Thank you all so much for your reviews and for taking the time to check out the new story. I know that you all have mixed feelings about Edward, but both he and Bella are carrying years of emotional baggage, which will be revealed along the way. Thanks again for giving me a chance and here´s the next chapter! See you at the bottom!
Beta'd by: Jdonovan09, famaggiolo, and ivoryhairbela... you ladies are amazing and I couldn´t do it without you... even when you bust my chops, Iza! A million and one thank you´s!
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN TWILIGHT OR ANY OF ITS PHENOMENAL CHARACTERS. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED...
A Real Family of Her Own:
Chapter 1
The Start of a New Life...
BPOV
I taped the last of the small boxes closed, filled with various knickknacks I wanted to take, and breathed a sigh of relief. I was finally finished packing the few boxes and luggage that I had to take with me.
They would soon be loaded into my car by the building´s concierge, Embry, and then I would be on my way to Forks, to start a new chapter in my life.
I was returning to my childhood home three and a half hours up the highway in Forks, Washington. I had made several trips back and forth from Seattle to Forks, since my decision to move, so I only had a few things I would be taking with me today.
I would definitely miss being in the heart of the city, but since I own my condo and the entire building for that matter, I could come back anytime I wanted to. Not to mention, I was owner and CEO of one of 5th largest publishing companies in the United States, Stradford House, which was located in the downtown Pike Market district. I would still have to return to the city for various meetings and work related issues.
Now that things had changed and my life was no longer my own, the big city wasn´t where I wanted to be. Though it was once the very bane of my existence, the tiny town of Forks, was just what I needed. The intimacy of small town life.
Where everybody knows everybody and on cool summer nights it was okay to leave the front door open to enjoying the cool breeze long after the sun went down. A place where the neighbor' s didn´t mind being friendly and lending a helping hand.
Forks was a place where people either lived their entire lives, or moved to get away from the city to raise there families. Either way, you were a lifer. Once you were there, you rarely moved away. So with of the exception of the new family to the right of Charlie´s, I knew all my neighbors.
They had been a blanket of support when Sue passed and again three years ago, when I´d lost Charlie.
Unfortunately, I hadn´t had a chance to meet my new neighbors on the few trips I´d recently made, since each time I visited they were nowhere to be found. From what I'd heard, they were nice and pretty much kept to themselves.
He was the new pediatric specialist over at Forks General, and I wasn´t sure what his wife did, but I´d heard that they had a very mischievous little girl; she´d been known to get into trouble every once in a while.
I would make it my business to bake a batch of my special chocolate chip cookies and go over to introduce myself, once I got settled in. Maybe if I showed the little rascal a little kindness, she would be quick to unleash any of her shenanigans on me. Keep dreaming!
_ArFoHo_
The sounds of Annie Lennox´s soulful voice singing Sweet Dreams, wafted through the Bose sound system that was wired to be accessible from every room in my plush condo, while I moved from room to room - as gracefully as I could in my condition - making sure that I wasn´t forgetting anything.
Like I said, it wasn´t like I couldn´t come back if I forgot something, this was my little piece of paradise and would always be home to me. Since it had been my first big purchase and my sanctuary for the past 9 years, I´d spared no expense in making my condo exactly what I wanted.
It was actually one of three big purchases that I´d initially made after my first book went to the top of the New York Time´s Bestsellers list; the other two were my baby, a white Audi Q7 SUV and the next was a gift for Charlie, a LUHRS small fishing yacht with a nice sized salon. It was complete with fully equipped master suite, just in case he and his fishing buddies, Billy Black and Harry Clearwater, wanted to spend the night on the water.
Compared to the way I grew up and my lack of interest in all things glitz and glamour, I´d say my condo definitely deserved a spot on MTV´s hottest cribs. From the warm browns and golds of the of my twenty thousand dollar living room furniture, to the massive Jacuzzi bathtub and separate shower that could easily fit four in my state of the art bathroom, to the beautifully stained antique oak California king-sized sleigh bed that was in my bedroom, all of it was of my choosing and it didn´t matter to me how much it cost; for the first time in my life, I was finally doing something for myself... and it felt damn good doing it.
As soon as the sale of my condo was complete, I wasted no time in contacting the famous Chicago interior designer, Esme Cullen, to decorate and redesign my new home. As luck would have it she´d just relocated to Seattle from the Chicago area and I would be her first client in the Pacific Northwest. To say I was excited was an understatement.
