At the UK premiere of 'Breaking Dawn Part 2' on Nov. 14, 2012 (Dave M. Benett/Getty)

When I found out several years ago that many of my thirtysomething friends were reading the Twilight books, children’s books by most accounts, I felt sorry for them. Then I accidentally rented the first movie, watched it twice, and started to search Google for photos of Robert Pattinson, who plays the 104-year-old Byronesque vampire Edward in love with a human highschool student Bella Swan.

I knew it was inappropriate to look at these photos — it reminded me of the time I constructed a River Phoenix scrap book when I was 14. Even still, I downloaded the second book, New Moon and read it straight through with only one bathroom break.

Then I found PDFs of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn and read them, sometimes at work, on my computer. I actually skipped the bits in Breaking Dawn that were written from the werewolf Jacob’s perspective. I didn’t care how he felt about Bella. I just wanted to know that everything would work out between Bella and Edward and they would be in love forever. Forever.

It was a dark time.

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