Disclaimer: I only own the plot of the story. The characters and the recognizable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer.

A/N: well, this is my first story in English. My first language is Spanish and I've been a long time here translating stories into Spanish so I thought, why not write my own story in English? I want to thank the Project Team Beta for their help and patience; this story was beta'ed three times and Pineapplesrock, Gigi Scott, RN4Edward, LoriAnnTwiFan and April93 did a wonderful job and were a great help.

So, this is the English version of my story Aprender a Vivir, written in Spanish. It differs a bit from the Spanish version but the central plot is the same.

I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you at the end.

BEGINNING AGAIN

Chapter 1 – Starting Over

"Well, Bella, that's everything. I really hope that you do well in school at Berkeley. You deserve it," said Dr. Marks, my therapist.

"Thank you," I replied. "I hope that, too."

"You just have to remember everything we've talked about. I think this will be good for you."

He stood up and rounded his wooden desk. Everything in this room was made of wood and leather, in warm tones designed to help you relax and get your problems out… even him, with his smile and kind eyes made you feel comfortable enough to tell him all that's bothering you.

At first, I had felt apprehensive that my psychologist was a man instead of a woman, but my uncle had recommended him to me. Anyways, it stopped mattering when I met him. He was just a few years older than me and after a couple sessions I felt, like I said, comfortable enough to open up to him and trust me, I really had problems to open up to others, especially to the male gender.

I stood too. After a goodbye, I headed to the door. I was going to miss talking to him; lately, he was the only person that I had to talk to. I was almost at the door when he stopped me.

"I almost forgot," he said, approaching me with a business card in his hand. There was something written on the back. "I have a friend in Berkeley, and I asked him if he knew of some available work. I hope you don't mind. It's in a law firm. They're looking for a receptionist and I thought it would be a good job for you since you'll be attending Law School. It's a good way to meet people. Besides, you'll need a job to help support yourself."

"It's great. Thank you." I smiled and said goodbye to him one last time before going out to the warm, humid air of mid-June in Seattle. I opened my car door and settled in to drive to Forks.

Forks was my childhood home. My parents, Renee and Charlie, and my sister Katie still lived there. I had lived in Forks until I started attending college at UW in Seattle, when I moved there and lived with my uncle Jack and my aunt Sarah, my father's sister, and their daughter, my cousin Maggie.

On my way, I thought about everything that had happened in the last six months. Before all that, I couldn't say I was completely happy with my life; there had always been something missing, but I was content with it. But last Christmas I lost everything that made me feel happy.

I barely could contain the tears that welled up in my eyes at the thought. Everything started with Riley, my ex-boyfriend, and my friends Jessica, Tanya and Irina. In short, Riley came from England, where he was currently studying, to spend the holidays with his family in Forks and went to Seattle to visit me; it didn't sit well with my friends when I asked him to join us to go out, and they stopped talking to me completely.

It was as if I never existed. That was, of course, after telling me what a bad friend I was and that I was a selfish bitch that only wanted to make them jealous because they didn't have a boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, to flaunt in my face.

Those were the last words they said to me but not about me. When people asked them what had happened and, after knowing the story, told them that that was a shitty excuse to stop talking to me, they started saying that I had made their lives a living hell and they couldn't take it anymore.

You'd say, so what? What if they're gone? If they stopped talking to you just for that, they weren't really your friends so… fuck them, go out there, meet other people and forget they exist. Yeah, I thought that at first, but it's easier said than done. When the anger passed and I realized I was completely alone, ghosts from the past surfaced and I fell into a depression.

It didn't help either that I didn't have a good relationship with my family. My sister seemed to be always angry with me; she was always complaining of the things I did and the things I said. I really hoped that was something of the age ─ she was seventeen so maybe someday she would lose that aversion towards me. But my cousin and my aunt… we used to be really close when they lived in Forks so I wasn't prepared for the way they treated me; I guess that moving to the big city had changed them a lot.

And then there was my father; Charlie had never been one to show his emotions. That and being Forks' Chief of Police made him look really severe and distant, and I was too frightened of being rejected to try and have a good father/daughter relationship with him. Besides, he hadn't shown interest all those years in getting to know me, and everybody knew that my sister was his favorite child, neither of them bothered in deny it anyway.

My mother and my uncle seemed to be my only allies here. My uncle had sensed that I was worse than I was saying and sent me to Dr. Marks, saying that he was an old friend of his. All that was the reason I was leaving, too.

When I started to feel better, he recommended that I should get away from Seattle, Forks and the bad memories. I had always had excellent grades, so when the time came to start looking for a law school, they earned me an acceptance letter from Berkeley's Law School. When I shared the news with Dr. Marks, he encouraged me to accept it.

