A/N: Hello! Well this is my very first Fan Fiction so please don't flame me too hard. If this sucks though please DO tell me. So don't fret yet, Edward will show u p soon enough. Thanks for reading this and enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing what so ever except my crazy ideas. All characters are created by the great S.M.
I felt the thousands of pins sting into every cell of my left cheek as the back of his hand
made contact. The force of the blow rocked my already less then safe balance causing me to fall
to the side cracking my hip bone onto the tile floor with a dull thud.
"Stupid worthless bitch," he growled as he leaned over me. The leather of his boot
collided with my rib cage pushing the air from my lungs in a loud gust. He turned on his heal, but
not before he spat one quick hate fill wad onto my crumpled body.
I played opossum praying that he had expelled his anger for the time being. Squeezing my
eyes tightly shut, I tried to ignore the pain as I waited for what was to occur next. To my relief I
heard him stomp his way from the bathroom and go down the hall to his room slamming the door
behind him.
Frozen in place for a moment to be sure he was planning on staying away, I slowly raised
myself from the floor gripping the sink for support. I averted my eyes from the mirror in front of
me not wanting to make eye contact with myself for fear of working up my emotions. I strived
hard to keep my feelings numb as I tenderly inspected my ribs with my fingers to be sure they
were all intact. After ascertaining that my ribs were as good as they could be, I made the mistake
of glancing up at the mirror. I saw the welt across my face that corresponded with the other
multiple injuries from the past year. I then saw the pain and fear in my own eyes that I had tried
so hard to repress, and I began to feel the stinging in the brown orbs I looked into.
"No," I whispered to myself as I braced myself leaning forward over the sink looking
down at the drain.
I Bella Swan will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry, I repeated over and over in my
brain. What would it help. It would only get me into more trouble if I got caught doing so. Phil
had been much less loving since my mother Reneེ had died. She had been such a free spirit, but
that had always brought on her easy tears. It was clear that Phil had seen that as endearing and
soft when she had often cried over the simplest things, but now that she was gone it was only a
reminder of her absence. I kept that in mind when ever I felt the feeling of water works
threatening to make an unwelcome appearance. It was that, and the fact that I would not show
myself as weak to him, as someone he had broken. Who was I really kidding though, I was a
broken person inside and out. I had nothing left.
It had been a year since Renee's death and the time only made things worse. Phil hadn't
gotten over her tragic accident, and he showed no signs of ever getting over it. He merely took
out his frustration out on me because I was the left over scrap of the life he had once had. I was
nothing more then a waste of space in the house that had once been mine and my mothers when it
had just been the two of us, but now it was his house and I was the intruder.
I finally leaned away from the sink and carefully made my way to the hall way. I paused
and looked to his door which was securely shut to the left of me. I then attempted to glide as
silently as possible to the opposite end of the hall to my small room. As I eased the door open I
threw another glance to his door and slid though the body sized crack. Closing the door lightly
behind me and pushing the lock in place, I slid to the floor pressing my back to against it.
I was so stupid. I had made the mistake of being in the bathroom when he had just gotten
home from his game. Phil played minor league baseball and it was easy enough to say he was a
little less then mediocre. H e knew it, I knew it, and the state of Florida knew it, so he was often
in one of his strongest rages when he came home from one of his games. I knew by now to stay
locked in my room when he did so, but I had not anticipated he would get some so early. I had
only worsened his mood by being visible to him.
I had been thinking about my mother at the time while I was drying my hands off in the
bathroom. I was trying to get a quick use of the bathroom before I hid from him, just incase he
was in one of his moods extra long and I couldn't slip out for a bathroom break. I was so
absorbed with my thoughts that I didn't hear him arrive early. I had been thinking about her
death, and how if was so like her to go that way.
She had been skying diving, one of her latest whimsical activities, and her parachute
became tangled after she was in the air. I had always know she was prone to obscure and
sometimes unadvisable hobbies, but that was what made her so carefree and lovable, I just never
expected one to end so badly.
