Death gets to us all in the end.

Edward POV

"Tortured soul?" I glared down at her, willing her to leave, I wasn't too sure how long my tough guy act would last. My internal battle had apparently brought out my defensive smirk. How I longed to pick her up, throw her over my shoulder and steal back my best friend from the clutches of the black haired pixie, well that what my heart wanted. It wanted to be put back together by the little brunet stood just 2 feet away.

But my head said no. It still blames her; it was her brother that broke me. He stole my family, and practically got away with it, all he had to do was plead insanity and spend his time in a Looney bin until he was deemed not to be a threat to society. I lost EVERYTHING. So my brain did the 'logical' thing, and shifted the blame to the next person it could, unfortunately, that was Bella.

And even with my little 'quirk' knowing for sure that that she had nothing to do with him and that if possible, she despises him more than me. I still cannot bring myself to look in to her eyes, the same eyes as her mother, and the same eyes as James. It brought to much pain to look at her face but see his.

30 seconds and she still hadn't said anything, and her only thought was about the smirk on my face. It hurt to know that she thought I was capable of hurting her, of all the people I would hurt if I could, she wouldn't even make the top thousand. I couldn't hurt her.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her towards my Volvo, a gruff noise of a giant getting up, followed by some rather heavy footsteps indicated that brother bear was coming to the rescue. Bella forced me to turn my head, her weakening grip wasn't enough to pick a daisy, but I turned my face to hers none the less. She must have been with what she saw; turning her head to Emmett, merely breathing "I'm safe".

"Adoptive brother or not, you hurt her more then you already have, and I will make you wish you were never born" Emmett's always had a way with his thoughts. "She's better family then you've been. Well maybe she'll fix you. We sure know you need a good old fashion fixing." The smirk in his thoughts was undeniable. I admit having a sex obsessed adopted brother has its perks, like, umm. No I turns out it doesn't. And that's Emmett for you, sucks the tension out of a situation, not even realising he's doing it; the guys never had a serious thought since he was born.

God, you don't realise how much you miss something until what you had is shoved right back in your face. I had a happy family. I had a really great group of friends. I had the best best friend any guy could want. And now I have another perfect family that I exclude myself from, a group of people I ignore at all cost, and a petite brunet that has to check to see if she's safe around me. But the worst part, the bit that should hurt the most, is that the dominating part of my head doesn't care. If anything it likes the look of pain on their faces every time they see the dead look on mine. It likes the sorrow in their thoughts, it likes that they blame themselves for what is happened to me. It's willing to kill me, just to make them feel the pain I felt. It's the insane part of my head that I just don't seem to be able to control, a part of my head that only arrived when He stole my everything, right down to my sanity.

I didn't have to pull her anymore; it was as if she knew what I wanted. She didn't make a scene; she just slipped into the passenger seat and looked blankly ahead, like we bunked of after lunch every day. I wasn't sure where I was taking her, I hadn't decided. In my family making split second decisions was second nature, you have to be very quick to be able to get round "satins pixie". Alice had a second nature for knowing things, before they happen.

'Should I say something, what's going on, where are we going, why has he taken me? Aw crap, how can I have forgotten again, why am I so thick sometime?'

"You're not stupid Bella. It's just been a while." I'd sent her brain into over drive, infuriating buzzing, sat there not being able to make heads nor tails of what she was thinking. "Will you just stop thinking please? Or at least slow down!" it came out more malicious then I'd meant, Bella cringed away from me.

Bella POV.

"Will you just stop thinking please? Or at least slow down!" the tone in his voice made me cringe away involuntarily, and if I hadn't have known better I would have thought the look on his face was that of an apology. Edward rolled his eyes and turned back to face the road that was disappearing quickly under the front of his ever perfect silver Volvo. I wonder what he would do if he ever had an accident and totalled it. An unfamiliar noise came from beside me. Edward laughed.

"I've never had an accident, bells, why would I start now?" That just set my head off again. Bells, he'd called me Bells, only my close friends called me that. Did it mean anything or was I reading too much in to it. Was it just a slip of the tongue or did it mean something? God jus being near him made my head hurt; 15 minutes ago I would have told you that Edward Anthony Masen Cullen hated my guts, and couldn't bear to even look at me without running a marathon just to get away, now we were sitting side by side in his car, whilst we should be sat in biology, driving to god knows where.

And then he stopped the car. But why had we stopped here. There are so many horrid memories trapped between the walls of this place, I hadn't even un-done my seat belt and Edward was already out of the car and by my door offering me his hand, ever the gentleman.

"Why are we here?" it hurt to think about where he'd stopped, it hurt for me to be here, the pain for him must so much worse, and to be here with me of all people, was he crazy? Did he want to feel everything? Aren't I'm the person he blames for his pain?

"of all the questions flying about in that pretty little head of yours that's the one you ask?" it was almost like having the real Edward back, it was almost like my Edward was back. Deflecting my questions with another was so typical of him.

"The cemetery, not exactly the sort of place I'm used to being taken" it was true, well technically I wasn't used to being taken anywhere. Apart from when Alice dragged me places, I tried not to leave the house, everywhere in this god forsaken town is full of memories from back before my brother stole my best friends' life. Happy times, like riding bikes and eating ice cream, just normal child hood things. Also I tried to hide from mike; mike is like the puppy that you just can't seem to discourage enough, always coming back, just to be sent away again. And it's not his fault I don't date, it's just that, apart from the brother bear and jasper, I don't really trust guys all that much. My brother went insane, which lead to my best friend abandoning me and my father leaving me and my mother in search of a life not so full of depression and insanity, not a good first impression of men. The only guys you can trust are the ones that were whipped before they could walk.

