Twilight: But it's a Thriller and I Never Read Twilight

Chapter 22: A Guardian

School was supposed to start again tomorrow. My senior year was supposed to be fun. I was supposed to be excited to see my friends and happy to be almost done with that place, but I was dreading it. My birthday was in eight days. Eight days before I'd be a year older than Edward and a year further into this perpetual torture. It hurt my head to think that every year I would get older and somewhere in the world, Edward would still be beautiful Edward, unageing and unending. And in all those years, I'd never see him again.

Time would turn and I would die, but he would go on forever. That hurt me more than anything. I didn't know why, but his presence, his very existence made me so hyper aware of my own mortality. Before him, I'd never thought much about aging. Before him, I'd have been excited to turn eighteen, to be able to vote, to go to college, but he twisted those rites of passage into a curse. Every year, I'd be further from him, and I didn't know how I was going to move on from that.

I spent the last month wandering the woods. When I wasn't with Jacob, riding or spending time at La Push, I was hiking through the woods, trying to orient myself in all those trees. I went back to the place Edward told me what he was and stole my heart. The woods just beyond the school were like a sacred place to me. It felt darker there now, and when there was sun, that break in the trees where the light streamed through didn't feel as warm. I spent hours there in the cold, wishing I wasn't alone, knowing I'd never be able to bring anyone else here.

In all honesty, I didn't know what I was really doing there. I knew I wouldn't find Edward no matter where I looked. But after what he'd said to me, I needed to know these woods, to be at home in them again like I was when I was a child. I needed to know that these woods would take care of me when nothing anyone else could do would suffice.

Charlie had told me to avoid the woods. All the time I was here, he thought I was with Jacob at the res, and I didn't care to tell him the truth. There was still talk about those people who were killed in Port Angeles. He was worried about mountain lions or wolves or any wild animal he was convinced would rip me to shreds. I didn't give the mountain lions a second thought. If I was killed here, so be it. At least I would be in this forest for the rest of time. It felt, sometimes, that this forest was where I had always belonged.

As I wandered today, however, I searched out to get lost. I'd been able to find my way home every time I hiked through these woods, but today, with school hanging over me, I wanted to get lost in these woods for days. I wanted them to send out search parties for me. I wanted them to comb these woods and never find me. As I climbed steep inclines, using branches for support, I wanted to never leave these woods and I didn't know if it was because I had gone crazy or if I was just done. To never turn eighteen would have been the best ending for me, to stay safe and sound in childhood forever.

At the top of another steep hill, I pushed through the brush once more and found a clearing, so wide the sun cast down on it, filling the green of the long grasses and the bright yellow and white wildflowers with such light that it seemed to leave an effervescent glow. I stepped forward slow, feeling the grasses rise up to my knees in some places.

I breathed in, the smell of flowers permeating this place and felt for a moment, at peace. The world was in bloom here in a way I had not seen, or maybe, I just hadn't paid attention to any of it. This place, so alive, growing, and changing was perhaps a sign to me. I hadn't spared much thought to the trees around me and thought only of the moss eating away at them, this meadow was filled with so much life it was overwhelming.

Relief fell over me, warming my hardened spirit. I wanted to lay down there for a moment and feel the way the grass grew around me, but it became very obvious as I ran my hands through the reeds that I wasn't alone here. There was a rustling in the grass that could have been birds, but as I took a patient step towards it, I became sure it wasn't birds, but a much larger animal.