Chapter 1

Edward Cullen was 17 years old, or young depending on how you looked at it. He lived in Austin, Texas, a particularly beautiful part of Texas and particularly sweltering in the summer time, which it currently was. Edward had wild bronze hair, no matter what was done to it it still stuck up at all angles and wouldn't lie flat. He had deep green eyes, which looked far too old to belong to somebody so young. But that's what happens when you had as much pressure on you as poor edward had. He was 17 going on 30, his parents had already picked out the road his life would take, marriage and children and a career to boot. He hadn't even finished high school yet, and at this rate he wasn't sure he wanted to. He had a built upper body and legs from rowing. Rowing, yes, one thing Edward hated the most that his parents made him partake in, apparently it was for his 'health.' He just thought it some sort of cruel punishment for being so lanky in earlier life. Did he mention he attended a private school? No, I didn't think so. A private school where being on the rowing team was what most of the boys longer for, Edward didn't even have to try out and he was on the team. This just meant that he had to work harder than any of them because he had to prove that the place he had on the team was deserved instead of just being because of his daddys influence. Which to begin with it was, he had never rowed a day in his life before he was thrown on to the team in his freshman year and no freshman ever made the team.

Already we see a pattern emerging for Edward, everything he tends to do in his life is because his parents want him to do it. He never gets to make any of the big decisions himself and he makes himself feel better by believeing that he at least gets to make the little ones, which isnt always true. For example his clothes, he wasnt particularly knowledgable on fashion and nor did he want to be. So his sister took it upon herself to pick out his wardrobe for him, he let her do this because it made her happy and in all honesty he couldnt care less what he was wearing. His sister Alice was younger than him by just over a year, and she definitely knew her own mind, unlike him. Unfortunately for him she was also set on going to school to study fashion design, this was bad for Edward because it meant that all of his parents hopes were resting on his shoulders. They were pretty disappointed with Alice and the choices she was making, they believed that she should be happy to go to college and then come back and marry and start producing grandchildren for them. And of course she should look after her husband, whom, if they had their way would be one of the high earners in the community so that Alice's children would also have the same high standing in the community as she did. His parents had become so exasperated with Alice they hadn't recently sent her off to a boarding school, hoping that it would straighten her out. Of course Edward knew this wasn't about to happen and it was much more likely that she would convince half the girls in the school to be more like her, Alice could sure be persuasive when she wanted to be.

Now Edward's music tastes, and reading and watching i suppose he could call his own. Although he barely had time for any of this currently with his projects in high school that he was working on and all of the homework he had to complete in order to make his grades. So i guess you could say that right now Edward wasn't his own person at all, all of his friends even where the sons and daughters of his parents friends.

Edwards family where part of a little community of their own who where made up of the higher earners in society and the upper classes. All of them who played golf and hung out on the weekends at the country clubs. Mostly made up of workaholic men and stay at home mothers who were almost bored to tears. Or would be if it weren't for all the gossip mongering they did. Of course Edward was made aware very young that you do not want to be a part of this gossip, that his parents would be very unhappy with him if he had done anything to warrant being gossiped about. He was caught up in gossip once, because he cut out of school a period earlier than he was supposed to, his parents got wind of it and now in every single argument this is brought up against him if he isn't doing something that they want him to be. And like the dutiful son he is it does its job to make him feel guilty and he automatically does whatever it is that they want him to be doing. That's how this community worked, it survived on fear and gossip. And the families who belonged to it could easily be changed if one family came under too much gossip. They would be blacklisted, none of the other families would have anything to do with them and they would stop recieving their invites to all of the social occasions everybody else was invited to. You'd soon get the message and understand that it was time to leave, lest this blacklisting go too far and the parents used their influence to have certain kids thrown out of schools or kept off the lists for certain colleges. It was a harsh and cruel world that Edward had grown up in, but from the outside it looked like one big happy community. And it was, unless you did something that they didn't like.

Edward took after his mother in looks, she had the beautiful bronze hair and green eyes too. But unlike Edward she was quite short, and stood at only 5' 3". She was from a little town somewhere else in Texas, he didn't know where and she didn't really talk about it much. Her and his father had met at College, she was going to be a nurse. But of course she married his father and moved to this suburb and had children. The dream of being a nurse soon died for her, and she became one of the rich wives. Edwards father was completely different in colouring, he had dark hair and dark eyes. His sister Alice took after their father, the only thing he had in common was Edward was his stature. He stood at an impressive 6' 3" and this helped when he was trying to give his children lectures as he towered over them while they sat. This was enough to frighten them in to silence, and his father was terrifying when angry. Of course Edward had only seen this a handful of times, because he did almost everything that his parents ever wanted him to. His father was a workaholic and could often be found at the hospital, and on the rare occasions that he was at home he was in his work office researching some new information in the world of medicine. Of course just like the model husband and father did he was always there at meal times at the head of the table.

