Chapter Text
Dying was…painful to say the least. The car that hit me came out of nowhere, and pain became all I knew for a few seconds before it all faded to black. I don’t know how long I existed in the darkness, but the next thing I became aware of was more pain. And that? That made dying seem like a cakewalk. It was the kind of pain that couldn’t be put into words, nothing could do it justice. It was like every cell in my body, every single molecule wasn’t just burning, but being torn apart. Looking back, I can understand that it was because I was being remade, but at the time, it was confusing and terrifying. It felt like it would drive me insane.
Pain was literally all I knew in the beginning. I couldn’t see, I wasn’t aware of anything else. It was just pain.
I didn’t realize I had been screaming until the pain began to fade. That was when I became aware of a voice singing to me. Eventually, I got the sense that I was being held, rocked. The voice was a woman, I could understand that much. The woman’s singing faded into a soft hum. I desperately wanted to see her.
I thought, at first, while I was burning, that I must have been in hell. But once the pain disappeared, I was no longer sure of that. It didn’t feel like purgatory, it didn’t feel like any afterlife I’d heard of. I ran through the possibilities. It couldn’t have been Valhalla since I wasn’t a warrior and I definitely didn’t die a warrior’s death. I didn’t think it could be the Underworld either. And no way would heaven feel like this. Nothing made sense.
The humming and rocking was nice. I tried to stay awake, but my eyes closed against my will.
Hunger.
I couldn’t stop myself from crying out. It felt like I was wrapped in a tight blanket. I couldn’t move. The crying turned into screaming. Vaguely, I heard a door open. Then I was picked up. This time, I could hear a man murmuring to himself. Something was pushed past my lips. Milk…in a bottle?
Instinct drove me to drink.
Definitely warm milk. I hadn’t had warm milk in years. I hadn’t had anything other than almond milk with my cereal in a very long time. And definitely never on its own. Curses of being lactose intolerant.
Things were starting to come together. It didn’t make sense and went against everything I was ever told happened after death. This wasn’t heaven. It wasn’t hell. Somehow, against all logic, I might have been a baby again.
I had a body, it was tiny but it was there. I definitely had a heartbeat, I was breathing. Somehow, against all odds, I was alive. Again? I had to have died. This tiny little body was not the same one I remembered. This was not my body. Or maybe it was now. I was a baby.
It couldn’t be possible. This kind of thing just didn’t happen.
I fell asleep again.
My dreams were…weird.
I saw a little girl, blonde hair in pigtails, running through a sunflower field. A couple that had to be her parents chased her. She had the cutest, bell-like laughter.
I saw a black cat, who couldn't be older than six months, lounging in the sun spot on a couch. An older cat, calico by the looks of it, jumped up and forced the black cat out of the spot. They began to fight. This was a familiar sight. My own cats always fought over that spot on the couch.
A blonde-haired woman, shockingly beautiful, stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window. A large man, also gorgeous and super buff, came up to her and embraced her. A soft smile spread across her face.
A beautiful sunrise.
Children making snowmen.
Several people in black cloaks walk towards a begging man. One of them lowered their hood to reveal a perfect pale face and red eyes.
( stop ).
I woke up.
Red eyes. Black cloaks. It must have been Halloween, but that wouldn’t explain the begging man. He was definitely begging for his life. Maybe they were all wearing costumes. Acting out a scene to impress a crowd at a Halloween party.
Whatever, not important.
I could see some things now. They were blurry, but I could still see. A door opened. A figure walked into my line of sight. The same man as before maybe? He looked tired.
I’d never met him before, but he was taking care of me now. He had to be my father, and the woman from earlier must have been my mother. Assuming I was a baby. Of course, this man looked nothing like the father I remembered.
So if I was a baby, if I was reborn, it couldn’t have been me reliving my own life. This man was not the father I remembered, and the woman that had been singing to me had an unfamiliar voice. I would have recognized my mother’s voice. I’d only been listening to it every day for my entire life.
So I actually died. I would never see my mother again. Did she have to plan my funeral? I hoped she hadn’t seen my body. The realization that I’d never see her again felt like a punch to the gut. I never got to say goodbye.
In a way, I was an orphan now. My parents weren’t dead, but I was and I’d likely never see my mother again. Even if I could find her somehow, I would never be her daughter again. She wouldn’t recognize me.
And she had to mourn me. She always told me that I was the most important person in her life, that if something happened to me, she wasn’t sure what she would do. I hoped she was alright. I hoped someone was there to take care of her now that I couldn’t.
And she wasn’t the only one I would have left behind. My friends. Anna who had been my best friend since we were fourteen, Noelle who had known me since we were in first grade, who was the sister of my heart, whose family felt like an extension of my own. Jack, Anna’s boyfriend, who was my friend now too. I was alone. I would never see them again. The knowledge was crushing, heartbreaking, earth shattering.
The man picked me up. He was shushing me. Oh, right, I was crying. I tried to stop but my little body couldn't handle the levels of grief I was feeling.
