1918 – Chicago

I was only 16, at the time. My 17th birthday was coming up in a month, around the time my child was due. Being pregnant in that time and at such a young age was normally frowned upon. Yet no one ever looked down on me. They knew I was in love and happily engaged. Back then was a time when you couldn't get married before 17 without a parents' consent, but I didn't have any. My parents – Renee and Charlie Swan – were two very fine people who unfortunately were murdered when I was ten years old. We weren't a very rich family so I had nothing to live off and no relatives to take me in.

It was like a month after their death that I met Edward's mother. She was a kind woman I met at the markets. When I first laid eyes on her, I thought 'now that's what a real Lady looks like.'

But what amazed me more was the she saw me too.

I was wearing rags and sitting in the gutter and she walked right up to me, got on her knees and asked if I was okay. I didn't understand. She ruined her nice dress just to see if I was alright, a commoner. I couldn't speak, but somehow she understood. It was later on that she told me she could see that I needed help in my eyes, like she could see into my soul. And every day that was what I believed. She had that affect on you.

The Mason's were the nicest people I had ever met. They took me in, gave me food and clothes and shelter. But never once did they ask for anything in return. I felt bad for imposing on this family even though they didn't see it that way. So I helped out around the house instead. I became on the maids of the family. I was out back so often that Edward never actually met me until I was thirteen, although I had seen him before. It was one of my guilty pleasures I admit. Hiding in the shadows to see the handsome young man even if only a glimpse. I was too scared to face him. What if he didn't like me? What if he teased me? The what if's plagued my mind. So every day I would hide in the shadows while he walked straight past.

This went on for a while til one day he fell for me...literally. I was carrying a stack of books when I tripped over the rug. Edward saved me from a nasty fall but ended up falling himself. We soon became the best of friends. I would always see Mrs Mason around the house and she would give me that knowing smile of hers.

It was a year later that I finally found out he had feelings for me. Oh how shy and nervous Edward was when he finally asked me out. Of course I was no better. My insides were bouncing for joy, I never thought he would feel for me the way I did for him. On my 16th birthday, he proposed. It was so romantic, out in his backyard surrounded by the roses and fireflies. But what got to me the most was Edward even went as far as to ask the Chief of Staff for my hand since he became my second father.

Edward's parents soon became sick with the influenza. It shocked everyone. Edward and I were up at the hospital everyday, sitting by their beds and holding their hands. That is where I first met Dr Carlisle Cullen.

After a months, the stress started to get to Edward. I decided to help him relax by giving him a massage. We both loved each other so much, and we didnt know if we would live to be married. The influenza was getting to everyone. So that night, we made love for the first time. It wasnt until after his father died two months later that we found out I was pregnant. His mother was happy for us, even though I could tell she was disappointed that we didnt wait. She understood why we did what we did and she gave us her blessing.

Edward too fell sick soon afterwards. That alone nearly killed me. He became worse and worse, nothing was working anymore. Dr Cullen visited everyday, even on his days off, just to check up on us. I was soon banned from the hospital in fear of the baby. I protested with all my might, but Dr Cullen stood by his word. Of course Edward was on his side, he just wanted me and the baby safe from harm.

So I did what I knew best when I wasnt on my rare visit to the hospital...I tended to the house. This went on for a couple of months. Soon my stomach became huge and I was eight months pregnant. Edward's mother just died and he was slowly becoming worse.

I was hanging out the last load of clothes, about to make my way to the hospital to visit him, when it happened.

Someone can up behind me and knocked me unconscious. I woke up a few hours later with a burning pain in my neck which was slowly but surely making its wasy down my body. I screamed for someone to put it out, for someone to help me. But no help came. I seen a figure run away in my daze and before I knew it, I blacked out again.

Five days later I woke up and I learnt what I had become. My self-loathing told me to kill myself, but the mother in me couldnt. Because by some miracle or another, my baby had survived. It seemed that throughout my transformation, she crawled out of my stomach and laid next to me.

At first I was confused. I knew she had to be a vampire because she had killed a deer and drank from it right in front of me. But she also had a heartbeat and was bigger than a normal baby should be for being only a day old. She looked as if she was one year old. I knew than something truely amazing had happened. I also knew I could not go back into town in case I attacked someone. So Neiss and I lived off animals in the forest that we were in.

After a month of being there, I had had enough. I had to know what had happened to Edward. I ran back into town for the day, leaving Neiss behind for at that time she looked and acted like a normal sixteen year old. She had finally stopped growing. Frozen forever at sixteen, just like me.

I got to the hospital at midday - luckily it was a cloudy day all day - and I asked for the Mason's only to be told that the Mason family had all died out. My heart broke that day. So I ran back to Neiss and we left, never to return. Of course Neiss asked about her father but all I could tell her was he had died. For her first birthday I gave her the locket Edward gave me with a picture of us in it and a picture of his parents in the other side.