Disclaimer: None of the characters or core plots in this story are the property of the author and no copy write infringement is intended. I do not own the books Twilight or New Moon, nor do I own the film Little Miss Sunshine or the poem The Tyger.
When I pushed the door open, the smell of antique books filled my senses. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of books filled shelves surrounding the room with the scents of aging paper and fading ink; this reminded me so strongly of Carlisle's office at home that I had to force myself to walk forwards and not run from the painful familiarity. Somehow keeping this small struggle entirely internal I moved to sit in a red leather chair across a large wooden desk from Kate. She was of course beautiful but it was not an obtrusive beauty, or the sort that could faze me now. Her hair was brown, in a distinctly light shade thankfully, falling in a straight wall behind her shoulders, and ending a few inches lower. Her features were small and soft fitting in well with the narrow shape of her face. If she had been about a foot taller, she would have been in constant danger of being mistaken for the latest wave of European models, modeling elegant clothes on the pages of one of Rosalie's glossy magazines.
She closed the book she had been reading, a collection of poems by William Blake, and looked at me with a distinctly worried expression. "Edward," she paused trying to word things right. I tried to leave her alone in her mind. "Edward," she began again, this time with more conviction, "I'm very worried about you." "That much is apparent." I shocked myself with my insolent tone. This was going to be harder than I thought. This new empty Edward that was steadily emerging wasn't very good with apologies apparently. A beat passed as I sat dumbly with my mouth open trying to figure out how to correct my mistake.
"I'm sorry Kate, I didn't mean to…" "Forget it," she held up a palm, "We all say things we don't mean sometimes." I took a deep breath and began. "I came to apologize to you." "What for?" she questioned looking genuinely confused. "I'm going through a… rough time right now." I grimaced at the inadequacy of the words. "I know you can tell and I'm sorry that it's affecting you. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know." I looked down at my hands in my lap. Her voice was quiet when she finally responded, "What happened?" I opened my mouth angrily to protest; this wasn't a story I wanted to tell to anyone, ever. But I stopped myself. If Kate was feeling even part of the anguish that I was (which she had certainly appeared to be when I arrived), then she deserved an explanation. I owed it to her.
"I had to end….a relationship with someone I was very close to." As hard as I was trying to be kind, my voice still came out like steel. She looked taken aback, "You mean to say that you weren't … injured? I mean physically?" I couldn't find the strength to answer aloud so I just shook my head. "I see." Her tone made it very clear that she didn't. "Could you possibly… explain things a little better?" I could tell that Kate was being very careful to let me know with her voice and manner that she was sympathetic but finding one more person who couldn't understand certainly didn't help my state of mind. I considered talking to her, telling her everything. But I quickly dismissed the idea. What would it solve? What could it change but the addition of weight on my conscience that would undoubtedly come from placing such worries on innocent shoulders? "I don't think I could…right now." "I understand." She spoke softly again. I knew that she didn't but the lie was appreciated.
After a moment of silence I sensed that she was uncomfortable. I glanced up and saw her gazing at a clock mounted on the wall to my right. "I'm sorry I'm keeping you." My voice had a slight edge in it though I fought to keep it out. Apparently I had lost all self control in the transition to New Edward too. "It's no problem, I just need to run a few errands before your parents arrive and the shops in town close soon…" I didn't even need to listen to her mind to clearly see her thoughts written on her face. She clearly pitied me and thought that if she stayed I would open up and spill my story. I was glad that I had kept my story to myself. It was bitter of me but I realized I was beginning to dislike Kate. With every sympathetic glance my respect for her drained. New Edward had retained his sense of pride. "I'm fine actually, you go ahead." I raised my chin a bit as I stared her down. "Alright then," she allowed giving me a puzzled look, "I should be back in about an hour and then…" I cut her off, "we can talk. Right?" "yes…" She stood almost dazedly and crossed to the door. "Help yourself to a book, and let Eleazar know if you need anything…goodbye." I felt a small sense of relief when she was gone.
I wasn't as shocked at my new attitude towards Kate as I should have been. In that moment the way I saw it, I had no use for someone who thought they had the answers. For me, there were no answers. Kate had seen a lot of suffering, but I was willing to bet almost anything that she had yet to feel anything to the degree I was feeling it. Maybe that was stupid of me. Maybe I was right. It didn't matter anyway. i Why yes Kate, I think I will help myself to a book /i I thought savagely, grabbing up the volume she had been reading and opening it to a random page. In some recess of my mind I noted that my pain was slightly lessened now. I resolved to remember this incident and to test the theory that anger could be a new addition to my list of distractions.
I looked down at small worn hardback and found myself presented with a poem by William Blake (not surprising considering the fact that I was holding a compilation of his greatest works). I had memorized most of his more popular works long ago but something pushed me to read on anyway…
i The Tyger
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes!
On what wings dare he aspire?
Wht the hand, dare seize the fire?
What shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears;
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? /i
I lowered the book into my lap gently; I sat very still. That I had opened that book, to that poem, in that moment clearly spoke of the workings of a higher power. Someone was obviously trying to tell me something. I was, of course, the tiger. Beautiful and dreaded; stalking through the darkness. I wondered as Blake undoubtedly had, what sort of being would create something so dark along with a world of things so pure. I found myself, as I was so often lately, back at the beginning, wondering why I was alive… dead… why I i was /i at all. Rather than harping on how very tired I was of having questions and no answers, I took the frustration and pain as a small penance for my great many sins.
