A/N: So, this is my re-working of Darkness and Light. I am not taking it down, and, while some passages will be verbatim, I'm anticipating a lot of changes, so I'd encourage you to read both. Below is an explanation for my title. I love that quote.

I do not own Twilight or its characters.

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." – Leonardo da Vinci

Prologue

I have never believed in fairy tales. Even as a small child, magic and dragons and princesses and kingdoms held little fascination for me. I have always loved literature, the romance of Austen, the drama of Shakespeare, but I have never given myself over to it completely. In order to truly appreciate the beauty behind Romeo and Juliet, you must be willing to go beyond the suspension of disbelief and into a world where anything is possible, and I have simply never existed in that world.

That's not to say that I don't believe in relationships, that I don't believe in love. And please don't misunderstand me, I believe in romance as well. I've just never experienced anything remotely close to what's in those stories. I've never been in love. I've never felt lust. I've never needed or wanted anyone but myself.

I look at the world around me, at couples holding hands as they walk down the street, at classmates kissing frantically in the hallways between periods, and I feel nothing more than a detached curiosity. I don't envy them. I don't covet their happiness. Because who says they're happy? Sure, they're happy now. But what about tomorrow? What about next week? What about next year?

My father and mother were happy in love in the beginning, but then they weren't. And now my mother is happy in love again, but what if that love runs out? The problem with Shakespeare and Austen is that their characters love passionately while they're in front of you, but then the story ends and the book closes, and you're left with unrealistic expectations. Happily ever after is an impossibility. People grow, they change, and life is never perfect.

Romeo and Juliet were teenagers who knew each other for a matter of days. They married in secret and took their own lives. This is the romance model that our culture is based on.

I believe in relationships and I believe in love, but I believe in myself first. Austen's protagonists are tortured until the very last pages. Shakespeare's lovers are equally tormented. Juliet lets Romeo in, she allows him to make wild proclamations of love, to climb up to her, to possess her. Juliet allows Romeo to tell her he loves her, and then Juliet tells him she loves him back.

And for the rest of the play they're miserable. Their lives are turned upside down, their families are killing each other, Verona is falling apart. And then they die. They die for love. They die because one can't bear to be without the other. They die because of a misunderstanding.

Love is the most important thing in the world. It controls everything, drives everything. It is the ultimate in platitudes and the one thing every culture, religion, civilization can agree upon the existence of. It can build bridges and climb mountains, but it can also ruin lives. It is powerful and dangerous and wildly unpredictable. And it permanently alters everything and everyone it touches.

My parents fell out of love and my life changed. My mother fell in love again, and so my life is changing again.

I believe in the existence and importance of love, but having seen what I've seen and felt what I've felt and read what I've read, love seems to be too much of a risk.

I'm a lot of things, but I am definitely not a risk taker.

Chapter One

I hate airplanes. I hate the too-small seats and the forced proximity with strange people. I hate the double-thick plastic that separates me from the fluffy, white clouds and clean air outside. I hate the flimsy headphones and the in flight movies that I can never quite see. I hate the recycled, stale air, and the way every exhale comes back to me with every intake of breath. I hate the tray tables, cluttered with the sticky, hollow rings of previous drinks, the deeper stains of past spills, the plastic haunted by the people who used them before me. I hate airplanes. And I hate starting over.

This was my fault, my idea. My need to take care of my mother, my insistence on the change. I just wanted her to be happy, to get her smile back. I missed her smile. I knew she did, too. Her husband, my step-father, traveled constantly for work, and it was killing her to be apart from him. But it was a sacrifice she made willingly and without complaint… for me. And now I can make sacrifices, too. She was resistant, unwilling to let me go, but I convinced her. I would live with my father in Washington. I would leave Phoenix and our house with the blue front door at the end of the block. I would leave my room with the pale pink walls, unchanged since we had painted them together when I was a little girl. I would leave the sun and the desert and the hot breeze that would plaster my hair against my neck while my mother and I would take our nightly walks around the neighborhood, a habit leftover from one of her exercise obsessed phases. I would leave, and she would travel with Phil, and they would be happy. And I would start over. I hate starting over.

I sat back in my seat, my legs cramped from sitting too long, and let my head fall back against the vinyl headrest, cracked and lumpy from overuse. Exhaling sharply through pursed lips, I let my gaze drift towards the half-open window and thought about what would wait for me when I landed. This was the last leg of the trip, the quick flight to Port Angeles where my father, Charlie, would be waiting, smiling uncomfortably, I was sure. We would land soon, the plane would empty onto the tarmac, and there he would be, shifting his weight. We would load my trunks, mostly filled with knick knacks rather than clothes, as my new home would be much colder than my old one, into his car, and we would begin the hour long drive to the house my parents had bought when I was born. The house I hadn't been to in years, because I always insisted that Charlie spend his vacations with me in warmer, sunnier places. The plane began to descend, the lone flight attendant walking the aisle to check seat belts and tray tables, a bored expression on her face. I leaned down to put my MP3 player away, sighing as I realized that I had been too deep in thought to pay any attention to the music that was meant to relax me. Straightening, I lifted the window shade, gazing intently at the approaching ground and saying my last goodbye to the sun as we dipped below the dull gray clouds. I bit my lip, feeling a small, tense knot develop in my stomach as we came closer and closer to the ground until, finally, the landing gear met the runway, the plane skidded to a stop, and it was all over. I was here. And it was too late to go back.

I hate starting over.

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