Disclaimer: I own nothing. Inspired by TS' It's Nice To Have A Friend, but I took some creative liberties.
One Shot, but it is a full story!
I was that kid. The kid who wore that one shirt too often. The one who's clothes were worn and either dirty or stained. The one whose hair was brushed they didn't have a parent to help.
In the small inconsequential town of Forks, that kid was me. And everyone knew it.
My mother was a flighty person, who spent too much time nursing a bottle than taking care of her kid. And that was when she was even home, which was rare.
And my dad, he was a cop constantly working trying to keep a roof over our head, but that was pretty hard considering he was paying for my mother's drinking habit too.
He was the guy that took my mother back no matter what, no infraction big or small kept him from locking her out, he loved her too much. His fatal flaw was how much he loved my mother, he loved her so much that he couldn't tell her no. That he believed her when she told him that she would stop drinking, that she wouldn't cheat again, that she wouldn't take off again, or when she would tell him that she would sober up and we could be a family.
So for the most part, it was just me. And because I was that kid. Other parents steered their own kids away from me. Kind teachers made sure I ate that day, but no one made sure I was okay.
Charlie, my dad, did his best. When he wasn't working, he washed my clothes, tried to feed me. He tried to be a real dad, but there was rarely a time he was home. When Renee would take off, he would go after her to make sure she didn't end up face first in a ditch somewhere leaving me home alone a lot of the time. He worked around the clock to make up the hours from all the times he would take off to find her and bring her back home.
I was seven when he showed up.
At this point, I was pretty good at taking care of myself. I could run a brush through my hair, I could wash my clothes myself, and when there was food in the house, which was rare, I could feed myself. I learned to patch clothes since anyone rarely made sure I had clothes that fit properly, my shoes constantly had holes worn into them. I thought of how nice it would be to have a friend.
His copper hair and bright green eyes made me jealous, but not as jealous as when I saw his mom dropping him off.
The first two months of school, I watched from afar, how he and his sister were dropped off each day. How they wore different clothes each day, how their mom hugged them tightly before sending them to school for the day. I thought about how nice their mom looked. How she looked sober and reliable. She reminded me of the living version of Snow White.
That November was a cold one, that was when he spoke to me for the first time.
Everyone else was playing in the snow, while I sat on the stairs, I couldn't read my book either. I didn't have any gloves and my hands got too cold to keep them out of my coat pockets. It's why I liked the summertime better, I didn't have to worry about getting sick from the cold.
At recess, I noticed him looking at me. I kept my eyes down, other kids watched me too, but they made fun of me.
I was walking home, when I felt someone tap my shoulder. His face was a bright red from the cold, and he wore a big smile and it didn't waver once as I stopped. He introduced himself to me for the first time that day.
I shyly told him my name, and he offered to walk me home. I didn't say much as we walked home, I kept my eyes on the sidewalk chalk covered in snow. It wasn't a far walk but the cold made it feel like miles rather than blocks. I had to ignore the wet slush that made its way inside my shoe.
When he asked me why I didn't have gloves, I lied, "I lost them."
Without any hesitation, he took one of his off any handed it to me. As we made it to my house, I felt embarrassed at the dilapidated home, the overgrown weeds, and the lifelessness. But he didn't even seem to notice.
"Do you want to hang out after school tomorrow?" he asked.
"Sounds like fun."
I tried handing him back his glove, but he refused. Instead he tucked the other one in my hand, and walked away before I could say anything else.
It's nice to have a friend.
The next day, I met his sister as the three of us walked back to his home. I met his mom, she was nice too. She made us food. He showed me how to play some video games I had never heard of before.
We hung out almost every single day for the rest of the year. His mom was always trying to feed me, I think she knew what was going on at home. She brushed my hair for me, she snuck new clothes, that I felt bad accepting, and sometimes full meals into my backpack. I could tell she didn't judge me, she never asked me about it either.
When summer came, he showed me his tree house, and sometimes we would camp out in his backyard. I liked sleeping in tents. And when my birthday passed, they got me a cake and some presents.
In third grade, my mom got arrested for the first time. Disorderly conduct. I didn't talk for almost a week after that but he understood and he passed me notes in class instead. And the night that Charlie had to go get Renee out of jail, they took me in for the night. And for the first time, I understood for the first time what a real family looked like.
It's nice to have a friend.
When I was thirteen, all three of us were laying in our sleeping bags, they had gifted me one for my birthday two years ago, when I heard Renee's slurred speech calling for me. I had never felt more embarrassed than I had in that moment. Both him and his sister sat up and watched me leave the tent without another word to guide my mom home, but Esme beat me to it.
"Renee, it's late. Do you need a ride back home? I'd be more than happy-"
"No, I need her to come home now."
"It's late, Renee. I can have her back first thing-"
"She shouldn't be sleeping next to your son, they're too old for that. God knows what they'll end up doing," she slurred. My face was beet red as I watched this interaction, my bones felt like lead, I couldn't move while witnessing my own mother's behavior. I was pretty sure he had never thought about me like that before, I just hoped that things wouldn't be uncomfortable after this.
