The Difference Between Fantasy and Reality Sneak Peek

Due to the length of Chapter 26 - Party, I'm posting a second brief teaser for it:

My eyes opened in the shadowy forest surrounding La Push. Everything was foggy and I wasn't at all sure how I'd ended up in the forest. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep in Edward arms. I slowly got up, some part of me noting my hands were perfectly fine and there was something wrong about that, but couldn't quite figure out what.

As I got up, my eyes caught a shadow in the distance. “Hello, is anyone out there?”

The shadow didn't reply though. I looked around the forest trying to find something or someone to hold on to, but though I was sure there was something in front of my eyes a couple of times, I couldn't tell what was in front of my eyes. Instead, I kept on looking back towards the shadow. Finally I started walking towards it, determined to find out who it was.

Behind me I heard a voice shout, “Bella, don't.” The voice was as muffled as my vision was.

I spun again, looking for the speaker, but I once again couldn't find anyone, just two places in the forest where I couldn't quite focus.

I turned back towards the shadowy figure and continued my journey. As I got closer to the shadow it morphed into two shadows side by side.

A few steps closer and I finally made out one singular feature on the second shadow, the one I hadn't originally been able to see, and that feature was long, curly red hair. My breath caught in my throat because I knew who the shadows had to be. Victoria and James. It wasn't possible because James was dead, but I knew it had to be true.

I tried to take a step back, but was completely unable to. Instead, my feet continued to push me forward without my permission.

Just as windblown copper locks came into view both turned to face me and as they did it wasn't James and Victoria looking at me. Instead it was Edward and a woman I'd never seen before – her hair turning from red to deep brown as she spun to face me. Edward's eyes were bright red.

Just then a small pink stone on the forest floor caught my eye as it flashed a bright pinkish white, completely blinding me.

The Differences Between Fantasy and Reality Sneak Peek

A brief teaser of Chapter 26 - Party:

Alice laughed, and the sound was all silver, a wind chime. “Of course you’ll enjoy it. Everyone is supposed to be nice to you today and give you your way, Bella. What’s the worst that could happen?” She meant it as a rhetorical question.

“He knows why,” I grumbled under my breath. It was actually about more than just my fear of Edward taking off. There was also the very real issue that in less than a year I'd have to be off at college and leaving my father to fend for himself. While part of me was excited to start my future and move out from under my father's thumb, there was this much larger part of me which feared leaving him. As I'd told Edward when we first met, there is a symbiotic relationship between parent and child, and it was especially there for me given how much we'd only had each other to rely on.

Alice was staring at Edward and apparently he'd answered her without either of them actually speaking, because suddenly she turned to me. “Isn't eighteen a little young to be worrying about your age?”

“It’s older than Edward,” I mumbled.

He sighed.

“Technically,” she said, keeping her tone light. “Just by one little year, though.”

“You're right, and if I thought for a second that these last months had swayed him in the slightest to an eventuality which doesn't end in me dead or having to give up loving him for my own sanity's sake it wouldn't matter, but currently it's just a reminder of how little time there really is for us.” All because Edward was dead set against any future that changed me. Any future that made me like him – that made me immortal, too.

An impasse, he called it.

I couldn’t really see Edward’s point, to be honest. After all, he claimed to love me, and yet he was completely unwilling to keep me. It made me once again question if he really did care.

The Differences Between Fantasy and Reality Sneak Peek

A teaser of the Interlude:

When summer arrived, it brought on some of the best months of my life. I didn't know it at the time, but I would never forget that summer.

In early June my father and I went to the fishing excursion in Ontario, and the week in Ontario fishing with my dad was very enjoyable with us catching several pikes, walleyes, muskies, and more. My dad pushed me into the lake at least once every day that we went out on the lake on a boat. It was fun, freeing in a way that almost nothing else had ever been.

After we came back home and the summer started in full force, I ended up taking a job at Newton's Olympic Outfitters part time. I spent mornings stocking shelves, checking people out and quickly doing google searches to find out what the difference was between water repellent and water resistant.

The Differences Between Fantasy and Reality Sneak Peek

A teaser of Chapter 25 - An Occasion:

“Can't we just go to Port Angeles or Olympia or Tacoma or Seattle?” I asked grumpily. I didn't want to do this, but somehow I'd been roped into it. Not by Edward, ironically enough, but by his annoying little shrimp of a sister that I was going to find a way to kill for this.

