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In the dark of the night, a widowed women walked leisurely, along the ominously dark hallways of her sleeping house. It was well past the hour of any child's bedtime and yet from the confines of her own bedroom she could clearly hear her dear Isabella talking as if it were the normal time of day to be throwing tea parties.

The women trudged as silently down the hallway as she could, trying desperately not to make too much noise. She wanted to hear what her daughter was doing at this time of night before Isabella got the chance disguise her sneaky actions

"How do you know Renee is coming?" She heard Isabella asking curiously. Her voice was velvet and softness wrapped up in a warm blanket of happiness.

The women craned her head to the side inquiringly as she stopped outside of her daughter's bedroom door.

"She's standing outside of my door?" Isabella's voice was still as curious as ever.

The women knew then that her darling Isabella was well aware of her presence. She saw no more need in being discreet. She planned to reprimand her daughter accordingly, send the disobedient girl to sleep, and then retire to sleep herself. Renee turned the knob in her hand, pushed open her daughter's bedroom door, and frowned at the sight before her.

Isabella sat perfectly tranquil at the little, yellow tea-table Renee had purchased for her last Christmas. A cooling cup of pretend-tea rested in front of her, a pink tea pot was placed in the middle of the table, and at the other end a small chair was pulled out as if there were someone else enjoying Isabella's dainty tea party with her.

"Isabella." Renee said sternly. She looked at her daughter quite peculiarly. "Why are you up so late, little girl?"

Isabella opened her mouth to speak but closed it just as quickly. Her brown, doe eyes flickered to the chair across from her. Renee watched her daughter with great apprehension. Dear Isabella appeared to be heavily occupied with listening to something or someone. Yet there was no one else in the room with the two ladies. Isabella chuckled lightly and turned back toward her waiting mother. "I was having a tea party with Edward."

"Edward?" Renee asked, unable to mask the hysteria in her voice. "Didn't I tell you not to speak of that name in this house again Isabella? There is no such person called Edward Masen."

Isabella glanced towards the chair across from hers again. "Edward says not to believe you. He says that there is a reason why I am the only one who can see him. You would not understand mother."

"Oh?" Renee shook her head in confusion, worrying once again about her daughter's sanity.

There had always been something not quite right with her daughter and Renee had been reluctant to admit this fact at first. Isabella had always been an odd person. Even as an infant the little girl had displayed qualities unlike any other child Renee had ever seen. Little Isabella had never shed a tear her entire life until the year she had reached age seven. She had fallen off of bikes, broken priceless belongings of hers, and even fractured her ankle. None of that had been severe enough to draw tears out of the girl. But when Renee would insist that her little friend Edward was only a figment of her imagination the girl would explode into a frenzy of uncontrollable sobs.

For some reason the little, brown-eyed girl believed wholeheartedly that there was actually some being named Edward Masen. That was not the initial factor that made Renee question her daughter's sanity. It was completely normal for a child to create an imaginary friend for themselves. It was even normal for a child to believe that their imaginary friend was indeed a real person. It was not normal however, for a child to lose interest in everyone and everything that did not have anything to do with their fabricated companion. That was not normal behavior for a seven year old at all.

"Edward says that you think me to be insane mother." The child looked up at her mother with knowing brown eyes. There was only a small hint of sadness on the girl's face. Dear Isabella could not figure out why she was looked at so differently from everyone else. She didn't want to be a disappointment to her mother. She always did her very best to be a good little girl, but sadly she mostly only ended up frustrating Renee more.

"And why does Edward think that Isabella?" Renee challenged kindly, placing her hands onto her slender hips. She gave her daughter a reprimanding smile. She was ready to reject Isabella's answer rather closed-mindedly.

"Edward can read minds." Isabella said with great certainty. She glanced at the empty chair across from herself and giggled wildly. "Except for mines for some reason. He agrees with you that I am unusual but he insists that I'm unusual in a special way."

"Well Isabella, if your dear friend Edward can read minds won't you ask him to tell you what I am thinking of at this exact moment in time?"

