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

EPOV

I thought that after the session with my family I would feel slightly better. But I didn't. If anything, I felt worse.

Because of things that I had said and done in the past, they thought that it was their fault. I knew that no matter how much I tried to convince them otherwise, they wouldn't listen to me. They haven't listened to me up til now, why the hell should they start now?

Seeing them, sitting there in front of me, sobbing, because of me, it was almost too much to handle. I didn't think I would be able to but something inside of me was willing me to stand up to them for once. To tell them how I felt. And in that moment, I felt a sliver of strength and I grasped onto it, hoping that my actions wouldn't cause too much pain.

Derek had said that it took a lot of guts to stand up to them and say what I did, and I could tell that Bella was proud of me for voicing, even if it was a tiny portion of the emotions I was feeling at the moment, and sharing them with my family. If it was such a good thing that I'd done, and I'd felt like it was a good thing at the time, that it may have some positive outcome, why did I feel like complete and utter shit now?

Maybe it was because my family were so used to me rolling over and letting things wash over me, that they didn't know how to react to me when I told them the truth. They had obviously been expecting lies. Some giant lie to escape through my lips. But everything I'd told them had been the complete truth.

Oh, well. You know what they say: Truth hurts.

I was in my room with Bella now. Sitting on my bed she was watching me from the small chair that occupied the small space under the window. She liked it over there. It had quickly become her litttle spot. We would often just sit there, me on my bed and her on my chair and we'd just gaze at each other, drinking in all we could from afar. Sounds corny I know but it was true.

I thought back to the end of the session, when Carlisle hugged me. My first instinct was to wrench myself out of his grasp, away from him, but somehow I managed to control myself and actually hug him back. Even I knew that this was huge for me. The only one I had been able to maintain any type of physical contact with since my parents had died was Bella. Being able to hug Carlisle was huge for me, let alone being able to cry at the same time.

That family meeting was one of the hardest things of my life. Never before had I let the Cullens' know that I was suffering. Well, until they found out that is, and even then I tried to keep how I was suffering down to a minimum. So, today, even though it wasn't something huge, or as huge as it could have been, letting them in was a really hard thing to do. And I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.

I felt a thumb brushing across my cheek lightly and I realised that Bella was now kneeling next to me on the bed. I also realised that I was crying, again. I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

"Hey, baby." She whispered softly in my ear. "It's okay, love." She had begun using the nickname that I always used for her. This made me smile slightly. "It's alright." She wrapped her arms around me and I pulled her towards me. She twisted around and sat next to me, placing her head on my chest right above my heart, seeming to listen to it as she lay there.

"What are you thinking?" I asked softly, playing with the slight ringlets in her mahogany hair.

"I'm thinking," She pondered this for a moment. "That I'm proud of you." I scoffed and she tapped my arm lightly in scolding. "No. I am proud of you. Derek is too. You finally worked up the courage to tell your family the truth about something. Something you've needed to do for a long time, Edward. Maybe now.....now that you've done it once, you'll be able to do it more often. And not just about the little things. The things that really affect you. Things that upset you about them. You know, stuff like that."

"I don't know, love." I whispered, thinking over what she had just said. Would I be able to open up more to my family? I just didn't know. Today had been hard enough but would I be able to do it over and over again. No. I didn't think I could. Maybe it was just because of the fact that it was the first session today. That was the reason things had been so emotional and tense.

"I know you will." She looked up at me, a small smile on her face. "Shall we go downstairs?" I looked at her and nodded.

We walked down to the recreation room hand in hand. We walked in and saw that there were a couple of people in the smaller rooms that led off from it, but most were in the main room, in small groups, huddled together and whispering. I saw Michael and Claire sitting either side of a small table playing cards and walked over to them, curious as to why everyone was acting the way they were.

"Hey Michael." I said, sitting down on the sofa behind Claire, so I could face him. Bella sat down next to me. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?" He said, looking up momentarily from his game with Claire. I gestured around at the groups of whispering patients. "Oh," He looked around at them all. "There's a new person coming today." He looked at me again.

"Oh," I was confused at why this would be such a big deal, surely there were new people coming and going all the time. Why was one person such a big deal? "How come everyone's making a big deal out of it?"

"I don't know." He said, getting back to his game. "They were the same before you got here actually so, I guess it's just something that happens. You know, new meat kind of thing." I grimaced at the term he used and looked at Bella who shrugged.

"When are they coming?" I asked looking around. He shrugged and challenged Claire, who had just one that game, to another one.