During the 9 months it took her to finish my condo, Esme and I had become really close friends. You could almost say she was like a second mom to me. Our relationship served to fill a void in both of our lives; her children were away at college and the only real mother I´d known had passed away years ago.
It had been almost 15 years since I´d last seen my biological mother and my step-mom Sue, who I was close to, or as close as I let anyone get to me, had passed away from uterine cancer before I finished high school. Though I was an old soul, I was still quite young and could really use a maternal figure in my life; Esme Cullen was without a doubt an amazing mother.
She and her husband Carlisle had three children, two girls and a boy; from what she told me, they were a really close knit family. Two of their children were still living in Chicago, both attending Northwestern University and their son, was married and living on the east coast finishing up medical school. She was hoping that he would move his family to Seattle and follow in his father´s footsteps and specialize in pediatrics.
Esme, being the wife of a world renowned pediatric oncologist, understood just how hard it was to raise a child alone, while your husband struggled through his residency. She and Carlisle had their oldest while he was completing his residency, so she spent a lot of time alone due to Carlisle´s crazy hours at the hospital.
Because her son was such a child prodigy, who had graduated from prep school at the age of 16, he was guaranteed to graduate at the top of his class. Carlisle had already secured him a spot in Virginia Mason Medical Center´s upcoming residency program. If he decided to make Seattle his new home, he would already have a leg up on the competition.
I never got a chance to find out if he took the job or not because, sadly, once my condo was finished and the news spread like wildfire that Esme Cullen, the design phenomenon, was now living in Seattle, work for her began to pick up and we lost touch.
I was lucky if I got to see her once or twice a year now, and even that was only in passing. Though we remained in contact via email or the occasional phone message, visits were few and far between.
I too took on a more hectic work schedule when I had my second novel hit the New York Time´s best sellers list within a week of its release; there was already talk of making Through a Killer´s Eyes into a movie. Even though I wrote under the pseudonym of Mary Higgins Watson, my paternal grandmother, I still had my fair share of work to do.
Between finishing up my degree, writing my monthly column for Elle magazine and starting on a new novel, while secretly promoting another - my life was a continued blur of activities.
My editor and honorary godfather, Demetri Volturi, loved to set up as many phone interviews as possible, stating that there was no harm in letting the world hear my beautiful voice. I digress!
It was a small price to pay to keep my anonymity.
In the beginning, I started out writing short stories and nonsensical articles for a couple of small magazines, just as a way to earn some extra cash during college, without the burden of falling behind in my studies. Writing had always been my form escape, so to do it and get paid... I was in my element.
It was actually my creative writing professor, Dr. Maggie Wade, who convinced me to try my hand at a novel. I had won several literary awards on campus and at national levels; Maggie really believed in my work. Being the extremely shy and introverted individual that I was, my first response was to say, "no way, no how, no chance". But when she informed me that I could write under an assumed name and my identity would remain a secret as long as I wanted it to, I decided to give it a try.
It took me 3 months to write my first novel and you had better believe that I was shitting my pants when I handed it to Dr. Wade for her to proofread. I gave it to her on a Friday afternoon and she returned it to me without so much as one word, on Monday morning. Let´s just say that was the longest fucking weekend of my life.
Scared shitless by what she could have possibly said, like the coward I was, I waited until I was finished with class for the day, showered, had dinner and crawled into bed, before opening the manuscript with trepidation. I nearly had a heart attack when I read her note on the first page.
It was a date, time, address and a phone number to call and confirm my meeting with Demetri Volturi, editor as well as senior vice-president of Volturi Brothers Publishing. She also informed me that as payback, I had to gift her the first autographed copy fresh off of the press. Let´s just say when I called Charlie to give him the news; it took him 20 minutes to calm me down so that he could find out what my problem was.
Charlie had no idea how much I loved to write, but that didn´t stop him from driving up to Seattle in his one good suit that was just a bit too snug, and hold my hand as we entered the offices of Volturi Brothers Publishing to meet with Demetri. I would later learn that Dr. Wade was engaged to Demetri´s nephew Felix, and he was already a fan of my work.
After Charlie´s attorney, Jason Jenks, the man my dad trusted to get him sole custody of me and revoke any parental rights that Renee had, hammered out the contract, the deal was signed.
The one ironclad clause that could not be changed, unless I decided to change it, was the fact that my identity would never be revealed. Demetri would always handle all my edits and under no circumstances was I to deal with anyone else in the company.
