Forget Me Not | ✓

20 | The Moment

  
   
20
Eclipse
T h e   M o m e n t
  
  
 

  
    
THAT VERY SAME night, Adele lay awake on her bed in the tranquility of her room and stared at the blank ceiling as she pondered life. This wouldn't have been so unusual -- lots of people contemplate life in the dead of the night, but most of did not her three-and-a-half centuries to dwell on.

At first glance, Paul Lahote wasn't anything special. He was just some guy with a gorgeous body and a loose temper which did not serve him well as a shapeshifter. He was probably just like every hormonal guy in the Quileute tribe; not his own person. He was twenty-eight years old at most. He was way out of her league because she liked chivalry, old romantica, and she certainly didn't have a particular taste for shapeshifters.

He's nothing special.

She repeated this in her head for what seemed like the millionth time because she had to be right. Paul Lahote was as different from her late mate as humanly possible. No one could replace Jace and she didn't want anyone to, but she did want to move on.

I, Adele Cullen, want to move on with my life, she thought to herself the nexr morning as she sat on a tree branch beside Alice. The Cullens arrived at the clearing at dawn to go over the game plan for their precedential gathering with the Quileute wolf pack. The women sat in one of the tallest trees as the others lingered below, speaking amongst themselves.  Edward and Bella were just pulling up in the Jeep when Alice turned to her sister with a bright smile.

Thanks to her indecisiveness regarding her potential future love life, Adele was in a mood and found her beaming to be quite annoying. "What has you so smiley, pixie?"

Her attitude only made Alice's smile widen because it confirmed her hooeful theory. "You're waiting for him, aren't you?"

Adele looked at her with a stony expression and pursed her lips. I could lie... Her gaze brushed over the treeline once more as she reeled back from her thoughts -- she wasn't going to be making any important decisions now. Alice's curious smile didn't waver and Adele huffed. "I plead the fifth."

She squealed. "You are!"

"It doesn't mean I like it. I don't know him, Alice, and yet I feel this odd pull between us and it's so...it's so aggravating."

Alice's smile fell as she wrapped her arms around her sympathetically. "Adele, how did it feel when you first met Jace?"

She thought back on it. "Well, I thought he was the most charming person I'd ever met. He had a way with words since the very first sentence he ever said to me." I also found myself becoming quite bored, but that was until my eyes rested upon you. She chuckles bittersweetly at the fond memory. "But that also could have been the wine."

"What about when you really, really met him?" Adele furrowed her eyebrows at the vague question. "Okay, I mean, how did you feel when that day came, the day you looked into his eyes and knew he was the one for you?"

She didn't need to think about it because she knew the exact moment, the exact second, when she fell deeply, madly in love with the man with the heart of gold.

"Why do you think so highly of me when it is clear I am so flawed?"

"Because, Adela," he smiled, "I love you despite your flaws, I love you for your personality and your heart and your mind." She stared at him bewilderedly and suddenly, he knew it was true. He loved her in that throne room and he loved her now as she stood there, unaware of her own beauty – hell, it was love at first sight from the moment he laid eyes on her at the ball. "You are my mate, Adelina Cullen, and there is nothing that you can ever say or do that would make me feel as if you weren't my entire universe."