"Ha-ha I'm so telling Emmett you said he was whipped" ah crap. I shot Edward a dirty look.

"You wouldn't" I countered in a confident tone, a fake confident tone, if Edward wanted to do it, he would. He just raised his eye brows. "But he was! If Rose say's jump Em asks how high? That's the way it's always been!"

Edward POV

Even when he's not here, Emmet can still defuse a situation. I don't know why I brought her here, I didn't even realise I was brining her here until I was putting the Volvo in to park. It was like something was pulling me towards this place, like the insane part of my head looked for the place that would hurt both of us the most. Cemeteries are often portrayed as dark creepy places, full of silence and death, but the forks cemetery played right into that stereo type, got visibly darker as we stepped, together, slowly towards the gate.

This was the place where I, an 11 year old boy, buried my parents. Here is also the place Bella buried her mother 2 years ago. Renee committed suicide not long after the honourable (my arce) chief swan left his wife and daughter; I actually felt something other than my own selfish pain that day. That feeling didn't last long.

'EDWARD!'

"Oh um yer?" and that's 10 points to the stupid shiny Volvo owner, for the worst response in the history of mind readers. A sniffle brought me crashing back to reality, was she crying?

"Edward why are we here, I haven't been here since...since...." 'Since my mum died' she was crying now, tears streaming down her face. Some unfamiliar emotion stirred inside me, as I rapped my around the fallen angle that I made cry.

I just held her while she cried, I don't know why, my brain was screaming for me to get the hell away, but I just stood there holding the girl who used to be my best friend. We must have stood there for half an hour; a few people came and went giving sympathetic looks at the situation they couldn't even begin to understand. But finally Bella slowed her breathing, wiped her eyes and detached herself from me.

"Why here Edward, why here?" by the look on her face and the thoughts in her head, she thought I'd brought her here to hurt her, and in a way I had, but what came out of my mouth surprised the both of us.

"You didn't grieve. It's been 2 years and you still won't let yourself remember her, she was your mother Bella, you can't just push her aside in hope that one day you'll forget. Because you won't, trust me you won't. And don't think I haven't tried. I tried to forget, I tried to think about the fun that I would have with Emmett as a brother, all the pranks we would pull on Jasper.

None of it worked, so I gave up. I stopped living for the future and started living in the past, resenting everything that changed what I had. That's what turned me in to this, old before my time. I am old and alone, and still only 16.

Then when you ran up to me earlier, I felt a surge of something; a surge of life, of remembrance of what it was like to be happy. Hearing your thoughts made me realise that it's not just my life that stopped that day, only your pain was dragged out, first you watched your friend die, then you went through hell, I thank god, everyday that I didn't have to see what that scum did to my parents, and then I remembered what you saw." I grabbed her to my chest as she cringed away from the horrific image in her head. "I thought if I could just get you to let go of your facade of happiness, the one you put on to make Alice and Esme happy, for just a minute, that maybe you could finally begin put your mother to rest. I want you to live; I want you to be happy."

"And the other reason?" That's got to be at least 20 points to the brunette for seeing strait though me.

"It's kind of hard to explain..." why am I telling her this? It's her eyes, I swear right now she could tell me to go bury myself alive, and I would do it. "There's a sick part of my head, a bit that I can't control, it likes the pain. And heck with you here, it probably thought I would be in more pain than normal." God what does this chick do to me? We're together for an hour and I've suddenly gone soft. This is why I don't talk to her.

She looked up at me, and suddenly I was seeing his eyes again, the glimpse of hope that had turned them back to her own was gone, her look was close to that of hate.

'He brought me out here just to hurt me, should have known. People don't just change like that.'

"Well if we're here to fuel your need for pain, let's go look at my mother's grave." Her tone was harsh, not as harsh as her thoughts, but still enough to cut right though me. "I bet the marbles black with dirt and covered in weeds" her tough words were just a cover, she begging to worry, as much as she could pretend, her mother's grave, looking the way she imagined would kill her she would take the blame upon herself and it would tear her apart.

We walked through the narrow paths, single file, until we reached the plot of land where Renee was buried. We both gasped in surprise. The plot was well kept, the marble shone and fresh flowers lay beneath it.

Renee Swan

Beloved mother

Best friend

'Oh my' was all Bella could think before she began to cry. 'I tried to not believe that she was dead. Somewhere in my head, it was that she was just away, the one day she'd just pop up and be like ah sorry for the fuss I've caused, it wasn't me in that coffin, it's all a big miss understanding. And I guess that seeing her here now, well, makes me realise that she's gone. My mum's not coming back. I was trying so hard not to believe that.'

She got to her feet, blew a kiss to her mother and made a promise to come back.

"Your parents?" the way she said it, it should have sounded like a question, to me it was marching orders. I lead her back down the paths towards where my parents were laid to rest, right under a large willow tree. I didn't have to read the inscription on their grave stone, I'd had them committed to memory since Carlisle helped me write them.

I've always thought it odd to talk to the dead; they are dead after all, so I just bowed my head and tried to remember all the good times, the smell of my mother's perfume, what my father would say as he tucked me in to bed. I could feel the concentrated look spread across my face.

'What's wrong?' the panic in Bella's thoughts mimicked my own.

"I...I can't remember."