Author's note: Wow, how many years has it been since I've been on fanfiction? I was a teenager when I wrote "My Fiance, My Mistress and Me". I've continued to see so many reads, likes and comments it STILL is getting and I love you all for that. However, you are now being introduced to my adult fiction brain. She's been begging to show and I am so excited to finally share. I also am posting this story on Wattpad under the same name "The Magic of Us". My name is the same same sincerelyalh or Arin790. The characters ARE different but I wanted to see how I could turn this into my own version of Twilight again. Let me know what you think of Chapter 1!
Disclaimer: Trigger Warning! Strong language, mental health subjects, addiction, drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, sexual content.
At every occasion, I'll be ready for the funeral
At every occasion once more, it's called the funeral
At every occasion, oh, I'm ready for the funeral
At every occasion, oh, one billion day funeral
The Funeral - Band of Horses
...
I hate the way I look in this dress. Well, I hate the way I look in everything, but this dress is added to the list of them.
The dress is cute, I will say, but as I move my hips side to side, I hate the puffiness that makes it shorter than it needs to be. It shows my too bony knees and cankles from the long plane ride here and the flabby, loose skin on the back of my arms. My make-up doesn't hide the red swollen eyes and dark bags under them. The dry shampoo won't make my curly, frizz ball of hair settle in one decent place. The expensive pearls I wear can't hide my ears that are too big for my face or my hideous neckline that could be slimmer. And my boobs are big enough for-
"Stop!" My Angel subconscious tells me. My devil snickers and goes back into hiding, but she doesn't feel undefeated.
I don't hate myself. I hate having to wear this dress here.
Here.
And an occasion, for lack of better words, a funeral.
Of the man that gave me life and showed me how to damage something good to the point of no return. How you could break a woman so far down that she is nothing but a heartless bitch who wished for this day because of how he wrecked him.
He wasn't always bad. Charlie, my dad, and I enjoyed my time in Forks, Washington with the peace and quiet versus my time with Renee, my mom, in Florida. Tampa was different with too many snobs with designer bags and foreign cars. Forks was calm, almost felt like home. My freshman year, it was home.
I had friends here. People I connected with but it was ruined. Because like most places, it is tainted by the pain and demons as well as the profit of the higher ups.
Higher ups lie and tell you they ultimately want the best for you but when you ask for help, it's nowhere to be found. That high calls back faster than any help ever did for Charlie, a retired police officer with post traumatic stress disorder with addiction like no other.
I'm not deflecting the blame. Charlie was a piece of shit for wanting to be high over a quality family for his only daughter.
I asked for brothers, sisters and puppies. Not a drug addict father.
A drug addict father whose body I laid to rest today with his close friends who couldn't help him either. Did they try? Or did they feed the shit through his veins for him? I bet they didn't even lay his head down gently when he slumped over and died on their floor.
When I was younger, I knew one day soon my mom would sit me down and tell me that Charlie is dead. I was only in middle school but I was not stupid. I did my research on heroin.
What it looked like, what it did, the signs that someone is using it, the needles, the veins.
I knew.
Renee didn't realize I did until she received a call from my school counselor saying that when the teacher asked each of the students to share a fun fact about them, I decided that mine would be that my dad is a heroin addict because when he got into an accident after a speed chase he became addicted to oxycodone first but it became too expensive and to the streets he turned for something more deadly but less expensive. I also mention that this is why my mom packed the two of us up and left for Florida.
For a better life, a more lavish life. Here she had friends who told her everything she wanted to hear. She had a career that saved lives with rewards to prove it. Multiple breakthroughs on therapies and treatments. Research grants and a thriving program. She had her dream and made it happen. I don't blame her, she became good at what she does now. She studied and worked her ass off to get where she is.
Late call nights. Twenty four hour shifts. Patients lost. Patience lost with me. Because I rebelled.
She made enough money for me to go to the all girls school, with uniforms and catty bitches that came from money and will never work a day in their lives because their boyfriends were trust fund babies too. She hired a tutor for me to get in my fifth grade year. She may have paid a little more but she wanted what was best for me.
But the best ended up being fights, parties and hooking up with the school from the campus over. She paid too much for me to behave that way, but I was attention seeking... I was seeking attention from her.
But when I was expelled from the private school for slamming a girl's face into a mirror in eighth grade, she had it. And so did the school apparently. I wasn't invited back to reapply later. And because there was nothing else she felt like she could do, I was sent to live with Charlie.
He was clean and had rehab coping mechanisms at that time. Maybe they could help me with my pent up anger and need for approval from anyone to fill my shattered ego.