(I didn’t want to do this again. I didn’t want to grow attached to another set of parents. I didn’t want to be alone. I just wanted my mom. I wanted my best friend. Eight years of friendship and the promise of a lifetime with her at my side, gone now. I didn’t want to do this.)
Please let this be a nightmare. Let me wake up in the hospital. Let me go home.
One day, I opened my eyes and I was fully aware, all my senses fully functioning again. I was in an outdated room. The walls were a pale cream. The room had a popcorn ceiling. I was surprised to find a nice wooden floor instead of carpet. There was a rocking chair in the corner. A woman was sitting in it, asleep. She looked tired.
The sight of her made that wave of grief crash over me again. I didn’t want a new mother, I did not want a new mother. I had a mother, and this woman, whatever her name was, could never replace her. My little body let out a shrill cry, and the woman startled awake.
The same man from before rushed into the room, and they both reached for me.
“I don’t know what to do, Charlie. She keeps crying whenever she sees me,” the woman said.
I felt bad about that, but I couldn’t exactly help it. I was relieved to know I was still biologically a girl, though. Wasn’t sure I could handle the dysphoria of waking up in a male body even though I was a girl. Glad to not have to find out.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, Renee,” the man, Charlie, assured her. Of course, I never cried when I saw him so I’m sure that’s easy for him to say. The woman, Renee, told him the very same thing I was thinking. “It’ll fade, I’m sure it will. I doubt little Isabella is actually crying at the sight of you. It must be a coincidence. She’s a little baby. Don’t they cry all the time? My mother said this is perfectly normal.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t use it as a reason to convince you that you made the wrong choice marrying me. Helen has never liked me,” Renee told him.
I didn’t pay attention to the rest, too lost in thought to focus. What a strange set of coincidences. A father named Charlie with a mother named Helen, wife named Renee, and a daughter named Isabella. I almost thought they must have been pretty hardcore fans, but they were definitely born before Twilight. I mean, Renee couldn’t have been older than twenty.
I was starting to get a really bad feeling. The names were too big of a coincidence, and that strange dream I had with the red eyes and cloaked figures? Something wasn’t right here.
What year was this? What was going on?
Panic was bubbling up inside me. I tried to reign it in, but the screaming and crying happened against my will.
Fuck this. Fuck all of this.
None of this is real. None of this is real.
“Not again,” Renee groaned.
“I got this. You just try to get some sleep,” Charlie told her.
Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this, fuck this. No, it’s just a weird coincidence. People have the same names as fictional characters all the time. And of course I’d dream of the Volturi if I already knew of them. Maybe my subconscious had been aware of the strange name shit and was sending me a message?
Anything but this!
“C’mon, sweet girl,” Charlie whispered as he sank into the rocking chair with me in his arms. “You’re driving your mother crazy, you know that?” He sighed. “It’s okay. You’re just a baby. My little girl.”
It was the name he whispered quietly, awe in his voice like he still couldn’t believe it, that was the final nail in the coffin. “Isabella Marie Swan.”
Oh, fuck no.
I was a few months old when things began to fall apart. Renee was incredibly depressed, that much was obvious. I could recognize the signs. I no longer cried at the sight of her, but she would never be my mother, not in the way that I was slowly starting to consider Charlie to be my dad. Of course, loving Charlie didn’t feel like I was replacing my father. That man had barely been in my life, whereas my mother had been one of my favorite people in the entire world. My dad used to jokingly ask me how much I loved him when I was a kid. I used to tell him that I loved him to the moon and back, while knowing deep down that the love I had for my mother could never be quantified, but the closest I could get at the time was to the sun and back a million times.
Renee was a woman trying her best, and I was trying my best too. I no longer cried when she held me, I tried to smile but it felt like an act. I was still grieving, it felt like I’d always be grieving.
Loving Renee felt like a betrayal. It didn’t feel fair. And being able to remember the days when this little family was whole felt incredibly unfair. I used to spend so many nights as a child, wishing that my parents were still together, wishing that when I crawled into my mom's bed after a nightmare, that my dad would be there too.
This?
This wasn’t fair. This was the worst possible outcome. I was experiencing what it was like to have two parents, with a set of parents that weren’t mine.
A set of parents that I stole.
The real Bella should have been here, not me. The real Bella should have been able to experience this. How unbelievably cruel that neither one of us ever would now. My parents were gone and the real Bella would never exist.
Loving Charlie, though? That was as easy as breathing. Being able to witness what he was like when his family was whole was an honor to witness. I could see so clearly how Renee fell in love with him.
And he was such a good dad, so patient with me, so willing to sit with me for hours until I stopped crying. I was a daddy’s girl through and through.
By the time I was six months old, Charlie’s parents were sick and Renee was preparing to leave Forks. I cried and I cried and I cried, but Renee still took me and left.
And just like that, I was the daughter of a single mother all over again.