Demetri believed that I was a diamond in the rough, and he had no problems going along with my stipulations. No later than two months after my initial meeting at Volturi, my first book, Through Crying Eyes was on shelves all across America.
Not two days later Dr. Wade pulled me from my English lit class to tell me that I´d made it to the NY Time´s Bestsellers list; it was September 13th, the day of my 19th birthday. Mary Higgins Watson was an overnight sensation, and I owed it all to a lady by the name of Heidi Banner.
_ArFoHo_
It all started my junior year of high school, when my therapist, Dr. Banner, suggested that I use journaling as a form of therapeutic release. Sue´s cancer diagnosis during the second half of my sophomore year, and her untimely death as I entered my junior year of high school, was the catalyst caused me to have to finally face my demons and seek medical attention.
In the back of my mind, I knew that Charlie hated to do it, but the dreams were becoming unbearable, and there was no telling what would have happened to me had he not taken me to see Dr. Banner.
I´d always had a problem opening up about my feelings, and the trust issues I´d developed due to the abuse I´d suffered over the years, wasn´t helping matters either. I´m just glad that Charlie never knew how much I really suffered before I came to live with him.
So, I used my journal and the power of words to help release the pain. Eventually, my journals became an escape from reality for me, and since I never forcibly had to share them with anyone; I found myself lost in fantasy and sometimes writing for hours. My writing became only second to my passion for reading. Bella and books always seemed to go hand in hand; you very rarely saw one and not the other.
Charlie, my dad, was the chief of police of the tiny town of Forks, Washington. He was gone all hours of the day and night. His wife Sue took care of me and always treated me as if I was her own flesh and blood, right up until the day she died. Sue´s children, Seth and Leah, were much older than me and I´d only met them a couple of times, but they seemed like nice people.
Sue use to spend hours with me in the kitchen, always stating that the way to a man´s heart was definitely through his stomach and if I wanted to keep my husband happy, I had to always have a good hot meal on the table. Little did she know that didn´t apply to me! I could only count on one hand the number of men I trusted and they were either too old, too young, or already married, so like I said, that didn´t apply to me!
But if the way that Charlie came home and ate everything that wasn´t nailed down was any indication, then Sue was absolutely right. Since coming to Forks, Sue had always been there for me but she never poked or prodded trying to get me to open up, she had always just let me be and for that I would forever be grateful.
I think that´s why I took her death so hard, there weren´t many good things in my life to begin with so I was angry with God when she was taken away from me, because Susan Swan, was most certainly a good thing.
After Sue died, it really hit me just how alone I was, aside from Dr. Banner, I never shared my problems with anyone. I had perfected the art of suffering in silence. I was ahead of my years in school and I only had one friend, Angela Weber, the Baptist minister´s daughter, she was a couple of years older than me but we seemed to have a lot in common.
We spent a fair amount of time studying and hanging out together, but not even she knew about the demons that plagued me when I slept. The monsters that haunted my dreams were real and I thank God every day for Charlie coming and rescuing me from my own personal hell.
Now they were just bad memories that haunted my nights. No matter how dark and dreary the night was, the sun would always bring about a new day. So that small glimpse of hope continued to get me through.
I´d come to live with my dad when I was twelve, after it was discovered that I had been abandoned by my poor excuse of a sorry ass mother. The landlord, Mr. Clover, who I´d seen a couple of times in passing, came by one day to kick us out and lock up our apartment because Renee hadn´t paid the rent in almost 2 months.
For Renee, this was actually doing well, we´d been living in this rundown excuse of an apartment in Phoenix, Az. for the last 6 months, and that was the longest that I could ever remember us staying in the same place. Little did Mr. Clover know that I hadn´t seen my mother, and I use the term loosely, in almost 3 weeks, during which time; I had been doing my best to fend for myself.
I had never missed a day of school and still managed to keep up with my grades in the accelerated program I was placed in, despite my less than stellar home life. I was a bit rough for the wear and slightly malnourished when he found me, but I would never be able to repay Liam and Siobhan Clover for taking me in and keeping me from becoming a ward of the state until they could track down Charlie and he was able to send for me.
Thankfully, I at least knew who my father was and where to find him, even if I hadn´t seen him in over 8 years. I was a bit apprehensive about going back to Washington but he and Sue welcomed me in with open arms and I never looked back.
I made it a point to keep in touch with the Clover´s after I moved to Washington, sadly though, Liam passed my senior year of high school and Siobhan, two years later. They were wonderful loving people, who loved children, but were never blessed with any of their own.