Edward had one big secret, something he couldn't tell anybody in this perfect little community here. Not his friends, not his sister and definitely not his parents. This would ruin his reputation and it would also ruin his parents dreams for him, they probably wouldn't want anything to do with him after this. It was not uncommon when a child did something very bad for him or her to be thrown out by their parents and disowned, never to be seen of or heard from in this little community ever again. Back to this secret of his, Edward was gay. That was his big secret, now it may not seem such a big deal to others nowadays but in this community and certainly in the deep south this was still an issue. Homosexuality was still frowned upon and you were still harassed if you were to come out of the closet so to speak. Edward had realised he was gay when he was around 13, he was not wanting to speak to the girls and have a girlfriend like all of the other boys did. He had always known that there was something but he had never realised what until he had started to go through puberty and it wasnt half naked women who were giving him erections but half naked men, and really fully dressed men if they were that good looking. Afterall, Edward was a teenager and his libido was through the roof. Now in this community Edward knew for certain he couldn't let something like this get out, he would definitely be thrown out and disowned and blacklisted forever. He couldn't risk losing his family over something like this so he swore that he was going to do whatever his parents wanted and have a wife and children.

One particularly stressful day he found himself wandering off from the nice little suburb he lived and deeper in to the city, now it was getting on for dark and this city could be frightening when it wanted to be. And though he had lived here his whole life he had never been in this run down part of the city at night and he was frightened, he heard tales of what happened to people who were out here at this time. He thought it was mostly front to scare some of the younger children in to not wandering off, but seeing the streets dimly lit and the gangs of youths on almost every corner he could understand that these stories were not simply stories, there was quite a lot of truth in them. He stopped to check his phone, perhaps his map app could show him where he was and which was the right way to go to get back home, and as a last resort he could always ring one of his parents to come and pick him up. Sure they'd be mad, but they'd be a lot happier knowing he was safe than letting him keep wandering about out here. He could easily cover up why he went for his walk and just tell them he was stressed about his exams, afterall that was also true. But getting his phone out in this neighbourhood he quickly learned was a very bad thing to do, he was instantly surrounded by a gang of people.

"Well looky what we have here boys, we got ourselves a stray from the suburbs dont we? That's a mighty nice phone, you mind if i take a look?" one of the boys leered at him.

He knew he was in trouble and he also knew that as soon as he handed over his phone he was in even more danger because then he wouldn't even have a way to call for help. Though not giving them the phone was surely a pretty bad idea too because it was a quick way to get them mad.

"Sure, urm, say you couldn't help me out here could ya? I wandered in to town and i'm pretty lost and i can't seem to find the right way back." Edward thought that this was worth a try, afterall if they refused and beat him up, it was only the same as him not trying and getting beaten up anyway. And they would still take his phone.

"Now, now what's the rush posh boy? How about you empty the pockets of those expensive looking trousers you're wearing and hang over what you got and we'll help you to get back home, sounds like a fair deal now doesn't it?" the same guy asked him, it was obvious that this guy was the so-called leader of this group of misfits.

"O-o-okay" Edward pulled out his pockets and handed over his wallet, the only thing left in his hands was his house keys, afterall if they thought he was going to give them his address so they could use his key to break in then they had to be delusional, he would rather take a beating than incur his fathers wrath for that. He could see some of them talking quietly behind their hands, asking the leader something. The leader gave one little nod and that's all it took, the group started to close in on him and some of them made a grab for his shirt. He felt a fist drive in to his nose and cheek and could feel the blood instantly start to pour down his face. He wasn't about to just stand there and get the crap beat out of him, so he started to wildly throw punches himself not particularly caring who his fists were coming in to contact with. He was simply pleased when he felt his fists connect and heard the sickening crunching sounds which told him he had broken at least one nose. It wasn't long before he was on the ground and they were kicking and punching him. He heard a yell and suddenly they were retreating away from him, running at speed in the opposite direction.

His nose and head bleeding Edward started to feel a little weak and his vision started to get a little blurry. He could just make out the silhouette of another boy walking towards him and bending down next to him. He could tell that the other boy was trying to say something to him but he couldn't hear a thing, and before he had time to try and communicate this to the boy everything went black.