Chapter Nine

I didn't understand why.

Edward knew how much I loathed her. We'd been enemies since the first day of second grade when she'd moved here and decided that she wanted Edward to play her husband in our game of house. And after that, when he'd rejected her to play tag with Emmett, Alice and me, she'd made it her personal goal to make life miserable for me. It didn't help that she'd been the picture of angelic perfection as a kid, with luscious golden curls and rosy pink cheeks, the kind that graces the TV screens because of their cherubic sweetness.

In third grade, she'd messed up all my crayons. In the fourth grade, she'd cut off the head of my one single Barbie doll. She'd landed me in the punishment corner more times than I could count and each year, the things she did only got steadily crueller.

In seventh grade, when we'd all began to mature and change, Tanya seemed to skip the whole awkward, shooting-up, gangly limbs stage and became this fully fledged sex pot with pouty lips and legs that went on for miles. It didn't help that she'd developed breasts before the rest of us, and that she'd still had the sleek, platinum blonde hair. Obviously, her looks cemented her Queen Bee status. Girls like Tanya were what Hollywood mean girls were based after.

I had been naive enough back then, to believe that she'd changed and matured as much as her looks had, but I was sorely mistaken, if anything, her hatred for me seemed to have increased tenfold. In eighth grade, she told everyone that I was a lesbian; needless to say, I'd been a social outcast after that. Edward had stubbornly stuck by my side and defended me, much to Tanya's chagrin. When we were foureen, I suddenly realized why she hated me so much, it was because I had the one thing that she could never have, and I took solace in that fact, and life was good.

Edward had been there to hold me through the nights when everything was unbearable, where the teasing in school was too much. The other girls called me horrible names, like "slut" and "whore" and told me that I didn't even deserve to be born. At that age, you tend to believe them. And Tanya did the worst thing ever, she told me that I was a mistake, and that was why my mother had left. That it was all my fault.

The night after she told me that, I sobbed brokenly, while Edward rubbed circles into my back, telling me that she was wrong. And that even if I was a mistake, he was glad, because if my parents hadn't made that "mistake" than he wouldn't have met me, and where would he be if that were the case?

After that, it became easier to accept Tanya's mocking because I had Edward. I'd always had Edward and she could never accept that. Then, the summer before ninth grade, I began to mature. I didn't think I'd changed that dramatically, but I'd had a growth spurt, my chest began filling out and I began to develop curves. Alice had told that I was hot, but I'd blushed and refused to believe her.

That summer, I met Jacob, and for the first time in my life, I began to believe that just maybe, I was beautiful.

Than school reopened and the boys began to notice me. I showed up in school wearing something Alice had instructed me to wear, and the look on Tanya's face had been priceless, but that meant that she redoubled her efforts to annoy me, to get rid of me. To hurt me.

And Edward knew all of that, so seeing him with her today, felt like my soul had been ripped apart. I just felt so, so betrayed and I couldn't take it, and the look of triumph that flashed through her eyes at that moment, just kept replaying in my mind. I gasped as a fresh wave of pain hit me, and the hole in my chest, where moments before, my heart had been, enlarged. I couldn't breathe.

Everywhere I looked, I saw Edward's face. I saw him kissing her back. I saw the way his lips curled up at the corner. Alice and Rosalie chased me to the bathroom and hugged me. Up til that point, I hadn't even realized that I'd been sobbing on the floor. "Why?" I cried, "why?"

Alice looked down onto the floor as Rose sighed, "you know why."

Silently, I nodded. I did.

A/N: I KNOW. I KNOW. Short chapter. I'm actually disappointed in me, but you know, it's gotta be a cliffie, no? haha. continue reading! it can only get better. (:

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE REVIEWS! :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. Edward however, is all mine. I swear. REALLY!!!