Isabella was a crafty little girl and Renee knew this to be absolutely true. She did not want her daughter simply guessing what she was thinking. Renee was just a step away from actually considering that there was some invisible boy sitting in the chair across from her daughter.

No, that was utterly absurd. There was no such thing as real imaginary friends.

Renee thought wildly before she conjured up the most random thought that her tired old mind could think of at the moment. There was no way her daughter would guess that she was thinking of such an aimless word.

"Are you sure?" Renee watched her daughter as she questioned her invisible friend doubtfully. When Isabella turned back towards her mother, the little girl gave her an ironic look as if she had the nerve to find the lady unusual. "For some odd reason, Edward insists that you're thinking of a cat."

Renee felt the discomfort of her body stiffening with uneasiness. Her eyes went wide for a few long moments.

Surely, there could not have been an invisible entity residing by the name of Edward Masen. There was just no way that Isabella's imaginary friend was actually not imaginary. Renee would not lower her standard of beliefs to accept this.

But then, how in the world could Isabella have possibly known that she was thinking about such an inane creature. How could her luck have been so great to have guessed that word among the infinite variations of words in the English language?

"Go to sleep Isabella." Renee said dismissively. Her mind was unsurprisingly tired. She couldn't hope to think straight right now. She needed to get her daughter to bed and then she needed to get some rest herself. "You've got school in the morning."

Isabella started to gather up her toys to put away. She hummed quietly to herself, ignoring the way her mother's disapproving eyes followed her every movement. The girl was completely unaware of the fact that she was for a lack of better words, a weirdo.

"Goodnight mother." Isabella said after tucking her way deep into the confines of her covers. "Edward says that he is sorry for keeping me up so late."

Renee managed to show her daughter a small smile. Even though the girl was clearly insane, this was still her child. "Goodnight Bella." Renee flipped the switch of her daughter's light off and the room went pitch black.

The moment was impossibly still, Voices were sealed in silence, but for only a brief second.

Renee turned to exit the room, just as she heard her daughter giggling to herself again. "Goodnight Edward."

PARACOSM

CHAPTER 1 :

LONG AND FORGOTTEN

At the tender age of seventeen, Isabella Marie Swan already suffered from a very mild and unfortunate case of memory loss. It was not a hereditary illness. In fact, the cause of her memory loss had been the regrettable result of an electroshock therapy treatment she'd received as a child.

From age eleven and every single year before then, life for precious Isabella was nothing more than a blank canvas. She could not remember any of her younger birthdays, Her once fond memories of annual holidays and family friends were long gone, and though she definitely couldn't tell for sure she always vaguely felt like there was something or someone very important to her whom she could not remember.

"Isabella." Renee called merrily from the foyer downstairs. The relationship between the girl and the women had greatly improved throughout the years. Isabella no longer unnerved her mother and Renee no longer ostracized her daughter. "Angela is at the door for you. She's coming up."

Angela Weber was only one of the girls amongst Isabella's infinite list of friends. Isabella was no longer abnormal. She was much known around her hometown and not for bad reasons.

Renee was pleased that her daughter no longer had the need for a fabricated companion.

"Bella." Angela Weber said nicely. She reviewed her beautiful friend with envy and warmth. "Why aren't you answering your phone? I wanted to see if you'd like to go to the movies this weekend." Angela's voice was alight with hope.

Isabella and Angela had been conjoined at the hip during middle school, but as soon as high school came around the two of them diverged onto two completely different wavelengths.

Isabella appreciated her friend's invite, but she had no interest in being scorned for hanging out with someone in a lower social group than she was. In other words, Isabella didn't want her popular friends making fun of her because she found excitement in hanging out with a geek.

"Sorry, for not answering the phone. It must have been on silent." Isabella said at once. She refrained from looking her former friend inside of her kind eyes. "But I have plans with Mike this weekend anyway. Maybe we can do something next time."

"Yeah sure." Angela nodded her head vehemently. "Of course we can."

