Writings

First, many, many thanks to robsjenn, first for being willing to bid on me in Fandom Gives Back, and then, for waiting pretty much forever while I got my sea legs for Alice’s voice and threw out draft after draft after draft. So my undying thanks are due to her, both for her patience, and for asking me to write something that was such a fun stretch of my normal Twilight writings.

Thanks also to Openhome, my intrepid beta and critique partner. Everything she does keeps me on track, and saves me from wandering too far afield in the search for the perfect way to portray someone. She’s walked through a novel and a novella with me over almost three years, and I am deeply, deeply in her debt.

Thanks to sleepyvalentina for prereading, and to her, twitina, and einfach_mich for being excited every time I bounced a few lines off them. It kept me going, and I owe you all.

And of course, thank you to all of you for reading. The gift of getting to share these stories with others is not one I take for granted, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming on these little journeys with me.

Because Carlisle was an emergency surgeon, we had our own telephone line. And that meant that any time our phone rang, you knew.

By the time Carlisle hung up, I had seen the whole thing. The accident, which would go on for a half hour because of the fog. The highway, slick with blood and gasoline and oil, and littered with car parts. Carlisle, running between cars, grabbing bodies and carrying them to safety. In surgery all night, returning to us in the morning looking almost as tired as he might have if he were a human.

And, because they were running in the woods too near the crash, Maria…and Jasper.

Forward

Getting Edward’s photo re-framed cost five dollars.

I hung it up in his room with a note that simply said, “More Chopin.”

That night, he played for three and a half hours without stopping.

Forward

Edward saw my vision at the same time I did. He was just moving to sit down at the piano, but instead of the peace-filled expression I usually saw when he was ready to sit down to play, I saw his face twist in horror.

“Can we stop them?” he asked.

I shook my head.

But Edward is the fastest of all of us, and he’s also the most stubborn.

We left the front door open.

Forward

Edward didn’t ask me about the photo, nor did he thank me for it. But he played almost every night, and most nights, I sat with him, listening, watching. Trying not to think of his mother and how it must have been, her sitting there with Edward leaning into her side.

Sometimes, my mind would drift though, and then I would hear his fingers falter as my imagining of his mother appeared in my mind.

Listening to him trip over the notes, I squeezed his arm.

“I’m here,” I whispered.

He kept playing.

Forward