Have you ever tried not to think about something? To purposefully shove something out of your head and then keep it out, consistently, for days and days at a time? Not even days, hours? A minute? A second? It's impossible. To consciously not think of something you had to, in the same moment, be aware of the thing you weren't thinking about. Which obviously meant you were thinking about it. You can't forget something on purpose, because the decision to forget something is a decision. To make a decision you have to think. Maybe it crosses your mind in a split-second, or it flits by in the background with barely a passing wave, but you decided to make the decision and you cannot not be aware of something you intend to do.

Ergo, the entire thing was an exercise in futility. Of course, that didn't stop me from trying. It didn't stop me from succeeding, either. Alright, maybe succeed was a bit too strong of a word, but I managed to find a bit of a loophole and work through the issue like that. After all, I said it was impossible.

My loophole? Two completely separate trains of thought, running simultaneously in my head all the time. Which, knowing what I do about the brain, is also impossible, but it's the closest I can get to a description that even somewhat matches what I have going on up on there. It was a pain to figure the system out, and I actually gave myself daily headaches during the first few years of practice, but I'd managed to get one train to move in words while the other moved along in feelings and impressions. The big question, though, is why I would bother.

Two words, my friends; mind readers.

For what felt like the hundredth time that day I lamented the situation I found myself in. At the same time, though, I was horribly excited. If I were right, and the last seventeen years had yet to prove me wrong, the Plot was about to begin. So I sat in the surprisingly plush cushions of economy class on my WestJet flight to Washington. I stared out over the clouds, since someone had bailed last minute and left the window seat unoccupied, and I tried very hard to sort out exactly how I was meant to feel.

Joan, the kind twenty-something on my left, had spent the first half hour of the trip offering me pieces of gum and gushing about how much she loved Port Angeles. Which wasn't a surprise, really. I loved it too. Not Port Angeles, specifically, but my dad's town. It was cool and green, with a beach close by and a cute diner with great cobbler, so my problem wasn't the location. It was the Plot.

I blew a small, grape flavoured bubble (courtesy of Joan) and quietly snapped it between my teeth. Only a few more minutes before we were supposed to land, I guessed, just based off my watch. Dad would be waiting at the airport, all moustache and unassuming sarcasm, and then we'd drive off to Forks in his cop car. Then I'd set up my room, go to sleep on my galaxy themed bed set, and drive the truck I would probably be getting to my new high school where I'd be treated like a zoo animal for the next month and a half.

See, if I were where I was meant to be, all of this would be sending alarm bells off in people's heads. Forks? Chief dad? High school and a rustic, orange pickup truck? Klaxons and Kill Bill sirens blaring 24/7. However, I'm not where I'm meant to be. I figured that one out about thirteen years ago, when I started kindergarten and met a little girl named Angela who really hated a little boy named Mike.

Of course, that hadn't been my first hint, if it hadn't been last in a long line of horrible realizations I doubt I'd even remember those names were important, but it had tied everything together in a nice little bow. Especially since my parents started arguing a lot that same year, and anyone could see they were on the verge of divorce.

Confused? I know I was. Whatever, I'm talking to myself here, but the point is I need to deal with all this shit somehow. What shit? I'm living in Twilight. See, that wouldn't make any sense to anyone here, not only because it's only just now 2005, but because there is no woman alive named Stephenie Meyer. Okay, maybe there is, but she's not an English major with a dream about a magic meadow full of vampires.

The flight attendant then picked up the intercom phone and said, "We are approaching William R Fairchild International Airport. The seatbelt sign is now lit. Please fasten your seatbelts and make sure your belongings are secured as we prepare for descent."

Thank God, I didn't think I could handle sitting down and stewing in foreknowledge any longer. I slipped my Nintendo DS and game case into the front pocket of my backpack, making sure that my travel wipes and kleenex didn't fall out in the process, then zipped everything back up and sat it on my lap. I really liked the stupid thing, the backpack, it was striped black and white with silver and gold studs on it. I know, it sounded ridiculous and edgy and a bit too try-hard, but that was one of the best things about 2005 – all of that stuff wasn't laughed or cringed at, it was a legitimate niche style. I could walk into a Hot Topic without seeing stolen fanart plastered all over cheap tee-shirts or those annoying little Funko Pop figures lining the walls.

"Hey, hey Joan?" I shook the girl next to me, "We're landing soon, you gotta get up."

