impart is that it is akin to having your entire body become one solid mass of cancer that you can feel killing you. Your nerves firing, sending constant, inexorable pain while you are claustrophobically trapped within your own corpse, completely unable to move yet completely aware and awake. It is a rule of thumb that the length of your transition is directly proportional to how much you take to vampirism. My adopted sister Rosalie took nearly five days to shift. My transition took twenty seven hours. Whilst that might seem preferable, the pain I endured in that span was the same as Rose's, condensed and concentrated into the smaller time frame. It was the first time that I longed for true death in my unlife.

Alas, I can procrastinate no longer and must continue with my intended tale. As I stated plainly, I am a monster, and as such, I have done many monstrous things. While I ardently wish to partake in this endeavor without any illusion about what I am and what I have done, that isn't to say that such a course is tread with an easy and light heart. It is not a simple act to bare one's soul, more so when that soul may be irrevocably damned in the most literal sense. But, I shall do all that I can to trod on and do so without needless delay.

I approached my current home, just outside the town of Helena, Montana, unsure what I would find there. It was a nice home, the nicest of the two we kept in town since we had first passed through back in 1947. It was before Alice had joined our family and Esme had wanted to assist with the revelation of a local chapel that had been damaged in an earthquake some years before. Carlisle could deny her nothing, and we had stayed, much to my boredom. Rose had Emmett to keep her entertained, and I… did not.

It was the dead of night as I approached the house, and as it was, there was no telling who would be there. I could be meeting all of my family or none of them. I had not given them any indication when I would return from my little trip. I wouldn't need to. Alice would have known and given them warning, if it had been necessary. But mostly, I hadn't known when I would return. I didn't want to risk giving them a time and date and then arriving early or late. Any deviation felt like failure and I already knew what they thought of me. There was no way that I could endure any more disappointment and I didn't want to burden them with any more of my own shortcomings. But, in truth, I was failing.

I was determined to stay, yet I knew what was asked of me, what restrictions were now in place. I had been doing my best to fulfill them. No humans would meet their end by my hands, nor would I go anywhere near the… the town of Forks. I would be the most dutiful son, for what else could I be, now? My family needed protecting after all. However, in truth there was still one big issue hanging over my head, a single problem that I was doing my best to ignore, hoping they wouldn't notice.

I came to the house and found that it was not empty. Well, in truth it was, for the sole person in the vicinity was on the porch. Carlisle waited for me. His mind was clear, unperturbed, his entire focus on my approach, deconstructing and accessing every detail of what his senses brought to him as I arrived.

"Carlisle," I spoke even before he could see me. "Be at ease. It's me."

The words were unnecessary but appreciated. I was, after all, the companion who had spent the most years with my adoptive father. He knew my approach better than anyone, as clear to him as his thoughts were to me.

"Edward," he said in greeting and nothing more.

I eased into view on the lawn. For a vampire, I was just out of easy striking range, and I stayed there, exclusively for his comfort.

"What is it?" I asked, starting to feel concerned. "What has happened?"

His thoughts were almost completely absent in a way I couldn't understand, had never experienced before. It was as if his words came from some other source. All I was getting from his mind was that he loved me.

Emotions were not a medium that my ability took into account. I could see through another's eyes and hear through their ears. I could hear their internal monologue and share their mind's eye. I could feel what they felt on their skin, what they smelt and tasted, but when it came to their emotions, I didn't feel them as they did, like my brother Jasper. I could tell they were feeling a given emotion, but I was deaf to its magnitude, its sincerity. Their pain didn't hurt me, nor did their joy fill my heart. I could not partake in his love for me any more than he could my worry that I was feeling now.

"Nothing of which you are unaware," he said simply and again, nothing more. "His patience, as ever, exceeded mine."

"What is it?" I asked, terribly afraid for reasons I was almost unwilling to admit to myself.

"My son," he said, his words heavy, a load he was more than willing and able to bear, "for some time, you have been walking a path that no other member of this family has chosen to walk. We all knew it and loved you away, love you still, in point of fact."

He smiled at me, "You have walked that path too long. No longer can I stand by and let you continue to walk it with my aid. Until you learn to walk a different one, you will not benefit from this family."

He produced a wallet and a phone.

"I grant you these," he said. "A way to reach me, should you need it, and an international credit card, for basic necessities, to dissuade you from living outside of society's norms."

He needn't add that he wanted me to refrain from adding more sins to my ledger. I knew it already.

"You're casting me out," I stated flatly.

His smile was equal parts kindly and painful.

"I'm no longer enabling you, Son," he said. "You have made a choice that has gone against my beliefs as to what is right and moral in this world. We both know it. Now, I must make my own choice. What you do next is up to you."

With a casual flick of his wrist, the wallet and cellphone flew to me. For the time it took for them to arrive, I considered letting them fall. I caught each in turn.

"I will monitor the card," he said. "If you abuse it, the card will be cancelled."

Just so that we are clear.

He waited for me to leave.

I felt as though I had gained four hundred and seventy thousand tons of weight. He wanted me to leave? Truly?

"I am doing all that you ask of me," I said, conviction deep within my words. "I have not killed any humans, none at all. Can you not smell the animal blood upon me?"

At last, Carlisle looked sad. After a few moments, he settled himself back to a more neutral expression.

