Edward's POV

May, 1999

And Bella was right. Everything did change

Our sophomore year flew by, and before I knew it, it was spring again. The snow melted off the ground and the trees grew back their leaves. All of this meant nothing, however. My mind was too preoccupied.

I had been saddened when Bella and I had grown apart before high school started. Therefore, I was hopeful, euphoric even, when she walked into that English class the first day of freshman year and as we looked at each other again, I felt that we might be able to get past the separation that we had been through. It was rough, but I wanted to be a good friend. I wasn't able to articulate into words what her and her friendship meant to me, but I tried to show her.

Bella took over her father's household once more after Nadine left. She was left to fend for herself and to take care of Rosalie while Charlie increased his working hours once more to escape being home. Bella was nothing but gracious to him, from what I could tell, but I also viewed the way that he looked at her from the corner of his eye when she wasn't looking. The look was clear to read: he felt that Bella hated him for what he'd put her through, and he wasn't sure if she'd forgive him.

I went over to her house sometimes after school and kept her company while she folded laundry or cleaned the kitchen. We would talk and joke and discuss everything from school and the people in it to the latest movies we'd seen on TV. I offered to help more than once, but she refused. She knew when I got around to it, that I would have my own chores waiting for me at my house. One afternoon when Bella got out a bucket and filled it with soap and hot water and got on her knees to clean the floor, I had to excuse myself. The sight of her working like a slave to clean the house was more than I could take.

Bella was taken aback by my incessant hurry to get home, but I couldn't tell her what was really running through my head. I couldn't tell her that she didn't deserve this; I couldn't tell her that someone should be taking care of her instead of her taking care of everyone else. Bella thought it was her duty to do what she could to keep what was left of her family together. I couldn't help but wish for more for her. Bella deserved happiness, comfort, security, peace. Not an ungrateful father who couldn't get his head out of his ass long enough to know his daughters were hurting. Not the weight of the world and the duties of a housewife on her shoulders.

I wanted to be able to bring her all of those things I felt she deserved. But that could not be my role.

The feelings running through my body and mind that year were more than I could take. I was confused while at the same time content; I was anxious while still feeling relieved. I was glad to have Bella at all; I couldn't imagine anyone else I would want to understand me better. But throughout all of this, I couldn't help but think that something big was on the horizon, something that would change our world indefinitely.

I met Tanya and her and I began getting to know one another. Tanya was safe. Tanya didn't twist my heart and gut a thousand different ways by her words or actions. So towards the end of freshman year when she asked if I wanted to see a movie with her, I agreed.

I'd never been on a date before, and I wasn't sure if this classified as one. We walked to the two-screen movie theater around the corner from school and I bought her ticket. So, I guess it was a date. The movie was good, and I couldn't help but wonder what Bella would think of it.

A small, but definite wave of guilt washed through me at that thought. Why was I thinking of Bella as I sat next to a very different, very pretty girl?

A small voice in the back of my head also reminded me that, if I had sat in this same seat watching this same movie with Bella instead of Tanya, that I wouldn't know what the movie had been about at all.

I knew that would have been true. Had it been Bella I watched this movie with, I would have been more intrigued with her reaction to it. I would have looked towards her to see her facial expressions during the action scenes, I would have worried how she would have handled the blood and the gore, I would have wondered how fast her heart was beating during the action or suspenseful scenes.

Realizing this, I looked towards Tanya. She was engrossed in the film, not paying attention to me. I wondered if Bella would be paying attention to me if she was sitting here.

But Tanya was safe. With Bella, there were a thousand different emotions, a million different outcomes. By being with Tanya, I would not make mistakes.

Tanya was safe.

By the spring of sophomore year, Tanya and I had been dating nearly a year. She was a good person, kind, generous. She made me laugh, from time to time. On Valentine's Day, I went to her house and we exchanged presents. As I kissed her goodnight on her front porch, she whispered that she loved me. I didn't know if I felt the same, but I knew that I should have known. That made me feel terrible, but I couldn't make myself say it back. I couldn't tell her something I wasn't sure was true.

