A quick update!! I had some extra time today, so I decided to write some more for you all!
I know that my chapters are short and I'm sorry about that. But I can't write half of a chapter one day and come back the next day. I have to write it all in one sitting, or I will lose the inspiration. It sucks to deal with, I know.
Things I own... A beat up LG Neon and Ashley Greene's new movie "Summer's Moon" (I plan on watching it soon, but I don't think it's going to be good)
Things I don't own... Twilight. :(
My head snaps up at Emmett's tone, no longer exhausted. What's going on?
"Get the fuck out!" he yells again.
Jasper jumps out of the bed before Emmett's last sentence is finished and is already out the door. I scramble after him and skid to a stop at the top of the grand staircase once I see who the victim of Emmett's yelling is.
Emmett had it right. What the fuck is he doing here?
Emmett is right up in his face and staying something too low for me to hear, but I assume it's not something too cheery, as Edward's face darkens.
"I'm just trying to see if she's okay!" Edward yells before he eyes Jasper walking slowly up to the duo. If he isn't intimidated by Emmett, he definitely is with Jasper. Silent but deadly, that man is. He takes a step back to put distance between the visibly fuming oaf and glaring Texan.
I roll my eyes at their macho games and start making y way downstairs. Edward notices me first, but Jazz and Emmett aren't far behind. Edward's gaze lingers on my legs, which is when I notice that in my haste to see who was here, I forgot to put anything on. Jesus Christ, I'm in boy shorts not a thong, it's not that bad.
"Well I'm obviously alive, so you can leave now." I say after a minute or so of awkward silence. Edward takes a step towards me, but Jasper moves in front of him, effectively blocking him from going any further.
"Bella, can we please talk?" Edward asks with his voice all dejected and puke-worthy.
"Hell no!" Em yells before I get a chance. I sigh, just wanting everyone to get the fuck out.
"I didn't ask you so shut the fuck up!" Edward yells at Emmett.
Oh. No. He. Didn't.
Emmett's fist connects with Edward's face with practiced lightning speed, forcing Edward back a few steps. He swears and spits blood before cupping his bound to be swollen face. Ouch. I yell random expletives at Emmet and run over to them to help Edward. He may still be on my shit list, but I'm not going to just let Emmett beat the shit out of him. I'd rather do it…after I fix him up.
"Bella, why the fuck are you helping him?! He put his hands on you and you had a flashback for Christ sake!" Emmett turns his anger towards me, which pisses me the fuck off. How dare he talk to me like that? I'm just doing the right thing. I turn to glare at him before turning my attention to Jasper, silently asking him to take Emmett out of the house to calm down.
Thankfully Jasper understands and nods at me before pushing Emmett out. Emmett thankfully doesn't say anything, just glares at me and a hunched over Edward. With the allies out of the house, it gets silent in the room with the exception of Edward's heavy breathing.
"Come on," I say after a short while, taking his hand to lead him up to my room. No guy besides Emmett and Jasper are allowed in my room. Not even Phil can come in my sanctuary. Why I'm letting him in this room, I don't know. Confuses the hell out of me, but for some reason, it feels…right to have him in the room. I push that thought out of my head and concentrate on the task at hand.
I lead him to the bed and make sure he's steady before going to the bathroom to get a warm washcloth for his face. I make my way back to him and see that the blood has somewhat stopped gushing from his nose. The smell of blood has always bothered me, so I breathe through my mouth. I take a second to fully look at the damage Emmett's meaty hand did to his face and gasp.
His eye is already slightly swollen and his nose is bleeding, while his lip is split and has what looks like bite marks on it. He must have bit his lip when Emmett punched him.
I touch the washcloth to his cheek and mumble a sorry when he winces and hisses, only to hiss again when the wince moved the sore muscles in his face. I clean him up in a matter of minutes and get the blood to completely stop. This is all done in completely silence, which is slightly uncomfortable.
"You're pretty quiet." I throw out.
"What is there to say? You obviously don't want to talk to me. I don't even know why you're helping me now."
"Emmett said I didn't want to talk to you, not me. And I'm helping you because you needed help. There is no way you would have been able to drive to Carlisle's house without getting in a wreck." I point out, earning silence from him.
