The Student Life
Chapter One
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.
Summary: They felt responsible for darkening their own pasts. New opportunities arise and they attempt to bury the past whilst still staying away from each other. Will fate let them or were they meant to find be together?
BPOV
One year: 365 days, 8760 hours, 525600 minutes, 31536000 seconds—whatever way you want to put it. It doesn't really matter, it's all the same to me. I know it as the amount of time I had to watch my mom suffer.
On January 5th my mother, Renee, was diagnosed with lung cancer. It's part of the reason I am where I am today. To put it in simple form; it sucked. My mom couldn't move some days and there where days where I thought she would die with my thirteen year old arms wrapped tightly around her.
Everything was different; I couldn't understand any of it at first. I was kept in the dark, and I thought my parents were going to get a divorce. Everyday – at the beginning- they were fighting. Every minute of every day. They would fight about how we had no money and how they never got to see each other, but it would always end with my dad, Charlie, yelling about how my mom going to hospital was ripping this family apart.
So all I knew was that my mom was in the hospital and my dad was always at work. I believed that they hated me and didn't want to spend any time with me. It wasn't until Emmett explained health insurance to me. When I was thirteen, I was always at the hospital, and I didn't know it cost. So I worked it all out – it took me awhile, but I worked it out- my dad had to work all the time to pay our health insurance so that he could look after my mom. I felt some pride to call him my father. Being able to sacrifice his happiness to make sure that we could always pay a visit to the hospital if we needed. But somewhere in my mind I felt like they hated me because they wouldn't tell me what was going on. I learned later in my life that it was for my own protection. I wouldn't have understood what was going on at that time.
I still to this day feel guilty for being selfish enough to believe that my parents hated me.
As summer came and I wasn't at school anymore, I was able to witness everything that was going on when I was at school. Mom had gotten into a routine and she wasn't in the right state-mentally or physically- to change it. All she would do was lie on the sofa with a heavy blanket wrapped around her and watch TV. After roughly and hour or so she would already be asleep. Mom was always too tired to do anything with me, and Dad was always at work. I would never do anything around the house; I always threw a tantrum when I was asked. Because of this, for the first week, my mom would always try to do something with me, but it killed her, and I was so damn selfish that I moaned and moaned and moaned.
It fucks with mind just thinking about how stupid I was not to see the truth of my actions.
Then there was winter, that's when it really started to hit home. My mom got sick with the flu. She was hospitalized for weeks. I'd either spend the day in the hospital with Mom or a day at the station with Dad, and then I'd go to stay with my Uncle Carlisle. I remember being really angry on my birthday because my dad didn't come home at all, and I had spent the day with my mom. I walked home from the hospital and I felt so underappreciated because everyone seemed to forget my birthday. The only notice it got was when Alice came round the next day and apologised for not seeing me yesterday and giving me my present.
I didn't even open the goddamn thing. That's how selfish I was back then. Of course, now I'm different, a lot of things have changed.
The most distinctive thing I remember was the day January 6th. I woke up from a dream, my sheets were everywhere and I'd been sweating. What I dreamt was so real, the effect it had on me was indescribable. I still can't think of words. In my dream, everyone had been in my mom's hospital room. Everyone was crying and I was mumbling "I'm sorry", "I love you", and "don't go" but they were all slurring together and my mom couldn't understand. But the distinct sound was the background noise of the heart machine. Each beep was getting further and further apart until it just became one deathly continuous beep.
The thing that will always creep me out is the fact that when I went to visit her in hospital that day. She wasn't there. She was dead.
There are so many things I began to regret in that simple moment. I also realised that it was my fault that my mom died. If I had just let her go in for her operation then we would still be a family.
Though my mom was dead, life still went on. I grew from fourteen to fifteen with no real difficulties and then from fifteen to sixteen. My cousins, Alice and Emmett, became my best friends. Alice and I went through high school together with Emmett in the year above us. I had my first crush on a boy named Jacob Black. We only broke up a few weeks ago when he met a girl named Vanessa, whose nickname is Nessie. I mean who has a nickname like that? To tell the truth, I'm still attempting to get over him.
But everything in my life was once again turned upside down and changed for the worse. When I was sixteen, the new Harry Potter book was released. I really wanted some new books, but the only decent book shops were in Seattle. I begged my dad and eventually he caved. I was over the moon; I would be spending some time with my dad and getting some new books. The only thing that would have made that day better was if my mom had been there with us. But she wouldn't and I had to get over that fact.
The day we were in Seattle, I didn't know that there would be a bank robbery. But there was and my dad just couldn't leave his police duties alone and had to help.
We had just come out of Barnes and Nobles, carrying some bags full of books. My dad needed to go to the bank to get some money and when we got there; there was a crowd of people. My dad told me to stay where I was whilst he went to go see what was happening. I just stood there and watched him disappear into the crowd of people. I tried to see over the top over everyone's heads but I couldn't. I also didn't want to disobey my dad by leaving my spot. Before I could even start the argument of why I should move in my head there was a loud, penetrating bang. Living in a small town, I had no idea that that was the sound I would identify every gunshot with.
I had no idea what it was at the time, but I went straight into defensive mode. Everyone was running away from the building, but I dropped my bags and ran toward the way I was positive my dad went. But when I eventually found him he was covered in blood. His hand was grabbing the skin on his chest; in fact he was clutching it. I don't remember much of what happened. I broke down at that scene. All that was running through my head was that he was going to die. Everything became a hazy mess to me.
Nothing really registered with me but I am sure I saw the paramedicals come and get him the ambulance and maybe, possibly I rode in the police cruiser. But I can definitely not remember anything from then till I was at his bed holding his hand and asking him not to leave. I was praying and begging for him to stay. The previous night I had wished upon the only star that shone through the clouds.
Neither of my silent pleas was answered, correctly at least.
Once again, it was entirely my fault. My dad would be here now if I hadn't begged to go to that book store and get those extra books. I would still have both my parents if I had just not been as selfish as I was.
So with both my parents dead I thought I would have to go into the foster system. I thought I was a goner for sure. But my Uncle and Aunt adopted me. They've treated me like one of their own for the past two years. Alice and Emmett immediately accepted me into their family. I talk like we weren't family before only because since my mom's death I never felt like they were family. I guess I was always slightly repulsed by the thought that Carlisle is a doctor, always giving money away to the poor and working in the hospital that my mom was at, and that she still managed to die. Though I'm probably just shifting the blame onto other people. It's what I do best. Like that one time I managed to convince everyone that it was really Emmett that crashed Carlisle's car.
But that's how I ended up with Carlisle and Esme, how I became an orphan. It probably makes it more impressive that I am an orphan and that I managed to get into Harvard's Law school. But when I opened my acceptance letter my thoughts were; yippee, hurray.
Oh yeah, please note my use of sarcasm.
Okay so yeah, some weird thing happened to me and so yeah. I don't actually have words to explain it so I think we'll just leave it at that!
So this will be the same sort of story line but there will probably be changes to make it a more exciting read.
So please review! Tell me your favourite/least favourite parts, whatever! I love hearing what you guys say!