"I love you," Edward. "You know it better than anyone. But there is a difference between unconditional acceptance and unconditional tolerance. I have hoped that you would find a way to live that made you happy while you lived here, but you have chosen not to."

He knew. He knew that I had not fed. I had tried, really, I had. But that putrid stinking fetid slop could not make it past my teeth with me vomiting it back out again.

"I don't know any other way to live!" I cried.

His sadness returned and I felt wretched. Was he not the most sterling example?

That is when I felt it, when I knew it. I was at odds with myself. I believed that the way Carlisle lived was the best way, the most moral way, and yet I did not live like he did. I was an exception, to this way of life, to this family. In a family of outcasts, I was one twice removed.

"Where is Alice?" I couldn't help but ask. "The others?"

He shook his head, "Not here."

It wasn't all that hard for me to figure out why. Jasper would be less than helpful. At best he would put me in a state in which I would be willing to go only to be doubly hurt once out of range of his influence. Emmett really only had two tools at his disposal; unrefined humor and joyous combat. Neither would be of help here. Rosalie would only have made all matters worse. Esme… she couldn't be here for this. She would likely be crying vampire tears, was likely doing so at this moment, trying her best to remain where she was and not trying to win me back.

I swallowed. She was why he hadn't done this sooner. She loved me like a son and would do all she could to keep me near. She could no longer do so.

But Alice… she would be nothing but a benefit here! She would know what would happen, what needed to happen.

My eyes found Carlisle's, and knowing filled his as pain filled mine.

"Alice," I whispered.

"You leave," he said. "If any of the others were here, it would be a struggle at first, but in all cases, you leave. You can do whatever you want to, Edward, except stay. You can always come back, but only when you are ready."

I wanted to rage. I wanted to spit venomous defiance in my father's face. I wanted to hate him for all that he had said that night, all that he had done. I wanted to rend and sunder this house, an icon of our family and what he valued so much, so much more than me.

And yet…

I wanted to weep. I wanted to castigate myself before him, pledge my fealty and my service to him, beg him for a place at his side, confess that I knew nothing without his love and would find only failure should I be parted with him and those that I yet loved in this world.

I did neither of those things.

Instead, I said so that only he might hear, even should a vampire be eavesdropping, "This will be the death of me."

I had lost everything that I had believed mattered to me. And then, I lost everything that I thought impossible to lose. I had nothing else.

His shoulders rose in tension, then just as quickly relaxed.

"That," he said lightly, evenly, fully, "is up to you, my son."

I flew upwards. It was the only direction he could not follow, for he had not the gift I did. I arced through the night, coming to land somewhere in the town's limits. I had not aimed with any sort of intent other than to be away, but any who knew me would have said otherwise.

I leapt and kept leaping. But my intention became clear enough to myself soon enough.

Traveling with such leaping flight allowed me to move faster than one might think, backed by vampire strength and my skill at conserving my momentum. I could travel in minutes what it would take cars hours to traverse. And traverse I did, crossing state lines like they were counties, and finally going to the last place I should be.

I landed not far from her home. I had not been here for quite some time, not since she had bid me not to return here at night. I should have known then that this end was nigh. Why else would such a stipulation be necessary?

I stepped to the porch and held up a hand. I could feel the humming buzz of power that prevented a vampire from entering uninvited. As though I needed more evidence that nothing had changed!

I went to the eaves outside her window, hanging so that I might see her in her bed. I prayed for one last moment, one last gift from her, a token that I might hang in my heart to sustain me, to stave off our inevitable and eternal parting for as long as possible. God, I was a fool.

"No," Bella murmured in her sleep. "No, Edward. Don't. Please. Don't."

The horror I felt was short lived. At that moment I was nearly leveled, once again, I was floored. A reticle of red light, a pinprick of deadly intent, appeared on the window before me, the photons continuing through, ending their trajectory upon Bella.

I twisted, my arm straining beyond the range of any human arm as I turned. In the span of that nearly instantaneous motion, the laser sight had tracked to me, shining directly into my right eye. I dropped and moved with all the haste of a vampire in fear of his existence, and the bead was maintained. I froze.

Only a vampire could have tracked my motion, and only one that knew which direction I would go would have done so with such precision. I turned and mouthed, "Alice."

There was no waver, no indication whatever that she had noticed my communication. I tracked the laser to a spot on the mountain, just on the ridge, a location which I could never hope to get to before someone with Alice's talent could evade me. The laser whipped to one side and I just barely caught the muzzle flash. Something bit through the least amount of flesh over the top edge of my forearm without catching bone, the bullet hitting the ground around the edge of the house. The sight returned to my eye.

I frowned. Alice was here to protect Bella. Why? I wasn't going to harm her. As my thoughts snarled, I went around the house to retrieve the bullet, as much out of habit as anything. Leave no evidence behind was our habitual mantra. I was halfway to the bullet when I froze.

Bella!

Her scent was old, but only a few hours old. It was no weaker than it had ever been, and I was halfway to the window before the second shot hit me.

I went down hard. The house was now behind me, so Alice had placed the shot so that it did not pass through me, impacting my hip. I lay upon the ground, out of Bella's scent, and clear enough. I bolted, heading away from the house as fast as I could. What had I been thinking, believing that I was capable of being close to her without even considering what I had done to her!? Alice had been right to protect her. I had been wrong to go there. I would never come back again.