It's a funny thing being invisible. She'd spent most of her short life trying to be seen. First by her mother after her parents divorced when Renée was consumed by whatever man she was currently with; then by the two dark-haired girls who lived on the rez, mostly ignoring her whenever her father brought her over to play; then by all the kids at each new school each time Renée moved, before she begged her mother to leave Arizona and go live with Charlie; then, of course, by him.

She didn't understand what she actually wanted until it was almost too late. The first time he left her, she wasn't invisible. It was worse. She didn't even exist. How could she, without him? Without them? After Italy, after they got back together, after the battle, she realized how terrible it was to always be seen, especially by them. For her future to be monitored and analyzed at every turn, to be watched over every night, every waking moment of every day, to feel the gaze of immortal monsters fixed on her, however lazy and hazy their gaze might be.

"Bella, honey, you look flushed." Her mother peered at her, the corners of her eyes wrinkling with her concern.

Bella held back a sigh when her mother reached out and felt her forehead. She ducked out from under her cool touch. "Don't," Even now, she hated the cold with a fierce instinctual intensity. "I'm fine, Renée." She gave her mother a smile. It didn't quite reach her eyes. "Your hands are cold."

"You're burning up," Renée turned and opened her junk draw, fishing about. Bella watched with a lazy detachment until Renée held up a thermometer.

"I'm not sick," Bella insisted. "I just sat in the sun too long." She turned and shuffled towards the stairs, the sand clinging to her bare feet now dusting the cold tile in a never ending layer of grit. It reminded her of another beach, with cloudy skies and frigid waves, and bone-white drift wood and bonfires, and ghost stories and myths. If only it had stayed a horror story told by a copper-skinned boy to impress a girl he'd been in love with for most of his life. Her heart lurched, and she pressed her eyes closed. That boy had always seen her, but she never noticed. She rubbed her hands over her arms. Her skin was too hot now. But that's the thing about the sun; too much, and you get burned. She heard her mother draw in a breath, as if she wanted to say something else. Bella sighed and turned, trying to smile again. "I'm alright, Renée. Really."

"It's just," her mother frowned, shoving the drawer closed with enough force to rattle the contents. "What really happened with—with Edward?" She whispered his name, as if it could bite. "Why did you leave him?"

"I didn't leave him."

He'd left her. Again.

"What happened?"

Bella blinked. Memories crowded together under the surface of her skin, itching, clawing, stinging. So much had happened. Too much. I can't tell you. She'd said it so many times, Renée didn't really hear her anymore. So Bella stopped trying. She shivered and her mother stepped closer.

"He must be worried about the—"

"He's not." Bella's lips pressed into a humorless expression. "I promise."

"Isabella,"

"Please don't call me that."

"Sorry," Renée frowned again, suddenly looking old and tired. Like a mother should look when her child needs her. But Bella was no longer a child and she didn't want the shallow comfort her mother could offer. "He's your husband."

"Was." Bella frowned. "He was my husband." She no longer flinched at that word. It was a human word, a normal word. Normal people had husbands. She didn't. She never did.

Almost everyone she knew believed she'd married Edward Cullen, her high school sweetheart, a week after they graduated. Had they bothered to pay attention, those same people would've noticed that there was no priest, no alter, no rings, and no true vows before God. What they got was a charade, a farce, a play for the children of men. The wedding was a pantomime for her old self that wanted to believe in God and angels and life and happily ever after. Monsters play by different rules. The true wedding ceremony to bind them together forever in the eyes of his family and his world was supposed to happen at sunset. Edward had refused once he smelled her in the dark of their bedroom.

"What have you done, Isabella?" He'd flinched back from her.

"What do you—"

"You smell." He frowned. "Wrong." Edward shook his head, searching for the correct word, "Not wrong, precisely. Different."

"I smell?"

Panic had squeezed her lungs and stomach, tears stinging her eyes. Edward must smell Jacob. She blushed, her face hot under her shame.

After breaking her best friend's heart, she'd scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed at her skin, until she was raw and nearly bleeding. She'd even bought new shampoo and body wash, unable to bear the reminder of the strawberry-sage scented memory that would always haunt her. Only Charlie's threats to delay the wedding and haul her ass to a licensed psychiatrist he couldn't afford convinced her to stop. Could Edward still smell Jake on her? She hadn't seen or spoken to him since—

"I—I'm—I'll shower. Right now. It won't take long, I—"

Edward had grabbed her arm, his grip a fraction too tight. He hadn't said anything more and she hadn't truly understood why his family never performed their own wedding ceremony that night. That should've been her first clue. But he was easily jealous and she clung to it as an excuse and an explanation. Somehow she'd coaxed him into her bed anyway, hoping their new intimacy and his own alluring scent would smother all his doubts.

It was her biggest mistake. She'd learned that night that ice burns as much as the sun. Afterwards, she'd curled up in the ruined bed, alone and sore, confused and afraid. What had happened to her fairytale love? To her happily ever after? Then the phone had rung, but Edward hadn't answer it. She'd barely had the energy to wonder where he'd gone. Her thin arm trembled as she raised the handset to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Bella," Alice's hoarse voice was like an electric shock. "What have you done?"

"Done?"

"You've disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Bella still hadn't understood.

"I can't see your future anymore," Alice hissed, her voice clogged with panicked tears. "What have you done?"

That should've been her second clue. There was only one thing that could block Alice's visions, but she'd been too selfish to admit the truth. Now it haunted her, nipping at her heels. She shook her head. She deserved the torment and had learned to live with it, until it made her better. And she was getting better. Slowly.

"Bella?"

She blinked at her mother, "Hm?"

"Are you sure you don't have a fever?"

"I'm sure, Mom," she forced a small laugh. Calling Renée "mom" always smoothed over a pending argument. She'd learned that trick with Charlie in senior year and used it shamelessly to her advantage. The only difference was, her father knew what she was doing and didn't care. Her mother didn't know and it always made Bella feel a fresh twinge of guilt. She turned back towards the stairs, absently rubbing the old scar on her wrist, a phantom memory of the icy cold seeping down her arm, like venom.

"Are you hungry?" Her mother called after her, placated and resigned.

"Always," Bella chuckled, the sound almost happy, then began the slow climb to her room at the top of the Floridian bungalow.

The summer house had been her step-father's gift to her mother last year. A warm haven in which to hide, to heal. She opened the sliding door that emptied onto a tiny balcony overlooking the gulf, and breathed in the wet salty air. Here, her life had slowly mellowed from the chaos of her junior and senior years into something more mundane, the days finally falling into a pattern of normalcy that she craved like she craved the sun; long, predictable, lazy days. Here she'd finally let herself slow down, become invisible, and just be herself. Here she could almost forget the last two years. Bella sighed and ran her hand absently over the rounded swell of her stomach. Almost.