I am not nor do I claim to be Stephanie Myers. I'm merely playing with her characters.

A Fork in the Road

BPOV

Phoenix, Arizona

When I came to all I could hear was the steady rhythm of a heart monitor. It took me several minutes of being semi-conscious before I realized it was monitor of my own heart. I could feel the itchy overly starched sheets rubbing my bare skin as I began to stir. I knew where I was before I even opened my eyes. It was only confirmed when I opened them and saw the I.V. bag hanging from a rack beside my bed. Another trip to the hospital, it was beginning to seem inevitable lately. The all too familiar stiffness that I was familiar with had already set in while I was unconscious. Afraid too move too much as to alert the nurses I laid as still as I could. I didn't want to speak to any of them until I could speak to my mother, Renee, and find out what the story was that she had told them.

For fifteen years my mother and I had silently endured my father, Charlie's beatings. We'd managed for fifteen years to keep his secret that he couldn't control his emotions. It wouldn't have mattered even if someone managed to figure it out Charlie would have himself transferred to another department and we'd move before any one could bring up the idea of charges. We'd been living in Phoenix for the last five years. Charlie worked at one of the local police stations, Renee worked at the diner up the street from our run down house, and I attended the local high school and tried to blend in as much as possible and go unnoticed. Although going unnoticed in the sun-saturated state was pretty hard to do when you were as white as I was.

After a few minutes of consciousness the nurse came in bustling about the bed checking my I.V., heart monitor, and blood pressure. After checking my vitals she went over to the nurse's cart and came back with a thermometer and shoved it in my mouth. She wrote down some numbers and left the room. A few moments later a doctor came in to see me.

The doctor greeted me and began going into a long explanation about what had happened. All I heard from him was accident, Renee, and I'm sorry she didn't make it. All I could think was that sick bastard had staged a car accident to hide his mistake and finally taking his beating too far. He had killed my mother, beat me senseless, and then dragged both of our unconscious bodies to the car and staged an accident. I couldn't believe he was going to get away with it again.

Five Days Later

Charlie came everyday like the loving, devoted father her was acting to be. The doctors were none the wiser about had really happened. The lacerations and bruises the assumed were from the car accident. It turned out that the story was Renee had been driving me home from shopping, it was late at night and she had lost control of the car and swerved into a tree. Apparently even though she was the wife of an officer she had neglected to wear her seat belt and had been ejected out of the car and was killed instantly. Or so the police report said.

Charlie took me home after five safe days in the hospital. I had missed everything while in the hospital. Charlie had pushed all of the paper work through as fast as he could so that he could get Renee buried. I had missed her viewing and funeral. I was shocked when I walked in the house to find everything boxed up. Charlie saw the shocked stupid look on my face and said we were moving. All I could think was that not only would I never see my mother again but I wouldn't even be able to visit her grave from time to time. He had been offered a promotion to be the sheriff of a small town in Washington and of course given the current situation graciously accepted, thus avoiding any kind of suspicion from anyone questioning his private family life, and so once again I was forced to move. Only this time I wouldn't have my mother around to protect me and help with cover stories. Charlie had threatened us both since I was five that if anyone ever found out he'd kill us.

Forks, Washington One Year Later

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Uggggghhhhh another wonderful Monday in the beautiful rain filled town of Forks. I slowly shifted in my bed testing my sore bruised limbs. I reached my arm up and turned my alarm off. Angela would be her shortly to pick me up for school. As I climbed out of bed I winced at the sharp pain in my right leg and right rib cage. As I changed into a pair of slightly oversized flare jeans, threw on a sweater that I had managed to salvage before we moved that was my mothers, and slipped into my vans. I rushed into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and ran a brush through my hair. I sprinted down the stairs and stopped in the hall way to look in the floor length mirror. I lifted up my mother's oversized outdated sweater and looked at the swollen red and blue bruises slowly starting to emerge from last nights beating.

I heard Angela honk the horn and I grabbed my back pack from the kitchen and scrambled for the door. I hated for Angela to hop out and come to the door. Even though it was just the hallway and it was fairly clean I hated for her to see the inside of my run down house with the yellowing cigarette smoked walls and beer stained wall paper that was slowly peeling off at the corners where the walls met. Everyone in town knew something was different at our house but they just ignored it because my father was the sheriff and had managed to improve the town's crime rate by 30% since being there in the last year. Most chalked up the subtle differences to us being without a motherly figure.

I reached the door and was out just as she was about to open her door. As I headed out into the hazy smog filled morning I turned around to make sure the door was locked. Charlie hated when I left it unlocked. He came home one afternoon to find that I had left in a rush and left it unlocked and had beat me senseless. He said we needed to be an example to the community and that I was purposely trying to make him look like a fool. Before I jumped in Angela's car I grabbed my book and Ipod from my old rusty truck that Charlie had bought for me when we got here.

As I climbed in Angela seemed extra cheerful, especially for a rainy Monday. "Hey Angela. What are you so happy about today?" Angela just smirked and said, "Bella weren't you paying attention at all in school last week? The whole school was talking about not one but five new students starting at Forks High today." "Oh I guess I did miss that announcement. Well at least they have each other for support in this oversized fish bowl of a school,' I replied. Angela just laughed and responded that she didn't think they'd have much trouble fitting in. Her dad worked at the local hospital in the pediatrics unit and had met their father Mr. Carlisle Cullen and he had told her that he looked like one of those GQ models that she looked through. She also had the skinny on the fact that all of his children were older adoptees. There was a set of twins named Rosalie and Jasper who were seniors along with another son named Emmet. They had two other children a boy named Edward and girl named Alice who were in our grade. I knew that with those four around I could probably make it through Monday without any of my three person fan club finding me to inflict more torture on my already bruised body.

I guess I had missed it while trying to remain ineffectually invisible. It was a big deal when just one new person moved here. I had first hand experience with this myself. My first day at Forks High I felt like I was some new found species by the way the stared and gaped at me. That was the first of many painfully uncomfortable days at my hell away from hell. Somehow and it still evades me I also in that first week managed to come under the scrutinizing eyes of two of the most hateful girls in school, Jessica Stanley and Lauren Mallory. I don't know what I did but from day one they made my life miserable. Aside from their malicious attention I had also managed to capture the attention of an overly hormonal guy named Mike Newton who went from loving me and following me around like a sick puppy to bullying me when I continually shot down his attempts at flirting. I made a mental note to be on the look out for the newbies and to avoid them at all costs because where ever they were today all of the "in crowd" would be.

Angela pulled into the school's parking lot and parked beside a brand new silver Volvo. Angela looked to her right and said, "Guess the fresh meat has arrived. They definitely aren't hurting for anything judging by that shiny new car." It was true most of our campus was littered with cars now newer then the 90s due to low income and lack of car dealerships. The nearest one was a two hour drive along with the nearest Walmart. We got out and headed towards the already buzzing school.