I had often wondered how I got to this place in my life. How I'd let myself become someone else's puppet instead of my own person. I was never just Bella - never just a woman. For as long as I could remember, I was always categorized by someone else. I was so and so's daughter - best friend - wife. I was never just me.

I used to have dreams - goals I'd set for myself. I wanted to be a chef at a five-star restaurant. Or an English Professor at an Ivy League College. Or a journalist that traveled to places like Africa or the Middle East to show the world what else was out there. While growing up - and even in my early college days - I had different ideas of what I wanted to be when I stepped out into 'the real world.' Never once did that dream include being someone's arm candy - someone's pretty little wife that looked great at dinner parties and socialized with all the other pretty little wives, but didn't do much else.

Oh, I could volunteer and help to coordinate the next ski-trip for the snotty prep-school kids. Or help plan parties at the Country Club. Or offer my opinion to Mitzy on what colors she should redecorate her house in.

What I couldn't do was get a job. A real, full-fledged, paying job. With normal hours and normal wages and normal co-workers. Heaven forbid one of the wives of Twilight Place actually have something fulfilling outside of her husband (or the pool boy).

If only I had known how I would feel after six years of doing nothing but looking pretty. I had been so swept up in the fairytale romance my husband had portrayed when we first started dating. I was fairly naive, from a small town, and had little to no dating experience. It wasn't because I was a loner or because I didn't get asked, but because I chose to focus on my studies - to fulfill all those dreams that would never be.

But somehow, my husband made me lose sight of all that. Our whirlwind romance was that of the movies. He literally swept me off my feet - saying and doing all the right things. He had Charlie and Renee eating out of his hand the moment he walked through our front door. And, I was... Well, I was smitten. In love, I thought. But, now I'd come to realized that I was merely in love with the idea of the romance - of the life he presented.

I was never in love with him.

And so, now I was stuck. I was stuck with a man whom I didn't love and who didn't find me sexually attractive anymore. I was stuck without a job or way of supporting myself. I was stuck in a life I didn't want, but didn't know how to get out of.

So, for now, I would continue to be the picture perfect woman - a cookie-cutter mold of some one else's ideals. I would be Renee and Charlie's daughter. I would be Alice's best friend. And I would be the perfect wife.

Because on Twilight Place, I couldn't be just Bella.