My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in

Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favourites shirt — sleeveless, white eyelet

lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a

near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the

United States of America. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother

escaped with me when I was only a few months old. It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead.

It was to Forks that I now exiled myself— an action that I took with great horror. I detested Forks.