"Can I play?" Bella asked, a grin on her face. Whether or not they'd let her was another question. She always beat them both. They both looked at each other cautiously and in the end nodded and she gave me a quick kiss and sat down on one side of the square table.

"You playing Eddie?" Michael asked, looking up.

I shook my head and threw a pillow at him, managing to hit him straight in the face. "No, and how many times have I told you not to call me Eddie?"

He grinned and threw the pillow, which I caught, back at me. "Not enough." He chuckled as I rolled my eyes and tucked the pillow behind me again.

I sighed and went over to the bookshelf, looking for yet another book that I hadn't read. The list of choices was becoming quite slim. I saw on the shelf a book that Bella was always raving about. Wuthering Heights. She'd read it about a hundred times, and kept going on about it, but I'd never read it. I plucked it off of the shelf and went to sit back down. Opening it I got a quizzical look from Bella, and I shrugged my shoulders. Curling up on the sofa I opened it and started to read.

I found that it wasn't that bad of a book, even though I did have a problem with the main characters and their so called "love", but other than that it was written well and I hadn't thrown it down after the first chapter so it couldn't be that bad. The others had gotten bored of whatever game it was they were playing and moved onto another one.

I had stopped reading and was intently watching Bella. Her reactions and her expressions when she won or lost a particular hand. They way her eyes would light up if she'd won or the way she'd pout, mocking anger when she was beaten. I couldn't help but smile at her reactions. Everything she did captivated me. To me she was perfect, even if she didn't see it herself. I found myself continuously asking how I'd found this angel.

I was watching Bella and she'd caught my eye, flushing that beautiful pink as I smiled at her when I first heard the screaming. It scared the life out of me, and all the others turned to look as well. I looked at Michael, who sighed and stood up.

"New girl's here." He said looking at me. We all got up, along with everyone else in the room and went to see what was happening. All I could see was the same two guys that had been hanging around when I'd gotten here, carrying a girl, actually carrying her, while she thrashed around, up to, what I'd imagined was her room. Her parents looked extremely distressed and Dr. Martin was doing her best to try to calm her and the girl down. How those two could stand to be around those screams was something I found I would have to ask. They had to be wearing ear plugs of some kind because it was loud even from where I was. All I could discern was the occasional "don't leave me here!" or swearing.

"I'm glad you weren't like that when you got here." Bella whispered, looking at me and smiling.

"I still had a little dignity then," I replied dryly. Truth be told, I just didn't have enough energy to fight like that when I first got here. I wasn't strong enough, so there was no point. I was too drained, both physically and mentally to put up a fight.

Jude walked into the room where we were all watching the scene with the girl play out before us. "Okay, everybody." She called. "Lunch."

I sighed and looked at Bella. I took her hand in mine and we made our way back to my room. Because I had this tube still in I had to go up to my room when it was mealtimes, to be hooked up to that damned machine. When we got back up there, we heard screaming and cursing coming from the end of the corridor. Turns out the new girl was on the same corridor as I was. I looked at Bella and she gave me a bewildered expression back. We went into my room and I sat down on the bed, pulling Bella down with me. I just wanted to sit there for a few moments, inhaling her scents of strawberries and freesias, a scent that I loved so much. We could still hear the screams that were coming from down the hallway and the distressed cries and sobs that accompanied them.

"I'm so glad you weren't like that when we brought you hear." Bella whispered. "I don't think I could have handled it if you were. I barely kept myself together when you were like you were, let alone like that." She buried her head into the crook of my neck and I smiled, drawing in a deep breath, inhaling more of her scent.

After a few more minutes the screaming had died down and was being replaced by sobs and whimpers. She was really putting up a fight. Something that I had not managed to do, but what's done is done, and there's nothing I could do about it now.

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," I called quietly. It was Jude, smiling slightly. She was holding a tray of food for Bella, which also carried a bag of liquidized food for me. Great, I thought sarcastically. Best time of the day.

"That new girls a bit of a hellion, isn't she?" Jude said, placing the tray down on the bedside table and walking around the bed to hook me up to the machine. I nodded. "We haven't had one who put up that much of a fight in a while." Jude wasn't being mean or condescending. It was just the way she was. She said things as she saw them, no sugar-coating as people put it. "Normally the ones who put up a fight are the quicker ones to respond to treatment. It's those who don't fight back that you have to worry about." She gave me a look of mock anger and I gave her a small smile.

"Thank you, Jude." I said, sarcastically.