Angela gave her an earnest smile although, Angela Weber knew very well that Isabella was shunning her. Dearest Isabella had given her the same excuse last weekend and the weekend before that. The only thing that Angela really wanted from her distant friend was for her to have the heart to tell her the truth for once. She'd been Isabella's friend long enough to deserve an honest answer out of her, but Isabella would not give her one because she was just too nice to hurt Angela's fragile feelings.

"I hope you enjoy your movie Angela." Bella showed the girl a nice smile. Nevertheless, she was always polite. "I'm really sorry that I can't make it this weekend."

"Oh it's okay Bells. I'll see you later."

The two girls did not hug as they departed because that would have been awkward for plenty of different reasons. They only smiled at each other because it was the cordial thing to do.

"Isabella!" Renee called from downstairs, only a few short moments after Angela let herself out through the front door.

"Yes?" Isabella answered back wearily.

"What did that Weber girl want?" Angela Weber was every mother's ideal friend for their daughter. She was nice, and sweet, and much too good to follow the crowd of rebellious teenagers that most mothers dreaded. But Renee Swan never really liked the friendship between Angela Weber and her daughter. Isabella was aware of her mother's aversion towards her next door neighbor but she couldn't quite figure out what the cause of this confusing aversion was.

Angela Weber reminded Renee of a younger Isabella. The girl would much rather enjoy a day of solitude than be around peers her own age. Isabella was the only friend that Angela was ever blessed to have and Angela was the first non-imaginary friend that Isabella had made. They had once been perfect companions for each other, but Renee didn't want Angela's remoteness rubbing off on Isabella.

For when Isabella was alone she grew restless and lonely, and when Isabella grew restless and lonely she found solace in people who were otherwise non-existent.

"She wanted to know if I could go to the movies with her this weekend."

"And what did you say?" Renee asked curiously. She would not tell her daughter that she could not go with Angela, but she would adamantly express her disapproval until Isabella just decided not to go in an effort to please her.

Renee knew exactly how to get her way with her little girl. Isabella wanted to please her so badly and Renee knew that her daughter would do almost anything to gain her fickle approval.

"I told her that I had plans with Michael this weekend."

"Oh?" Isabella didn't need to see her mother's face to know that she was smiling. She could hear the sanction laced thickly inside of Renee's chipper tone. "What are you two going to be doing?"

"I don't know yet mother. He should be coming over for dinner tonight. We'll talk about it when he gets here okay?"

"Sure honey, I should set four plates then?"

Isabella sighed. There were usually only three plates. One for Renee, one for Isabella, and one for her new step-father Phil.

"That sounds great mom. I'm going to call him now to see if he still can make it."

"Okay honey. Let me know soon. The lasagna is almost done cooking."

Isabella reluctantly retrieved her cell phone from off of her bed stand. She dialed her boyfriend's cell phone number and could only pray that he would answer his phone this time. Isabella had been the object of Michael Newton's desire since their first year of junior high. He'd wanted her and everyone felt that she was in no place to deny him.

Her mother thought it was a very healthy choice for Isabella to form a relationship with Mike. She had never been more proud of her daughter than the day she brought him home for her to meet.

"Hello?" Mike Newton answered his cell phone on third ring. His voice was pleasantly youthful to Isabella's ears.

"Hey Mike." Isabella said. She stared out of her bedroom window as she talked. The snow outside looked like piles of sweet sugar. She smiled to herself as a familiar feeling washed over her. She knew that she'd played in the snow before. She just couldn't remember when or whom she was with.

"Hello Bella, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"

"I wanted to know if you were still able to come for dinner tonight." She hoped that he would not give her another faulty excuse. It would only do good in making Renee question her more about the things she was doing to keep Mike captivated in her. "Renee is cooking lasagna this time."

"That sounds great." It was a relief to hear him say that. She did not want her mother accusing her of disregarding her obligations as a girlfriend. It would only make her look to Mike's attractiveness even less. "Tell her that I'm definitely coming over."

"Great, I'll see you when you get here."