It was all my fault too. After she married Phil, making him my stepfather, I assumed that
he would help me keep her on track better when she wanted to do such crazy things. When she
had brought up the idea of sky diving to us, I thought it was a bad idea. Nothing about jumping
from a plane hundreds of feet in the air sounded smart to me. Back then Phil had been nice
enough to me, but I was trying to get him to like me. So, when he thought it was a fine idea for
her to try something like that, he told her to do what she wanted since she was a grown women. I
went along with him just to try and appease him despite following my intuition on her new
hobby. If only I had been more vehement about her not trying that stupid skydiving instead of
rolling over and letting her had free reign, then maybe I wouldn't be bruised and scared as I sat
on my bedroom floor. Then maybe she would be alive.
However, I couldn't pretend that her death was the start of my worries. When I had been
young, I lived in Forks, Washington, with her and my real father Charlie Swan. He and my
mother had been high school sweethearts and grew up there. They had married soon after they
graduated and had me two years later. Then the year I was to turn nine, suddenly things took a
terrible turn. He had been a police officer in the little town, and one day on duty something
happened that no one ever expected. He got a call on a robbery in progress. He was the closest
officer at the time, so he was the first to arrive. The robbery was at a little gas station in town.
From the security camera film, it was seen that Charlie showed up and tried to talk the
guy out of committing the robbery. Charlie really had no experience in that sort of thing since it
was a small town where the worst thing that happened was a traffic accident on the slick winding
highways, but it seemed he had actually started to make some progress with the robber when
another officer showed up. The officer who showed up was a new cop and was much to excited
to actually have a chance to use his gun. He stupidly shot at the robber and missed him by a foot
by being so trigger happy. The robber however was much too quick and shot Charlie along with
the new officer and the store clerk He grabbed the money from the register and ran. Even with
the security camera which showed his slight limp as he ran, there was still no other evidence
visible through his disguise. He was never caught for the three murders and one robbery.
It was after that, that Renee decided we needed a change of scenery. I'm not sure if it was
her way of grieving, or just to get away from all the sympathy, but we barely were there a year
after Charlie's death. She pack up our stuff, put the house up for sale, and moved to the complete
opposite side of the country to Florida. The house in Forks never ended up selling so it just
remained vacant and lifeless just like our old life there.
After several years of just she and I living together she then met Phil, the year I became a
freshmen in high school. She was a kindergarten teacher and met him when his baseball team
came into the elementary school as a treat for the kids. Later that year, only months after they
met, they got married. Even though I didn't approve I wanted her to be happy so I said nothing
and she went though with her plans with Phil.
I thought about how things truly went off the deep end after her death. It was now the
summer before my senior year in high school and I had become my stepfathers personal punching
bag to vent his frustrations upon. I had stuck around for long enough dealing with this crap. I was
now officially an adult as of a few weeks ago, and I had no reason to stay here. My mother was
gone and I was left with the man who had loved her and now loathed me because I was alive and
she wasn't. As far as I was concerned he was no father of mine and I would much rather be an
orphan then be claimed as his kid I needed a plan.
I brought my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them as I racked my
brain for some help. I rocked back and forth a moment trying to get my brain working at top
speed. Since I just taken a stroll down memory lane not even seconds before my thoughts of
escape, the answer practically jumped out and bit me in the butt. The house in Forks.
I knew Phil didn't know about it, because he and my mother never talked about her life
before him. He knew there had been Charlie but nothing other then that he was dead and the fact
that he was my real father. I doubted Phil even knew we lived anywhere other then Florida before
he came into our lives.
Thanks to all the years I had babysat and worked at the book store down the street, I had
more then enough money to buy myself a plane ticket and pay for myself to survive before I got a
job there. Also I had the money that my mother had left for me in her death wishes, which was
now mine since I was and adult.
I could do this. I could free myself and never have to come back here. I could get away
from the abuse I so quietly took from him. I was past the point in threatening him that I would
tell about all the hitting. He told me that I deserved it and that I was such a klutz that no one
would believe my "cries for attention". Also, living on my own wouldn't be so bad, it would be
far better then how I lived now. I had one more year left of high school, which I could just as
easily finish in Forks, and then I would just go off to college soon after. I could do this. Now all I
need was a get away plan.
