Twilight and New Moon belong to Stephenire Meyer
My internet is being a bum, so I'm uploading this from my best bud/editor's laptop. It's good to have friends! Enjoy!
"Um, hi Brendon…this is awkward now isn't it?" I said to him as he stared me down. I tried to smile, but his glare remained the same. Tanya looked rather confused and surprised, and her tense posture made it seem like she was ready to either bolt or stop us if a fight broke out. Brendon certainly seemed up for one. He broke the silence first.
"You elbowed me in the chest, and then almost ran me over with the rental Mercedes." His voice tried to not give any emotion away, and ended up sounding very strained. I glanced away and looked out the window.
"Yeah, about that…um, I'm sorry?" His glare intensified. "Well, what do you want me to say Brendon?!" I practically yelled at him. His answer was quick.
"Bella, I want you to give up this stupid notion of finding Edward and come-"
"It's not stupid! And I'm not going anywhere with you!"
"Oh, yes you are! I'm not going to put innocent people in danger because of your ego and overconfidence in your abilities!"
"I am not overconfident, and I do not have an ego! And for your information, Edward came to Jacksonville to find me and tell me he loves me! Tanya told me so!"
"And how can you be sure of that? You don't even know this woman!"
"I trust her more than you right now! The Cullens told me all about-"
"Wait a second." Tanya interrupted. By this point I was standing up chest to chest with Brendon, both or our hands balled into fists. We both looked over to Tanya at the same time. Realization had dawned on her face. "Are you Isabella Swan?" she asked. I sighed and nodded.
"Yeah, I'm Bella. Sorry about the whole Sarah thing. I just needed to make sure that Edward would see me. I didn't know that-"
"You can't be Bella." She simply stated. I gave her a quizzical look. "The Isabella Swan that Edward loves is human, not a vampire."
"That's his fault." I said, throwing a glare at Brendon. He looked down, ashamed. "After he kidnapped me from Jacksonville, things got a little out of hand and he bit me. Edward doesn't know, so that's why-"
"So you and Edward didn't meet up in Jacksonville after all?" She was getting into a really annoying habit of interrupting my sentences. This time I nodded, so she wouldn't be able to cut me short.
"Well in that case-" But this time it was her sentence that was disrupted as the front door of the house burst open and a boy and girl walked in, arguing loudly.
"No, you can not keep a caribou as a pet! That's insane!" the girl yelled furiously throwing her backpack on the stairs. The boy did the same and yelled back at her.
"I could do it, unless you went and killed it!" She gaped at him and eventually yelled back,
"Are you accusing me of having less self control than you?! Do I have to remind you who is the older sibling is in this-" Tanya cleared her throat and the two looked over.
"We have guests." Tanya stated, "Please excuse my children's rude behavior. I'm sure they're most embarrassed." This was said with a stern look at the two children and they only responded with mischievous grins.
The girl was a short, slender, dirty blonde. Her hair was short, a little less than shoulder length, and was neatly pulled into two cute ponytails. Her appearance was one of a freshman in high school. She reminded me of Alice in a way. They boy seemed to be the opposite of her. He was tall, muscular, and had very short black hair. He looked slightly older than the girl, but I suspected she was older than the other sibling, based on the argument.
"You must be Lillian and Evander." I said. Everyone in the room stared at me like I had grown a second head. Then Brendon asked,
"Bella, can you read minds or something?"
"Yeah, like Edward!" Lillian asked expectantly.
"Not really," I said, as the internal battle raged inside me at Edward's name, "I didn't know where Tanya lived, so I went to the school to see if they had an address. The lady at the desk thought we were related."
Everyone's face fell, but only for a moment. Suddenly, Lillian perked up and ran over to me. She grabbed both my hands in hers, and bounced on her toes. I could hear her asking my name, but suddenly the room grew blurry.
I saw a young girl holding the hands of a man. They wore the clothes of a much older era, and I felt like I was watching a scene from Gone with the Wind. I realized with shock that the girl I was looking at was the human Lillian.
They sat in a garden on an old iron bench. The man was whispering something in her ear, and she was giggling. Then he placed a kiss on her cheek and pulled a small red box from his pocket and got down on one knee. Lillian's face was shocked as I heard the man ask her to marry him.
I felt horrible. My stomach had tightened, my throat blocked up. This was what I had wanted for Edward and I. I had wanted us to love each other forever, in the innocent way people had once. I didn't want to watch anymore, I shook my head and willed myself from this place. My vision went blurry again, and I was back in Tanya's living room. Everyone just stared at me waiting for my answer to Lillian's question that I hadn't heard.