She made some muffled, half-shriek sound as she jerked awake, platinum blonde hair falling in her face when she thanked me and quickly snapped her own seatbelt together. I'd gotten her phone number earlier in the flight because I figured I needed to know some new people in my new area, she'd scrawled it on the back of a gum wrapper with a pencil stub and I'd shoved it in my bra for safe keeping. Yes, I could've put it in my pants pocket, but I always forgot stuff in there; if it was poking into my tit I definitely wouldn't throw it accidentally in the washing machine.

The plane bounced a little and the tires screeched as we touched down on the runway. God, I could do this, I could definitely do this. It was time to say goodbye to the prologue and say hello to Charlie Swan in the airport, where he would drive us back to a town I'd visited every summer yet hadn't truly lived in since I was twelve. We'd drive into Forks, Washington and pull into the driveway of my old family home, the soft-looking two-storey building that backed onto the woods that would one day be full of motherfucking werewolves. I'd go to school and meet the Inciting Incident, the Cullens, and I'd have to somehow avoid their mind-reading and emotion-altering and future-seeing vampire magic.

Obviously, everything was going to go great.

I sat in the passenger seat of dad's cop car, ankles crossed in the footwell since I couldn't tuck my leg up under myself while we were driving, and danced my hand out the window to the rhythm of the song on the radio. I smiled softly, it was fun to let the wind jerk my wrist up and down and to feel the damp, cold air of Forks seep into my skin.

"I wish you wouldn't do that, Etta," Dad, Charlie-Dad, said, "You're gonna whack your arm off on a tree branch or something."

I laughed and shot him a wry look with a shake of my head, "I'm keeping an eye peeled up ahead, Dad, don't worry so much."

His raised brow and pointed look at our surroundings startled a snort out of me. Yeah, cop, worrying was his job, alright, but I knew I won when he let out a put-upon sigh, "Happy to have you back, kiddo."
"I've missed living up here with you," I tuck my arm back into the car, "I mean, Arizona is fun and stuff, and I love Mom, obviously, but Forks is home y'know?"

Unlike a certain Bella, who had it the other way around, I'd lived with Dad in Forks until the end of grade seven and visited Mom in the summers. There were a lot of little changes like that, actually, which threw my whole situation even further into the dark. How was I supposed to cross reference my new life with a young-adult novel if my life kept diverging from canon? Minor canon, but still canon.

Some things were so little they hardly seemed to matter, like Charlie Swan having a beard to go with his weirdly iconic moustache. Others, though, were like the home thing; Mom and Dad hadn't even divorced when they were meant to. I'm almost certain Renee disappeared one night with a four year old Bella under arm. Here? In real life? It didn't happen until I was in the fourth grade. The signs had been there for a long time, arguments and cold shoulders, little frustrations, but there was no horrible blow up that sent them careening apart.

Dad smiled a bit at my admission, though I probably wasn't meant to see it, "Yeah, I know what you mean."

The sky peeled back a little and began spitting teeny raindrops onto the windshield. Luckily, I could already see our driveway, so when the clouds cracked open utterly and let loose a thunderstorm it only took a minute to pull up in front of the house.

I'd forgotten how it had been described in the book, so there were no uncomfortable comparisons to draw to what this life should've been. For all I knew, it was the exact same cottage-y, off-white as my own. I hoped not.

I hitched my backpack over my arm and darted out of the cruiser, doing my best to weave around the downpour in the direction of the porch. It wasn't until I was standing, soaked, under the overhang that I noticed Dad wasn't behind me. Instead of following, he was rooting around in the trunk for my suitcases.

"Dad, no!" I laughed, "I'll get 'em later. You're gonna drown!"

"Too late," He replied, one bag propped on his shoulder and the handles of the other in his hand. Did he mean 'too late, I'm already drowning' or 'too late, I'm already getting your shit'? Judging from the look on his face, one part annoyed, two parts amused, I think it was both.

I went over, because fuck the rain, I was wet anyway, and held out my arms for the case that was probably digging into his neck at that point. I was shorter, Here, than I had been Back There. I used to scrape the underside of 5'11'' with frizzy brown curls, but over Here in the Twilight Zone I was barely 5'6''.

He carefully dropped the bag into my waiting hands and, with that all finally sorted, I went back over to unlock the door and let us into the foyer. Everything looked exactly as I remembered, from living it as opposed to reading it. Though I hadn't been away that long, after moving in with Mom I'd come back for a month or two every summer, but seeing the whole house unchanged still triggered a bit of nostalgic fondness. It was the good type of nostalgia. The bad type was that which I felt about my old life, and when that reared its ugly head I was shit outta luck, because I had no way to get back.

