Chapter 10: The Truth

Nessie's POV

I could not understand what she was trying to tell me. She could not be my mother. For goodness sakes we were the same age! This had to be some kind of joke she was playing on me.

"You're kidding. Right?" I said. She had to be kidding. There was no way that it was logically possible for her to be my mother. It was impossible, there was just no way in hell that she could be my mother.

"Nessie I'm not joking. I know it's hard to believe but-"

"There is no way that you could be my mother. I mean we're the same age. It's just not possible" This was really beginning to bother me. She was playing with me and I didn't like it at all. I wanted her to stop and I wanted her to stop right now.

"Nessie just please let me explain" she begged.

She looked desperate to explain things to me. Maybe I should listen to her. What if it was true? I'm the adopted daughter of a man that uses eight flying reindeer to visit all the good boys and girls of the world in one night. I use Magic to accomplish things that are impossible for everyone else. I really am the last person that should be the judge on what's logical and what's not. Yeah, I really was the last one to judge on this topic. It wasn't fair for me to do this to her. I really should just listen to her.

"Nessie?" she pleaded. The look in her eyes was desperate.

"Okay" I sighed. "I'll listen" I waited to hear what she had to say.

"I had you 17 years ago when I was only 18 years old. I had a few complications when I went into labor. Your father had to save me"

"I still don't understand" In fact I now had a million more questions then before.

"The thing is your father and I, actually all of us, we're vampires. I was human when I had you. I almost died when I have birth to you and the only way to save me was for your father to transform me-"

"Hold on. Do you really expect me to believe that you are all vampires?"

"Nessie I know that this is hard to believe but it's true" she said.

I took a deep breath as I processed all of this new informatioan. As absurd as this all seemed I believed her. If Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, Father Time, Cupid, Mother Nature, Sandman and Jack Frost all existed then whose to say that other mythical creatures don't exist?

"Nessie do you believe me?" she asked.

"Yes. I do"

"Really?" she said in complete surprise. "I thought it would take a lot longer then this to prove it to you"

"Is there any other surprises that I should know about?" I asked.

"Yes, it's about Jacob. He's a shape shifter. He can turn into a giant wolf. He was planning on telling you soon but he didn't know how. So I might as well make it easy for him" she explained.

Whoa! This was way to much information for me to take in at one time.

"Well, I do believe you" was all I could think to say. I didn't know quite how to explain why I believed her so quickly. I was tempted to tell her the truth about myself. But I couldn't do that because of the SOS (secret of santa) I was sworn to secrecy and I couldn't say anything to her; no matter how badly I wanted to. Revealing the truth could ruin Christmas forever.

"Okay, well. We should get back home now" she said.

"Wait!" I said before she could even move an inch. "If my father is a vampire and you were a human does that make me half vampire?" I asked.

"Not exactly" she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked in confusion.

"I mean that the vampire genes seem to have skipped you for some reason. You were born completely human. That's why your father and I gave you up for adoption. You were human and we felt that you deserved to live a normal human life. That's all that we wanted for you. To have a normal life and we knew that you would never be able to have that with us"

I wanted to laugh so badly. Normal life? Well that turned out so well (insert sarcasm). If only she knew exactly the kind of life that I have lived for the past 17 years. I wonder what she would think if she knew about my real life and not the fake one I presented to the rest of the world.

Then another question popped into my mind. One that I needed an answer to now that I knew the truth. If not I wouldn't be able to live in peace.

"Who is my father?" I asked.

Then when I thought about it and I mean really thought about it I realized that I had a lot of similar features to Edward. These similarities had not gone unnoticed by me, but I never really thought anything of it...until now.

"It's Edward" she said. Suspicion confirmed.

"Bella, I really should go home now. My brother is going to worry about me if I don't get home soon"

"I can't believe that you got adopted by the Calvins. Of all people" she said.

"What is wrong with them?" I asked.

"Well, you see, your father also has the ability to read minds. Some vampires have extra abilities and he is one of them. It seems your brother and sister have this allusion that your father is Santa Clause" she said.