I sigh, frustrated that he isn't going to even attempt to talk to me now that I am giving him a chance. "I'm sorry that he hit you. He's a little protective." I say the last olive branch I'm willing to throw.
"A little?" he asks, clearly sarcastic. I smile and roll my eyes at him. It's just an Emmett thing. I've learned to just live with it.
"Why is he so protective?" Finally he tries to be an equal participant in the conversation.
"He was the first friend that I made when I moved here a few years ago."
"I thought you always lived here?"
"No, I spent the first fourteen years of my live in Portland." I say, my tone getting a fraction darker with the unwanted memories of my past.
"Wouldn't it have been easier to just say 'lived' instead of all of that?" he asks, trying to make a joke. Not funny.
"I wouldn't exactly call what I went through 'living'. I wince, not wanting to bring up the old memories in fear of a flashback.
After a few silent moments, he speaks again. "You are quite the mystery, Bella Swan."
"Maybe I like it that way." I snap.
"I'm sorry about Alice. She tends to be obnoxious when she wants something."
I roll my eyes at him. "Your sister lied to me and tried to string me along while prying information out of Jasper. But yeah, obnoxious works."
"She was---and is--- curious about you. You couldn't honestly say that you wouldn't try to figure out who the girl that Carlisle can't stop praising all the time is, could you?" he counters.
I thought about it for a second before relenting. "Yeah, I would want to know. But I wouldn't go to the extreme and lie to her about everything. I would come straight out and ask." I raise my eyebrow at him, daring him to call bullshit.
"I told her that so many times, but she wouldn't listen. She is really sorry, too. She beats herself up about how she treated you every day and it really hurts to watch." He speaks so fondly of his sister; it's actually kind of sweet.
"Imagine how it would feel to be on the other side of that shit."
He sighs and runs a hand through his sex hair, something I've always wanted to do, even while wanting to kill him.
"How many times can I apologize?" he asks, exasperated.
"I don't know. You tell me." I smirk at him.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" he keeps going and going, which eventually starts my giggling which turns into full on laughter. I didn't exactly expect him to do that, but he's just so freaking cute.
After our laughter subsides, I realize that I still haven't put any pants on. I mumble a quick "be right back" and run into my closet to grab a comfy pair of Jacksonville sweatpants that Phil brought back for me on one of his trips. I go back and settle myself in my chair facing the bed, where Edward still resides.
"Why did you move to Forks?" he asks me. I pull my feet under myself, creating a ball like position.
"I was put into the system when I was fourteen." I say simply, not really wanting to get into details.
"What happened to your parents?" he asks, leaning forward.
I snort, "My mom was a useless drunk after my biological dad left us. Her new husband wasn't…well." My voice gets significantly smaller towards the end of my dialogue, sounding similar to little girls. But I never got the chance to be a little girl, so it doesn't make sense.
"Well?" Edward prompts.
"He was an alcoholic too," I take a deep breath, preparing myself to actually talk about my past, but Edward interrupts me.
"He beat you?" He asks, his tone sharper than before. How the hell did he figure that out?
"How did you know that?" I ask, my tone equally sharp and on the defense.
"I didn't. But you just confirmed it."
I glare at him, pissed at his antics. Why can't these Cullen kids stop playing games?
"I'm sorry. I just want to figure you out. You are very hard for me to read." He sighs.
After a moment, I continue talking. I forgot how good talking to someone other than Jazz and Carlisle felt. "Yeah, he beat me. Almost daily for 5 years." I try not to notice the pitying look on his face. I don't need anyone's fucking pity.
"Don't make that face. I'm older now and I'm fine so stop pitying me." I snap, which earns a sorry from Edward. I stop talking, not sure what to talk about next.
"So your current parents adopted you when you came up here?" he prompts me again, no doubt curious about my strange past.
"I stayed in the home for about a week until Carlisle came. They wanted a doctor to deal with me, since I was obviously fucked up. He had one session with me, took temporary custody of me, and took me back to Forks." Edwards face lit up with shock. How did they not know that their uncle took in a child?
"After 42 days staying with him, he introduced Renee and Phil to me and I went home with them a week later permanently." I say, giving him the cliff notes version.