It was February 19th, the day of the 'Crush Dance,' in honor of the holiday that featured far too many chocolates and roses for any sane person's desire. It was also in honor of the soda beverage, Crush. The cheerleading squad, headed up by Lauren – of all people – had been more than eager to run a “Crush for your Crush” campaign for the last month to drum up money for the coming summer's cheerleading camp. The whole gist of it was spend two dollars to give a can of Crush anonymously to whoever you wanted. If you added an extra dollar you could send a note with it, and if you wanted to spend five dollars you could give them a fancy glass bottle of crush – note included.

I'd ended up buying two. I sent one to Mike with a note claiming it was from his secret gay admirer, and the other to Edward with a note with only three simple words on it.

Even so, I didn't want to do this. Dancing wasn't my thing, had truly never been my thing. I just wasn't that kind of person.

The Differences Between Fantasy and Reality Sneak Peek

A teaser of Chapter 24 - Impasse:

Over a month had passed since I'd been shot. A month where Edward coddled me from a safe distance. He was always there whenever I needed anything and he'd won over my dad in a way that I'd never thought I'd see. For that first week after we got home, Edward was always there with my pain meds when I needed it, with my food, and more.

He'd always be waiting outside of whatever class I was taking when it was done and would walk me to the next class. He also continuously tried to help me with my homework. He was doting and concerned and treated me like glass.

In essence, Edward was the perfect boyfriend. But I didn't want perfect – I wanted normal. I wanted equality. I wanted to believe that he actually loved me, not just the idea of me... but as every day passed, it got harder and harder for me to believe it.

When winter break arrived, Charlie and I were supposed to go to the reservation for Christmas and spend the day with the Blacks, but then Carlisle and Esme invited us to their place for Christmas and we ended up going there instead – the first time we'd spent Christmas with someone other than the Blacks.

The day with the Cullens was fun. I watched as the Cullens each opened numerous gifts and found it amusing as they had to eat the meal they had prepared to keep Charlie from getting suspicious. They ended up giving Charlie and me a gift of a week long fishing trip to Whitefish Bay Camp in Ontario for the coming summer.

It was a trip that my dad had been wanting to go on for years but it had never been something we could budget out and I was almost a hundred percent certain Edward must have picked it out of my dad's head. I was gracious about the gift – happy on a personal level even – but it was hard for me to swallow as I knew exactly how much that trip cost.

It made the angel ornament I'd given to Esme, the leather bound notebook I'd give to Jasper, the vintage baseball I'd given to Emmett, the vinyl record of Debussy for Edward, the print of a picture of a Chicago hospital back in 1918 that I'd spent hours scouring the web for so another piece of their family history could be recorded on Carlisle's wall of pictures, the delicate crystal rose I'd gotten for Rosalie, and even the free flowing blue pure silk shirt in Alice's exact size all pale in comparison. My gifts had been from the heart, but they looked like foolish jokes in comparison to the fishing trip costing in the five digits.

By the time I went home that night, I felt so low that I closed and locked the window with the lock I'd had my dad install a few week prior. I knew it wouldn't really stop Edward if he wanted in my room, but I had hoped he would respect my need for privacy. I cried myself to sleep that night.

When I woke up the next morning, the window was no longer locked and Edward's scent in my room was stronger than ever.

The Differences Between Fantasy and Reality Sneak Peek

A teaser of Chapter 23 - Angel:


“Alice,” I moaned.

There was a quiet buzz – some part of me filled in that it was the sound of someone on another end of a phone.

 “How?” Edward asked.

 There was more of the incessant buzzing.

 “Will that even work?” Alice’s voice was strained all of a sudden.

 Another brief buzzing.

 “Carlisle, I...” Edward hesitated. “I don’t think I can do that.” There was agony in his beautiful voice again. “Alice –”

“Don't even consider asking me that question.” Alice snarled the words as she cut him off point blank. “I'm barely controlling myself as it is, and you know I want her as my sister. You should let the change happen.”

The Differences Between Fantasy and Reality Sneak Peek

A teaser if Chapter 22 - Hide-And-Seek:

When I got out of the elevator on the first floor, I headed straight to the front desk.

“I found this on the ground in the hallway of the second floor,” I told the clerk as I handed over the purse before asking to use the phone to call for a taxi.

The call was brief and I sat down by the pool as I waited the ten minutes for it to arrive, while standing near the pool. It was anything but relaxing as I half expected Alice or Jasper to appear out of thin air and stop me. Every one of the six hundred seconds was more tense than the last, but finally the taxi arrived and I dashed outside, getting in the back.

“Where to, miss?”

I gave the driver of the cab the house in Downey, closing my eyes as he pulled away from the hotel and and away from the safety that the Cullens were offering me.