7My first VampFic! :) It's just a little one shot my mind conjured at 1 AM. iambeagle prereaded for me because she's a sweetheart and stays up til 2 in the morning like I do.
Shifted
~S~
My father explained it to me once - or, my creator might be a more appropriate term, though I think of him as my father. He's everything one should be. He explained this weird new life I'd been involuntarily thrust into as best he could, but it was hard for me to grasp it all. Since I'd never wanted this, never knew this even existed, I didn't really care what he'd had to say about it.
But now I'm here, and she walks across the deserted park to the rusty old bench with a hard back copy of Great Expectations clutched in her dainty hands. She looks around the line of trees and I duck down when her eyes sweep across my hiding spot. Before she sits down, she brushes off a few specks of dirt from the wood of the seat and the action sends her scent towards me. It's the most alluring aroma I've ever experienced in my lifetime, and everything in me coils to spring. The scent is strong and poignant, but I control myself. It would be so easy to take her life, but the pain the idea of her death brings me, especially done by my own hands, overpowers the burn in my throat. I can hear the crack of her book spine as she opens it; it's the kind of sound a book that's never been used makes when an experienced reader opens it too fast and she smiles at the sound. Her smile is breathtaking.
I feel really creepy, because she's completely alone in the park except for the company of pigeons and a snail she doesn't see stuck on the back of the bench, and I'm crouched in the bushes ten yards from her. She has no idea how I'm analyzing every movement of hers, every page turn or fidget or lip twitch. I know I should just leave, I feel like a peeping tom, except I'm worse. There's no doubt that the way I evaluate every single thing about her is far more intimate than watching a woman undress through a window. And I've finally convinced myself to leave her when a breeze flows through her long mahogany hair and she laughs at something she reads and I'm a man transfixed. I can't move my eyes from her, and this is when I remember my father's words:
"Our kind is created to stay set in stone for all time. Whatever age or development we are in when we are changed determines how we'll always be, and only few things can change that. But when that change does come, when an unpredicted person charges their way into our lives and shifts everything, crumbles our whole world and instantly builds it back up before our eyes... Well, it's extraordinary."
He said that's what it feels like to love. I never understood what he had said that late night until now. We had been living somewhere up in northern Michigan and I'd only been in this life for a week. I'd killed someone, and I'd enjoyed it at first. Then my hands went limp and my body numb and Carlisle found me in that back alley hours later still staring at my blood stained hands. He'd tried to console me, and it sickened me that I was a killer and he was forgiving me for it. I wasn't ready to forgive myself and definitely not ready to be forgiven. He'd told me about the thing that would change me and I didn't believe him. He said once I found that one person who would alter the whole universe just by simply walking into the damn room, I'd finally be able to forgive myself. Not just for killing people, but for pretty much everything.
I said he was full of shit. He just laughed.
Though I didn't think it would happen for me, I'd seen it in him when he found his wife. I'd seen it happen to my siblings. I'd even seen it in humans. And I had never admitted it, but I was secretly envious.
Now that night that I'd all but forgotten seeps into the forefront of my mind, and I look at her as she glances up to see how late it's become and think... That's her.
I just know it is, because when she casually straightens her cream sweater and heads towards the street, the ground is destroyed wherever she's stepped. It crumbles and rustles and dies, then forms again as something stronger and more beautiful. The world is recreated around her in a tighter weave, a tightness that rivals the feeling building in my chest. I wasn't even aware I could feel this. I glance down at where my hand grasps my chest to make sure the heart that's been still for over a hundred years isn't trying to jump out.
I look up and notice she's almost to her truck. It's an ugly old thing, and I'm dying to know why it appeals to her. I want to know everything about her. Should I introduce myself? Would that be weird? Hi, I was watching you in those bushes over there and was wondering why you bought this crappy truck?
Suddenly, her book slips from her hand and I thank God for this golden opportunity. I'm next to her before she can even register it's fallen.
"Oh!" she squeaks. I pick up her book and straighten. Her mouth is in a little O of surprise. Dare I say, it's a cute expression.
"Here's your book." She slowly takes it from me, and it's like tiny electric shocks traveled through her fingertips to mine.
She thanks me and there's a moment where we just smile at each other. I'm marveled that she isn't shying away from me like most humans, and that there's none of the "we just met" awkward silence. I don't think it's possible, but it's almost like she knew I'd find her one day and she was just waiting for me. It's a preposterous notion, but I like to think it any way. Her name is Bella. I tell her how fitting the title is for her and she blushes. The pink that blooms across her cheeks sets me on fire. The sun is setting behind us and the red in her hair glows like embers. I don't even care right now that she's human because I'm too busy being astonished that I actually found her.
We walk to Bella's truck, and with every step we gravitate closer. Everything falls away behind us and the Earth's focal point shifts to her. The sun sets and the moon rises and the stars wink. The wind picks up again, sending the shivering fall leaves in a whirl around her hair that tickles my face.
I take her hand in mine.
Reviews are better than the cracking spine of a new book.