Renee, my scatterbrained and flighty mother, had left Forks and my father behind when I was 4 years old; why she took me along for the ride, I´ll never know. I would later learn that she´d only left a note saying that she was feeling smothered in that god forsaken small town and she needed more, so she was taking me and moving on to bigger and better things.
Apparently, some guy she met at the local truck stop had been her bigger and better; at least for the first 3 months, until she needed something bigger and better than him. It was obvious after countless cities and countless men that she was never going to find her bigger and better. Too bad I´m the one who had to fucking suffer!
Hey, at least the bitch left Charlie a note; she left me high and dry with 5 packages of ramen noodles!
Yeah, I really hate that selfish bitch!
I remember very little of my childhood, well conscientiously at least, most of it I chose to block out. I suffer from chronic night terrors and my therapist said that the mind would often protect itself by blocking out painful memories. Unfortunately, my mind is only able to protect itself in the day time, at night, not so much.
There were things that happened to me in my past that I never wanted to relive again, but Dr. Banner was able to get me to open up little by little over the years, peeling me back like the layers of an onion. I was now at a point that I no longer blamed myself for all the fucked up things that happened to me in the past.
In some ways, I could say that it helped, my nightmares became less frequent and somewhat manageable, but in others, things remained the same and I would probably die a never been kissed virgin but I was okay with it.
I was even able to stop seeing Dr. Banner. I had come to terms a long time ago, with the fact that some things would never heal and some scars, I would carry throughout the rest of my life.
I´d done well for myself over the years, but none of it really mattered when you didn´t have anyone to share it with. All my life I remembered being lonely, but never truly alone, not until 3 years ago, when my last remaining relative was killed in the line of duty.
After Charlie had been shot during a routine traffic stop, I started seeing Dr. Banner again; she had been my life line when I felt like I was drowning in a sea of misery. After I made it through my grief counseling, I realized that I didn´t have to be alone, unless that was my choice.
With Charlie´s pension, life insurance and a sizable trust he and Sue had set up for me, along with my own money and investments, I had more than enough resources to take care of myself and anyone else I decided to bring along for the ride. That´s when I decided to become a parent.
I was a perfectly healthy young woman and there was no reason why I shouldn´t be able to live out the American dream if I so desired. The first thing I researched was adoption and foster parenting, there were several children out there that just needed someone to love them and give them a good home.
Not wanting to jump on the first train to leave the station, I continued to research and after coming across a website for a cryogenic sperm bank, I decided that in vitro fertilization with donor sperm was the was the route I was going to take, and maybe later on I could adopt. I just wanted to bring a child into this world that would be part of me and continue on the Swan legacy, effectively keeping a part of Charlie alive.
Once I´d gone through all the necessary screenings, testing, poking and anything else they saw fit to do to me at my doctor´s office, I made an appointment at the Seattle fertility clinic and was inseminated with donor sperm.
I hoped it would take and that I would soon have someone to share my life with, no longer having to be alone. That was 5 months ago and it seemed like a long forgotten memory.
I paused to rub my protruding belly, thanking God that I wasn´t going to be alone anymore. In 4 months I would be welcoming my baby boy into this world and I was going to be the best mother a child could ever wish for.
As if to second that motion, my budding little soccer star kicked happily at the palm of my hand. I smiled and cooed softly, while rubbing soothing circles on my belly.
As Embry collected my things and headed towards the elevator, I took one last look around the place that had been my home for the last 9 years and I couldn´t help but feel a bit nostalgic.
I truly was going to miss this place, but then the butterflies of excitement that always began to flutter in my stomach when I thought of my new adventure surfaced, and the nostalgia passed. I closed and locked the door, heading out into the unknown.
Today would be the first day of my fresh start! Out with the old and in with the new. I couldn´t shake the strange feeling that my life was about to change... drastically! And it had nothing to do with becoming a mom!
Okay... let me have it! I can take it! *cringing in the corner* Well now the journey is beginning and we will slowly find out what make thes two tick and personal demons they are struggling with. Until next time, here are of few of the awesome stories that I´m currently reading. Hop on over and check ´em out!
Rec´s:
Reliquish by: luvrofink
Slave to My Heart by luvrofink
Healing Moments by Lori 94
Sexual Healing by Lori 94
Friday´s at Noon by troublefollows1017
Crawl by TeamBella23
Rubbish by BellaDonnaCullen
Okay... those ought to keep you busy until my eminent return! Lol! Laterzzz Peeps!