As I walked home from her house, I contemplated my feelings for her. Then I wondered how a person could tell that they loved another. I thought there would be some sort of a sign. Something to indicate what my subconscious had known that I hadn't realized myself. Wasn't I supposed to feel a spark when we touched? A jolt of electricity when I held her hand? Shouldn't I sigh a breath of relief when I heard her voice on the other end of the telephone?

A chill went through me then, and it wasn't because of the winter chill. I had felt those things before, all of them. I felt them with Bella. That realization made me a different person that night.

And in that, I had my answer.

My heart pounding, I began to plot.

I didn't love Tanya, but I could learn to.

I could not love Bella. I was not the one she was destined to end up with.

I would need to plan carefully. I would need to limit my time with Bella without her being suspicious. My time now would need to be focused on Tanya.

Bella had been quite busy lately without me, anyway. She had taken a job at the local deli after school and on the weekends. She was trying to save up for a car and the rest of her life. The rest of her time was spent on taking care of her family, schoolwork, and spending time with her friends. Perhaps evading her attention wouldn't prove too difficult, after all.

I was worried. I had tried to call Bella for three days now, and she wouldn't call me back. I knew she was busy, but usually she called me back as soon as she could. This was not like her.

I had done well with my plan to spend less time with her since Valentine's Day. It was hard, now that I was conscious of the fact that I loved her, and I needed to love someone else. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to purposely avoid her from time to time, when I wanted nothing more than to be near her.

Tanya seemed pleased with my new focus on her, though she never said anything. I just received more ideas from her of 'super fun' couple things that she and I could do together, and how could I turn her down?

But it had been awhile since I had seen Bella at all. She hadn't been in school on Thursday or Friday. I had stopped into the deli twice, planning to use my usual excuse of being hungry in order to catch a glance at her and make sure she was okay. After that I walked to her house, only to find it dark and several days worth of newspapers and mail overflowing the front stoop. Something wasn't right.

Bella didn't have a cell phone. Charlie did but I didn't know the number. I was up a creek without a paddle and I was scared out of my mind. Bella wasn't okay. She wasn't warm and safe in any place that I could check on her.

Another two days passed, and finally, Charlie's truck was in front of the house once again. I knocked on the door. Charlie finally answered it, several emotions flickering across his face before it finally settled on sheepish.

"Look, Edward. I know you and Bella are friends and you care about her. But now's just not a good time."

"What happened to her, Charlie? Is she sick?" I asked.

He looked anywhere but in my eyes. I hesitated a moment, and then ducked under his arm that held the door open and ran up the stairs to Bella's room.

Bella didn't look at me as I reached the doorway and stood in it, taking in the sight of her. She was propped up in her bed, staring out the window. There was a look there that I had never seen before, a blank look of desolation, of absolution. It was as if something had come to an end, and she was mourning.

As I silently crept closer, I noticed the dark circles and bags under her eyes. And then my eyes lowered and I saw the blood stained sheets resting under her.

I don't know how long I stood there trying to figure out what was happening. I eventually heard Charlie behind me and felt his hand on my shoulder. The feeling was foreign; it made me nervous. It was a preface of hard words to come.

"Edward, why don't you come downstairs with me? Bella, honey, do you need anything?"

She silently shook her head and continued staring out the window. She never looked at me. The blank look remained.

Not knowing what to do, I followed Charlie back downstairs and he led me into the kitchen. I sat at the kitchen table and he wordlessly placed a glass of water in front of me.

"Edward, Bella's not sick. She's had an abortion."

The words twisted through me like ice, and I felt cold all over. They echoed through my ears and into my brain and seemed to float around in there, but I couldn't grasp them and make them hold still for a moment for them to make sense.

All at once, the world came crashing.

"Bella was pregnant?" I whispered in disbelief. I didn't realize until later that my eyes were stinging with hot tears, threatening to fall.

