[Twilight] i am not penelope - never was, never will be

[tollers]

For: yeomanrand
Title: i am not penelope - never was, never will be
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing/Character: Bella Swan
Rating: G
Wordcount: 312
AN: From the prompt, Twilight, Bella Swan (/nobody), you don't get to have me.
Cross-posted from here.

This was so unbelievably OOC for me, and yet I feel like I enjoy the more HBIC-Bella than the meek, doormat (as stated in the feedback comments) Bella we see in the books. I think I was actually channeling a lot of KStew when I was writing this. Damn you, KStew. You are now my image of Bella! *shakes rueful fist*

Well, that's what fanfic is for, right? Good or bad, it's what you make of it while you're writing. This is the Bella I always wish we got to read in the books. Choose yourself, girl. Don't live life for someone else.

At the cusp and climax of the battle, at the moment when all I can hear is Pick me, Bella, pick me and a soft, sorrowful sigh (Bella) that basically means the same thing, I turn away, my feet carrying me down the hill to some unknown destination. Mud sinks under the rubber soles of my worn out, chewed-at-the-laces shoes, makes sucking sounds as the ground pulls me down like it, too, wants me for something. I can hear them shouting behind me.

There are tears in my eyes, but they aren't what you think. I'm not crying because I'm sad or heartbroken, or because I can't choose, no. I'm angry.

All these promises, these demands, this guilt and anger; all this fighting.

And for what?

For me?

Really?

I'm not, I think almost bitterly (chuckling with mirth, reminded of a cartoon I used to watch as a kid), a prize to be won.

I hate that I'm weak to them, that I can't match the strength of the two most important people in my life to be heard. I feel bullied, assaulted in a way, when instead of picking sides (picking men), I should be picking myself instead.

Don't I get to pick myself? Isn't there a space for Bella Swan - just Bella Swan - between the war with the wolves and the vampires, between Jacob and Edward, between the Quileute tribe and the Cullens?

Despite what they think, that I'm human and frail, my heart a vessel made of glass in a maelstrom, I'm strong. I can walk away from the supernatural - the so-called monsters - if I want, because I know what will save us all, what will avoid and end this feud between families, the hurt and the pain between the three of us.

Pick me, Bella. Pick me.

Well, that's right. I am picking me.