I gestured for Dad to hand me the other case, but he shook his head and said, "Nuh-uh, I got it."

I grinned and rolled my eyes, "Thanks."

The old wood of the floorboards creaked a little under our weight as we headed into the upstairs hall, and we stopped before my bedroom door. It was closed, though I knew he wouldn't have changed anything since my last visit in August. There were scuff marks along the bottom that trailed over to the walls, I couldn't remember exactly but I thought it might've been from when I played soccer in elementary school; I'd practised in the house for a while until Dad noticed and told me off.

Hung from a nail right at my eye level was a hand-painted sign with my name, Loretta, in sparkly green bubble letters on a soft pink background. If I squinted, I could see pencil marks from where I'd first sketched a rainbow before I decided that would look too cluttered. Renee-Mom and I made it together during one of my summer visits pretty soon after she'd shacked up in Arizona.

The name was one of the things that tripped me up, actually. You'd think I'd be Isabella Marie, but no, they called me Loretta Jane. That difference had been something I'd clung to, in the early years – there wouldn't be a Twilight without a Bella. So if I weren't Bella, and I didn't have a sibling or a cousin or an aunt-thrice-removed named Bella, I was obviously just living a ridiculous coincidence. There were a lot of little things I'd clung to, to try and escape what I came to know I was stuck in.

When I opened the door I could see dust dancing along the fingers of light coming in through my cream linen curtains. I was going to have to go over all the furniture with duster or a kleenex or something, just so the dust bunnies didn't rise up in the night to overthrow me.

"You okay if dinner's a frozen pizza?" Dad asked.

"Sounds good to me."

He nodded and set the suitcase down inside the doorway up against the wall, then stopped. It looked to me like he was considering something, and then it clicked in my head. No matter the completely different relationship I had with the man, Charlie Swan was still eighteen different kinds of awkward.

"Hug!" I bounced towards him on my tippy toes and wrapped my arms around his middle. That face either meant he was about to go for some father-daughter affection or my goldfish died, and since I no longer had a goldfish I was pretty sure a hug was what he was aiming for, "I love you, Dad."

"Love you too, kiddo."

I disentangled myself from the embrace after a minute and watched as he inched towards the door, "Don't forget to take the plastic off."

"That was one time!"

We both laughed, and he gave a half wave before disappearing down the hallway. I heard the soft pit-pat of his sock-feet on the stairs, waiting for the sound to fade into the kitchen before allowing myself a deep sigh. Though I often failed, I did try to keep my reminiscing to nighttime hours only. Yet, Charlie-Dad was so much like... my Dad. I'd come to terms with it but it never really stopped aching, not when it was shoved in my face with little quirks and interactions that made them seem like twins.

I blew a raspberry. Enough of that.

My room, as anticipated, was exactly as I'd left it five months ago. A double bed covered by a nebula duvet, courtesy many screen-printing trials and errors, and held by a wrought-iron frame was pushed against the wall underneath the window. Next to it was a deep brown nightstand with a single drawer. On the wall to the right of the doorway was a small inset closet, inside was a bare wooden dresser and on the opposite side of the room was a desk with the same finish. The last piece of furniture was a bookshelf pushed into the left-hand corner, and it was also dark, bare wood.

It was a small room compared to the one I'd had at Renee-mom's, but I thought it was cozier. Maybe because my childhood bedroom had been on the smaller side. My first childhood room, that is. God, even I still got confused.

I heaved my first bag, a camo-print duffel, onto the bed. This one had all of my clothes in it, and clothes would be the easiest things to unpack since they all go into either the closet or the dresser drawers. My style was a lot more eclectic than it had been originally. Something about realizing how little all those opinions mattered, considering the people who had them didn't even exist to me anymore, made me a lot more confident in what I wanted to do. So there were flowy skirts and chunky cable knit and a tinge of grunge from the thrift store, all combining to create a very mis-matched wardrobe experience.

All my clothes were just about put away when I heard a faint beeping coming from downstairs. I guessed it to be the oven timer going off, and when Charlie-Dad called my name I knew I was right.

