Hi.

This is going to be Esme's story as strict to canon as I can be. From the first time she met Dr. Cullen till well, I can't tell you that right now. Each chapters will be short anywhere from 300 words to 2000 at the very most.

However, that being said this story will include all the horrors of her life. There will be abuse, mentions of rape, and child loss. If you have any issues with any of these topics there are plenty of other amazings stories out there. Hope you enjoy I will see you at the end.

- Rachel

Chapter 1

His touch is like fire.

It caresses, whispers, devours while he strokes me gently.

Nonsensical, life sustaining and life destroying.

"What was a pretty girl like you doing up in that tree?" He asks as he leans closer; a bit more than my mama would deem appropriate.

"Charlie said there was a house on fire a mile up the road."

"And you like to watch fire?" His finger touches the hem of my dress and my stomach does a weird twist that kind of feels nice and wrong at the same time. My throat goes dry and I just nod a little. There's something about his eyes. "What do you like about it?"

"It dances. It moves back and forth and just looks so pretty, but really it's just eating everything up." I think my answer pleases him because he smiles, a little like the way daddy does when I make mama mad with my mouthing off. Then the smile is gone and he pulls back to look at his chart.

"Your cast needs to stay on for six to eight weeks. Come back in six weeks and we'll see how it goes. Don't go climbing up any trees till then." He smiles again. This time it's a bit wider that doesn't quite reach his eyes; it's a fake smile. At that second I realize he's a liar and if there is anything I hate it's a liar.

"Thank you doctor." I say the uppity way mama does when she's trying to tell off Mrs. Cole, but it kind of comes out scratchy like a cough. My face turns red and I run as fast as I can with the stupid crutches out to the waiting room where Dad I left dad after I made a big deal about being sixteen and not needing him to go inside with me.

Dr. Cullen follows me out and stops to talk to my dad. He has on that fake smile again. I try not to hear what they are saying, but I pick up on it and I get mad as I realize they are laughing at me and my 'gusto' for climbing that tree just to look at a stupid fire. Tears prick at my eyes and I say nasty things to him in my head because a few seconds ago he wasn't laughing at me. A few seconds ago he was looking at me in the way Mary talks about Jimmy looking at her before they kiss. I wasn't such a stupid kid then, huh.

"Well thanks doctor. I guess my wife wasn't being fussy when she sent me all the way up here for a fall." Dad says to him and Dr. Cullen just laughs. I can feel his eyes on me.

"No need to thank me sir. Esme here has been a great patient. It was a pleasure to treat her." He says the word pleasure funny and I make a noise in my throat that was suppose to mock him but ends up something different and my face flushes for the third time that night.

"I'd best be going Doc, sounds like she's in pain. Six weeks you say?"

"Yes, six weeks. I look forward to seeing you again Esme."

I kind of nod, and hope that they take my refusal to move as a sign of pain. Luckily they do, and soon my dad and I are on the road out of Columbus and back to a world where there isn't any funny looks or stupid tummy feelings.

I never saw him again. Six weeks later when I went to the hospital he wasn't there and a proper doctor with gray hair sawed my cast off me.

The whole time I was there I felt his touch. Saw his fingers playing with my hem. I never did get those eyes out of my mind. He was already there like a maggot inside my mind. Eating away any chance I had of a normal life, burrowing holes for him to live in. I was already preparing myself to be his bride, to be married to death while I was still so fully alive.