Only Human Twilight

3

I found myself sitting alone in a spare bedroom in the Masen family's house. The bed was a lovely, luxurious thing, the tall wooden posts finely carved and stained, the comforter thick and warm. The wallpaper was elegant, the carpet a lovely sage. It was as nice as any place I had ever been.

And in spite of the pleasant surroundings, in spite of the long-sleeved dress that seemed to cover every inch of me, I felt cold all the way through.

How was this possible? How could I be making a wish on my birthday cake one moment, and the next be standing in the middle of Chicago, nearly a century in the past?

Making a wish...it couldn't be...could it? I had wished I could give Edward human experiences, hadn't I?

"I didn't mean that quite so literally," I mumbled to myself, burying my face in my hands. This was impossible. Sure, I'd seen a lot of impossible things since I'd met Edward, but time-travel? And from a wish on a birthday cake, no less!

The weirdness I could deal with, though. It was even sort of...cool, really. I had the chance to see Edward as a human, as the normal teenage boy he once was, but I had to wonder what the price was. Would I ever see my Edward again? What if there was no way back to my own time and place? I tried to imagine living out my life here, growing old, dying...losing any chance of forever with Edward. The pain that stabbed my chest was unendurable, and the tears that had been pricking at my eyes ever since Mrs. Masen had left me alone finally spilled forth.

Was this even real? Could it be real? Surely I had just fallen down and was hallucinating all of this as a result of a concussion. Maybe I did fall of the chair and was completely schizophrenic and had been imagining everything all along...although that thought was as bad as all this being real.

If I was truly in the past, what would be the ramifications on the future? If I changed things somehow, if this Edward never fell ill and became a vampire, then I would never meet him in the future and then therefore never come back in time, but then I wouldn't be around to change anything...

Trying to think about that made my head hurt, so I gave up. Clearly there was nothing in my power to do to change the situation, so I had no choice but to be pulled along with the current.

If only my vampire were here to protect me...

A soft knock on the door interrupted my thoughts, and I instinctively knew it would be Edward. The hesitance and gentleness had not faded over the span of 80 years. I almost called for him to come in, but I wasn't sure how proper that was in this time – why had I never bothered to learn more about the world Edward grew up in? – and so I went to open the door myself.

He stood there, shoulders slightly hunched, flushed with life. His eyes were intent as they met mine.

"I came to check on you – have you been crying?" he asked as I hastily swiped the tears from my cheeks.

"Oh, yes, but it's nothing. I'm fine," I lied. He narrowed his eyes, and I knew he saw right through me.

"Can I do anything?" he asked, and I held back a sigh of relief that he didn't ask for explanation.

"Thank you, but no," I said, caught in his eyes. They were the same eyes that had always seemed to pierce right through me, and yet, they were so different.... "There's nothing that can be done."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Edward said, standing awkwardly in the doorframe. "Would it perhaps improve your mood to accompany me on an errand? My mother seems to have forgotten a crucial ingredient for tonight's meal."

It was impossible to refuse. "That sounds nice. Give me a moment."

"I'll wait downstairs," he said, leaving me to stare helplessly at my reflection in the mirror on the vanity. I had the right clothing on now, but none of the women here seemed to wear their hair down, and I had no way to put mine up. I sighed, frustrated, and reached up to fiddle with the loose strands, but a flash of light against my finger stopped me.