The other recommendation from Dr. Marks was that I write everything that had happened to me since the beginning, because my problems and insecurities had their start in my childhood. It was very painful to talk or think about all that, so we sometimes struggled to work through my issues to get to the underlying cause. He thought that writing was a good way to get out everything I couldn't say out loud.

- . - . - . - . –

When I got home, my mom had finished packing away in boxes the few things I had left in Forks that I would take with me the next day.

Yes, the next day. I still had almost two months until school started and it was a bit soon to go, mostly for my mother, but I was dying to start my new life. I had found an apartment to share with a nice couple that rented their spare room; Dr. Marks liked this part. He said that living with others instead of alone would help prevent me being locked at home and would make me be around others. I had spoken with them a few times on the phone and via Skype. Sam, like me, was a law student and was going to begin his last year at Boalt Hall, and Emily, his girlfriend, had just finished her Bachelor's in Business Administration at San Francisco State and was preparing to get her MBA; she was my age. They had been dating since they met in high school and started living together four years ago, when she started going to college.

Their lives seemed taken from a movie, but fortunately, they didn't seem to be one of those sickly sweet couples. They were at that stage of their relationship where they didn't mind somebody intruding their love bubble by living with them.

And my favorite part was that they didn't mind me bringing along my little dog, Max; well, Sam wasn't so thrilled but Emily said she'd always wanted to have a dog. Max was a very little, very smart Yorkshire Terrier and had been with me since my cousin Rosalie had given him to me for my eighteenth birthday. Sadly, I'd had leave him at my parents' house in Forks because my aunt didn't want a dog in hers. But even though I could only see him on the weekends when I went back to Forks, he had become my best friend, and I wasn't going to pass on the opportunity of taking him with me now.

My mom wasn't as excited as me, though. "Are you sure about this?" she asked. We were in the kitchen, and she was cooking the dinner.

I sighed. I'd had a hard time trying to convince my parents that this was a good idea. The thing is that I have a disability: I can't walk without the aid of crutches and leg braces that extend from my waist to my feet. They were worried that I'd have trouble on my own without them or another family member there to help me, but my mother had made sure since I was a little kid that I learned to do everything on my own. And now, being almost twenty-two, I could do every daily activity like dressing or bathing myself without being dependent on another person. So they finally saw that I wouldn't have problems with that part. Now, my mother was worried about my emotional well-being.

"I don't know if this will go well or not," I finally said. "In fact, I'm terrified of being more alone there; I'm terrified of realizing that the problem is mine and that I'm totally incapable of having a good, healthy friendship or relationship at all. But I'm sure that I have to try and that I have to get out of this town."

She hugged me. "I know, I know," she said, her voice wavering slightly. "But I'm your mother, and my little girl is going to live in another state. It's my duty to worry." She took a step back and looked at me. "You have grown up so much… it seems like it was yesterday when you ran around the backyard with those little crutches you had, and now…" Her hand flew to her mouth, and I knew I had to stop her before the two of us began another crying party.

"Okay, Mom, why don't I start setting the table? Dad will be here soon, right?"

She nodded and I kissed her cheek before taking out the plates from the cabinet and putting them in a bag to take them carefully to the table before repeating the same process with the cutlery and the napkins. She would take the glasses later, as they were more fragile.

- . - . - . - . –

My father arrived soon, and after dinner, he loaded the rest of the boxes in my car. They were going to drive me; my car's trunk and backseat were full of boxes and my mother and I would take turns driving because it was a long drive for me to do it on my own. It was a great thing that I could drive with my hands, since I wasn't able to do it with my legs, but it was really tiring. The trunk of my father's van was bigger, so he would drive it with my wheelchair and suitcases in it.

My sister would stay in Seattle as she didn't want to come with us… with me, as she had said. My mother had driven her to the ferry, and I took her on the other side and left her at our uncle and aunt's home.

So the next morning, after waking up really early, I settled in the passenger seat of my car while my mother took the first turn driving. I pulled a notebook and pen out of my bag to take advantage of the long drive ahead of us and work on what I called my "writing therapy."

So, what do you think? I'd love to hear about it.

As for Bella's disability, this story is based on true facts, the things that happened to Bella that we'll see in her "writing therapy" as the story progresses are true and the way Bella handles her daily activities is also real.

I have a couple photos of Bella's braces and her adapted car but fanfiction disabled the links so I'll post them later.

I'll try to post a teaser on The Fictionators. I'll try too to update every two weeks, always posting the new chapter on Saturdays.

Thanks for reading.

-Bells, :)