Prologue

The story begins a long time ago. It's not a well-known story, but it's a different one. It takes place in a small town not many know of, a town called Forks, in Washington state. It begins in the year 2002, a usual day in the town. It's raining, not really a surprise there. It's a saturday, which means no school. In order to begin, however, we need to pinpoint the location.

Location: Swan Household

Residence: A mother, a father, a son, and a daughter.

Quite a normal family they are, nothing out of the ordinary. The girl has just turned fifteen, two days previous on the 13th of September. The young man is eighteen, an adult, but he stays at home for the sake of his younger sister.

They are very close, you see, and tell each other everything. The brother, as most are, is very protective of his sister. She's an innocent girl, really. But sometimes, having a sister isn't enough to keep you home.

Like I said, this is where our story begins.

"I don't understand," the girl sobs as she sees her brother stuffing clothes in a suitcase. "Why?"

"I have to get out of here, sis," he says, throwing in a picture of the two of them. He is not taking much, just some key items.

She grabs onto his arm. "Please don't leave," she begs, staring up at him with her wide brown eyes. "Things will get better!"

"That's just it!" he yells, pushing her away, "They're not! Things are getting worse! I have to get out of here, I can't breathe while I'm here!"

He storms out of the room, she follows, stumbling out of the room in her normal klutzy way. She's not a graceful girl, hence one of the reasons he is so careful with her.

"You can't just leave me, leave us!" she cries painfully, her heart clenching violently. Tears continue to spill down her cheeks. "We need you, I need you!"

He paused for a moment at the bottom of the steps, taking in her words. "You'll learn to live without me," he responds. The father and mother are now in the kitchen doorway, staring at their son, aching with sorrow. They didn't want him to leave, and it was all their fault that he was.

"Dear, can't we just discuss this," his mother coos stepping forward. The sister is halfway down the steps, still crying.

"There's nothing to discuss!" he booms. "I'm leaving this place; forever. I can't live like this anymore, Mom." He races towards the door, opening it. The girl completes going down the flight of steps. His father looks ashamed, but not at his son, no, at himself.

Outside the trees are blowing violently, swishing back and forth continuously. The rain is heavy, pattering down on the house like knives. His mother starts to cry. "Please," she murmurs to him as he stares out the door, at the rest of the world.

"I'm sorry," he utters, before running out the door. The girl chases after him. Her mother calls after her, trying to stop her. She keeps going.

"No!" she calls as he gets in his car and pulls out of the driveway. She chases the car, but trips and falls. Behind her, her mother is yelling to come back inside. If she didn't go in soon she would get sick. The girl doesn't go.

She keeps sobbing on the ground. Moments later her mother is at her side, rain coat wrapped around her, holding her close. She cries into her mother's shirt restlessly, repeating his name over and over.

"Bella, sweetheart," her mother soothes, tears coming out of her own eyes. "It'll be alright, he'll be back, I promise."

"Emmett," she murmurs again. Renee escorts her back inside, where Charlie waits. They put their daughter on the couch, where she curls up into a ball. All she wants to do is crawl in a hole and die. She's nothing without her brother, nothing at all.

The place a blanket over her. Charlie holds Renee as she cries for her son. She can't promise he'll be back. He can't promise that, either, no matter how much he wants to. Somewhere deep inside he knows that they will never hear of Emmett Swan again. He will disappear from the world, hide from his searching family.

He left them broken. They needed to be fixed, Emmett held them together. They would go nowhere without him. The mother and father, no, they wouldn't get to see their son and tell them they love him.

But this isn't the story of how the family got back together. This is the story of the daughter, sitting on the couch, rolled up. It's the story of how she finally got a family.

Reader, it's a story of hardship, of happiness, of friends, of enemies, of pain, of healing, of hatred, and of love. I can't tell you what happened to the boy for the next few years. But I can tell you of the girl.

I can tell you the rest of Bella Swan's story.