Writings

Sky Harbor Airport

I always thought it was unbelievable, the way characters on TV behave when they find out someone has died. That they scream and howl and start running, and you have to fight to hold them still. Exaggerated for effect.

But when Edward stepped into the baggage claim at the Phoenix airport, he screamed. When he saw that we’d lost her. When he understood at once where she’d gone.

Right there, with all the passengers darting back and forth, and the loud speaker crackling on and off, and the baggage claims beeping and chugging, Edward came to stop, and then tipped sideways, and then fell to his knees so hard he rocked a little bit. Carlisle threw his arms around him, pulling him into an embrace, and Edward’s hands made a hollow thumping noise as he pounded against Carlisle’s chest.

“Let me go!” he screamed. “I have to save her! Carlisle, let me go!”

And he did save her.

I don’t know why I was surprised.

Forward

The Trans-Canada highway runs through Calgary. The speed limit is a hundred kilometers per hour. That’s a completely fine speed limit on a dry, sunny day.

It’s a terrible speed limit on ice.

Forward

From Montana, we moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire which is very cold in the winter. The house was tiny, and all seven of us lived there in four cramped bedrooms with hardly enough room to get around.

Carlisle suggested that maybe we get an upright instead of a baby grand this time.

Edward looked stricken.

Cramming a giant piano into the middle of a tiny living room is a lot easier than making Edward upset.

Forward

For the first day Maria was at the house, things actually went okay. I almost liked her; the way she talked in this odd mix of English and rapid-fire Spanish that kept me on my toes. I liked that she teased Jasper almost as much as I do. He took it like a gentleman.

The first day Maria was at the house, we actually relaxed.

Which was probably where we misstepped.

Forward

The way this story ends is that Edward is my best friend.

I know that’s not how you’re supposed to tell a story; it’s the kind of thing that annoys the snot out of Jasper, or would, if he had any to be annoyed out. But it’s the way I tell a story. Because I always know the end.

The Cullens—my family—are big readers. I think it’s because of Carlisle, who did nothing but read for two centuries. And the rest of them all follow suit, even Jasper and Emmett, who you think wouldn’t read much. But there’re a lot more books than there are TV shows and even vampires get bored with bad TV.

Reading doesn’t work very well for me, though. I see the final page turn, and I see the end of the book, and I see my reactions to the parts in the middle, and by the time I’ve picked something up I’ve decided to read, I already know the end. So if I read, I read differently—I read to appreciate the way the writer used her words, or the way he kept tension moving from scene to scene. I read to laugh at a funny line of dialogue.

I don’t read to know the end. I always know that from the beginning.

So the end of this story is that Edward is my best friend.

But that’s not how it begins.

Forward