"Yes, she was. She was... Bella was raped, Edward. I guess it happened a few months ago and she was too ashamed to tell anyone. She probably wouldn't have told anyone except for the fact that she realized that she was pregnant and that she was in no position to be a mother at sixteen," Charlie explained. He spoke so matter of factly, that I knew he had turned off the father mode and gone into full cop mode. Maybe that made him cope better.

Bella. My Bella had been attacked, brutalized, in the worst way imaginable. She had had something special taken from her, her first time should have been with someone she cared about. Someone she loved. She had been given motherhood and had chosen to walk away from it. My heart began hurting at the thought of the pain she must be in, the pain she must have been in the past months without anyone to talk to. I had avoided her so completely that she probably felt she couldn't come to me with this problem. Or any problem, for that matter. And in that moment, I began to hate myself.

Some friend I was.

"I would have supported her if she wanted to keep it, but... Bella's stubborn, Edward. You know that. You know that once her mind is made up there's no changing it. Bella didn't want to raise a child without a father, having to explain to that child later that he or she was the product of her rape. She felt that burden didn't belong on any child. And she was heartbroken with the thought of carrying a baby to term and falling in love with it only to have to give it away to someone else. So I drove her to Seattle to a respectable doctor there, and she had the procedure done. We had to wait a few days for the doctor to check her over again, and we just got home this morning," Charlie said.

"Who was it?" I said in a monotone voice that I didn't recognize as my own.

"Who was who?" Charlie asked, confused.

"Who was the monster that did this to her?!" I shouted at him, scaring both of us.

"She wouldn't tell me, Edward. She said she wasn't sure who it was."

"How could she not know? Didn't she get a good look at him?" I was whispering again, trying to avoid Bella hearing our conversation from upstairs. My revenge needed not be a concern of hers.

"She didn't tell me much about the attack. All she said was that she was walking home from the deli one night and a guy pulled her into an alley. She said she tried to scream and fight but he held his hand over her mouth and he was so much stronger than her. She said it was over quickly." he whispered the last part, and I could hear the thoughts he couldn't say between the words. He felt guilty. He felt responsible. It made him sick to his stomach. And there was nothing he could do about it.

We talked for a few minutes more, and once I felt composed enough, I trudged back up to Bella's bedroom. She was sleeping. She was laying down, still slightly propped up by the many pillows. She looked peaceful as she slept, her hair fanned out around her. I sat down gently on the side of her bed and brushed a few loose strands away from her face.

This woke her, and she looked up at me, hesitant at first, then her expression softened as she took in mine. I had no idea what was pasted on my face at that moment, but it seemed to put her at ease.

"Edward? You came back up here?" she said quietly, in disbelief.

"Of course. You - what? Thought you'd scared me away?"

"Yes. I most definitely thought that. That's why I couldn't look at you, before. I haven't really looked at you in so long. I was afraid you'd see right through my pretenses and know something was wrong."

"Bella, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I haven't been there for you. I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry for what you're going through. But I want to be there for you, right beside you, through everything, from now on. If you'll let me. I never want anything to come between us again."

"What are you saying, Edward? We're friends. We always have been."

Her words made my stomach drop, and I thought that maybe that's how she truly viewed us. Maybe she would always see us as just friends.

I couldn't take that chance.

"We've never been just friends, Bella. There isn't a word for what you are to me."

"We've been through a lot, Edward. Not just with each other but in our lives. But I've always wanted you to be the one there with me through the crappy stuff," Bella said, almost smiling.

"What does this mean?" she asked.

"I love you Bella. I always have."

And with that, I leaned down and pressed my lips softly to hers. I did it before I could worry about what her reaction might be. I did it to show her that I meant what I said. I did it for many reasons, but mostly, I did it because I loved her.

After a moment, Bella responded, and then she was kissing me back. She tangled her fingers in my hair and I wrapped my hands around her neck. I felt the tingles, the surge of electricity between us that I knew I would if I ever was able to kiss her like this. Then my mind focused on the fact that I was kissing Bella, my Bella, the girl that I loved, that had my whole heart, and I smiled against her lips.

The next morning, I broke up with Tanya.