Disclaimer: The characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. I´m just fooling around with them…

This is my first attempt at fanfiction, and I sincerly hope some of you like it. Reviews are most welcome, and you`re welcome to criticize me, too. I know my English is not perfect, so feel free to point out my mistakes ; )

Warning: This story is rated M for a reason! If you are sensitive to child abuse or violence in generall, please don`t read!

1. Memories

Edward

With a soft sigh I buried my head in my hands and scowled at the faded plastic of the table in front of me without seeing it. There they were again. The pictures I couldn`t get rid of, the pictures that haunted me when I expected them the least.

Was it not enough that they appeared in my dreams, in the nightmares that left me screeming and gasping for breath every fucking night? Did they have to torment me at daytime, too? How I wished I could forget for just one moment. Forget who I was. Forget what I saw.

I knew that many other students envied me. Most of them only saw the silver, shiny new car, the expensive clothes, the perfect family we appeared to be. Nobody could understand why I spent every lunch break alone at this table, gazing into the void. Why I didn`t speak to anybody.

At the beginning, many had tried to befriend me. They had been blinded by appearances. Nobody saw me how I really was, nobody was truly interested.

I had rejected each and every attempt at conversation, first polite, then increasingly determined and finally abrasive and cold until everybody got the picture. Edward Cullen – caution, danger. Keep your distance.

It was easier that way. And when I caught their envious gazes directed at my car every now and then, I often had to surpress a bitter grin. They had now idea…

„Mr Cullen!" The nasal voice of our English teacher ripped me out of my dark thoughts. With a soft sigh I looked at the board in the front of the classroom where Mr Comb was busy pointing out the different relationships between the characters in Shakespeares most famous play.Dear God, how I hated that topic! I mean, Romeo and Juliet, really? As if any sane person on this godforsaken planet still believes in something as unrealistic as true love! Did not two out of three marriages end in divorce? And even those that didn`t end in divorce weren`t always a fairy tale. That I had learned out of experience.

As soon as you allow another person a glimpse into your soul, as soon as you open up to anyone, as soon as you bind yourself to another person, you become vulnerable. Loving someone makes you weak. Love is surrender, and the one you once believed to love will utilize you, betray you and destroy you in the end. Loving someone makes you weak, and the world is ruled by the strong.

I had made my choice. I had chosen loneliness. But sometimes, only sometimes, I wondered if it had been the wiser choice. Sometimes I wondered if this was what the rest of my life would be like: being awake half of the night, spending my days in a cloudy haze of drowsiness, never once feeling truly alife. Sometimes I wondered if this…existing…wasn`t more like death than like life. Perhaps I had died with her, on that day ten years ago. Perhaps I still lived, but a part of me had died with her, of that I was sure. The better part.

And there they were again, the memories. Their icy claws teared me in half and took me prisoner, never letting me go. The almost clinical, white classroom disappeared, faded like a illusion, an apparition...

...and I was seven years old again and played a memory card game with my mother. It was the game with the fruit and flowers, and I still could see the unreal, flashing shiny colours in front of me.

It was so rare for us to have carefree moments like this one, and I relished them. I knew I was a bit old for a game like this, but it was the only birthday present I ever got, and that was why I loved it so much.

Suddenly, there was the familiar sound of a key turning in the front door, and the well-known fear gripped my heart. Hastily I reached for the shiny cards, but my hands were shaking so badly that I wasn`t fast enough to gather them all in time. He was back earlier than we had thought, and now it was too late for us to clear the table of all evidence, and for me to disappear.

In slow motion I saw the front door opening, dark walnut wood, the texture like fragile spider webs, something I never forgot. My father`s face was distorted by rage, and he reeked of stale beer and cigarettes, a stench that still churns my stomach when I think of it. It was always a bad sign when he drank.

My mother winced. Our eyes met. Her gaze was grave, insistend, and there was a determination within the green depths that left me shuddering. It was as if she knew what would happen now, but there was no fear in her. Only something like...acceptance?

„Edward, go to your room! Go, now!", she said quietly. Quietly, but with a voice that allowed no contradiction.

Concerned, I looked at my father, who came nearer and nearer. He stumbled a bit, but caught himself a moment later, having to support his weight by grasping for the wall. Perhaps he would collapse before he reached us. Then we would be safe – for a little while.

But he found his balance yet again, and he came nearer still, slowly and deliberately, with the grace of a bull stalking a red cloth. In his right hand he held the baseball bat I feared like nothing else. The baseball bat that normally stood next to the front door. The baseball bat I was very familiar with.

I was always bruised badly after he used him on my back. One time one of my teachers had noticed, and I had lied and told him that I fell down the stairs – I had to promise mommy to never tell a soul about how my father really was. Otherwise they would take me away from her, and she would be all alone with him. I could not let that happen.

"Do you want that, sweety? That they come and take you away?", she had asked me then, begging me to understand the importance of secrecy.

„No", I had wispered. The thought alone had made me feel violently sick. I wanted to stay with mommy. And when I wanted to stay with her, I had to live with the beatings. He told me every time that I deserved it, that I was a bad boy. But the tears in mommy`s eyes always told me a different story.

„No, mommy, I won`t leave you with him!", I cried now, desperatly searching for a way out I wouldn`t find. There would be no escape. There never was. Our flat was small, the only door outside the front door was the one leading into the bedroom, and to this door my father had the only key. We were imprisoned in the corner between the kitchen counter and the living room. There was no escaping him, and we all knew it.

There was no time left, it was slipping through my fingers like sand. I could only hope that he would deal with me first, then perhaps mommy would have enough time to hide from him.

Determined, I placed myself in front of her.

"Leave her alone!", I managed to squeeze out, my voice shaking and betraying my fear.

For a tiny moment, my father examined my small form thoughtfully, even a bit surprised.

„You`ve got balls, little one", he slurred, grinning. "Perhaps you`re my son after all. Never mind. Won`t save you. Let me pass, I`ll take care of you when I`m finished with your mother."

Though I felt as if my knees were to give out on me any moment and I was shaking with fear, I stood my ground. Too often had I heard what he did to her in their bedroom, and her silent crying when he was "finished with her". It always ripped my heart in two. And it was my fault that he was angry now, it had been my idea to play a game instead of preparing dinner for him. He had said he would be late today, but we both knew one could never trust him. It was my fault we were in trouble, and I would take responsibility for it. I was old enough.

I should have known it. I was no match for him. He simply shoved me aside, grabbed my mother`s hand and dragged her inside the Room of Fear. It was suspiciously silent for a long time, the only sound I could hear my rapidly beating heart.

Then there was a quiet commotion behind the closed door.

"Please, Ed, leave him out of this, he`s only a child, for god`s sake, please, I beg you…", I heard my mother`s desperate voice, but there was no time for me to fear what was coming. The next thing I knew, my fathers strong hands enveloped my upper arms, the sharp bite of his leather belt binding my wrists. There was no escape.

"Now that I think of it, you`re welcome to watch", he wispered darkly into my ear.

I closed my eyes in a desperate attempt to block it all out. I wasn`t able to close my ears, though, to not hear what he did to her. And when she grew quieter, I just had to look. I had to make sure she was still alive. I would never forget what I saw this day. I will remember these pictures for the rest of my life with perfect, gut-wrenching clarity.

She died soundlessly. And the peaceful, relieved expression in her eyes before they froze in death`s cold gaze would forever haunt me.