"I love you." Mike said this to her so honestly. Isabella started to believe that he was really telling her the truth for a moment, and then she remembered who she was talking to.

"I know you do." Isabella's smile lessened just a little. She was glad that he could not witness the fall in her expression. "I love you too."

~~~~PARACOSM

An hour later, dinner was finished and ready to be served. Four people sat quietly at the dinner table inside of Renee Dwyer's elaborately decorated dining room.

"So Mike..." Phil started, in a very fatherly like tone. He had no kids of his own but he had younger brothers and they had been Isabella's age only a few years ago. Phil was quite younger than her mother was. "Are you still on the football team?"

Mike forced himself to swallow the crispy lasagna inside of his mouth and nodded his head afterwards. If there was one thing Renee was known for it definitely wasn't her cooking. All of the edible meals ever to be served inside of the Swan/Dwyer household were either prepared by Isabella herself or ordered from restaurants around Forks.

Renee was never the house mother type.

"Yes sir, in fact I'm the quarterback on the varsity team." Mike said, in his proud to be popular voice. "I've set the highest touchdown record in the school's history."

Phil looked at the boy intently before grunting in approval. "That's impressive. Do you plan on taking an athletic scholarship to Washington State University next year?"

Mike shrugged his shoulders and looked at Isabella. The two of them shared a brief smile with each other. "Bella and I are planning on going to school somewhere out of town."

"Out of town?" Renee exclaimed loudly. "My little old Isabella is leaving this state all by herself?"

Isabella suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at her mother. She hated sentimentalist, especially when she knew that their sentiment was fake.

"I'm going to be with Mike mom. We're all grown up. We'll be able to take care of ourselves."

"Oh, I know Bella." Renee smiled lightly, something like pride flashed across her features. "Michael is more than capable of taking care of you. He's already proven to me how trustworthy he is. Don't you know how lucky you are?"

Isabella looked down at her cooling plate of what was supposed to be three-meat lasagna. She was not pleased that her mother was more fond of her boyfriend than she was. It made Isabella force herself to have feelings for him. It made Isabella secretly resent them all for controlling her. "Yes mother...I know how lucky I am."

"Good, You wouldn't want to let him slip through your fingers now would you?"

...

Dinner was uneventful. It only left Isabella feeling more trapped than she had felt been before. There was a fact that always seemed to nag Isabella Swan whenever she were to dwell upon it. That fact was that no one excepted her for who she truly was. Whenever she had a flaw someone would think to correct it. She was only what others wanted her to be and not who she wanted to be.

But even if they'd given her a chance to be her own person she would not know what to do with it. She did not know who she was and she could not remember what she might have previously wanted to be. It was a frustrating ailment to live with but she could not find it in herself to change it.

Renee and Phil left the house to the kids shortly after all of the dishes were washed and everything was put back into its place. They trusted Michael for some reason that was not entirely clear to Isabella. She did not know how they could not see just how like every other teenage boy Mike really was. His intentions were never pure.

"Where did your parents go Bella?" Mike asked curiously, taking a seat beside Isabella on her canopy bed. The girl glanced at her boyfriend's hand wearily. It was already sliding it's way towards her inner thighs and they hadn't even been alone for five minutes yet.

"I uh...I think they just went to the movies."

Mike smiled widely, his blue eyes sparkled with anticipation. "So that gives us a few hours to fool around huh?"

"No...wait Mike." Isabella placed her soft hand over his large fingers to stop their duplicitous advance towards her skirt. Mike looked down at her impatiently. A hardened frown quickly took the place of the cheerful smile that had just graced his face a second ago. He waited for her to continue. "Can't we talk for a moment first?"

"Talk about what Bella? Are we to talk all damn day?" He looked at her with the eyes of a selfish manipulator. "I want to fuck you right now. If I even remember how to do it. We never have sex anymore. Stop wielding your fucking legs shut."

Mike was Isabella's first in everything. She'd been reluctant to give herself away to him so easily, but he'd been so nice and sweet about it. She would have never fathomed that he would ever become the person who was now staring back at her so stubbornly.