"What? That's crazy! Absurd! I, I, I mean really absurd! Who would believe a crazy thing like that?!" I said way too fast. I started to laugh awkwardly. I just hoped that I didn't make her suspicious of me.

"Well it appears that they believe a 'crazy thing like that'. Nessie please promise me that you'll be careful with them" she said.

"Okay, I'll be careful" I said.

"Oh and one more thing" she said.

"Sure, what is it?" I asked.

"Don't tell anyone about this. I mean us. Nobody could find out that vampires or shape shifters exist, okay?" she said.

"Okay" I said. It's an established fact that I am very good at keeping secrets. What's one more?

After that Bella, well mom I should say, took me back to her house to the rest of the Cullens. She told them everything that had happened. Just like her they were surprised with the ease that I had believed her.

After that they took me back to my house. Where I got a huge lecture from Charlie and Lucy. They had only given me permission to stay out for two hours. I had been out for five hours total. Needless to say that they were all pretty mad at me.

Once they had calmed down enough I told them about my new plans of having a Christmas party at the orphanage. They actually loved the idea and they supported it.

I told David and Lisa about my idea of having a party at the orphanage and even they seemed to love the idea. They were more then willing to have a fundraiser and to try and raise money for the organization. Turns out that they were very good at planning things. It took them just a matter of days to plan a fundraising event.

There was just one problem. We didn't raise enough money to buy them a lot of presents. We barely made enough money to cover the expenses of decorations and food.

Entertainment was taken care of. I managed to convince the rest of my friends that were in the Christmas concert to participate in this as well.

There was only one person that didn't know about this event. Emma. She still didn't know that I knew she lived at the orphanage; the very orphanage that we were having the party at. I didn't want her to know until December 15th. The very date that the party was happening. I wanted to surprise her.

Jacob was also coming to the party as well. He wanted to be my, ahem, date to the party. I thought it was really sweet of him to want to accompany me to the party. I also managed to to convince the Cullens to come as well. That was a feat that was a lot harder to accomplish. Mostly because Bella still wasn't really in the mood to celebrate Christmas. She just didn't have the Christmas spirit in her. She still didn't think that Christmas was a big deal. I think she was just sad because she knew that I wasn't going to be here to celebrate the holiday with her, yet again. It made me really sad. All I wanted to do was make her happy, but I knew that I couldn't give her that. If I got the job as the next Santa Clause I wasn't going to be able to spend the holiday with her.

The day finally arrived. The director of the orphanage managed to get all of the kids out of the building. We wanted to see all of the looks of happiness and surprise on their faces when they walked through the door and saw everything that we had done for them.

The looks on their faces really was priceless. They all got so excited and happy that it actually brought tears to my eyes.

"They all look so happy" Jacob said.

"They sure do" I agreed. It made me smile.

I heard a sharp intake of breath before someone said "Nessie?"

I looked up and saw Emma there. She was crying. She started to cry. For once in her life the hard face that she put on for everyone had fallen off. She looked so sad and vulnerable. It was heartbreaking.

She dropped the stuff that she was carrying and ran off. I felt compelled to go after her. I knew something like this could happen and I was ready for it.

"Jacob I'll be back" I said as I started to make my way over there.

"Yeah, okay" Jacob said. "Just don't be to long"

"Emma" I said. I didn't get an answer. I was walked for a while until I heard someone crying. I followed the sound of the crying until I reached a room. I opened the door and saw her holding a knife up to her arm.

"Emma don't!" I shouted.

She dropped the knife in surprise when she saw that I was there.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I came looking for you. What's wrong?" I asked.

"You found out. You weren't supposed to find out. Nobody was supposed to find out" she said.

"Find out what? That you live here. That doesn't matter to me. I don't care about where you live" I said truthfully.

"Of course you do. You'll just laugh at me. Like the other kids used to" she said.

"Why would I laugh at you?" I asked her confusedly.

"When I was younger people used to laugh at me when they found out where I lived and that I had no family. That's why I never tell anyone where I live" she said.

Her story was already making me sad. I felt like crying, but I had to keep her talking. I had to help her.