I didn't fight the move. I loved the fact that I was going to be with my dad for a while, in a real high school with relatable people. The parties weren't as good but the boys were cute, tan and built like they were born to be athletic on the reservation. The girls weren't as catty, there was drama, but no fighting.
Leah was the best and for her I would have fought for. She's a spit fire and had a mouth that got her into and out of trouble. She didn't care, much like her vibrant smile and crazy personality, she was out there and loved the attention she received.
I have plans to see her when all of this is over. I've missed her.
I haven't been here since my mom told my dad she was ready for me to come back. My dad had been itching for his drug of choice, but he wouldn't while I was there. He drank a lot. I would come home from my own underage delinquency to make sure he was comfortable and not going to keel over.
And when Renee found out she nearly dragged me back to Florida, ready or not. Rose did one of her random visits like she secretly agreed to do with my mom. It was the least an Aunt could do to make sure her only niece was okay.
Again, I didn't fight. The beginning of Charlie's spiral was out of my control and there wasn't much I could do as a fifteen year old girl. His sister made that clear to me.
Things were different. I was homeschooled. There were cameras around the house too big for a doctor who was never there and her angry teenage daughter. I couldn't open a door or window without an alarm chiming and notifying my mom on her personal and work phones. If I did go out, it was to the store for fifteen minutes, timed closely or she would send the police. She made sure she made friends with the store workers so they would keep an eye on me. I had a phone but no friends, only the people I used to hang out with but I couldn't see them without them knowing. Their rich parents would tattle at the country club to make my mom aware that no matter how successful she is, she has still raised a fuck up.
My grades, my chores, my timed errands, my future, and my body.
But that was when the attention I had longed for finally started. She was on me about everything. The only freedom I had was my three part-time jobs. A waitress, front desk associate, and a kids counselor at summer camps.
The summer camps were my favorite. The kids were so innocent. They saw the world as pure and I loved to be a part of that.
But when it was over, I came back to what was supposed to be home that was empty. And when it wasn't empty, it was full of criticism and body shaming.
"You don't want to end up disproportionate like your father." She once said as she pushed an all green salad in front of me.
I wasn't large by any means but I was a double zero or extra small either. I had hips much like my mother even though she says I get those from my dad's side of the family. My small bust and long legs came from her. As did my brown eyes, frizzy brown hair she made me tame daily with a flat iron and pale skin she bought multiple skin care products for me to use for. My nose was small, my lips full and my eyes asymmetrical. My eyebrows too bushy, my ears too large and my forehead-
"Stop!" Angel yells again.
Thank goodness for her. When I wouldn't eat or work out to death, she was there. Picking my chin up and wiping my eyes as I looked at myself in the mirror or the stupid numbers on the scale.
I wasn't fat, but in Renee's eyes I was. I was far from perfect and she would break me down, much like Charlie did to her. She would then build me up to be just like her. Hard, cold and perfect.
"Bella," Rose's voice pulls me back to reality. I continue to look at myself and decide to wear leggings with my black stiletto heel boots. I can't forget my cardigan, it's October and the Forks, Washington weather is unpredictable and unbearable when it's cold. "You ready?"
Rose is my Aunt, my dad's sister. She's all the family he had left while she still has their parents and children of her own. She lives on the outskirts of Seattle. Busy and high end just like she likes, but not soft and sweet like she is.
She removed herself from Charlie when he threatened her for money in front of her kids. I was there. It was the beginning of the spiral that caused my dad to relapse. But she still loves him and that's why she's here. I couldn't pay for this without her.
I take one last look at myself in the mirror. My Angel winks at me and disappears. I nod to Rose and follow her out of my old bedroom.
She stops me before we can walk down the stairs. "I need to tell you something before we go down there." She bites her lip and rocks on her heels making me anxious.
"Rose, what?" I ask after a few seconds.
"He, uh..." She mumbles and pauses.
And I look towards the stairs hoping no one is staring at our odd encounter. But I see the He that she's referring to before I can even ask her what she's trying to say again.
Him.
He's grown up. He looks strong as he fills his collared black shirt in almost making it look too small. He has the sleeves rolled up exposing his tattooed inked skin. His watch blings in the sunlight and I can't tell if it was just me. His black jeans fit perfectly with the black boots that he always liked to wear. His sunglasses sit on the top of his dark almost red, brown hair and I wonder why he would want to hide his perfect emerald green eyes.
His eyes find me at the same time Rose says "Edward is here."
"Yes he is." My Devil peaks out, lowering her sunglasses.
...
Author's note: How'd I do many years later? Leave a review! There are so many places I have planned for this story to go. Chapter 2 coming soon 3