"Perhaps Jessica Stanley would be easier to seduce. You would know right?" The blue of Mike's eyes widened at her blunt accusation. "Things don't stay secret for long Mike. You should know that by now."

"Where the fuck did you pull that assumption from Bella?"

Isabella flinched at Mike's violent tone. There was only one instance where Mike had gotten mad enough at her to discipline her by the way of his hands. Afterwards, he'd apologized to Isabella for several days until her mother finally convinced her to take him back.

"I...Jessica...um Jessica told me." She wasn't quite as confident as she would have liked to have been. She'd wanted to show Mike that he could not disrespect her and control her.

He scoffed irritably, as if her assumption was especially absurd. "Bella have you not known how long Jessica Stanley has been on my dick? She would want you to think that I want her for exactly this reason right here." He pointed to his girlfriend's stature. Isabella had a slight frown on her otherwise pretty face, her arms were crossed over her chest, and her lips were jutted out in an attractive pout.

"It's happened before." She glanced away from his smoldering gaze, focusing her attention on her hands instead. "I had no choice but to believe her."

Isabella didn't like bringing up past occurences. She didn't usually like living in the past but she would never allow herself to forget. Her memory was already so lost to her. Forgetting any other aspect of her life was just a terrifying thing to imagine.

"For fucks sake Bella, we were freshmen back then. I was young and foolish. Get over it okay?"

"I don't like the way that you're talking to me Mike." Isabella looked at him balefully. She resented him. She loved him. "You need to calm down."

"And you need to chill out, Baby girl." Mike smiled, and moved to hover over his girlfriend with purpose. He leaned down to kiss her.

Isabella allowed this with great reluctance.

His lips moved with hers ardently, tongue pushing past her swollen lips, and somehow finding it's way inside of her warm mouth.

Isabella allowed this too.

His hands acquired a mind of their own. Moving back down her body to grip the fabric of her panties underneath her skirt.

Isabella did not allow this.

She pulled away from his lips roughly.

"No Mike." She said sternly. She moved her hands to his chest. Her efforts to push him off of her were feeble. Mike was a football player. He was physically strong. Isabella was a little girl compared to him and she definitely wasn't strong. "We're not having sex."

"Yes we are." He insisted huskily. His voice was domineering, with a finality that indicated that the decision was his to make and not hers. "You know you want it."

Mike moved to his own pants. He fumbled with the zipper of his jeans with one hand while the other held Isabella in her place. This was a terribly erotic game inside of the boy's mind. He gave no regard to how she felt, just to how her resisting excited him more than anything else she had to offer. He only wanted her for two reasons. She was a trophy to show off and a sexual indulgence.

"No, Not today." Isabella tried again. Her tone was nowhere near the sternness she had hoped for. How could she expect Mike to take her seriously when she couldn't even will herself to be assertive?

"Yes baby, do you feel that?" Mike nodded his head. Pressing his lips back onto hers and pushing his body flush against her. He could not hear a word that she was saying. He'd trained himself so well to tune out the things he found uninteresting. "Do you have any idea how much I want you Bella? Don't you like giving me what I want?"

Isabella noticed the frightening dominance inside of Mike's eyes at once. She closed her own eyes in resignation. Mike knew this was her sign of surrendering to his wishes. They had been through situations like this plenty of times before. Mike was almost always the one who got his way in the end.

When the two were opposing each other, Isabella would lose her determination along the way. She could start off strong and feel some sorts of fire under her skin. She would know exactly what she wanted or did not want and she would have a plan to make that clear. There was something about men and the way they just took things that frightened her however. Renee would advise her daughter to keep her mouth shut and to simply go along with their wishes. Mike knew that all he had to do was provoke a little bit of fear within the girl and then he'd have her at his mercy.

He got his pants undone. His boxers down. His intentions were very clear.

Isabella only gasped softly when she felt the intrusion of pleasure warp throughout her. Mike filled her fully. His movements were erratic and rough. There was no concern for Isabella in his mind whatsoever. While he drowned in the familiar feeling of ecstasy his only concern was himself.

