The Painter

Twenty Six

"Whatever you are, be a good one." ~ Abraham Lincoln

~O~

"What do you mean my man?" Bella asked as she got into Alice's car. The fresh air filled her lungs with each deep inhale and she tried to push all the negative feelings out with the exhale.

"Just what I said," Alice smirked.

Bella glared at her friend. Of course she noticed that Alice never went out and said anything that didn't need or warrant further explanation but how hard could it be to be blunt.

"Edward said he was my man or are you saying this? Because we had one date and that hardly consists of declaring possession of someone."

Alice giggled. "You're so weird, Bella, but in a good way."

Bella's lips pursed as she turned to look out the window. The trees were an instant blur as her eyes burned and her chest tightened.

Her mind instantly started it reaming.

She should be used to hearing such things- that people always thought she's weird, odd, unusual… but it still hurt.

"Something is a bit off with that girl! She just sits there cross legged and stares at the trees."

It's something she's been called her entire life but even if it was said as an afterthought, 'it's in a good way'; it never really was.

"Are you a boy or a girl?" The little red headed girl asked sitting on the swings on the playground.

Emily was in Bella's class and knew full well that Bella wasn't a boy. But Bella stood there confused as she looked at the girl trying to understand what she was talking about.

"What?" Biting her lip, Bella shuffled from one leg to the other trying to decide if she should sit on the swings or play somewhere else on the playground. Thinking that Emily must be talking to someone else, Bella looked around her but no one was there that she could be referring to other than her.

Emily narrowed her eyes, looking at Bella with irritation, her glaring eyes drifted from her head down to her toes with scrutiny.

It was then that Bella realized how she must have looked to the girl. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and it was tucked under the back of her shirt. She wore a baseball cap over the rest of her hair since she wasn't allowed to cut it.

"Are you a boy or a girl?" The girl drawled out in a coarse voice.

"I am a girl." Bella said shyly, wondering how it was even possible for someone to not know she was a girl. She knew she didn't look like the other girls but she didn't look like a boy either.

"You don't look like a girl. You look weird." Emily puckered her face as if she was disgusted.

Looking down, Bella saw her scruffy white shoes with no laces since the laces hurt her fingers when she touched them. Her pants were baggy and soft, just as she liked them. Not too binding to where it would rub on her skin. Her shirt was a plain tee her that her dad had given her and the baseball cap was a gift from the game he took her to during her last visit.

She had treasured the cap but now she hated it.

Tears brimmed Bella's eyes as she fidgeted.

"I'm not allowed to play with the boys and you're a tomboy," the girl glared at her. "You can go play with the boys since you want to be a boy." The girl huffed with exasperation before taunting, "Bella's a boy! Bella's a boy!"

Bella walked as far away from the other kids as she could. Moving over the grass, quickly, the bitter smell irritated her nose as the warm afternoon sun bit at her cheeks. She sat down, ignoring the way the grass felt like hundreds of ants under her clothes and let the tears fall.

"Oh, Bella, I am sorry." Alice sighed. "I didn't mean that you're weird, weird. I forget how emotional humans can be sometimes and I'm usually the odd one, the weird one, and I am so used to it. I didn't think saying that would affect you so much."

"I'm overly sensitive, I guess." Bella shrugged as tears threatened to betray her by falling. She stared out the window more intently.

"No, you are perfectly sensitive as you are and I hurt your feelings. I am sorry."

Bella gave a curt nod. She knew she was overly sensitive and not just emotionally, but also with textiles, touch, sound, and movement. That's not even counting the anxiety. She was a mess growing up and maybe sometimes still but she knew she was always evolving and getting better.

Or so she hoped.

After all, she was sitting in a car with a friend and going to the house of the guy she went on a date with… that had to count for something.

"To answer your question from before" Alice said softly, "we're just going to our house, that's all. It'll be just me you and Edward until dinner."

"Thank you," Bella exhaled the tension she held within her chest.

"I am sorry, though, Bella. I will try to pay more attention to your wants rather than mine. It's just that there is little that surprises me anymore and I may be living vicariously through you a bit and that was totally not fair to you."

"I don't like surprises. I don't like the unknown."

"Good to know." Alice smirked as she pulled her car off the street and into the long drive. "Although, coming from someone who's almost all knowing, I think you will soon be surprised on how unknown your life really is and how much more unknown it will become."

"There you go again, speaking in tongues." Bella huffed as Alice parked.

Alice giggled as she got out of the car and moved toward the trunk to pull out Bella's overnight bag.

"Here we go! Into the future and the end of the world as you know it. But I feel fine." She grinned.

"Funny." Bella smiled, shaking her head, but was suddenly very nervous as she took in the large Cullen house made with glass and wood.

But then her eyes drifted to the guy leaning on the door jamb, arms crossed over his indigo clothed chest and smirking. His hair fell over his dark, piercing eyes watched her every step coming straight to him.

Edward, the one Alice said was hers, was waiting for her.