"So you always stayed in touch with Carlisle, then?"
"Of course. If it weren't for him, I probably would have ended up in an equally shitty home and I wouldn't be here." By that I mean in Forks, and alive. He nods his head in understanding.
"And Renee and Phil, are they good to you?" he asks worriedly, like the question might bite me.
"Do you think Carlisle would just ship me off to people he didn't trust completely?" I look doubtfully at Edward, who shakes his head.
"He's always looked after me. I used to be in his office every day when he would go to work, since I was afraid of being home alone. He easily became like a father to me." I smile at the memories of us playing Monopoly on the plush floor of his office and sipping hot chocolate while watching the snow fall outside. The early mornings where I would sleep on the couch in the corner of his office while he would take his patients in the next room as to not disturb me. The late nights where I would bounce around the room, sugar high from all of the sweets he gave me, and pissing him off but making him smile at the same time with my crazy antics.
"How bad did your step-dad hurt you?" Edward asks suddenly, halting my trip down memory lane. I debate telling him the truth or a practiced lie. I decide after a moment.
"I have countless scars, mentally and physically." I say, and then stop before saying too much.
"Are they bad?"
Wait, he saw me without pants on earlier, how did he not see most of them?
"I saw you checking out my legs earlier. You didn't see them?" I ask him, raising an eyebrow.
He ducks his head and blushes slightly, which would be totally ridiculous on any guy, but on him it looks adorable. "I guess not."
I hook my thumb in my sweat pants and pull them down an inch or two, revealing the ugly jagged scar on my hipbone. Realizing there isn't enough light, I lean over to switch on a lamp and point it towards my body for the most light possible.
I hear him gasp, which is my cue to cover up the scar again. I remember the day I got that scar.
I was sitting on my bed looking out the window as there really wasn't much else to do while being trapped in the small room, when my mother came into my room with her usual drunk look and a beer bottle in her hand.
"Stand up," were her simple words.
I stood up and closed my eyes, not wanting to know what was going to happen, just wanting to disappear or even better, die. In a matter of seconds, which I wouldn't have thought possible since she is typically slow due to the alcohol, she smashed the half empty beer bottle on the desk and swung at me with the jagged teeth on my bodies receiving end.
Her aim was to be expected and she missed my chest, but she got my hip instead. I cried out and covered the wound with my hands, careful not to push any of the shards into my skin that was already embedded there.
Shortly after, she left me alone to clean the wound. I cleaned it up the best I could and laid on my opposite side the rest of the night with my hands clamped down on the wound, secretly wanting that bottle to be infected. It would be a slow and painful death, but it would have been better than that hell hole.
I was eleven when that happened.
Edwards's voice brought me back once again from memory lane, this memory being one that I'm glad to have been brought out of. I shake my head slightly, physically forcing the disgusting memory from the forefront of my mind.
"I'm so sorry, Bella." He says, unknowingly acting out one of my biggest pet peeves.
"Why are you sorry? You didn't do it; you didn't know it was happening. It wasn't your fault."
"It wasn't yours either." He says with conviction. It almost makes me smile, the ferocity behind those five words.
"I know that. Carlisle helped me figure that out." I say, but some small part in me doesn't believe my statement at all. If I was a better child, maybe they would have just let me be, instead of torturing me.
I turn off the light and look at the clock – 2:14 a.m.
"Well, I need to be getting some sleep. Flashbacks always leave me exhausted." I tell him, while getting to my feet.
"Can we talk about that first?" he asks, getting up too.
"Edward, please. Not tonight." I plead with him. Thinking about bed now has really made me realize how tired I am. I need sleep soon or I will for sure pass out.
"Later, then." He sounds so hopeful, I can't deny him. Talking to him tonight has truly opened my eyes. Maybe he isn't so bad after all. I don't know why I kind of expected him to laugh at me and tell me that I was being a baby about everything.
"Yes, later."
I lead him downstairs and we both say our goodbyes before I sleepily make my way upstairs to my comfy bed. I lay down and am immediately hit with Edward's scent. Man, that traveled fast and far on my bed. I'm not complaining though. Sandalwood, soap, and vanilla.
Edward Cullen is not who I thought he was. Question is though, will I be able to trust him like I want to?
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