"Alice is with them too. I can assure nothing untoward is happening-"
"She's my daughter, not yours. I'll take her wherever I want," Renee drunkenly declared.
"I understand, but it is late, and it's a school night."
I finally found the courage to move again, and told Esme, "I should just go."
When within Renee's reach, she snatched my arm and started pulling me away. Without any warning, Esme took my other arm, much more gently pulling me back to her.
"No, you can pick her up in the morning. Sober," Esme emphasized, not letting go of my arm. I guess Renee didn't think this argument was worth the effort because she dropped my arm, and stumbled away.
I wasn't sure if it was seeing my mother act like that, seeing Esme respond to my mother like that, or just the shock of the altercation, but my breath became ragged and shallow as tears made their way down my face.
"I'm sorry," I whispered through my tears as Esme pulled me into a warm, motherly hug.
It's nice to have a friend.
When I was 16, Charlie was killed in the line of duty. The memory of that night was permanently branded into my brain. I was home alone when I heard the sirens pulling up to my house. At that point, it wasn't the first time Renee had been driven home by a police officer, so I automatically assumed that was what was happening. The two uniformed officers didn't stop at the backseat as they made their way up the driveway. I could feel my stomach twisting in knots.
I opened the door, and when they asked if I was home alone, I just nodded.
I only heard bits and pieces after that, "I'm so sorry..."
"Charlie... shot...gone wrong..."
"He didn't make it..."
"Is there anyone we could call?" I shook my head, still not saying anything.
I could feel my heartbeat thumping in my ears as the officers started walking away. I didn't have time to process the fact that I had just lost my father or anything else because Renee needed to be there to take care of everything and considering I wasn't eighteen yet, I couldn't do anything. I refused to think about how I had lost the one parent who loved me enough to actually try and be a parent.
I didn't even wait for the officers to pull away before I slammed the door behind me and ran to the only place I could think of.
Tears ran down my face as I ran faster than I had ever before. I was a sobbing, hyperventilating mess by the time I made it to the familiar white house. It was almost 1 in the morning, but I didn't know what else to do.
Carlisle opened the door only a couple minutes later.
"Bella?" he asked in shock.
"I'm sorry," I said in between the sobs and panting. In this moment, I wasn't a 16 year old who had been taking care of themselves their whole life, I was the seven year old who was all alone in this world. "I didn't know where else to go."
"Bella, take a few deep breaths," he said calmly. But my breathing never evened out.
"I need to find Renee. Charlie-" I choked out, slightly shaking my head.
"Bella, please calm down. What happened?" He asked calmly.
"I need to find her."
"Why don't you come inside, Bella? It's really late."
And for the first time, I refused to walk inside the house that had become my home. I tried to pull myself together enough to choke out what needed to be said. I took a single deep breath, "Charlie was shot." My breathing turned ragged again, "He's dead."
The tears were streaming down my face when Carlisle sucked in a breath at the news.
I could hear Esme making her way down the stairs as Carlisle's arms wrapped around me, squeezing me tightly in a way that comforted me, almost like he was holding all the pieces together for me.
"Carlisle," she called.
"Who is it?" she asked before reaching the door and seeing me standing there, "Bella?"
I think Carlisle knew I didn't have it in me to say it again because he told her everything. She cried with me, and I think for me, that night.
It took a day and a half to find Renee.
The day of Charlie's funeral, he held my hand for the first time.
It's nice to have a friend.
Renee wasn't a mean drunk, but when the booze was taken away, that's when there were issues. I avoided her for the most part, and she was happy to do the same. Some nights I sat up on the roof until she passed out or left to the nearest bar for the night.
Renee's drinking got worse when Charlie died, even with all of her problems, I think somewhere deep down she loved him too. Renee didn't like having to work to feed her habit, and she didn't like having to support me either. Charlie's pension covered the house, but not much else.
The gas got shut off in the middle of winter, and when I asked her about it, she smacked me, it was the first and last time. I couldn't go to school until the swelling went down. The first day I stayed home, he came to check on me. He didn't say anything about the bruise on my face, we just sat on the roof and played 20 questions instead. He held my hand again that night.
I got a job after that, while most of the money went to keeping the house going, I managed to save some for college.
We were sitting on the roof when we opened our admission letters, with the pink and orange sunset beaming down on us. We both got into our dream school. We would be going together. He called me 'babe' for the first time that day.
By the time we graduated high school, I had enough saved up for the first year. Scholarships covered the rest.
At 22, we both graduated from the same college, his whole family showed up. Renee didn't.
A year later, the church bells rang as we walked outside. The rice on the ground looked like snow, it reminded me of the day he gave me his gloves. He carried me across the threshold of our new home in a brand new city. We stayed in bed the whole weekend.
I liked that he felt like home.
"I love you, Edward," I said, looking into his green eyes. Even all these years later they looked as beautiful as the day I first saw him.
"I love you too, Bella."
It's nice to have a friend.
A/N: Thanks for reading. Please review. Still working on my other stories, but this story had been stuck in my head for days so here it is.