I don't own Twilight. The rest? Mine.

21.

Bella's POV

Alice brushes a tear away from my cheek with her finger, placing a kiss there instead. She ties a ribbon in my hair pulling half of it back. I touch it softly as she pulls away, running my hand over the silky curls.

"Charlie's coming to see you, he'll be here in a minute or two."

I stare away from her and out the window at the huge bug snapping his pincers at me menacingly.

"Bella?"

"I know you don't remember much, but I was sort of hoping...I mean, do you remember anything about the place your parents put you in?"

Suddenly she's sitting in front of me, my hand in hers. "I'm starting to recall things every now and then."

Swallowing, I look away from the big beetle behind the window and back to her. "Did they ever try electro-shock therapy on you?"

"It hadn't been invented when I was human, why do you ask?"

"There was a man in the hospital that I got to know...his wife...she received it for treatment when she was there."

"I see..." Alice replies softly. "You're wondering what kind of treatment besides medication you could receive?"

"No-"

"Just so you know, Carlisle would never put you through that. I'm pretty sure he would change you himself before he did something like that."

"Ila - that was her name, she died from it."

We both fall silent and hear Esme greet Charlie at the door.

I can't help but ask, "Do you still see me as a vampire?"

"I can't answer that."

"What do you mean?"

"Bella, we all have a destiny. I could tell you that the future is what you make it - and I suppose to a degree that's true. But I think sometimes, you have to stumble across fate before you realize this completely. It's sort of like wandering around in the dark. If you take your time to look for her, she'll meet you half way."

"I-"

"Trust me on this. I met mine in a cafe in 1948. I was looking for him, but Jazz, he just knew he was looking for something, or someone."

I think back to that day we sat on the bench in front of the bookstore.

"She took my hand and everything just..."

"Lined up."

"Yeah."

There's a loud knock at the door and Alice hops down from the bed, darting over to it. When it opens I find myself gazing into two exhausted, stained eyes. The brown is dull, faded out as though he can barely see through them anymore.

Alice steps forward, patting him on the shoulder before she exits the room.

My insides are crawling, squeamish. The room shrinks; it's like some episode of The Twilight Zone and that haunting, suspenseful music is slowly drawing out like a curtain to reveal the corpse or the man fiddling with the gadgets behind it.

Charlie's eyes move gradually from the floor to my face and when mine meet with them I can spell, feel, and see every crack, every memory pouring out his guilt and heartbreak. My feet touch the floor and I stand, leaning down to tie my shoes.

He coughs quietly, "Hey Bells."

My jaw stays tightly shut.

"I uh, I brought your fishing gear," he says.

Simply nodding, I get up from the bed and march out of the room, not even glancing as I pass Charlie.

When I look at photographs of water I can see waves of blue with a tiny splash of green here and there. So sitting here in a boat with my dad in the middle of a small lake outside of Forks, I'm surprised at all the real colors reflecting off the surface. There are silvers, grays, blues, greens from seaweed floating atop the ripples and the sun's bright rays - causing whites, gold and reds to scorch everything around us in luminous crystal.

I reel in my line, pulling up the end of the pole to see if I was imagining the gentle tug two seconds ago or not. Apparently, I was. Sighing, I release it back into the murky depths below. Charlie hasn't said a word, instead decidedly focused on attaching the next worm. He of course, has already caught four fish.

Figures.

I glance out at the trees, one hand resting my chin in its palm. Finally, the ice breaks between us.

"Do you remember when you were little and Jacob Black and his dad came out here with us?"

"Weren't there lots of times like that?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, there were. I can remember this one specific time though. right after you first met Jacob...you were sitting in the sand making mud-pies."

A thought strikes. "Jake told me something about that when they came to drop off the truck."

Charlie chuckles. "Yeah well, we used to keep the bucket of fish over next to you two. The time I'm thinking of, Jacob threw a chunk of dirt in your face."

My eyes widen. "Why? I didn't do anything to him, did I?"

He laughs harder, "No. At first, I thought I needed to interfere but Billy held me back, telling me to see what happened. 'Kids sometimes settle things themselves' or something like that. Next thing we knew, you crawled over to the bucket and grabbed one of the fish, then crawled back over to Jacob and started smacking him across the face with it."

"I did?" Suddenly a weight lifts off me and I burst into laughter along with Charlie.

