A/N: Thanks for the comments!! Hope you enjoy the update!
I devoured Twilight Kim's journals, searching for answers. I consumed the little leather bound books like I was a starved child, tracing my finger over her finely written print with hearts that dotted each "i" on the page. As I read her words I was desperately looking for answers, looking for something. Maybe it was her, somehow, that put me here. I mean, if I was here, where was she? In Tampa in a non-magical 2022? Was she living my life? Or had she completely ceased to exist somehow. Her own existence on a pregnant pause.
The journal had the Henry David Thoreau quote, "The question is not what you look at, but what you see," on the cover, but I saw nothing. There was no information about what the hell this all was. There was no message to me or spectacular smoking gun written in her words on why I was living as a barely there character from Twilight. It was just full of the ordinary expressions of a teenage girl.
Twilight Kim vented about squabbles with friends, complained about having too many things to do, went on about family dynamics, and then about not having enough things to do. There was three whole pages on if she should try out for lacrosse and if she did would her legs look too thick in the uniform shorts. It was mostly unexciting, but also oddly funny and introspective. She was a cocktail of confidence and insecurities. Like she wanted to be one, but was chained by the other.
I could have written it all myself, but admittedly never did much besides check Insta and Tik Tok. Which I was currently having severe withdraw from.
As a consolation, I did get some insight on her relationship with Paul. It was some sort of enemies to lovers back to enemies, secret relationship bullshit. He was the beautiful brooding bad boy and she was quiet A type that tamed him. Or tried to tame him, as you can never really change someone (duh, Twilight Kim). She hated him for pages and pages and complained about what an annoying asshole he was. And then some sort of switch flipped and she gave up her V card to him in the backseat of his truck. I'd seen this movie and it was way more of a fantasy than vampires and werewolves. Except, no happy ending. She cut it off because he really was a maniacal asshole, so props to her for ultimately not trying to fix that hot mess.
Honestly, the whole thing bored me, despite my cuddle with him. I'm sure the tale it would have been hot on book tok, but I needed substantive answers on if I was truly living in a YA romantic fantasy from 2005, and if so, for how long.
Interestingly enough, there was hardly anything about Jared in Kim's journal. Just a line here or there as a background figure to Paul. For all of Twilight Kim's narrative that she was a one demential static character that solely pined after him, there was nothing. But they all still thought she was obsessed with him. Paul mentioned it in the woods, and they all seemed to acknowledge it. She even wrote how "ironic" it was that the everyone believed she was one thing and "soley focused on one person" but really she was doing something no one ever expected. Maybe that was the whole point of her Paul tryst. Maybe not.
The next day I got ready to go to school, playing the part of someone else. Would this just be my new life? Would I just be Twilight Kim with no imprint? If she didn't have a great love story, what did she have? Maybe I could make some bets on sports or world events and make some money. Or maybe my being here would fuck everything up some how and the vampires would kill everyone including me. Lovely.
When I got downstairs Anna was sitting at the head of the table, meticulously eating frozen waffles. Mom was running around the house like the road runner trying to get ready for the day and I had no clue where Alex was. He didn't usually join us for breakfast in Tampa and it looked like my Twilight brother was following the same script.
Anna. Last night she pulled through for me when I divulged my Coma theory. I was already exhausted from all of this and needed to spill the beans. If the entire world imploded because of it, so be it. It all sounded insane, but at that moment I had no clue what was going on or how to proceed. I had nothing to lose and desperately needed an ally. A logical one with a brilliant mind who could help me, and that was Anna to a T.
"What?" She slowly turned her head over to me. I must have been embarrassingly staring at her as I ran through my internal soliloquy.
Shit. How do I begin?
"Uh… nothing… well… I guess I just wanted to thank you for last night."
"The coma thing?"
"Um... yeah, and just speaking with me in general." I looked into her large brown eyes as she waited for me to go on. If I was her, I'd be demanding what the hell was going on with those two gorgeous dudes who strolled into my bedroom, but that wasn't Anna. She waited for me. She was sitting, hands pushed away from her waffles, waiting for me.
