Chapter 3
I stopped existing the day I lost Bella, I say 'I lost' because I blamed myself. I should have been looking after her better, I shouldn't have been so absorbed in my own feelings then I would have known and heard the truck coming towards her.
I fled soon after her funeral; I couldn't bear the sympathetic looks from my family and their sympathetic thoughts. I didn't deserve sympathy. Charlie's thoughts I could deal with because he also blamed me and always looked accusingly at me. And the pack? They also hated me and Jacob also fled away from the reservation and Forks, no treaty was ever broken over Bella's death but that didn't stop a near on war breaking out, it was nothing more than I deserved.
I considered going to the Volturi again and even made my way to Italy but I realised that was the cowards way out and I needed to suffer, I needed to be punished and being in a world without my love was the worst kind of punishment there is.
The real downside of being a vampire is the memories, for humans when tragedy strikes as time goes on the memories become fuzzy around the edges, it may take years but eventually it doesn't hurt as much as it once did. For me though, every memory of Bella and the time we shared and the accident were as fresh as the day they had happened, I lost a good few years in a haze of memories and feeding. I would check a newspaper once in a while to see what year it was but nothing interested me anymore, I knew Alice checked in on me once in a while to make sure I hadn't done anything too stupid but it had been probably 30 years since I had seen my family. Don't get me wrong I missed them terribly but I was so consumed with grief and guilt that I felt too ashamed to go back to them.
When I first left I we would meet up every year on Bella's anniversary and visit her grave in Forks but as the years passed we couldn't go back anymore due to never aging we couldn't risk anyone seeing us and asking questions.
I often pondered where she was now and if Carlisle was right about souls, I wondered if she ever saw me watching down from wherever she was. Maybe she hated me and blamed me too...
Vampires were not meant to feel regret due to being the selfish creatures that we are, but I did. I regretted being stubborn and not giving Bella what she desired – to be like me. If I had not been so moralistic she would be with me now and we would be happily living our lives together for the whole of eternity.
During those first few years - or the dark times as I prefer to remember them, I did some dark and terrible things, I hunted humans. I remember the first night so vividly in my vampire mind, I was angry. Angry at myself and angry at the world I was forced to exist in, there was no longer sun, flowers or meadows so beautiful instead it was dark, gloomy and full of hatred.
I heard them first then I saw them, a hooker, a woman with no respect for the body she was selling and the man, so smart with his city suit and Italian leather shoes. A man who wore a wedding ring on his left hand and pictures of his kids in his wallet, he willingly handed over a bundle of notes in order to fulfil his greedy filthy need.
Why did they deserve to live? What could they possibly bring to this world that anyone would miss them for?
I was a monster anyway so what difference would it make to act out the part. I landed without noise behind the woman as her head bobbed up and down between the man's legs, his eyes closed enjoying his money's worth.
A quick snap of her neck, so quick she didn't even have time to scream and I ran with her at such a speed that I was already leaping across roof tops before the scum of a man had even noticed she had stopped and was now missing.
I drained her body completely and it wasn't satisfying in the slightest with the taste of what I could only assume to be Heroin infecting her blood. I hated myself more after but it was no more than I deserved. I made decision to go after the ones that sold these disgusting drugs and also the pimps that made these women this way, nobody would miss them anyway.
These day though I tended to have what you could call a balanced diet, I mainly killed animals but from time to time if I came across somebody who I felt didn't deserve the life they had then I would take it. I was dammed anyway so what did it matter?
I knew my family would know about my indiscretions but I didn't care, I know they would be disappointed but I knew Carlisle and he would be hoping silently that I will get it out of my system and go back to them one day, maybe I will but it won't be anytime soon.
It had been 50 years since I last saw my Bella but this one particularly seemingly ordinary cloudy day everything changed for me.
I had been making my way slowly back towards the Olympic National Park, it had been years since I had been there but I was trying to wean myself off humans and back onto animals so figured it was as good a place as any.
For the last few weeks I had been stopping in Poulsbo WA. I couldn't face being to near Forks and I didn't fancy being in the centre of Seattle so Poulsbo was as good a place as any.
I had decided to take a walk through the Frank Raab Park almost to prove to myself that I had enough self control and in all honesty I was getting tired of hiding out in the shadows all the time. The worst place had been Egypt with its hot sticky sun, it was near on impossible to move around the place, plus my complexion had stood out among the locals even at night and what with their superstitious beliefs I couldn't hang around too long. I'd started wearing dark sun glasses quite often as my eyes were still tinged with red and they stood out too much among the humans and now that I wanted to get back to my vegetarian ways, drawing attention to myself was the last thing I wanted to do. Maybe when I had got myself better I will seek out my family again after all, I'm sure Alice saw that decision I managed to smile to myself.
I walked deliberately slowly scanning the day unfolding before me, everyone rushing around at nearly an inhuman pace, the area that was fenced off especially for dogs was quite full with owners throwing balls for their beloved pets. I made a detour away from that area though as I knew from experience the effect I had on those animals, much the same as the way the wolf pack feels about vampires and I didn't want to cause a scene, especially while I was feeling in an unusually jovial mood.
I spotted her immediately sat beneath a large Oak tree and I froze to the spot I was standing on. Her hair looked different, it was much shorter and she was sat reading a book with her arm in plaster. I continued to stare as I was afraid that she might disappear if I took my eyes off her for a moment and then it was almost like she knew I was there because she lifted her head and looked straight at me. Our eyes locked on each other for a few seconds that felt like eternity before she broke the spell and looked around her, was she looking for somebody else?
My body jerked a little, I was desperate to run over and embrace her with all my might, but what if she wasn't really there? Was she a ghost? I didn't know what to do so I turned and walked away from the figure of my past.
My Bella.
