Hello, guys!
Having been a Twilight fan for God knows how long, I've always wondered: what would have happened if that whole birthday incident in "New Moon" never happened? And since my enthusiasm for this saga has been reignited by the "Midnight Sun" announcement (God bless Stephenie's soul for this), I decided to give it a try and answer that question myself.
In my ideal world, Edward would have never left and he would have changed Bella because he wanted to, not because he was caught in a life or death scenario. In my ideal world, Edward and Bella wouldn't have become parents as soon as they got married and they would have had time to enjoy each other's company more. In my ideal world, the series wouldn't have had such a perfectly happy ending, in which most characters get to have their cake and eat it too.
My story is an alternate version of events post-"Twilight", told from Edward's perspective (because I love his broody-moody-emo view of the world).
So, as a disclaimer, I will note that:
- The events in my story take place a little over a year after Twilight, after graduation;
- Victoria has been dealt with before the events in the story take place, so she is no longer a threat;
- Edward still struggled with wanting to leave Bella for her own safety's sake (as we learned from "Midnight Sun") throughout their first summer together, but he eventually opened up to her about this and, slowly, but surely, came to understand that a break-up would destroy Bella just as much as it would destroy him; the story of what exactly prompted Edward to stay with Bella will come as the events of "After Nightfall" will progress;
- Because Edward never left, Jacob and Bella never got the chance to become such close friends;
- Eventually, Edward and Bella got married after the ending of senior year's first semester - and yes, they had a big grand wedding, courtesy of Alice;
- They had an awesome and well-deserved honeymoon on Isle Esme during winter break;
- The Volturi are not yet aware of Bella's existence;
- In this alternate universe, vampires cannot impregnate humans, because their sperm-cells are dead. So no surprise-babies in this story;
- The treaty between the Cullens and the Quileute tribe has a loop-hole, which provides that the Cullens can turn a human being into a vampire, as long as the human consents to this and the transformation happens far enough away (hence Edward's and Bella's trip to Alaska);
- Since Edward is a mind-reader, I will use this format for writing down the thoughts he keeps on hearing: "Insert thought here" (kind of like Stephenie did in "Midnight Sun", but I added the quotation marks because I felt it made things clearer, for some reason);
- This story has plenty of lemons scattered throughout almost every chapter, because Stephenie, as amazing as she is, robbed us of that - just a warning, in case this might not be your thing.
This should be it, but I might update this list as I go along.
I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I love writing it! All feedback is welcome, be it positive or negative!
If you want to get sneak peeks of future chapters, early heads-ups regarding updates and more fun stuff, you are more than welcome to join the Facebook Group „After Nightfall: Updates, sneak peeks, music and discussions", a group that I created after one lovely reader and reviewer asked me about it.