"But I don't want to be! Don't you understand?" I pressed, and I clenched my fists together tightly. "This is what I want. This is what will make me happy! Don't you care? Do even you care at all?"

"Edward, of course I — "

"But you don't!" I yelled, and I could see both of my younger siblings wincing and pressing their little hands over their ears. I wanted to stop screaming, but I couldn't. I'd been holding it in for far too long. "You don't care at all, or else you would let me do what I want instead of trying to hold me back! Dad, I'm proud of what you are, what you do. But I'm not you. I don't want to be a doctor, Dad. I want to be all that I can be, and I want to study music."

And, before he could respond, I stalked to the door and walked out, slamming it hard behind me. I leaned heavily against it, dropping my head in my hands. And, even through the thick, wooden door, I could hear the voice of little, six-year-old Alice.

"Daddy, is Edward mad?" she asked, and her voice was but a whisper. I didn't hear our father's answer, though, because I had already begun to walk. I walked and walked, not caring where I was going. I moved forward quickly, my feet hitting hard on the cement as I began to run toward the edge of town. Not that it was much of a town, anyway. Forks was small and depressing. I hated it here.

I sighed.

The sun had already set behind the ever-present clouds, but the few street lamps that lined the street cast out just barely enough light to allow me to see the path that had been laid out before me.

The darkness grew with each step, and I noticed eventually that I was running further and further away from town. I didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, really. My life was a mess. It was simple, in a sense of the word, because I was stuck in a never-ending cycle of repetition. I woke up, I went to school. I came home, and listened to, or wrote, music until I was called for dinner. When my homework was done, I went to bed, and then everything started all over again.