Telling the Truth, for Once.

This morning, when Zach woke up and got changed into some of Emmett's clothes (he looks adorable in them --- They don't fit him too well, and it makes him look like a kid), and after Annora came in and jumped on me in a huge hug, Zach called me over from my place at the desk, and made room on the bed next to him for me to lay down.

"I want to know everything about you." he informed me, looking up at the ceiling like I was.
"Why?" I moaned. "I'm really not that interesting, I swear."
He kind of smiled, and slipped back into serious mode. "No, but seriously, Clara, I really do. I want to know your entire story, start to finish - not the edited version you're giving everyone else, too."
I had to look over at him for a minute, gaping. "What?"
"You're a pretty good liar for having a brother with mind-reading superpowers."
I frowned. "First of all, they aren't superpowers. If Edward hears you call them that, it will all go to his already-inflated head and he'll start thinking he's God or something. Secondly, I'm not lying, and how would you know anyways?"

He smiled slyly. "I do talk to your family, you know."

I groaned. "Why would you ever do something like that?"
He shrugged. "You're avoiding the story, Clare."
"Maybe I don't want to talk about it."
He looked at me. I just kept looking at the ceiling, unsmiling. He'd hit a sensitive spot, and he knew it.

"Sorry."

I didn't move for a minute, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn back to looking at the ceiling.

I took a deep breath.
"Once upon a time, I was normal. Well, at least as normal as far as being human goes. I was raised in New York, where I was extremetly well-known, somewhat what Rosalie was for her time, but my popularity was just because I was too adventurous, always got in trouble, and was the daughter of a up-and-coming movie star father who loved and adored me. It was kind of strange, though, because I was sensitive to other people, and when anyone had a problem, they were always coming to me to talk about it, no matter who they were, even though I was spoiled rotten, practically.
Three days after I turned sixteen, my father had a heart attack and died."
I paused, catching my breath. Zach reached over and wrapped his hand around mine.
"When my dad died, I started believing in ghost stories and things that could happen to someone when you thought they were dead, including... Vampires." Zach winced.
"I'd never really thought anything like them had existed, but I absolutely refused to think my father had actually died so suddenly. I blamed the vampires, I blamed the Devil, I blamed ghosts... I blamed about anything that I knew nothing about.
"I became even more adventurous than ususal, going to the darker parts of town, down allies where people regularly got killed... Basically anywhere I thought any of my creatures could've been hiding."
"A two weeks before I turned seventeen, I met a vampire. Finally. He was beautiful, with reddish hair and pale skin, with copper eyes that were ever-so-slightly tinged with red." I smiled, remembering.
Zach shuddered. "You met Edward."
"Yeah, I did. But when I saw him, instead of feeling all the rage that had been building up inside of me, I could literally almost feel his pain. He looked so exhausted and upset.
"So we talked for a long time, day after day, and eventually, I told him my story.
"'I truly am sorry,' he had said, looking wistful, 'but I still don't understand what I have to do with this. If I could help, I would.'
"'Change me into what you are,' I told him. 'I want to live forever and not cause anyone pain at all.'
"Well, that went over slightly different than I'd pictured it. Edward became furious, and told me that only in dire and needy situations was anyone even going to be considered to be changed. The pain, the life... He'd described it all to me in perfect detail, but I still couldn't see the problem. I'd just become like him and eat deer or lions or any other animals. Dogs, even if..."
I winced. Zach smiled dryly.
"Sorry. But back then, I wouldn't have thought twice about it."
"He changed you, didn't he?" Zach said, looking sick.
"No... Actually, he didn't. He was far too gallant, and seeing as how you've seen inside Jacob's twisted mind, you realize that he still is."
Zach looked grim.
"Anyway, I happened to take those words to heart. Becoming a vampire became somewhat of an obsession, like getting into an exclusive club. Edward became constantly angry at me, trying to get the stupid idea out of my head, but I was already too far gone."
I looked over at Zach, who's chocolate eyes were staring at me apologetically. It was so strange for me to be just telling my story like this.
"The next week, I was waiting down the alley for Edward when it all happened. We were arguing, as usual, when some assinine idiot New Yorker decided to pull a major drive-by."
I sighed. "And that's where the bullet came from." I poked right under my throat, close to my collarbone. "It's still there."
Zach turned over, leaning up on his elbow, looking almost angry. "And you still stick to the fact that Edward didn't do it?"
I nodded slowly. "Later, Edward told me that Carlisle had finally wrangled him in on the vegan plan, and he decided to let me believe that he'd never existed." I smiled ruefully. "Bella's whole exit plan was based on previous experience, except that he didn't count on someone else changing me.
"When I moved from Alaska to Forks, I had to face Edward for the first time in a long time. He remembered me, and we agreed that the best way to not bring the subject of me being changed up was to fake it." I shrugged. "And that's that."
Zach still looked angry. "He could've stopped it."
I froze. "What?"
"He could've stopped the bullet, had he been there."
I sat up. "You don't know what you're talking about."
He shook his head. "He could've taken the bullet for you and lived."
"Just like I could've saved my family by diving in-between the cars? Jesus, Zach!"

Zach's face dropped, and I closed my eyes.

"Sorry." He said, moving closer to me after a minute. "I'm just a little freaked right now. I can't picture you lying on the street, dying, and Edward not being there to help, even though you'd trusted him with your life every single day for those weeks."
I kind of laughed, pressure building up inside of me again, and leaned into his arms. He hugged me. "You've been through hell, Clare."
"Yeah, but then again, who hasn't in this family?"
He kissed my forehead, and we just kind of laid there for a while before Zach had to go to work and check in down at La Push.

