I only own Megan. :(

Summary: Bella Swan, an intelligent and eloquent, yet softspoken, high school student, wants nothing more than her life to be normal. "Normal', however, is something she's never experienced.

She lives with her father and younger sister, Megan, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. Tired of constantly getting picked on - and dealing her life at home - Bella tries to keep up with schoolwork, but without success. With her grades slipping, her teacher negotiates a deal for her to bring her grades up. Her two options leave her speechless.

To top it all off, after coming home from school one day, she gets in a particularly nasty argument with her father, just after getting in a fight with the school's cheerleading captain. She has to make a decision as to how to continue with her life, and once again, she finds her array of options very limited.

Ch. 1 The Concept of Love

The doctor came out of the delivery room, a solemn expression painted across his aged face. "I'm so sorry," he said. "She didn't make it."

My father lifted his arm from the armrest and squeezed my fragile hand tightly. I leaned over the armrest that separated his chair from mine and leaned my head on his shoulder. I was shaking uncontrollably from the tears. My mom had just died giving birth to my sister.

But that was six years ago. Megan, my younger sister, was now in kindergarten, and I was a junior in high school. Today marked the six-year anniversary of my mother, Renee's, death, and technically, it was Megan's birthday as well. It had been decided long ago that we would celebrate my sister's birthday on her half-birthday, in six months. We felt guilty being happy observing my sister's birthday while my mother deserved a day commemorating her as well.

There's a fine line between life and death. My mother dying meant that I got a sister. It was as if, in order to have an addition to the family, we had to sacrifice the life of another loved one. Megan's life began when my mother's ended.

Another sacrifice I unknowingly made that day six years ago was that I was going to have to give up my father. Not physically, though. He looked the same as he always had, albeit a little more stout. I gave up my father emotionally.

My mother and father had been together their whole lives, and married young. They were so in love, and even when I was just a toddler, I knew it. I knew my parents would trade the world to be together, and I thought that love like that was everlasting.

But the day she died, my father changed. Every day he came home from work, he was angry and full of rage. I was eleven, and I understood that he was probably just going through his own grieving process. But my life eventually fell back into place, and his didn't. I still missed my mother with all my heart, and knew I would never forget her, but I also knew that it was time to move on. Dad never did.

Day after day, his anger and hatred for the world had grown exponentially. At first it was just screaming and yelling, and he might throw a bottle or two of beer, his new drug of choice, at the wall. That changed though, about five months after Megan was born. I was about twenty minutes late coming home from school one day because I'd stayed after class to ask my teacher about a homework assignment, then walked straight home. I didn't do anything wrong, and he never gave me a chance to explain myself. Before I knew it, I felt a stinging sensation on my right cheek and there was a red handprint where my father struck me.
He himself looked shocked at what he had done, and dropped down on his knees in front of me and cried with his head in his hands. He wouldn't stop apologizing. "I'm sorry, so sorry honey! You know I'll never do it again. I didn't mean to… I love you…" The same old lines he'd given me every time he'd done that to me after.

I was standing by the shrine of pictures of my mother at our yearly candlelight vigil as I remembered how everything changed when Megan was born, how my life had ended up pointing in a completely different direction. Tears were silently welling up in my eyes and I had my hands on Megan's shoulders as she stood in front of me facing the pictures of mom.

My eyes scanned the dozens of pictures we had saved of her. One with me sleeping in her arms after I was born, one with her attempting to teach me how to tie my shoes, one where she was pushing me on the swing set in my backyard, laughing with my dad.

Megan released herself from my grip on her shoulders and turned around, looking up at me. "Bella, it's okay. Don't cry. Mommy's in a better place. She's happy." She was so young, so innocent. I bent down on my knees and hugged her into me.

"I know," was all I could say. I felt so bad for her, that she had never even met her own mother. She had never known what it was like to have a mother, and she didn't know what a wonderful person she was. All she knew was our dad, who was always piss-drunk and infuriated about everything. And I felt guilty she was not in a single picture with my mom at the vigil, and that dad and I were in most.

I stood up and held her hand as Dad silently took one last look at the pictures, holding both his hands together behind his back. He drew in a deep breath and unlaced his hands and grabbed the pictures to put them away. He placed them in a cardboard box, sealing it shut with tape, and carried it up the steps to the attic where we kept them throughout the year.

He went to bed, leaving Megan and I alone. "Meg, it's nine o'clock. You need to get to bed."

"No! I don't want to! I want to stay up with you!" she complained.

"You can't, honey. Tomorrow's Monday, we have school and you need to get your rest. Besides, I'm going to bed myself pretty soon. I'm exhausted." And I was. I felt like all the energy had been drained from my body after dealing with my dad all day and looking at the pictures of Mom and I.

"Come on, get to the bathroom and brush your teeth and go to bed." I grabbed her hand and led her to the downstairs bathroom, making sure she did as she was told. Since she was born, I found myself acting more like a parent to her than a sister, since Mom was gone and Dad didn't do much more than scream and drink. He didn't even have a job; he'd been fired at every job he'd had since Mom's death because of the constant drinking. With school, homework, and parenting my sister and a forty-five year-old man, I didn't have time for a job. My aunt Susan, my Mom's sister, and her husband, Rick, were very wealthy and sent us money each month for food and other expenses. They were prissy and snooty, so they wouldn't take care of us; the most they wanted to do was to be our financial aid since they knew what Dad had become.

Megan scrubbed her teeth and went into her bedroom and I followed her and turned off her light before I left her room. "Good night, Bella," she yawned.

"Night Meg," I said before shutting her door and going to bed myself.