"The funniest damn part of the whole deal was the poor kid wasn't even hurt but he cried anyway. The fish must've been slimy." His fishing pole bounces on the edge of the boat. "You were always one hell of a kid, Bells."

The bubbling cackle dies short in my throat, and instead air catches when I take a long breath. I notice that the boat is still shaking and when I look over to Charlie, my heart is lost. For possibly the first time I have ever seen, he's sobbing into his palm.

"And I failed you as a father."

I used to think that I would revel in the sight of my dad's pain, but as I gaze at him, I'm merely at a loss. I just can't bring him any more guilt and pain with this...my insides fill with a drowning ache. Making my way over to the end of the boat, I start the motor and we head back toward land.

Every single one of them fixed their eyes on me the moment we walked into the diner.

I should have known it would come to this; being stared at by all the old men who drink beer quietly in the corner and the kids from high school, curiously examining me with their eyes. This time, I'm not the shiny new toy.

I'm the one that went completely haywire and exploded.

Sighing, Charlie glances up at them as we sit. He drinks his R&R across from me and shoves a piece of steak in his mouth. His eyes widen and he coughs obviously as a high, fake voice practically squeals in my right ear. I flinch.

"Hi Bella!"

How nice, it's Lauren Mallory. Internally rolling my eyes, I turn in my seat just a tad and give her a smile. "It's great to see you, Lauren." Great isn't over doing it, I suppose. I could have used any number of other deceiving nouns in the English language. Or...not so deceiving. Words like disheartening, uncomfortable, downright suffocating...

Great will do.

She moves her long hair over her shoulder, silently flipping off the world. "Hey, so the Cullens are back in town."

"Um, yeah. I knew that already."

"Oh?" Her smile falters a bit, "so are you and Edward..."

"No."

"Oh! Well, maybe he's looking for someone more...carefree." She giggles and the sound makes me clench my fork tightly, smiling at her as I try to plunge it into my food. I miss, accidently ramming the prongs into Lauren's lower index finger.

"Son of a-"

"Ladies, not to interrupt your fascinating discussion but Lauren, you're driving without a headlight." He nods out the window.

"Um,..yeah see -"

"Come on, license and registration please."

They leave and when the waitress comes over to ask how my sandwich is, I reply with a grin. "It's so good."

We leave the diner after a few minutes of Charlie embarrassing Lauren in front of her friends and drive back to the Cullens in silence. When he pulls into the driveway, I can't quite bring myself to open the door. Too many things linger...the traces of humor from the day instantly gone.

"I... I screwed up, Bells."

"Dad when I pulled away from you...well, I'm not good at asking for help. I just - I wanted so badly for you to listen to me, for anyone to listen to me."

He sighs. "And I didn't, not really."

"You were just - look, you and I are more alike than I give credit. Mom could read everyone so easily but I guess when it came to you, I wanted to feel like I was doing you a favor."

"Doing me a favor? Bella, I'm -"

"It doesn't make sense now that I think about it. But at the time, I had the idea that if I could just shield you from all of my problems then I could protect you in some way. You wouldn't have had to deal with the same things that you had to deal with when you were taking care of Grandma and Grandpa."

"Bella, that doesn't change the fact that I'm your father, I'm always going to want to know...you never should have had to keep all that in."

"Then why didn't you ask, why didn't you push at me harder?"

Softly, he replies, "I didn't know how to help. When your mom left I thought it was for the best, if I couldn't make her happy then I couldn't make you happy," he pauses, "but this was about so much more than happiness. I let my own fears drive me to put you in that place - it was about getting you help...the right medication, everything. But it was also me being a bad father."

"I already lost Mom, I don't wanna lose you too," I say, a tear falling down my cheek. Getting out of the cruiser, I start to march up the steps of the Cullen house because I can't take this. A car door suddenly slams from behind me and Charlie calls out, "I know it's asking a lot but...would you...like to come back to the house?"

Freezing, I turn. "What?"

"You don't have to - I thought maybe you might...I mean I suppose you may want-"

Walking back to him, I let the fresh tears fall. "Sometimes, all a girl wants is her Dad."

He steps in front of the cruiser and I fall forward, into his chest. "You'll never lose me, sweetheart. You may have to knock me upside the head every now and then, but you'll never lose me."

Usually, Charlie doesn't hover. For once, I'm glad he does.