DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS FROM TWILIGHT. THEY ALL BELONG TO STEPHENIE MEYER.

EPOV

The argument that ensued after we got home was epic.

I swear, it would have been in the World Record Book had anyone been measuring decibel levels. I was suprised that Emmett was able to contain himself until he got out of the car and into the house.

I knew it was coming.

As soon as we got into the house, Emmett sat on the bottom of the stairs and Rosalie stood in front of the door. Emmett sat there and looked at me with hate in his eyes.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING EDWARD?!" He screamed at me, standing up but not moving away from the stairs. I now realised he had stood there so I couldn't get up them. It made sense that Rosalie was standing in front of the door, so I couldn't leave the way we came in.

With that outburst, Carlisle and Esme appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, standing side by side so there was no room for me to squeeze past.

Again, I was trapped.

"What on earth is going on?" Carlisle asked, looking between Emmett and myself, obviously at a loss for words. I was surprised that none of them had called him to tell him what I had done.

"ASK HIM!" Emmett shouted, gesturing towards me. Carlisle and Esme turned to look at me, but I just stood there, unmoving, glaring at Emmett. When Emmett realised that I wasn't going to divulge the information that they wanted, he did it for me. "He told her! Apparently, he told her EVERYTHING!!!" He was breathing heavily now. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE BY TELLING HER EDWARD!!"

"I knew exactly what I was doing," I replied calmly. "Do any of you realise what it's like for me? Living here? Being watched all the time? No one really stopping and listening to what I want? Because none of you do!! None of you actually stop and listen to anything that I have to say!! You all have these ideas in your head, of what I want! Of what'll "help" me. But what none of you realise is I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP!! I don't want your ideas!! I don't want you to TRY AND FUCKING FORCE-FEED ME!!!!" I added on glaring at Emmett when I said this. "All I want is for someone to listen. Which none of you seem able to do!" I sighed, running my hands through my hair, sitting down on the arm out of the sofa. I knew I was getting worked up, and that was never good. I knew what could happen if I got too worked up. I tried to calm myself down, concentrating on the rhythm of my breahting. "But Bella...she actually listened to me." I looked at all of them. "She sat there, and listened. You know how that felt? It felt nice. It felt natural. That's all I wanted. Was someone, who didn't have any pre-meditated judgements like this family is full of!!"

"That doesn't matter Edward!" Rosalie spoke up. "What if she tells someone?! What if something accidentally slips out and she tells that little gossip girl she calls a friend?"

"She won't."

"You don't know that Edward," Alice said in a soft voice. Great, even she was ganging up on me. "You don't know that she won't tell. You don't even know her that well."

"She won't tell." I repeated.

"Edward," Carlisle spoke softly. "They have a point. You don't know this girl. You don't know whether or not she'll tell. She may have said that she won't but what people say and what they do are two completely different things."

I stood up sharply, taking them all by surprise. I didn't care what happened to me now. They were all just re-enforcing my point.

"See," I said, looking at all of them. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're not LISTENING TO ME!! You're all so wrapped up in what you think is best, you're not even taking into consideration what I have to say! And, correct me if I'm wrong, but it is MY FUCKING LIFE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE!!!"

"Edward, calm down." Esme walked over to me and put her hand on my shoulder.

"Don't," I snapped, shrugging her hand away. "Don't touch me." She stepped away from me, obviously hurt.

"Don't you dare talk to my mother like that!" Emmett snarled from the stairs. He was glaring at me in a way that told me that if Carlisle and Esme weren't in the room, he would have no reservations about launching himself at me. "What makes you think we don't care, eh, Edward? You know, Mom and Dad have put up with a lot of crap from you over the years! Maybe they should have just left you at that orphanage! Would have saved us a hell of a lot of trouble."

"Emmett!" Carlisle turned to face him now. "Don't talk to your brother like that! You know he-"

"He!" Emmett said, pointing at me. "Is not my brother!! He's just some whiney little kid, who needs to get a grip and learn to deal with his fucking problems the same way the rest of us do!! Not by starving himself, and cutting himself to ribbons!! You, Edward, need to grow up!!"

After that I zoned out completely. I didn't pay attention to anything after that. All I did was sit back down on the sofa and stare into space. I heard Carlisle and Emmett shouting at each other, Jasper and the girls were arguing amongst themselves for some reason and Esme was desperately trying to calm everyone down.

Emmett was right, I knew he was. I knew that I needed to stop. But I couldn't. This way of life was the only way I remember. I didn't want to stop, even though I knew that I was going to kill myself eventually if I didn't. Maybe that was why I did it. Not for the control, not to try and ease the pain that my parents passing had created. Maybe I did it because I knew that someday it would kill me. "Slow suicide" I'd heard it called. I now knew what they meant. I knew my body couldn't handle this kind of treatment for much longer. I knew that my heart was giving out, that some day - and probably some day soon - it was going to give out completely. But I didn't care. I knew all of this and yet it wasn't enough to make me stop. To make me get help. If that wasn't then I wasn't sure what would.

After a while all the voices seemed to die down and I heard doors slamming in every direction. Sensing that I was alone in the room, I lay down on the sofa, thankful for the solitude. I closed my eyes and after a while I must have drifted off into sleep because when I regained consciousness I was, still fully clothed, in my bed. I looked at my clock at it flashed 6:49AM.