"That's alright, sweetie," She said, flashing me another smile. Jude may have annoyed me a bit to begin with, but there was something about her that you couldn't help. Like Esme, she was one of these people who constantly put others before themselves and always made sure that everyone else was okay. Out of the nurses she worked the most hours at the clinic. She always made sure that everything was alright with all of the patients before she left, and sometimes she was here until the early hours of the morning. I personally thought that she may as well live here, but I wasn't sure whether she had a family, so I never said anything to her about it.

She gave Bella and myself one last smile and left the room. As Bella sat up to eat her lunch I slid down slightly and rested my head in her lap. She had learned to put the tray next to her rather than on her lap, so I could do this. It was comforting in a way. I closed my eyes and felt the slightly tug of sleep pulling at me. I gave in, knowing that it would only be twenty minutes, half an hour at the most before I got woken up by Jude unhooking the tube and taking away the empty plastic bag.

True to form, I was woken up a little while later, to the slight movement of the tube in my nose. I grimaced, hating the feeling. The discomfort that it brought.

"Sorry, Edward, dear." Jude apologised as she finished unhooking the tube.

"It's okay." I mumbled back.

Bella had started running her hands through my hair so I didn't bother to get up. I enjoyed that feeling too much. It just felt natural, somehow. I wrapped my arms around her tightly and sighed and Jude stood at the end of the bed, smiling while looking at us. I could get the feeling that she was suppressing a huge "awww" that was threatening to come out. Instead she just moved up to the bedside table and picked up the tray, still smiling and left the room.

"There's something wrong with that woman," Bella said after she was sure that Jude had gone. I couldn't help but smile.

"Well, she's got to be," I said, not lifting up my head. "She's working in pretty much a loony bin."

"Hey," Bella exclaimed, tapping me slightly on the back.

"Ow," I mocked hurt, lifitng up head and pouting at her.

"Shut up, you weirdo," She shook her head smiling. "That didn't hurt." She kissed me and I smiled at her again. "And, this place is not a loony bin."

"Might as well be," I muttered. She sighed at me again.

"Come on," She said, shuffling a bit, making me roll off of her and onto my back. She leant over me slightly, placing one hand either side of my shoulders and smiling at me. She leant down and brushed her lips against mine lightly. She pulled away and I pouted at her. She crushed her lips to mine, full of passion and I greatfully reciprocated. I felt her tongue flick against my bottom lip and I allowed her access, which she took advantage of instantly. We stayed that way for a few minutes, tongues battling against each other furiously, only breaking to breathe when she pulled away from me. "Come on, let's go downstairs."

"Do we have to?" I moaned, not letting her go. She nodded. "Why?"

"To be sociable." She stated simply and I groaned. She stood up quickly and pulled my up gently, not wanting to cause further damage to my side. "Stop moaning, come on."

We walked back down to the recreation room to find most people in there, having broken from lunch. Michael and Claire were sat on the sofa talking, so Bella and I went and sat on the only unoccupied sofa, curling up and snuggling into each other.

We watched everyone around us for a little while, before Bella sat up, claiming she needed the bathroom. She gave me a quick kiss on the forehead, and tried to get up. She protested a little when I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back, but quickly stopped when I gave her a kiss on the lips. She pulled back with a silly grin on her face. I knew that I was probably wearing one of my own, but I didn't care. I loved Bella, and I wanted the world to know it. Thankfully it was Jude on duty at this point, because otherwise we probably would have gotten in trouble for that small PDA. All Jude did was give me a small knowing smile. I managed to give her a small grin back.

Just then, a small figure entered the room, cautiously. It was the new girl. She wasn't that tall, possible a few inches taller than Bella, making her about 5'6" to 5'7" next to Bella's 5'4". She had long blonde hair that fell to just above her waist. I couldn't see her eyes at this point because she was looking at everyone in the room, surveying her surroundings with a glum expression.

Suddenly she looked at me and her glum expression disappeared, being replaced by a wide grin. There was something else in the grin that she gave me. Something I didn't quite recognise.

She walked over to me, slowly and sat down next to me, seeming to evaluate every inch of me.

"Hi," She said. She voice was high, sugary and nothing like the beautiful tones of my Bella. "I'm Tanya."

Sorry to leave it there, but it felt right to leaving it :D
I wanted there to be a little intense moment between Bella and Edward, but know this, there will be no lemony stuff in this story. Edward's mental state is too fragile for that and Bella knows this, so kissing is as far as they will go.
Tell me what you thought :D
Review review please. You know how I love them.
Ciao!! xx