"And, uh. There is something else." I took a deep breath and looked her dead in the eye, needing her like a life preserver. "You're going to think I've totally lost it and I'm having some sort of psychotic break, or that I hit my head or I'm in drugs or something, but that's not it." I was rambling frantically. "Anna. I have nothing right now, nothing, so I need you to believe me. Can you do that? Can you do that and help me?"
She slowly nodded up and down, wide eyed and waiting for me to spill. If the tables were turned I may have yelled that she was scaring me or told her to cut the shit, but she was a rock and ready for me.
So, I ran through everything. I told her everything I knew in a frantic whisper, afraid of being overhead by… I'm not sure who. Tribal gods? Werewolves with impeccable hearing? Our mother? All of them?
I told her about how Twilight was a fantasy novel and how I'm from Tampa in 2022 and how I woke up in the middle Washington woods and Paul and how that wasn't in the books and Jared and the werewolf/ vampire thing and how he and I didn't imprint. And it was a lot. And she looked at me like it was a lot.
Anna's head was all taut facial expressions and wide, saucer like eyes. I took a long deep breath. This wasn't working. Telling her the truth wasn't working. So far NOTHING was working and I needed something to work, some sort of break.
"Anna," I said in a shaky breath, looking at her with pleading eyes. "It's me here. You know I'm not crazy. It sounds unbelievably insane, I know, but I need you to just believe me. I need help figuring this whole thing out and your the most logical person I know. Can you just humor me, please. Please."
Her face started to soften, just a teeny tiny bit.
"If you are from 17 years in the future in some other reality, tell me something that will make this all seem… I don't know less insane asylum-y."
I chuckled. "Well, Donald Trump becomes President for a while. Most teenagers spend 95% of their time on these computer phones that fit in your pocket on this thing called social media which is supposed to be interactive but ends up making you not interact with anyone at all. There was a global pandemic in 2020 that shut all the schools down and has most people working from home via video chat and … oat milk is everywhere. I mean fucking everywhere Anna. Like, even Dunkin Donuts."
There was a strained silence. I hung my head. Maybe this was all more unbelievable than me telling her she was living in a paranormal book and I was from the future.
Then, by the grace of god, she started to laugh. And it sounded glorious, like Christmas morning. Hope, it sounded like hope. My face sprang up to meet hers, my hands grasping her soft shoulders.
"Ok, no one can make up that crap," she was still laughing as her head bobbed.
"Does that mean you believe me?! And you'll help me figure this out. Whatever this is?"
She closed her eyes gingerly and pushed fine black strands of hair out of her face as I dropped my arms. Her mood shifted and now she looked like she was in physical pain. "Kim, obviously I'm thinking you need some help here… but… ugh. I don't know. Is there anything else you could do or show me to help me here? To make this all add up?"
I bit my lip.
"I mean we could try and spy on Paul, Jared and Sam changing into wolves, but they'd hear us." I cringed just hearing myself explain all this nonsense. "They have…"
"Super wolf hearing," she said flatly, "you mentioned it." He lips pursed into a line.
I scrambled.
"Well, the Cullens!" Fell out of my mouth frantically. "The vampires! We can find them. They have special powers too. I don't remember all of them, but I think one can read thoughts and maybe one can sense the future? They…"
Her eyes were closed again. Hand held up.
"Just stop, Kim. I can't take much more. Just lead the way. Well, after school. Just encase we're not living in a vampire apocalypse, I need to take my Chem final."
"Really?!" I said in a breath of relief.
She looked at me plainly, in that brainy way of hers with her arms folded in front of her chest.
"You have have shown no previous symptoms of schizophrenia or another and the doctors ruled out any head injury that would lead to psychosis. What your saying is…unusual," she picked her word choice carefully, "but what appears to be magic or the extraordinary is usually just things we yet have a scientific explanation for. As far as the time travel and parallel universes… there are of course theories if you some how stepped through a wormhole, which could have occurred after the car accident you experienced…"
"A wormhole! Anna! Yes!" I grabbed both her shoulders as I shouted. "How do I get back? Go though another one?"
She closed her eyes again calmly and shook her head.
"I'm not entertaining any of this without some evidence, Kim. You say there are vampires. Show me some vampires."
I sat back straight in my chair. "Well, ok. Let's go visit the Cullens."
A/N: And we got some Cullens coming up! And Jared will be in the next chapter too. A lot :)
What do you think??