"Fuck...Beeellla!" Mike moaned his girlfriend's name as he moved within her. "You feel sooo goood."

It didn't last long. It never did.

That was about the only thing that Isabella truly liked about Mike. She knew in other cases most girls would feel the exact opposite.

Ten minutes later, Mike was cleaned up and his whole goal for coming to visit his girlfriend had been accomplished. He felt no need in spending any more time with her. When he wanted her again he knew that she would always be willing. "I have to get going Bella."

"Of course." Isabella offered him a weak smile and nodded her head. "Tell your mother I said hello. I'll see you at school tomorrow."

Mike pressed a tender kiss to Isabella's mouth. He left her then and Isabella was all alone again. Her routine with him was always the same. It used to hurt her feelings to know just how much he didn't care for her, but now she didn't even give it a second thought.

She was actually sort of pleased that his feelings for her were entirely carnal. It made her feel less remorseful for hating him.

...

It was about a quarter until seven and the girl had nothing else to do with her time. Her mother was not here to give her any orders. She almost felt lost without the instructions of another on her mind.

She decided to start getting ready for the next day that was ahead of her. Her nightly routine forever began with her shower. Today she ran her water scalding hot to make sure all of the impurities were washed away from her body. She scrubbed her tender skin until she no longer felt tainted.

Then she brushed her teeth, washed her face, curled her hair, and slipped on her pajamas.

The final component of her bedtime ritual was the part when she found her clothes for the next day. Isabella opened her walk-in closet with an outfit already in mind. She saw that half of the hangers on the racks were without clothes and then Isabella instantly remembered that her mother had washed yesterday. Renee always washed on Saturday mornings and that was why Isabella's clothes were still downstairs in the laundry room.

The girl groaned quietly. She slipped on her satin slippers, tied her robe securely around herself, and made her way towards the basement.

Isabella hated going downstairs. It was always so cold like the bitter winter weather and dark like most of the restless nights that accompanied her. It was the very epitome of a child's worst nightmare.

Isabella went to work, retrieving her clothes out of the dryer and folding them neatly in her basket to take upstairs. Once she'd gotten all of her clothes, she closed the dryer and quickly went to make her retreat.

Her only plan was to get herself out of the cold basement before she potentially froze to death, but something very peculiar caught her eye as she neared the stairs.

There was an extra room in their basement. The room had always been there for as long as Isabella could remember, but Renee always kept the door locked and never once let Isabella venture inside to see what was in there. It had always been a household rule to stay out of the room in the basement. Though the reason for that rule had never fully been established. Isabella just knew that she was not supposed to go in there and that she should never question her mother if she wanted to stay on her good side.

In the hurry that Renee Dwyer was in today she'd left the door unlocked and open. She would have never dreamed of Isabella's captivation to see what was on the other side of the forbidden door.

Letting her curiosity get the best of her, Isabella carefully set her basket of clothes onto the hard basement floor. She moved quickly towards the neglected door in fear that her mother might come home and find her.

The last thing that the girl needed was for Renee to be upset with her. She would be in her mother's graces for days trying to regain back her acceptance. And Isabella knew that her mother would just enjoy a chance to order her around more than ordinarily.

Isabella contemplated for a moment. If her mother hadn't wanted her to see what was inside of the room she must have been hiding something, but surely whatever Renee wanted to keep secret couldn't have been too obscene otherwise she wouldn't have hidden it in her own house.

Isabella's small fingers wrapped around the cold, rusted door knob as she made her decision. She would just take a quick survey and then be on her merry way. She pushed the wooden door inward and found herself inside of an unexciting storage room. Finding a light switch on the wall, Isabella turned the lights on in the room so she could see.

She was completely and utterly confused.

There were paintings, drawings, and pictures lined along the walls. Tons of notebooks were scattered around the floor. A little, yellow tea-table that she did not remember playing with sat lonely against the wall with tons of other toys that she'd never seen.