I saw on the microwave that it was about 8:30 when I went down to the kitchen grab some pizza. Dad was in the living room, plate perched on his knee, watching the hockey game, and if I remembered anything about the teams that were playing I might've joined him. Instead I said goodnight and gave him a kiss on the cheek before taking my food back up to my room. Part of me wanted to spend a bit more time with Dad, but another part was fucking exhausted from the plane ride and still wanted to finish unpacking.

With my ass on the hardwood floor and my back against the side of the bed, I wolfed down my two double cheese slices. Plain, yes, but always delicious.

I stared at my second suitcase where it sat across from me, next to the door. I'd shoved all the things that were not clothes into that one, the plastic box case with wheels and an extendable handle. I put my empty plate on the bedside table and grabbed the bag off of the floor to haul it onto my mattress. It landed with a thump and a bounce, and I heard a bit of rattling come from inside. Oops. Nothing too fragile was in there, but I didn't want any of my pictures to get creased or my radio to shake a wire loose.

Once I'd set said radio up on my bedside table and plugged the aux cord into my MP3 player, the rest of the organization went quickly. I had quite a number of knickknacks, but I'd also had the two hour flight from Arizona to plan out where I wanted to put everything. With my posters and fairy lights hung on the walls and my few stuffed toys laid out on the bed, I decided I should probably have a shower. Sure, tomorrow was Sunday, but I still smelled like smog and airport.

I grabbed my toiletries, all kept in a small rainbow tote bag, and headed towards the bathroom. It was spacious, at least when you thought about the size of it relative to the rest of the rooms in the house, with a full bath and shower alongside the toilet and sink. I tossed the bag onto the counter and stripped, dropping my clothes on the faded green bathmat. After I grabbed my razor and body wash from said bag, I stepped into the shower.

Thankfully, there was a bottle of Head N Shoulders shampoo left on the side of the tub, courtesy Charlie-Dad, so I'd be using that until I could run out and buy some of my own. Why didn't I bring any? I ran out of room in the toiletry bag.

No conditioner, but I could make it a day. Ugh, dry, unconditioned hair was a nightmare.

I finished scrubbing my body pink with my loofah and shaved all the bits I desired to shave before pouring a dollop of shampoo into my hand. As I lathered my hair, I tried to ignore how I could feel the natural oils being pulled away from my scalp. I didn't used to care about my hair so much, but it was such a beautiful, soft, dark honey blonde now – I couldn't help but think it was my best feature.

A person's allowed to be vain, alright? There's nothing wrong with a little aesthetic pride now and again.

My hair used to be a rich, dark brown that curled and frizzed up in any direction it could reach. My eyes had been a deep blue-grey with little hazel flecks, I'd been the type of kid to claim they changed colour with my emotions.

Sometimes, even after nearing on seventeen years, it sent me reeling. The impossibility of it, the ridiculousness of it.

I rinsed all the suds off and stepped back onto the mat. There was a towel hanging on the back of the door and soon enough I had it wrapped around my body. A quick, damp run out into the hallway and down to the linen closet and I had a second towel for my hair – I couldn't believe I'd forgotten the second towel. Perhaps moving was rattling me a bit more than I thought it had.

Outside, through the open window, I saw that it was still raining. The steam that clogged the room swirled out past the screen and melded with the cool air like a small whirlpool before my eyes. I felt the chill on my shoulders when I moved to stand in front of the mirror. I couldn't see my reflection, because it was fogged, but the blurry outline of my head was like something out of a dream – soft and wavy and muted. I felt the weight of the towel on my head, wrapped up around my hair, pressing down on my neck and slowly pushing me into the floor.

When did everything get so heavy?

I wiped the mirror clean with one hand and stared. That face, with brown eyes and tanned skin and the smallest smattering of freckles across the bridge of the nose, was mine. It shouldn't have been mine. Hell, it shouldn't have even looked like it did, but it did, and it was mine, and there was nothing to be done about it.

I should've been over it. Really, I was. I had dealt with my new reality and my new family and my new face for years upon years. It wasn't shocking anymore, it was my normal.

Except it wasn't.

I locked eyes with the not-so-strange stranger in front of me and wondered why I had to remember. I wondered why woke up in this new life. I asked myself why I didn't just forget and fade and disappear, like I was meant to, when I died.

AN: I haven't published anything in years, but I have this idea rattling around so I thought I might as well put it up. If you have any crit or suggestions or anything, please share, I'm all for having my mistakes pointed out, I love help, ha. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this first chapter; next one will be up in a week.