"Um, could you repeat that?" I asked.
"I asked what your name was." Her smile was still plastered to her face.
"Oh, I'm Bella."
"As in Bella Swan? Edward's girlfriend?" Evander asked. I nodded, and Brendon growled. I shot him another look.
"This is great! We're going to be the best of friends! I was going to go to Anchorage to go shopping tomorrow, do you want to come? We can pick you out a whole new wardrobe. I don't know when Alice is getting back so-"
"Were you ever married, Lillian?" I asked.
"Please, just call me Lilly. Anyway, like I was saying, there's this really cute shop on-"
"Were you ever married?" I asked with more authority. She shook her head.
"Nope, none of the vampires around here are any good for me. I liked Edward, but you snatched him first. But this shop, it had this dress in this magazine-"
"What about when you were human?" I questioned, and her rant stopped. Her face turned to stone in an instant, and she stared at me tensely. The rest of the room was silent, and she spoke in a whisper.
"How would you know that?" she took a step back from me, dropping my hands.
"I saw it, this man was sitting with you and he proposed. Did that actually happen?" Her face grew very angry.
"Stay out of my head!" At that she ran upstairs. Evander and Tanya just stared at me in shock.
"What did I do?" I questioned, and they both shrugged.
"Lilly never spoke about her human life. We figured she just forgot. Apparently not…" Evander mumbled. Brendon came over and looked into my eyes.
"Bella, how did you know that?"
"When she took my hands, the room got all blurry and I just saw it. I didn't know what it was, but I didn't want to watch it anymore. So I pulled back, and then I kind of woke up here." I told him.
"Could this be…" Evander mumbled to himself, "Take my hand Bella." he said, reaching out to me. I took a step back, and he stopped. "Bella, this may be important. You need to see if this only happened to Lilly, or if it's something more. Please, take my hand." With a last hesitant glance, I reached out and grabbed Evander's hand gently.
The same thing happened. Everything blurred, and then I found myself in unknown surroundings. It was very dark, and very cold. I slowly realized I was standing in knee deep snow. It didn't seem to affect me though. I could make out the outline of trees blowing in the harsh wind, but I couldn't feel it. It was as if I was only a ghost, a visitor in this place. Here but not here.
I saw Evander running through the woods. He was a vampire, and it seemed he was hunting. I followed him involuntarily, my legs not moving, just floating through the snow. It was like a movie, I had no say in any actions, I was only a viewer.
Evander kept running for a long time, then stopped. He turned around and seemed to look right through me. At first I thought it was me that he was looking at, because he then walked in my direction. But as he came closer, I found he was looking at something beyond me, made all the more apparent when he walked through my ghostly apparition. My inability to move was the only reason that I didn't flinch.
Again I began to float along with him. He began to slow when he found the body of a person lying in the snow. The boy was shivering, meaning that he was still alive. I then noticed that Evander's eyes were black. He had not found anything to hunt yet. Except for this boy.
Before I could fully comprehend the situation, Evander was at the boy's throat. I tried to scream for him to stop, but my voice was silent. I didn't want to watch anymore, I couldn't watch this boy die. I wanted to leave. As I thought this, the images faded, and I once again found myself looking into Evander's face, holding his hand in the living room.
I didn't know what to say. He waited, expectant, before asking,
"Are you back?" I nodded, "Your eyes turned black and glazed over. They just returned to normal a second ago." I stood there, dumbfounded. "What did you see?" he asked.
"I saw…you." I answered slowly, "You were hunting… in a snowstorm …you killed a young boy." His face fell into a deep frown, "Do you remember it?" I asked quietly.
He nodded, "That was the only human I ever killed. I never forgave myself for that…" He let my hand go and walked away, concentration written on his face. "You saw the one thing that I never put behind me, and an important part of Lilly's human life. Maybe you see a person's most powerful memory, the thing that they can't seem to forget."
"Their most powerful memory…" I repeated. Why was I given this power? Edward had said that a person brought their most powerful human trait with them when they became a vampire. But how did this have anything to do with my human life?
The answer was clear: Edward. He was the most powerful memory anyone could hold. All of the memories I had held onto so dearly were of him. I had become a master of using my memories to give myself hope. It only seemed right that in my next life, the memories of others would be insignificant compared to what I had withstood. I could see their memories because mine had been so much more powerful and important, and I had used them for hope. And now, perhaps, I could help them, and give them the hope I had held onto. At least, that's what I told myself.
What do you think of Bella's power? Please review!