Chapter Text
Bella’s POV
I watched the sky as dawn slowly broke. I recline, shift, readjust anything to get more comfortable as I watch the sun come over the horizon. It’s just another day, just another sunrise, I try to tell myself. I ignore the thought scratching and clawing at the back of my mind. The thought that this sunrise is different. This day is different. That today I, Bella Swan, am now seventeen.
I’ve always disliked my birthday. As much as I loved my mother she was never any good with birthdays. Nope, Renee is not exactly a good planner. So, ever since I was old enough to remember, birthdays were either disappointing or another chore for me. Another thing to follow after my mother and clean her messes. She forgot to send invitations one year and no one came to the party. Another year she forgot to check the weather, my party at the park got rained out. In her defense, how often does it rain in Arizona in September?
It was another one of these forgetful moments of Renee’s that led to the events of my fifteenth birthday, the worst day of my life. The day that changed everything. The day that ruined everything. Now birthdays are not just a disappointment or a chore but a memorial to all I have lost. A reminder of how far I have fallen, to what I have become.
So, on the dawn of my seventeenth birthday, instead of reminding Renee of all the last minute things needed for a party I sit alone and mourn. Mourn the loss of my innocence and my freedom. Mourn the loss of my perpetually frazzled mother, and my sharp eyed but quiet father. Mourn the loss of having a family.
I am lonely. Desperately lonely, but that doesn’t matter. They are safe. I am certain that they miss me, but they are safer without me. I can not go back! Not now, not like this. I know that I’m doing the right thing, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. The grief, the guilt, the loneliness all eat at me. I am a thing to be consumed, I know this. Have known for a while. I rather it be myself than others that do the consuming though.
I try to focus on my surroundings, the tree bark against my back as I lean pressing against it. Focus on the mud between my toes, and squish under my bare feet. Focus on the clouds passing by and their shapes. Focus on the reflections off the surface of the small pond. Focus on the hum of the forest around me. Focus on anything except the grief.
I decide that I won’t do anything today. I will just sit and let time pass around me. I have gotten good at that over the last two years. I’ll sit by the pond and watch the sun as it passes through the sky. That will have to be enough. This has to be enough. I can not go back! I am a danger to them. I must remind myself of this fact often. My longing for them will get them killed.
Occasionally a small animal makes its way to the pond. It is mine now. I devour it. I am a wild animal. They are my prey. I don’t feel shame anymore for ending their existences. Still I try not to think about what I do to the creatures of the forest. Better them than people, I tell myself. I am a danger to people. I cannot go back not ever! I don’t know if I could control myself. At least I am not confident enough to risk their lives, especially of those I love. Not when my throat burns so fiercely.
The sun is well and truly in the sky now. I just want to wait for that moment, the setting of the sun before I give myself permission to be active again. I should get clean. I am cold and bloody and dirty, but I don’t mind much. I am often covered in filth. It has become my new state of being. I sometimes wish I could just quit. Stop trying. Stop fighting. Stop existing. But something keeps drawing me forward, and pushing me to keep going. I don’t know what that force is, but I know that it is there. Sometimes it feels like that force is the only thing inside me, well that and the grief.
I may not give myself permission to move just yet, but I decide that I can plan. Planning is not doing much of anything, and plans can always change. So yes, getting clean is first. Then I need to make my way back to civilization. Night is best for travel anyway, I reassure myself that the day is not “wasted”. I need to travel at night anyway to avoid detection. I don’t need observant and intelligent Charlie or anyone else for that matter catching wind of my continued existence. Plus the less people the less my throat burns.
Of course my throat always burns, but people make it exponentially worse. I often can’t tell what’s worse living in the woods and alone, or living near humanity and always experiencing that level of burn all the time. Both options feel like hell. I want nothing more than a balm for both my loneliness and my throat, but I won’t allow myself either. I know what it will mean for me. I know what it will make me. I can not allow myself to stoop any lower than I already have. I’m already a monster, no need to make it worse. I will be miserable if it means others will be safe. I will do it willingly.
The sun has passed its peak, and the clouds have started to clear. I let its rays warm my chilled skin. I close my eyes against the brightness. I’m not used to it. Traveling after dark, and staying inside or in forests during the daytime, means little light ever meets Bella Swan. I don’t mind. I have never really been a sunshiny kind of person. I lived in Phoenix Arizona and was still pale and almost sickly looking. No one understood how or why my skin was so pale when it was always sunny out.
Renee encouraged me more than once to try tanning with her. I was never interested. I much preferred to stay inside and read. I preferred fantasy worlds to this one. Even my father, Charlie, when I saw him in the summers tried to get me to enjoy the outdoors. Although that is a notably harder task in dreary Forks where Charlie lives. He would try to take me fishing with him and his buddies from the reservation, but again I just wanted to stay inside and live in my fantasy worlds.
Now look at me! They would be so proud. Outside, one with nature, catching my own food, and getting some sunshine. Not even one book in sight. No need for fantasy worlds when reality is so strange. Monsters that lurk in the shadows. The drama, the intrigue! No need for that horror or thriller novel, not when you have monsters like me.
The sun has almost made its way through the sky. Dawn to dusk. Just another day. I try to mentally prepare myself for activity again. Movement is such an effort. I don’t wish to do it, but I know I must. I start to stretch when I hear it. SNAP!!
I sit up like a shot, and whirl around. I’m on alert, instinctively pushing out my protective bubble. I know it came from behind me, but I see nothing. I squint scanning and still nothing, but I can sense something out there. I just can’t see it, not yet. I wait and wait for a possible attack. As the last of the sun's light starts to die, I see the figure step out of the tree line. I can't believe my eyes.