In this sort of submission I sat for a time. I allowed the waves of guilt to wash over me; they didn't cleanse me of anything. I was left raw and dirtier than before in their wake. I blinked slowly, an animal waking from tranquilizer and looked towards the window on the other side of the room. The light outside was strong and for a moment I considered the clock wondering if it was running fast, before I remembered that this was Alaska. The one detraction of the Denali coven's life here was that the amounts of daylight and darkness shifted abnormally. This left them with some well received periods of long darkness and some constraining months of near constant light. Apparently things were now moving towards shorter nights and longer days; I hadn't noticed before through my distractions but now my internal clock was noticing the strain. One more change, one more loss of familiarity.
Without even realizing I was going to do it I reached to the side and slammed my fist directly through the edge of the desk. I clutched my head just to keep it from exploding. There was so much wrong with every aspect of my life that I couldn't handle it anymore. There had to be one clear patch in the darkened sky. I had thought that my family could be that chance at happiness but Rosalie… Well she wasn't my entire family was she?
I grasped at the fact that in just a handful of hours Carlisle and Esme would arrive. My need for the reassurance of my parent's presence was almost childlike. Carlisle would be able to tell me what to do. He would have the answers he had to. And Esme… Esme had always known exactly how to catch someone who was falling. Falling was something she knew a lot about. Yes, that was what I was missing. Maybe with my u whole /u family around me I could finally rest. Nothing of course could take the pain away; my quest was simply for something to ease it slightly. This idea calmed me enough for my breathing to slow and my mind to move to the fact that I was going to be owing Kate a desk. Sighing I went to find Eleazar.
I sifted quickly through the buzz of voices in my head and found his still reading. This led me to the den, scene of my fateful arrival where we was sitting in one of the leather chairs, concentrating deeply. This wasn't unusual for him and I found the predictability comforting. Eleazar like Kate, Alice, Jasper, and myself was talented. He was gifted with an intellect far above and beyond the average of one of our kind let alone any human. He possessed a photographic memory so strong that he could probably have told me what color socks I was wearing the first time we met without hesitating, and he was able to learn at double the speed of pretty much everyone else on the planet. He had completed Medical and Law school multiple times graduating at the top of his class each time.
My worry on explaining to him the destruction of the study desk was that, being so analytical, he sometimes had trouble understanding matters of feeling. Now, how to tell the clear thinking Eleazar that I had been so overcome with my own stupidity that I had thoughtlessly slammed my fist through the nearest piece of furniture. I decided that it would be easier to lie. Screw my stupid conscience. This was how far it had gotten me. I was sick of it.
"Eleazar?" he jumped slightly and looked up. "Oh! Edward, I'm sorry I was a little absorbed I suppose." He chuckled easily and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. "What can I help you with?" he looked directly into my eyes very sincerely and I could here my conscience as clear as a cartoon cricket on my shoulder. i He hasn't done anything to you. Be honest. /i And so, as always, I folded in the presence of a moral conflict. I sighed and sat down hard on the chair across from Eleazar with my head in one hand. "I seem to have…gotten a bit carried away." I looked up to a confused expression. "I broke the desk in the study… accidentally of course." Well it wasn't i quite /i a lie. "My mind was just elsewhere, I was being careless and I put my hand down a little too hard…" "I understand completely of course. We'll take care of it." "Thank you," I was going to make another attempt at recovering my conversational skills but I could see him glancing furtively at the book still hanging from his hand, so I bowed out with a quick nod.
I returned to my room, having nothing else to return to, and lay down once more on the bed. It seemed as opportune a time as any to return to my visualizations of the past, and so, with an undue amount of eagerness, I closed my eyes and slipped backwards.
I visualized again the bank of the river. Alice had forced Bella into a tank top in celebration of the sun, it was a deep red color that accentuated the auburn streaks in her hair. As we lay on an old plaid blanket on the soft grass next to the water's edge I loosed one of these strands from her pony tail and played with it as we talked. We had been discussing films and, thanks to the gorgeous weather, Little Miss Sunshine had come up. "It's undoubtedly a great movie," I tried to stay focused and not be distracted by the curve of her lips as she smiled slightly at me, "but don't you find some of the plot… awfully coincidental?" she thought for a moment, her brow puckering adorably. "Well I suppose it is, but that's what makes it so endearing isn't it? It's just unreal enough." "Oh you're just a sucker for fairy tales." I retorted fondly. "I am not!" she protested, a blush giving away her lie.
A distant section of my mind, the part that wasn't living in the moment, recognized that I had missed this most of all. Someone to really really converse with. My family was always there but that was just it. When you had lived with someone for a hundred or so years, and they had a significant other of their own for all the most important discussions, you ran out of topics. I missed having someone who I could discuss anything and everything with over and over if necessary. I kept my eyes tightly closed and held on to the sunlight.
And so I settled into my delusions, and waited out the night with Isabella.
i When the stars threw down their spears
And the water'd heaven with their tears;
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? /i