Isabella had been expecting to walk into a room of atrocious secrets and not a room filled with her lost childhood memories. She was completely disinterested with everything inside of the small room except for one painting in particular. She moved forward to pick it up and study it more closely.

Messy bronzed hair... She ran her fingers along the fine masterpiece.

Piercing green eyes... She smiled at the warmth.

Kind smirking lips... Her heart tugged. He was so beautiful.

Pale opaque skin... She hugged the picture to her chest.

Youthful, beautiful, real...

Isabella allowed herself to feel personal with the painting of the little boy. She could not hold onto it exactly, but she felt a tug of remembrance flicker inside of her somewhere. The boy looked oddly familiar but she couldn't remember if she'd actually known him or not.

A hot moment of impatience sat with her. She was always mildly irritated that she couldn't remember anything but tonight it was too fucking inconvenient.

She noticed that there were plenty of other paintings of the same boy.

Had she painted them? She couldn't have. She had no skills in painting whatsoever and the paintings in this room were elaborately constructed by someone with passion.

It just couldn't have been Isabella but if not her...who else?

She knelt down and picked up one of the old notebooks. Maybe she'd written about the familiar boy. She opened the book, struggling a bit to read her formerly messy handwriting.

May 2, 1994

I am Isabella Swan, I am seven years old

My mother does not believe me when I say that I have a best friend named Edward. How can she not take my word for this when he is so clearly visible to me? In fact, he is sitting right next to me as I write this.

He has a kind smirk on his lips at the moment. His eyes are piercing and green as he reads what I am writing. His hair is messy and weirdly bronzed. His skin is so pale and smooth. I want to run my fingers against it.

I am kind of worried that my mother will make me stop being Edward's friend. She always gets upset whenever I try to mention him.

Edward tells me that it doesn't matter that she does not believe me. He says that as long as I never start to forget him that he will always be here with me.

Isabella closed her old notebook forcefully. Her eyes widened into enormous brown ovals as a trickle of hard realization hit her. A slither of her erased memory seemed to crashed into her out of the blue, as if her silly childhood writings had invited their arrival. It was an overwhelming sensation. Recollections of things she found impossible began to swarm her mind viciously.

She looked down at the painting once more. She could say that she remembered that boy somehow. She remembered him just enough to recall spending an enormous amount of her childhood with him.

"Edward?" She whispered to herself quietly, his name felt oddly eerie slipping from her tongue. She could remember him. She could remember sitting at that tea table and drinking fake tea together. She could remember the warmth his smile could bring her and the chill that his touch always gave her.

He was real. He always had been real.

"It's about time." Said a haunting voice, smooth with decadence and branded something bitter.

Isabella just about just about jumped out of her skin at the sound of it. She let out a yelp of surprise for she had not expected an intrusion and she turned quite ungracefully to face her invader.

When her fearful eyes landed on a boy about her age leaning against the door frame to the little room, her jaw just about dropped onto the floor.

"E...Edward?" She asked shakily. Fear encompassed her entire body as she studied the attractive boy. He was definitely not the little boy he'd been on the painting anymore. Of course with age he'd gotten considerably taller. His body stature was lean but slightly toned. He boasted strength but not in a conspicuous way. His face was all precise sharp, cuts, and angles. There was unabashed youth still inside of the dimple within his chin. His eyes were the mesmerizing green as before but somehow darker with emotion. There were deep purple shadows beneath his eye as if he'd missed out on years of sleep. His skin was was so pleasantly milky-white that she longed to touch it. Though the slow curl of his lips advised her otherwise.

There was no longer a kind smirk waiting there for her. In fact, the smirk on his lips was nothing of kindness. He was sinister and dark, his wispy hair falling freely into the midst of his magnetic eyes. "This can't be happening to me."

Isabella took a moment to question her sanity.

"Beautiful girl." Isabella's eyes widened once more. Actually hearing the sound of his voice made this all the more real. His voice was the phantom father of all that was frightening and beautiful. "Did you miss me?"