…

Edward glared at Alice as she flitted past him and into the house singing Gotye's: Someone I Used to Know, badly.

But Bella was unaware as she looked up at him with a small shy smile. She made her way up the few porch stairs, feeling like her body was a live wire charged with such acute energy that she may explode any moment. It was intense but pleasing.

She barely noticed that it was so quiet there. Eerily quiet. She looked around and couldn't see any signs of life other than the surrounding grasses and trees. There were no squirrels gathering nuts. No birds chirping. There wasn't even a fly anywhere close.

"It's so quiet here," Bella mused. Her eyes locked on his for a moment before drifting down to her lips. Her blush flooded her face as she remembered his kiss.

"How was school?" Edward asked his voice low and considerate. It soothed her frayed nerves and she suddenly felt like folding herself into him. He took in her sweet scent as he wrapped his arms protectively around her.

"The same as always," She smiled with a shrug, pulling him closer.

They stayed that way for several moments before Edward leaned in to give her a soft kiss.

"I missed you," Holding her more tightly, Bella could only smile.

Alice cleared her throat; her eyes darting between the two of them. Edward reluctantly released Bella and then led her in through the door. After closing the door after him, he reached forward and gestured for her bag, which she easily gave to him.

"Anyone a problem today?" He asked warily as concerned laced his featured. He could smell the faint salt of fresh tears.

Bella just continued to smile, but Edward noticed it didn't reach her eyes and there seemed to be the faint crystalline path of salt over her cheeks. Bella had been crying. Edward's eyes darted to Alice instantly.

"I know! She's been crying and I knew that you would see that! I apologized to her, I promise! I'm still learning about her, too, you know."

"What happened?" He asked too low for Bella to hear, but before Alice said a word the pictures of Alice driving and seeing Bella shut down in the front seat of the car, lost in her memories. He could see her tears fell unhindered.

Edward gave a low growl.

"I forget she's so sensitive and I accidently called her weird." Alice said in her mind, quickly. "It triggered a memory, I think, but it's like walking a mine field trying to figure what to say to her and how to say it and how much to say! Just tell her already so I can go on to find Jasper to help me feel better." She whined, eyes sad and beseeching.

"You're doing that wordless talking thing like Carlisle and Esme did in the car." Bella huffed. She totally caught Alice and Edward off guard. They both turned to Bella at the same time with shock.

"We are doing exactly that." Alice nodded.

"Well, stop it and tell me why you wanted me here."

"Let's go sit." Alice smiled and moved toward the living room, followed by Bella and then Edward. She sat on the sofa chair and Edward sat on the loveseat next to Bella.

Somehow he had a cola in his hand that wasn't there before. He opened it and quickly handed it to her in a way that made her take a sip.

Appeased, Edward took the soda and put it on the glass side table. Before taking a seat next to her.

"There's no easy way to say this and we shouldn't say anything at all, but we feel as if we have to," Edward blurted out. "Just… try to hear us out?"

Bella was having a hard time keeping up but nodded anyway.

"Where should I start?" He looked to Alice, trying to read her mind, but she was blank.

"Let's start with Carlisle and go from there."

Edward nodded his agreement and he took a moment to recall all of Carlisle's stories of when he was first changed. "When my father was growing up, his was active in the church. But during that time there was a large fear of things that went bump in the night. His father had an irrational fear of vampires and other… things."

Bella gasped, but Edward continued, looking down to the coffee table absently.

"He was a rigidly religious man, Carlisle's father, and he made it his mission to destroy what he deemed evil and make it as uninhabitable as they possibly could. His father set off to burn anyone or anything they could that they thought was of concern. Whole cities and its inhabitants were destroyed under his command. People were fleeing left and right in the chaos. No one was safe."

"That's awful."

Edward agreed. "Under the streets there were tunnels and people fled to the tunnels to hide from these fear based mobs. If you were not with them, you were against them and mob mentality made the situation worse. My father fell into one of these tunnels and found himself unable to get out. He felt a sharp burning pain and thought that he had cut himself on something. He soon fainted from the intense pain. He woke up after a harsh fever, late at night and a burning in his chest."

"What happened to him?"

"He didn't know then, but he was bitten that night by a vampire."

Bella's sharp intake was the only audible sound for several moments.

"We're vampires, Bella." Alice said softly. "None of us by choice, really, not even Edward who was born part vampire."

She shook her head, eyes narrowed as she took in the two beings before her.

They were stunningly beautiful, but never did they try to harm her. Never did they try to feed off of her.

"I don't understand." Bella said and Edward looked to Alice.

"I was born in the early 1900's, Bella. I was born in Mississippi and as a child I showed signs of the gift of sight. My parents eventually had me committed to a Psychiatric hospital where I was bit by a vampire. Jasper was changed in the 1860's and so on…"

Bella was shaking her head in either awe or disbelief.

"Edward?"

.

A/N I'm going to stop here… Thank you for reading and your kind reviews!