Albert Einstein said, "I never think of the future, it comes soon enough."
Unfortunately, he couldn't have been more right.
Unfortunately, he couldn't have been more right.
Edward Cullen POV
So, I'm a pretty happy guy, meandering my way through college, right?
Pretty atypical of just about any guy I was hanging out with, actually, when I
hung out, that is.
It's all a ploy though.
All us cool, calm and collected college type boys try to remain as cocky and
pig-headed as possible, but in reality, we don't really know what the fuck we're
doing, what we wanna do, where we wanna go, who we wanna be.
For the most part, anyway.
Unless you're one of those guys.
You know, the ones who have their whole lives staked out for them before
they're even born…by their ancestors, parents, siblings, psychics, whatever.
They follow that path, too, regardless of the little person in their head that's
desperately trying to tell them to run like hell in the complete OPPOSITE
direction of where they're headed.
Poor saps.
They don't know what they're in for, obviously.
Oh, sure, it'll probably start out to be a life of infinitely liquid money, over the
top fame, sexy as fuck women…perhaps…but also, a life full of predictability,
eventual boredom, abandonment by said women once all of that other fun
stuff starts kicking in.
But that's just not me.
Nope, I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kinda guy, I wanna see where life
takes me, who it allows me to encounter, how it shapes my very being.
It's how I ended up in college, as a matter of fact.
After my parents died…and please, don't cry for me, Argentina, I was
younger, more naive, stupid even, but I'm over it now…
Anyway, when they died, I was in no way, shape or form gonna be one of
those kids who ended up in the system…I was smart enough to take care of
myself, just not quite old enough to be on my own, according to the law, that
is.
So, I faked an ID, moved across state, got myself a job, or two...and enrolled
in the local community college.
After two years of THAT bullshit, I got transferred to the big time.
Yep, I was sitting pretty, and headed for early graduation even, by my Junior
year at Washington State.
Clearly and, since it was required of me, I'd listed my major, I had to, but I'd
also changed that major about five times since my freshman year.
Currently, that major states "English Lit".
I like it.
A lot.
I immediately fell in love with all things having to do with putting pen to paper.
I started writing about everything from, what I did on a daily basis, to
what others did on a daily basis, I scored a position with the college
newspaper, writing about what the future slimy political heads of
our country did on a daily basis…
Hell, I even won a writing competition in my second to last semester for some
creative essay that our professor forced us to do for grade cred even though it
had absolutely nothing to do with our subject matter for that period.
Hey, who am I to question the mindset of the formally educated intellectual
teaching examples of our fine collegiate institutions?
Hell yes, I used a pen name, are you crazy? Any self respecting, genius type
college student would.
And no, I'm not telling you what it is.
Insert evil smirk here.
Onward…so, yeah, that was when I received a visit from an Uncle I never
knew or heard of for that matter, who runs some TV station on the East Coast.
Carlisle Cullen.
Step brother by marriage only to my dad, father to none, friend to everyone.
But that's another story.
The short of it is, he'd caught wind of the essay when it was published in the
local papers on the West Coast. Supposedly and apparently, some daughter
of a guy who works off duty part time as security for the East Coast TV
station's "it" girl got an e-mail from a long time friend who lives on my side of
the U.S.
Read it slowly, folks, there's no secret code there.
She read it, showed it to her buddy on the set of my uncle's station, who's in
like flint with him, by rumor only, and he loved it.
He contacted the college, found out my real name, realized who I was, and
came to see me.
I tell ya, fate, my friends, it never fails me.
Oh, I declined his offer at first.
I don't like to take hand outs from anyone claiming to be family while not
wanting anything in return.
That kinda logic just doesn't compute with me.
He called or visited weekly after our first encounter, though, making his case
gently, slowly adding a few new tactics involving subtle manipulation,
changing his game plan even, asking me nicely to intern for him, hence, not
really giving me "anything" but experience.
And week after week during my final semester, I said no to him, all the while,
kinda growing to like the guy for some reason.
I don't know if it was his tone, or his smile, or the way he'd put a hand on my
shoulder when he talked to me, but I got the gut feeling, he was an absolutely
decent sort of human being.
Even so, I typically can blow someone off and move along my merry way.
But this guy, he's very persuasive when it comes to things like opportunities
for young impressionable men like myself and he somehow knows my
weaknesses the way Lex Luther knows that Kryptonite will bring Superman to
his knees.
Sneaky son-of-a-bitch.
See unfortunately, for me, writing is currently at the top of that list of
weaknesses and my dear Uncle Carlisle had made a very ingenious case for
why I should work for him.
Futuristic opportunity.
I need them, he's got them.
In the end, I figured, hell, I was a hard worker, I knew I could prove my worth
with any place I'd ended up with, regardless of where that was, so I finally took
him up on it, and my only stipulation in agreeing to partake in his evil plot was
that no one knew that I was his nephew.
After he eyeballed me for a few minutes of that bomb shell, he agreed.
The deal was, I'd go by my mom's maiden name for a while, which is Masen
by the way, just in case that's relevant to you for some reason, and get my
feet wet, THEN, maybe I'd open up that door on people, if I stayed long
enough, that is, but only after I'd earned my stripes, which probably wasn't
gonna take that long anyway.
Kinda like going by a pen name, wouldn't you say?
Insert waggly eyebrows here.
On top of that, I also didn't want to take hand outs from him, which is why,
when he offered to hook me up with a top floor penthouse suite near where he
resided, I refused that too.
I know, stupid, right?
Looking back, I didn't have the greatest decision making skills with regards to
some things, despite my genius writing abilities.
But let's not dwell on the details, the fact of the matter is, that after that final
meeting and my verbal agreement, it was only a matter of my John Hancock
at the end of a lengthy, boring piece of paper he liked to call a contract.
Something I laugh at on a daily basis.
It's only paper after all.
Moving on...after that...Bah-dah-bing-bah-dah-bang…I shake hands with the
man, graduate a few days later, hitch hike across the good old U.S. of A. and
here I am.
New York City.
The city that never sleeps, and since neither do I, it suited me absolutely
perfectly.
All of this, of course, has absolutely everything and yet, nothing to do with why
I'm crouching against the inner most wall of a dingy closet, located inside of a
downtown apartment that isn't mine, hiding behind clothes that smelled like
lilacs and butterscotch while the fun filled, fly by the seat of my pants kinda life
as I know it is likely about to end in a very terrible, very ugly kinda way, I
simply thought you might like the back story.
I'm not really a bad guy, I just write the lines of what I like to call pain and
torment for a guy who plays one on TV.
It was an odd feeling I was having, sitting in that closet.
Almost like my stomach was about to implode on me, which, it was very likely
about to do.
And all the funny lines, or innocent smiles, or cheap parlor tricks I might have
had up my sleeve weren't gonna help me if that door was to open and the
person on the other side wasn't who I desperately hoped it would be.
As I listened to the muffled voices on the other side of the slabby, broken
locked piece of shit wood that stood between me and my destiny, I considered
just exactly how ironic it was that I was very becoming of a fucking coward.
Ironic, in light of the bold and blatant shit I'd pulled of recent weeks.
But this wasn't about me.
For once.
I also couldn't help but think that...maybe when I had decided to rely on fate to
take care of everything for me, I should have allowed for karma to fit into that
equation too.
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