Florence

I woke to the sound of rain tapping on my window. Typical. I got out of bed and could already hear voices echoing throughout the house and outside. I quickly threw on the clothes that I'd left out for today as all my other clothes and belongings were packed up for College. I left my room to see Jacob carrying some bags from my brother Will's room.

"Morning, kiddo," I turned to see Charlie carrying some boxes too, "how'd you sleep?"

"Good thanks." I took one of the boxes from him and followed him to the outside to find a truck and his car.

Charlie and Billy were older now, Charlie insisted he was fighting fit and it took some convincing from his wife Sue before he finally gave in and retired - he now spends his days fishing and travelling around the country with her. Billy was the same, he was still cracking the same jokes in his chair, but his memory wasn't the same as it once was.

Will appeared with Jacob and Sam Uley who had the last of our boxes. "That's the last of everything, all of it loaded in the back." Jacob said as he pulled the door down.

"We're gonna miss you kids." Sam said, pulling Will into a side hug. His wife Emily came from Jacob's house, holding a box with what I assumed had baked goods inside. "These are from us, for the journey."

I took them from her, "Oh you didn't need to Em."

"Of course I did, you've loved them since you were tiny."

I put them in the car and gave her a hug. I've always loved Emily, she was like an Aunt to me and Will. She and Leah have been the only certain females I've had in my life, they've helped me become independant and strong whilst being surrounded by a pack of males. There's our Grandma, Renee, but she lives in Jacksonville so we barely see her. She would visit a lot when we were babies but as we got older I think the novelty of Grandchildren wore off and her daughter passing away meant she had no real ties to Forks anymore. We didn't need her anyway.

The rest of the pack came to see us off before we headed off on the 3 hour drive to Portland State University.

By the time we all pulled up to the Halls of Residence, it was already quite chaotic with parents and students moving in. One thing I learnt from the stories we heard at the bonfires was that vampires sometimes had special abilities. I was one of the lucky ones unfortunately, and with being half vampire I did pretty good as I could feel other people's emotions. I can block it out if I want to, I'd got pretty good at doing that around the wolves and Charlie. I first discovered the ability when I was young, it was a few years after Will and I's Mom died. I remember coming downstairs and feeling an overwhelming wave of something stronger than sadness coming from Charlie. He was crying whilst holding a photo of our Mom. I also remember seeing a bottle of something strong - which I later learned to be Whiskey - and some empty beer cans on the coffee table. The feeling I felt from him was scary, a sadness that wasn't meant to be felt by anyone. I eventually learnt to block it out when I was around 14, but it doesn't always work. I could feel all the excitement of the parents and students back and forth like a gust of wind. I put my hand on my chest to rub it.

"You okay Flo?" Will asked with his hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah, just… you know…" Will knew. He didn't have any abilities, which when he was younger he was jealous of but now he's thankful. He gave my shoulder a squeeze. "I should've known it would be like this today."

"You've gotten good at blocking it out, right? Just focus on unpacking today, all you'll feel is excitement from most people."

I gave him a brief smile before he went to the truck that he and Jacob drove in, I came in the car with Charlie.

It didn't take us too long to get the boxes to our rooms, we weren't too far from each other and we each had roommates who we were yet to meet. Jacob managed most of the boxes himself, the looks he was getting from people was hilarious. Will was always the troublemaker of the two of us, which showed when he began howling like a wolf and making wolf jokes whenever we passed someone in the hallway. Jacob always ended up punching his arm, but being part vampire it never hurt him.

Before we knew it, Jacob and Charlie were getting ready to leave. Charlie gave me a hug first, "You've grown up to be such a beautiful young lady, Flo." He said before pulling away. He looked at me for a moment and smiled, "you look so much like her… she would be so proud of you, both of you." Will also smiled. Our Mom, Bella, was a year away from graduating and going to College before she died giving birth to us. This moment will mean the world to him.

"Grandpa," I said quietly.

He wiped his eyes, "Gotta stop crying, you won't get rid of me otherwise, heh."

"Come on old man, I'll take you for a steak when we get back to Forks." Jacob said as he patted Charlie's back, trying to lighten the goodbye.

"Me? Old? You gotta be kidding me." Charlie said, nudging Jacob in the ribs. "Promise you'll call when you settle in? Don't be strangers."

"We will Grandpa." Will said.

It took pretty much all day to unpack our stuff. I met my roommate, Olivia, not long after I started unpacking. She had moved from New York and was, in all honesty, one of the nicest people I'd met and it hadn't even been a day. Later that evening I had the room to myself, her family had travelled with her so had dinner plans. I sat on my bed with the last small box of stuff Charlie had collected of mine from his house. Inside it was little bits like jewellery and an envelope with "Will and Flo" on it. I opened it and there were some photos in it.

"Is it safe to come in?" My head shot up as I saw Will peeking his head around the door. I smiled and nodded. He shut the door and sat next to me.

"Look, Charlie gave us these and look… there's some of Mom," I handed him the stack of photos of our Mom. Will smiled. There were a few photos of Will and I growing up, mainly us at Christmas and on our birthday, the rest were of Mom from when she was living in Forks, mainly ones of her and her friends in High School.

"I remember him saying she got a camera for her 18th birthday." Will said as we looked through the photos. We came across one of her and our Dad, Edward. "Surprised this is in here." Will put the photo to one side.

The photo wasn't very clear but we knew it was of him and Mom at her 18th birthday party. His family had thrown her one according to Charlie and apparently a few days after that is when he left her. We never really knew what happened and there was no one around to tell us, we've heard from or never met him or his family. Although Charlie has never said a bad word about him in front of us, Jacob and the pack's opinions were clear whenever they were brought up by their reactions.

I picked the photo up from beside him, "I wonder what he's like." I questioned.

"Who cares? Probably a pretentious asshole."

"Will!" I smacked his arm. "You don't know that, he must've had a reason, he wouldn't have just… left."

"Of course he had a reason, he got Mom pregnant! You've heard the stories from the pack, vampires weren't supposed to be able to get humans pregnant," Will stood up, "he fucks Mom, she gets pregnant and he fucks off to avoid any responsibility and to avoid getting slaughtered for breaking the treaty, it happens all the time and that clearly includes vampires." I could feel him getting angry. He hated talking about our Dad. I, however, have always wondered about him and his family.

"Sorry I just… I've just always wondered, especially about us," Will sat back down, closer to me this time. "I mean… Do you ever think about what will happen to us the older we get? We're half human, half vampire… will we age more? What if… how do we know we can't turn someone into a vampire and not realise it?"

He shrugged, "I wonder yeah… but why worry about it? We're 18 now, if we were to stop ageing now would it be so bad? And turning someone… Well, when was the last time you bit someone?" We both laughed.

"But what about my thing, my ability… what if it gets worse?"

Will put his arm around me, "Well… you have me, I'm always here, and only you know your own mind, surely in time you'll just learn to adapt to it." I shrugged too, "You got this, Sis."

We spent the next few hours looking through the photos. There were quite a few of us on the Reservation down at La Push where we spent most of our days when we weren't in school. There were only a few of our Dad and his family and because they'd been away for so long they weren't very clear so we couldn't get a proper look at any of them. All we could make out was that they all still looked so young. We never knew their names, only our Dad's. We didn't know anything about them at all.