DISCLAIMER: I'm not claiming to be Stephenie Meyer or VC Andrews.
A/N: Many thanks to MelissaTheTwilightFan for Emmett's new rap name. And to the quintuplet crew that checked this over and approved of this chapter--I thank you.
I'm glad that so many of you seemed to love Dish Therapy. I was very surprised by it! Also, I went to the movies this weekend and saw Slumdog Millionaire. It is must see! And all you new readers that have set alerts for Legacy but haven't said anything… say something! Writing can be very time consuming and I'm a review whore since I love to know what people think of my story.
Please see A/N at the end.
Chapter 20: Haunted
The next morning I woke before Bella. I lay there in bed next to her, watching her sleep soundly. Watching Bella sleep was something that I could get used to. She looked so beautiful lying there, her shallow breaths and slight rise and fall of her chest moving the covers ever so slightly. All was quiet and peaceful until Bella started to twitch and moan in her sleep. Her movements became more erratic, her moans turned into harsh intelligible whispers, and I became concerned. Should I wake her? Should I continue to let her sleep?
"No, no, stop," she cried, and I knew that I needed to wake her. I had to stop whatever it was that was causing her to cry out.
"Bella, wake up," I said while gently cupping her cheek in my hand. "Wake up. You're having a bad dream, wake up, love."
Her eyes flashed open quickly. I would never forget the look on her face at that moment. Bella was scared out of her mind. She rolled over quickly and sat up, planting her feet firmly on the floor. Resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, I could hear her quietly chanting "He's not Phil," repeatedly to herself.
Fuck, I didn't know what the hell to do. Slowly, I sat up and went to the opposite end of the bed while she chanted her mantra. "Bella," I said. "Tell me what to do. Tell me what you need me to do."
She continued on for another minute before stopping and looking sideways toward me. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I-I didn't mean to freak out on you."
"This is me you're talking to, remember? Freaking out is all I've done in the last two days."
"I never wanted you to have to see this."
"See what?" I asked. "Bella, who the fuck is Phil and what did he do to you?"
Bella turned her head and stared at the television in front of her. "Phil is my mother's current husband," she sniffed.
I carefully crept my way behind her and to the night stand. Grabbing the box of tissues, I placed them next to her and then sat back down at the end of the bed.
"Thanks," she said, blew her nose, and then threw the tissue into the small trash basket next to the night stand. "I never told you that Charlie isn't my real father, did I?"
I sure as hell didn't see that one coming. "He's not?" I asked, shocked. Bella selected another tissue from the box but didn't use it. She fiddled with it in her hands.
"No, he's not," she said. Bella continued to look straight ahead. "I don't know who the hell my real father is. My mother, Renee, is a bit of a… um, how do I put it? She's my mother and God knows why I love her and everything, but she's a huge flake."
She paused, and I waited for her to continue while she shredded the tissue in her hands into tiny pieces. "Do you want some water? There's a glass in the bathroom, I could get you some."
Bella cleared her throat. "Yes, thank you, Edward."
I went into the bathroom and let the water run for a minute to get cold. When I brought the glass of water into the bedroom, Bella was still in the same spot. I was glad that she hadn't run out of my room and down the stairs. She took the glass from me and sipped at the liquid inside of it before placing it down on the night stand next to her. Still unsure of what I should do, I sat back down at the foot of the bed. I noted that Bella had a new unshredded tissue in her hands.
"I don't know who my biological father is," she said. "Up until I was five years old, I thought Charlie was my real father and he fully acted the role. Renee had a fling with some man and ended up in Forks. My sperm donor ran off once he learned that Renee was pregnant. Renee met Charlie and after they had sex, she tried to pass me off as Charlie's. I think somewhere, deep down, that Charlie knew that I wasn't his but it didn't matter to him. Their marriage disintegrated and Renee moved to Phoenix with me where she met Phil."
Bella paused and took another sip of water before nervously continuing.
"Charlie is listed as my father on my birth certificate and Renee was getting child support from him, so she didn't dare do anything when he insisted on seeing me after their divorce. It was easier to spend the summer with Charlie here in Forks than to stay in Phoenix anyway. Phil was a baseball player in the minor leagues so if I wasn't around, that meant Renee could travel and follow Phil to his games."
Bella's voice was low, and it looked like she was blinking back tears. Once again, the tissue that was in her hands was shredded into tiny pieces. Bella must have finally noticed it too because she turned to the waste basket and threw the tissue remnants out. She had placed her hands on the bed and was firmly grasping at the mattress. "Continue when you're ready," I said.
She sighed but still wouldn't look at me. "I never liked Phil. When I was five… Phil tried to touch me in a way a grown man should never touch a child."
I couldn't help it, but I gasped out loud. "What?"
"And when I told Renee, she didn't believe me." I saw a tear fall down her cheek, and she was now wringing her hands together while her body shook. I could only imagine how it must have felt for Bella's own mother not to believe her. How could a mother do that to her own child? I wanted to reach out and wipe her tears away, but I feared touching her just yet. "When he tried to touch me a second time, I called Charlie since I still thought he was my biological father and told him. He was outraged, flew down to Phoenix, and took me from Renee. Charlie told her that if she tried to fight him that both she and Phil would be locked behind bars—Phil for molesting me and Renee for turning a blind eye to it."