I had fallen asleep, and someone, probably Jasper or Carlisle had moved me to my room, during the night. I got out of bed and showered, relishing the feeling of the hot water on my skin. For some reason I always felt safe when I was in the shower. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was somehow comforting. Whatever it was, I don't know, I hated it when I had to get out of the shower. I dried off quickly and got dressed. I went downstairs and saw Esme already in the kitchen. She was making breakfast, which I had to have, as per the agreement with Carlisle.

Unbeknownst to them, I never actually ate the breakfast. Since Esme and I were always up earlier than the others it was just us in the kitchen and it was surprisingly easy to hide the fact that I wasn't eating from her. Since she gave me toast every morning - she thought that having the same thing every morning - it made it easy for me to fool her into thinking I was eating it. Ripping a small piece off and hiding it either up my sleeve or in one of my pockets every time her back was turned she believed that I was eating my breakfast.

I hurt to know that I was lying to Esme, but I couldn't stop doing it. It was so drilled into my head, my actions and my routines, that it wasn't going to be simple to break that pattern. That seemed to be something my family couldn't accept.

The next week or so passed without incident. I still wasn't talking to Emmett. I couldn't even stand being in the same room with him, and left whenever he entered. Carlisle was thus far satisfied that I was improving. Little did he know that I wasn't, I was just becoming more sneaky about it than before. I hated lying to them, especially after all they had done for me over the years. I was spending more and more time with Bella. Every morning she'd meet me at my locker, and we'd walk to class. Then, depending on who's class got out first one of us would wait for the other outside their classroom. I enjoyed being with her. She seemed to make everything seem okay.

The amount of time that Bella and I spent together hadn't gone unnoticed by her numerous fans. Mike Newton in particular. It appeared that he still hadn't gotten it into his head that Bella wasn't interested and that she would someday, fall for his charms and go out with him. She told me - and him - over and over again that there was no way that was going to happen. He'd somehow gotten it into his head that it was because of me that she felt this way. Although he never did anything, because there was always the threat of Emmett beating the crap out of him if he did do anything. Despite the fact that Emmett and I weren't on speaking terms at home, didn't mean that he would tolerate anyone else giving me a hard time. It was the same for Jasper and the girls. Anyone messes with them, they have to deal with Emmett. In the back of my head I was thankful for that unspoken threat, although with his behaviour recently I wouldn't say that to him.

As I was walking to meet Bella on Monday morning, I rounded the corner and walked straight into Mike. He didn't seem pleased to see me. But then again he never did, so I wasn't surprised by his expression.

"Sorry," I mumbled and went to walk around him but he moved to stand in front of me. "What?" I asked, impatiently.

"So, you think you can get with Bella?" He asked, glaring at me.

"What is this Mike? We friends, get over it." I stood there and stared him down. "She's not into you." I know it sounded like something that would have probably fit into some chick flick somewhere, but it was true: she wasn't.

"That's what you think, right, Cullen." He still didn't move. I went to walk around him, but he pushed me into the lockers (A/N: I know Mike isn't generally violent, but it's crucial for the direction of the story if he is, so go with it.) Moving to stand in front of me. "You think you're so smart don't you, Cullen? Well, I happen to disagree with you on that one."

"Whatever, Mike." I moved to get past him, but he grabbed the front of my sweater and shoved me back onto the lockers. I was hoping that someone had heard that and would come around the corner. I wanted him to get in trouble for this kind of behaviour. Not that I was a goodie-two-shoes or anything, considering I was far from it, but who knows who else he either had or was going to treat this way. And I wanted him to realise that behaving this way was not the way to get Bella.

Suddenly, all thoughts of Mike left my head. I was finding it hard to breathe and there was an extreme pain in my chest, which I knew wasn't from where Mike was holding me against the lockers. The pain was spreading, spreading to the back of my chest and creeping to my shoulder. It was unlike any pain I'd ever felt before, it knocked out all my senses. Suddenly my hearing went fuzzy, and although Mike was only inches away from me, I could hardly hear what he was saying. A look of confusion came over his face as the pain spread and I begun to lose the feeling in the fingers on my left hand. My vision began to blur as well, and I knew that I was going to pass out.

"MIKE!" I heard someone scream. It sounded like Bella, although I couldn't be sure. I turned to look, but my vision was fading fast and I could barely make out the person running towards us. I heard them shout something that sounded like, "What on earth are you doing?!" but the words were lost on me.

Suddenly I felt Mike's grip on my sweater release and I collapsed onto the floor, clutching at my chest with my right hand, as I couldn't feel my left one, still unable to breathe properly.

"Edward!" I heard someone shouting my name. Someone was rubbing my face. I knew that touch to be Bella's. Her touch was all I knew as I gave into the pain that had enveloped my chest and fell into blackness.

Sorry for the cliffie.
I hope that I didn't make any huge errors with Edward in the end of this chapter, though if you can spot any that I did make any then PM me and I can make some changes.
Don't hate me. Please. I know I'm being cruel to Edward at the moment, but it's all part of the story.
Leave me some reviews and I'll think about updating real soon ;P xx