"Should I get married? Should I be Good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustaus hood?"
Marriage
Gregory Corso
Journal Of Edward Masen
October 1, 1954
Infuriatingly, my family's participation in Alice's hallucinations continue. Her "gift" has been shown to be fallible and yet they have endangered our secret and the life of that young girl by bringing her here to our apartment. And Alice is not even here to deal with the repercussions of her delusions. She promises to return from Europe within the month. The month! Anything can happen in that time. I could have killed the girl last night, the smell of her blood was so tantalizing. It was only by running to my room and sticking my head out the window a dozen times throughout the evening that she survived. I skulk about my own home, terrified and furious, like the monster I am.
While I admire Carlisle's compassion in saving her life, she easily could be treated in a hospital. Having her convalesce here is maddening. And for what? Because Alice says that she's important but doesn't know why yet? Ridiculous and dangerous. I am furious with Carlisle for allowing this, no, participating in this madness.
She is past the point where she needs bed-rest after her overdose and yet Esme has formed a relationship with her and has convinced her to stay on. Compounding my frustration, I was only able to get this information from Esme; I cannot hear her thoughts! Of all the insanity, we have befriended a drug-addicted, human prostitute whose blood calls to me but whose thoughts are hidden from me. Intolerable.
I have dealt with the situation thus far by staying away from the apartment. But I am frustrated by my exile. Firstly, I am unable to be sure that my family is safe, secondly, I resent being driven from my own home by this girl, thirdly, most detestibly, because I am drawn by both the smell of her blood and the mystery of her silence.
I run from the apartment and roam the city, only to find myself back at the front door, key in hand, without recalling having walked there. I find myself standing in her doorway at night, watching her sleep, listening to her heart and holding my breath. When I realized that she had been talked into staying longer I fled again, to this café where I listen to the music, the saxaphones and trumpets. "Bop", they call it. Jazz without structure. It's very dissonance catches me off guard, reinforces the discomfort I already feel. I am trying with every fiber of my being to stay away from her but I find myself in places that only remind me of her.
Journal Of Edward Masen
October 7, 1954
I have been introduced to Isabella Swan. "Introduced to Isabella Swan." It seems so proper, so innocuous. The reality is that I have been drawn into the web of Isabella Swan. Her scent and its hold on me are ever-present but the other strands of her sticky web are formed by her stubborn, fascinating silence, the intriguing nature of her comments and the draw of her body and those mesmerizing eyes, that magnetic gaze.
I am…attracted to her. Drawn to her the way a human man is drawn to a woman. It is a novel and terrifying experience for me.
She is not who I would have chosen for a wife when I was human. I couldn't have introduced her to my parents. We didn't move in the same circles. Well, in reality, she wasn't born when I was introduced to this life. Had I not been changed at 17 I would have been 34 the year she was born, 53 now.
Would she have loved me, an old man? Would we have had a chance at a life together if I had not been pulled from my mortal life?
Could I have courted her, taken her to dinner or the theatre? Would she have held my hand, accepted my caresses, been my love?
If I had paid her she would have used her exquisite body to pleasure me. For money or drugs Isabella Swan could have been mine for the night, for the hour. Could she have been my human companion, would she have loved me? I don't know.
Will she ever take her place by my side? No, I am determined to stay away from her. Every day I decide to see her no more, to stay away. Each day I find myself creeping closer to her.
I am tortured by her. I am tormented by shift that took place in my very viscera when I met her, the pull I felt from her dark brown eyes, the way I can feel her in this place, even when she is at the other end of the apartment, the way I see her face when I close my eyes, the way my body responds in ways that I have no memory of experiencing in my present life or my human one.
I know I will not drink her blood now. She is too powerful, too toxic, she will transform and destroy me; I cannot even fathom doing that now. I cannot decipher how she feels about me. She avoids my eyes when I walk into the room. I creep closer like the animal, the predator, that I am. Finally her eyes meet mine and I am trapped. She runs from me until she catches me. Daily, her net gets smaller and smaller and she traps me closer and closer. One of these days I will be close enough
to touch her and I fear for her life and my sanity.
a/n: Thank you to my awesome pre-reader, Liz3615, for telling me this doesn't suck, and my beta, EverlastingMuse, for helping me to not suck! Thanks for reading! JuJu