So, here we are. My first ever Peddie multi-chapter! Please don't be harsh, I've tried to perfect my Peddie writing with Still Here, but this is a new experience. Check out my one-shot series Still Here and my first story House of Romance: What Should Have Happened for other mentions of Peddie! :) Without further ado, I do not own House of Anubis! Thanks and read on!

Prologue

I never claimed to be perfect. Each time I opened my mouth to say it, even jokingly, I had to stop. Because that would be the time every memory, every word anyone said to me, would flood back.

Even though I masked myself well, I was still a broken person. The term "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is such a lie, and everyone knows it. Words may not have broken a bone in my body, but it tore me down. Bit by bit, every word took a little more of me away.

You're such an idiot!

No one likes you.

You think you can get away with anything!

Your father abandoned you for a reason.

Forever alone, Little Eddie Miller!

What's one less kid at the party worth?

Even Xavier has a better chance with girls than you do!

And Xavier actually went to social events, while I sat at home and helped my immobile mother. I had to care for her, but I didn't mind one bit. She was in a horrible airplane crash when I was five and it had paralyzed her legs. My mother was everything to me, but no one understood that since my father had left, I was her rock. My step-father was all right, but my mother was clearly not as in love with him as she had been with my father.

He left when I was seven. Maybe it was because my mother was too much of a burden. I tried not to use that excuse, because I wanted to believe my parents loved each other. Maybe it was to support the family, have a better paying job and send the money home. But that much needed money never came.

I wrote to him. Every day at first, then once a week, then every month, but after I never got a response, I stopped. My father didn't want to know me, I reasoned. He didn't want to learn about the nice boy who shared his lunch with me, or how I turned eight, or even that my mother cried for him. I cried too, but I never told him that. He would have thought I was weak, and wouldn't be proud of me.

Either way, he never wrote back.

Around the age of fourteen, I began to change. I went out at night, leaving my mother to fend on her own. She would ask me to make dinner, and I would grumble and complain. Sometimes, I would storm out, telling her to make it herself because I was tired of caring for her every need.

After two years of that, she decided that I needed to leave for a while. At the end of my sophomore year, she sent an application to a school in Britain. I knew what this meant: she was sending me to live with my father. She wanted me to calm down, maybe take a break from my routine life. Throughout it all, she remained calm and understanding. She was never mad, only unhappy that she couldn't be a true mother to me.

Now, I am constantly reminded of how I should have been a true son to her.

Britain had been the best thing that ever happened to me. America had held pain, hurt, and scarring memories. This new country was a clean slate, a chance to start over. And I did. I started over with my reputation, my goals, and, most importantly, my relationships.

With both my dad and the love of my life.

I learned why he left, why he never came back, why he didn't bother to write back. And I finally got the chance to love him. Love him like a son would. That may have been the second best thing that ever happened to me. In my entire life.

But you don't need to guess the first.

She had a story all her own, and at first I didn't know. I thought that after everything I went through, I would be able to recognize someone like me. But I was wrong. So, so wrong. But the best part was that once we knew each other, to the deepest and darkest parts, we still loved each other.

Being the protector of some sort of Egyptian hero was a huge part of my life, because it was always my number one priority. Even the smallest things happening to her, like a cut or a bruise, would send me running. It got annoying after a while, but I managed to deal with it. After all, it was what I was born to do.

There was so much of me that didn't make sense, or didn't quite connect with everyday reality. But that was what made me who I am today, no matter how hard I had to fall. Because I knew that somehow, some way, I would stand back up again.

I'm Edison Miller-Sweet, and this is my story.