The family's been high on terror alerts. We're so afraid that the purple-eyed freaks are coming back for Annora, and that Alice won't be able to see it.

Edward came in a few minutes ago, though, and sat down on my bed, where I had my music blasting. He muted it, and smiled a little.
"I really am sorry for not being there." he admitted.

Anyways, I think I may run down to the store to get some more ice cream for Annora. I need to get out again, just to get some air.

I'm way too unsafe. Ha, ha.

-Clara

UGHH.

The week has been TOO. FREAKING. BUSY.

See this: The night from HELL.

I hate being what I am.
God, if I could cry.

Esme, as mentioned in the link, talked to me as soon as Alice could tell what happened. I knew what had happened, obviously because of Alice, but apparently I couldn't comprehend the whole situation.
When Annora came in the house, I had to race out the window, breaking it in the process, from the second floor. The blood, the pain, the everything.

I spent the night in the woods behind the house, up in a tree, fighting between fury and exhaustion, to sadness and worry.
Of course, the whole time, I had to sit there and sing the ABC's over and over in my head so Edward wouldn't hear. He needed to be with Bella, and I can take care of myself. Every now and then I'd reassure myself in my head.

Who knows, maybe he thought it was normal for me, but either way, it worked: he didn't show.

Anywho, the next day, while I still was tiredly singing the ABC's in French, my tree snapped and I ended up on the ground, yelling obscenities.
At, go figure, Emmett.

Our conversation:
Me: "What the hell are YOU doing here?"
Him: "You're up in a tree, singing the ABC's in foreign languages. Do you really want to ask me why I'm here, or are you smart enough to assume Alice saw you doing it and was too tired to come up here and knock you down herself?"
Me: "...Okay... Seeing as how I don't have many good choices there, the latter."
Him: "Good. That saves us some time, then. Get up, we're going to Alaska."

So we spent the rest of the week in Alaska, to my perfect chagrin, Emmett as my personal shadow.
And yeah, okay, I know that we're supposed to be there because Annora's in pain (sorry I wasn't there, A.) and I can't handle almost anything at the moment, but STILL. ALASKA. I came to FORKS from there because I hated it enough.

The whole time in Alaska, Emmett wouldn't even be anything but a by-my-side rock. He missed Rosalie, who was back in Forks.
I swear, he wouldn't drop the fact that he's a thousand miles away from his wife, and I'll probably hear about this for the rest of my eternal life.

But we're home now.
And Emmett's with Rose.
And I'm locked in my room.
And Annora's in pain.
And Edward's sitting on my bed, watching me type, silent and brooding. Again. He's not in a great mood with me right now for the whole French alphabet thing. Really, anything French does that to him, but since I ran off by myself to sit in a tree and did it, he's pretty furious.

A B C D E F G....

He's hearing everything I type because I'm thinking it.

And no, Edward, I still don't want to talk about it.

-Clara

It's Been a While.

I haven't written to people in a long time, so it's interesting to see what I'm going to do with a blog, let alone my own computer.

So. My biological history - Wow.
My name is Clara Elizabeth-Grace Hale, and I was born on October 14, 1927. On November 2, 1944, I was mortally wounded from a bullet that took hit a small part of my heart, and was in a comatose state until the 7th, when I woke up to an alleyway and severe pain, raging like fire in my veins. Three days later, I killed three people, ran to Alaska, and found Tanya and her group, all living a 'vegan' life. Eventually, I got homesick for the streets of New York and actual interaction with people, so when Carlisle came up to meet with Tanya concerning some creep named Victoria, I went back with him and began my life in Forks, WA.

Oh, and another thing. I absorb pain. Absorb-absorb. "Like a sponge." If anyone around me gets hurt, I feel it the exact same way that they do, in all it's fury.
Suffice to say, it was easy to convert over to the vegetarian life after feeling the three people who I... Wow, that's weird to admit... who I murdered feel the pain of my teeth in their skin, my venom burning their veins, then being sucked back out, painful ounce by painful ounce.

I'm a killer, and yeah, I'll freely admit that. No Murderers Anonymous for me, hm?

Edward and I talked about it a long time last night, after he'd caught me sulking in my room, and he was telling me all these stories about things he did in his rebellious years; the thoughts he heard, the people's lives he ended, and the hunger that I could relate to completely.

And he brought up Bella.
I was shocked at the pain her name surfaced. My heart ached with his as he told me the story about leaving her and almost committing suicide when he thought she was dead. The clocktower, the Volturri... Jane... All of it piled up into pure inward hurt which, up until that point, I hadn't known that I could feel. The bite on Bella's hand and his pain to quit... It was almost unbearable. The pain he felt just talking about it was almost more than I could handle.

Anyways, I didn't mean to get off on that sidetrack, but it's the only way I can explain the way I feel things.

Edward and I are really close; more like siblings in a literal sense than not. He gave me one of his mother's necklaces, God rest Elizabeth's soul, and I don't take it off. It's comforting to know that he didn't try to hide anything from me; he's my solace. Not many of the others get along with me - Even Alice, who everyone loves, is wary around me. It's kind of confusing, but I'm not the only one with skeletons in the closet, I'd guess.

Carlisle had a room added on to the house, on the opposite side of Edward's with the same archetecture, for me before I came. It's all thanks to Alice, really, but the uneasiness between us seems to stretch out when I try to compliment or thank her.

Whatever. Weird runs in the... Well, ha, the blood.

-Clara

Ps- Here's the family!