A hundred years is enough time for the world to reinvent itself a dozen times —and for us to learn what it means to live without running.
When I think of the past, it feels like a story someone once told me by a fireplace:Forks and its constant rainfall, the strange pull of destiny, the wars we narrowly escaped, the people we loved and lost.
But time distorts even immortal memory.The edges soften.The moments settle like dust on old photographs.
For years, we tried to stay.Forks changed around us — new people, new buildings, new whispers.But we did not change enough.
I remember the way they looked at us by the end.The first generation who knew us grew old; their children noticed the impossible.Faces that never aged.Eyes that never dimmed.Bodies that never weakened.
We told stories, invented excuses, shifted identities.But stories only hold for so long.Eventually, we had to leave — not because they hated us, but because they noticed.
So we moved, again and again, chasing anonymity across decades and continents.
Alaska is quieter than any place we've lived.The cold doesn't bother us.The silence feels like something we earned.Here, I can watch the world from a distance, without the weight of anyone's expectations.
Here, I can be myself —whatever that means for someone like me.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live only once.To measure time by breaths, not centuries.But then I look at my family — my mother's constant devotion, my father's endless patience, Jacob's steady warmth — and I understand that this is the life I was meant for.
A century of quiet.Of becoming.Of learning who we are when the danger is gone.
I don't know how long this peace will last.But for now, it is enough.