This being a new story and all, I decided to post this chapter earlier than I had originally planned. I got it out fairly quickly, and I'm anxious on what you guys will think. Please let me know what you guys think, and don't be shy with your reviews, lol.

Now before you guys get any further, I want to warn you that this is a heavy chapter. It's a bit of background on why Bella feels the way she does concerning men. There's not much talk of family yet, but this chapter is full of important information having to do with Bella's past. Please be advised, that although I'm not extremely graphic, I was pretty descriptive on what occurred.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I wanna take a quick second to thank everyone who is giving this story a chance. See you at the bottom :)

This story is rated M for mentions of assault, language, and future lemons.

All characters are property of Stephenie Meyer.

It had been two days since I had met Edward at the mall, and he still hadn't so much as called. I knew he would turn out to be a douche. Just like the rest of them. Men are selfish creatures. My brain was telling me 'I told you so', while my heart was screaming at me to just have patience. I didn't want to doubt Edward, but we only met the one time, and we only talked for fifteen minutes, how is that possibly enough time to know a person enough to want to call them?

I wasn't always so doubtful of guys, I used to trust them once upon a time, but things happened to change that.

When Alice and I were in our freshman year of high school, we were the absolute best of friends. We talked about everything, from clothes, to boys, to books. We were young and naive, and far too trusting of the opposite sex. In our minds, they could only hurt us if we slept with them, so we didn't. Our mothers had the talk with us pretty early, having done it when we left middle school, and the one thing they emphasized above all else was that boys only wanted one thing; sex. So naturally in our minds if we didn't have sex with anyone then we were free of the danger that came with boys. How wrong we were.

When we entered school on the first day of sophomore year, we knew things had changed. Drastically. During our freshman year it was easy to avoid boys, they didn't want to be with us, and we didn't want to be with them. Simple. However, our sophomore year the boys WERE interested, and, not surprisingly enough, so were we. All the girls in school seemed to have boyfriends, and, naturally, we wanted to fit in.

It all started when we met Jacob and Paul.

They were perfect gentlemen, and they treated us beautifully. In the beginning we were happy, the boys were happy. It was like the perfect high school movie experience, until one day, things began to change. This came our junior year. During the summer before our junior year, we spent most of our time at the beach. Having lived in forks during our time in high school, we would take advantage of the sunny days, and learn to make the best of the rainy days. On those beautiful summer afternoons we would go swim in lakes, and lay out in the sun planning out our futures, and on rainy days we would cuddle up with hot chocolate and watch movies together.

We were the perfect foursome. Girls at school envied us, when Jake and Paul had their growth spurt and turned into huge football players, and boys envied Jake and Paul because they had the two girls that no one had been able to conquer. It was supposed to be the beginning of our best high school years, and they turned into a nightmare.

About a month into our junior years, we had all been getting pretty close as couples. Alice and I would discuss our plans with Jake and Paul, and we would even talk about the possibility of losing our virginities to them, our mothers' speeches forgotten. This is when the boys started push. They began saying that we were selfish in not sleeping with them. That they had 'needs'. It wasn't very serious to us, and we thought nothing of it, just shrugging it off as boys being boys.

And how wrong we were. It happened on a rainy day, when we were at Jake's house. We had just finished watching A Walk to Remember, when the boys started with the playful kisses, kisses that we gladly returned. Jake and I opted to stay in the living room, while Alice and Paul went back to Jake's room. I should have known sooner what was going to happen, to this day I don't know how I didn't see it. They had told us that their parents would both be out of town, and that they wanted us to stay over, just so they could 'spend more time with us', as young naive girls we were thrilled. They had already both told us that they loved us, and we had said it back. I guess, because they said those words and we returned them, that they could do what they pleased with us.

I first realized when I heard Alice screaming for Paul to get off of her from Jake's room, I tried to go to her, and Jake wouldn't let me. At first he tried to distract me with more kisses, but when that failed he physically restrained me. I could hear Alice in the other room calling me, but I couldn't move. All I could think of was that she was going to get hurt and that I wouldn't be able to stop it.

When that thought crossed my mind, I became extremely angry. I fought Jake's hold, I kicked, punched, and scratched to get away from him, and eventually I managed to get loose. When I ran to where Paul had Ali... I couldn't believe my eyes. Paul was over her ripping her clothes off. All I could do was scream, and thankfully one of Jake's neighbors heard me, and barged in. It was my father's friend, Harry Clearwater. When he laid eyes on Alice and I, he attacked Jake and Paul, and had his friend Joe call the cops.

When the cops arrived, they couldn't believe how lucky we were that Harry had gone outside to call in his dog and heard us. They called all of our parents and both Alice and I filed restraining orders on Jake and Paul. They were charged with sexual assault and removed from school.

Alice and I were lucky, we had been found just in time.. but the trauma was still there. The fear remained.

It took Ali and I a couple of years to get passed that, and still we were extremely close. Ali saw me as someone who would protect her, and I saw her as my baby sister, even though we were the same age. We never slept with them, but look at all the damage they caused. We have moved on from the attack, but we will never forget it. That's why I don't trust men. It's like my mom always said, 'boys only want one thing; sex'.

~o~

At twenty three, I, Isabella Marie Swan, was still a virgin. After what happened to me with Jake, I just couldn't get close to boys, or men for that matter. I always suspected them, and I couldn't stop it. The only man that I hadn't had that problem with had been Edward. I hadn't thought about it, but with him I hadn't felt one ounce of fear or suspicion. That just frustrated me all the more. The one man I was interested in, didn't want me. Figures. If it's not because of my issues, it's because of my plainness. Life is a complicated web of problems.

As I was laying on my bed thinking about how badly my life had turned out, Ali appeared in the doorway.

"Hey, Bells." She said with a soft smile. "Are you okay?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" I replied, my voice sounding a little rough.

"...You're crying." She said with a sad look in her eye.

I reached up, and was amazed to see that she was right. I WAS crying.

"I'm fine, Ali, I promise. Just stuff, you know how that is." I laughed, trying to shrug it off.

I should have known better. Alice knew me better than anyone. She walked over to where I was laying, and hugged me. That was when it all went to hell. The tears that started couldn't be stopped. The pain was just too much. I would never be good enough for anyone, I would always be damaged. I would never be happy. Ali just held me as I let it all out, and the tears just kept coming.

"Ali, I'm not good enough.." I whispered into her hair. "I'll never be good enough. I'm broken, Ali. And no ones gonna be able to fix me.."

"Bells, that's not true!" She said as she hugged me tighter. "You WILL be happy one day, there is something great out there for us, I just know it."

All I did was cry. She stayed with me, and just let me cry.

~o~

I know that this was a heavy chapter, but I want to remind you all that it does get better. I promise you guys that I will not make you suffer long, BUT Bella has to work out some things, and those things won't just magically disappear. Okay, enough with the heavy, haha. Please leave a review and tell me what you thought, see ya.

-PJ.