"Why do you cut?" I asked.

"How did you know about that?" she asked me.

"Number 1. You just had a knife raised to your arm. Number 2. I've seen some of your self inflicted injuries over the past few months. I'm not blind" I said.

"You're the first person to ever notice them" she said. She took a very deep breath before starting her story. "When I was little my mother died. I was left to be raised by my father but he was cruel. He used to beat me up really badly all the time. For years he beat me. He used to call me fat, ugly, useless, and stupid. Eventually when I was 9 years old somebody found out about what was happening. I was removed from my home and taken to an orphanage. But I never got adopted. That's why I bully. That is why I cut myself. I also have issues with anorexia and I have also thought about suicide a few times because of this. It's all to cover up the pain that I feel. It erases the pain" she explained to me.

I didn't say anything. Instead I hugged her close to me as she cried. I fought the urge to cry myself. Her story was so sad and heartbreaking. We stayed like that for a really long time. I was sure that my absence had been noticed by now.

"It's okay" I said. "You can always count on me to be your best friend"

"Honestly, you're my only friend. You know me so much more then anybody else and you don't care that I'm so screwed up" she said.

"You're not screwed up" I said. "You just need some help and little bit of love. That's all" I said.

She smiled back at me.

"Now I think that we should get back to that party. Come on, you could use some Christmas spirit" I said.

"Okay" she said.

"There you are Nessie" Lisa said as soon I had gotten back to the party area. "We've been looking all over for you. Where the hell have you been?" she asked.

"I've been helping out a friend" I said.

"Well, we need your help over here. The kids all want presents. But we don't have any, what are we going to do?" she asked sounding desperate.

Poor kids. They wanted presents and we didn't have any. All because we couldn't raise enough money to include presents for them. I didn't want to break their hearts this way.

Then an idea hit me like a ton of bricks. "I'll be right back" I said.

"Now where are you going?" she asked sounding upset. I went into another room where I found a bag. A bag which suddenly filled up with gifts. It looked exactly like my father's bag that he used to deliver presents.

I came back to the room full of excited gifts.

"Listen up everyone! It's secret santa time!" I shouted.

"What do you mean secret santa? We don't have gifts" David said in confusion.

"He's right. What are you talking about?" Lisa said equally as confused. Even the Cullens were all looking at me in confusion.

"Just work with me here" I muttered.

I pulled out the first gift and read out the name.

"Isabella Marie Cullen" my mother looked at me with even more confusion if possible. I gave her the present and when she opened the box she let out a gasp of surprise. It was a photo album of me throughout the years. Of course, none of them gave away hints of who I really was. But this is the gift that she has always wanted. To see me grow up.

"Lisa Johnson" I called out as I got the next gift. She walked over to me. It was an old looking doll. She started crying when she saw it.

"This can't be" she said. "It looks exactly like the doll that my mom gave me when I was little. But I never told anyone about it" I knew that her mother had died when she was young and she still missed her very much. This was indeed the very same doll that her mother had given her.

The next thing I pulled out was a squirming golden retriever puppy. She had a bow tied to her collar. There was a gift tag on her collar that read "Emma Hander-" before I could even get her full name out she had run up to me and snatched the puppy from me.

"How did you know? I mean, I've never told anyone that I wanted a dog. And yet she is the exact type of dog I wanted. A female, golden retriever puppy" she said with tears in her eyes.

The dog started licking her and she started laughing.

I pulled out the next box. It was a small box that said "Rosalie Hale"

She came up to me and took the box from my hands. She nearly dropped it when she saw what was inside of it. I believe the note inside said It's a girl. Her hand flew to her stomach which had now grown larger then it was a few seconds ago.

She stared at me in complete and utter confusion. But that was what she has always wanted. Those were the presents I had created. The very present that each and everyone of them has always wanted.

"Come on up and get the rest of your presents" I said and everyone stampeded to the bag.

I looked at my watch and watched in horror as my magic levels dropped to zero. What I just did took up so much magic that it had completely drained me and now I was down to zero magic. Which meant that I could not return to the north pole.

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