Enraged at a woman I had never met, I stayed still and tried to remain calm. Bella planted her hands on the mattress again. I moved slightly forward and intertwined my fingers with hers.
"Later on, what upset me the most was that my own mother never fought for me. She believed her husband over her own daughter. Renee thought I lied to break them up."
"I bet you felt betrayed by your own mother. She's supposed to protect you…"
"Yes, exactly, though back then betrayal wasn't in my vocabulary," she said. "It was much later, while in a therapy session that Charlie insisted on, that it came to me."
"Do you have nightmares often?"
She shook her head silently. "I don't know why I did this morning. I haven't had a nightmare in a long time."
Bella had more tears streaming down her cheeks. I wanted to bust two sets of dishes—one in Renee's name and one in Phil's. Or better yet, I wanted to find them and have Emmett hold them down while I beat them both to a bloody pulp. "When did you learn that you weren't biologically Charlie's?"
"When I was seven and we had to do a family tree for school," she said. I silently hoped that Renee never had any other children. That woman did not deserve them. "I thought it was odd that Charlie seemed so flustered about the information. That's when he spilled the beans."
"I've just seen Charlie in a whole new light," I said. "That's why he's so over protective of you, isn't it?"
Bella turned and smiled at me. "Pretty much. Emmett too."
"Emmett knows?"
"I had to tell him the truth after what happened in the sixth grade-"
"The bleachers?" I asked, cutting her off.
"Yes, between him feeling like a big brother to me and dealing with what happened with Phil, I couldn't continue to fool around with him under the bleachers."
"Who else knows?"
"You, Emmett, and Charlie," she said, "though, I think Emmett tends to forget sometimes. No one else knows, not even Alice. I'm sure that Emmett didn't tell her. I think if she knew, she wouldn't buy me as many skimpy clothes as she does."
"Does what she buy you make you feel uncomfortable?"
"Sometimes. See, most of the time, I'm okay and my past is in my past," she explained. "Other times, it creeps up on me and I remember and I freak out. I'm slightly insecure like every other teenage girl in America. I wish my thunder thighs were smaller, I wish my ass was smaller, I wish I was taller, and I'm afraid of rejection. I get up my nerve and do something that I normally wouldn't, like when I went over to you in the cafeteria on your first day. I was encouraged, so I went ahead and walked over to you. And, oh my God, when I flashed you here at the house on Halloween. After I did that, I totally wanted to go and dig a hole and hide in it. Short skirts totally aren't me. Truth be told, I'm a t-shirt and jeans girl. Wow, I just rattled on about things unrelated to that bastard Phil."
"On the contrary, I think it all fits together," I said. "Bella, love, your mother rejected you and your stepfather tried to molest you. You're going to have issues with trust. Deep down somewhere you probably think it's your fault, so you don't want to dress provocatively because you don't want the attention because it reminds you of the negative attention that you got from Phil."
"Jesus Christ, were you a psych major in another life?"
"I like to read," I explained. "I'm confused about something though. You were the one who was flirting with me and you didn't seem to be scared about it."
"Some of my braver moments," she admitted. "I had some of my braver moments back when I was flashing you my underwear and grinding against you. If you haven't noticed, I haven't been wearing really short skirts or tops lately. You don't know how much I wanted to throw up after simply talking to you when we weren't even in Bio. I'm always confused about how much is too much. I give myself whiplash."
"I didn't do anything last night that made you uncomfortable, did I? I'm sorry if I did," I said apologetically. What if she had the bad dream because of what we did last night? "If I would have known what happened in your past, we would have never done what we did, and you would have woken up in your own bed back at Charlie's."
"This is why I was nervous about telling you this," she said sadly. Bella wiped her tears from her face with the swipe of her hands. Turning toward me, she took my hands in her tear-dampened ones. "My brain knows you weren't the one to hurt me when I was younger. Now you're going to be nervous about touching me, aren't you?"
"Yes," I said honestly. "Can you blame me? What if I do something that triggers a memory? I don't want to hurt you like that."
"Edward, I need to work through this," she said. "For fuck's sake, the shit happened when I was five and now I'm seventeen. If I don't experience things that might trigger memories, then I'll never completely heal or know how to deal."
"You're rhyming mad like Eminemmett now."
"Oh shit, I did." She laughed and then turned serious. "Please don't change how you've been treating me because of what I told you."
"If I do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you need to tell me," I said firmly. "Don't go and try to deal with it on your own. Tell me and I'll stop, do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand," she said with a nod of her head. "Can you please just hold me now?"
"Of course, come here."
Bella got up, sat down on my lap, and buried her face in my neck. It was then that she started to cry harder. We sat there, her tears falling on to my bare shoulder, our arms wrapped around one another and I cried with her.
A/N: I am not a psychologist. I am not a psychiatrist. I am not a victim of abuse.
If you have been touched in an inappropriate manner and have not dealt with it, please seek help and talk to someone. If you don't know where to start, Google "help for victims of child abuse" or any variation of that phrase and you will find several links that should give you an idea. Each state and country is probably different and I can't list every single agency to get in touch with. Within the United States, The National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-4-A-CHILD.
Start with some Dish Therapy. Talk with a trusted friend. But honestly, if you can, find a professional that can help you. Do something about it. You will not heal and move on if you keep it bottled up inside. You are not alone and it is not your fault.