Dear reader.

Please forgive me for what's about to happen.

TW: swearing

Chapter 11: Eruption

A week went by without any news from Volterra, and Bella started to wonder if that midnight phone called hadn't been a dream after all. School was a distraction, as she was once again the new girl, but between meditating, drawing and journaling, she could hardly think of anything else than the fact that it was very probable that she had invented a childhood where vampires were her family, where her father didn't know about it and where her mother couldn't care less. She wondered what Susan would make of that.

She tried to carefully discussed the subject with Renee, with innocent questions about her college days.

"You know Bella," she said staring at the ceiling while stretching her back with a yoga ball, "after I left Charlie, I was a bit lost and clearly depressed, and my mother had the tough love clarity of telling me she would only take me back if I accepted to go back to school." Renée gave her a heavy look before resuming her stretching "So I tried to...you know, find myself and major in creative writing at first, but...well it didn't work out so much. I tried majoring in art studies then and eventually in teaching...I can't believe that it took me actually six years to graduate. You would spend most of your time with your grandmother and she loved you to death."

"I thought you didn't get along with Grandma." Bella said, not mentioning the fact that she had no memories of actually living with her grandmother. It seemed to be nothing more than a story she had been told and had made fake memories for, but never truly believed, even before she remembered Volterra.

"I didn't, you're right. But what could I do? I had to study, and you needed a babysitter."

"Hmm, so you didn't have your own place before moving to Phoenix?" Bella said on her mat, trying to touch her ankles. She clearly remembered seeing her mother handing boxes and point to furniture's as the movers carried a sofa down a flight of stairs.

Renée's slowed her movement a bit and frowned slightly at the ceiling, trying to remember something.

"No... I was at my mother's place... I…" she trailed off. "You know what, this was all a long time ago, and my head was in constant haze between the Xanax and the studying. But I don't see how I could have managed having my own place, not with you. I couldn't afford a full-time babysitter on top of rent and groceries."

After a moment in which Bella wondered if the same thing that has altered her memory has also worked its ways on her mother, she had the ominous feeling that her mother had...sold her to Dolores. Let her have her in exchange for a way to not have to stay at her estranged mother's house, following her rules. She wondered, how long it took her to realize she would never make it to graduation living at Mary Higginbotham's place? Months? A year maybe?

Did that mean that she had been living in Volterra since she was a baby, only coming back during the summer break for a month of vacation with her mother and another with her father? Bella suddenly stood up.

"I think I'm going to be sick." She stumbled out of the yoga room with a hand on her lips. and went to lock herself in the bathroom.

A minute later, she heard knocking in between retching. "Bella? Honey are you okay?"

"I'm okay" she managed to mumble, her heart still burning and her stomach threatening to turn again. She remained hunched over the toilet bowl.

"You know, I've seen the menu you've pinned on the wall in the yoga room" Yoga room. Not her room, but yoga room. As it had remained so, every morning from five to seven and every night from nine to ten. "Your doctor may be a good therapist, but when it comes to nutrition you should really follow what my coach Kylie told me. You could really benefit from going vegan. And stop taking those supplements, you really don't know what Big Pharma put in those." she really continued her speech as if she couldn't hear Bella vomiting on the other side of the door "gluten, milk, eggs, and chemicals, that's what's making you sick darling."

Bella legs stood with sheer audacity and she nearly fell on the door handle.

"You know what's making me sick, Mom" Bella said in a low voice that seemed to come from the very same place her nausea was shaking her "Right now in this exact moment?" she rested her head on the door and glared at it as if her eyes could pierce the wood. "You."

Silence.

"Your selfishness, your immaturity, and worst of all, your hypocrisy."

The calmness of her voice contrasted incredibly with the adrenaline that made her tremble from head to toes. It was as if the cold abyss in her chest had been given a mic, and that it had unfolded a monologue prepared throughout the years and was reading it carefully, like in a New York coffee shop poetry night.

"You heard me, I think you're a hypocrite, Renée. You're here, pretending you've discovered mindfulness, slow-life and spirituality, and maybe this helps you mom, maybe Kylie from your online yoga class helps you sleep at night, but you and I we know the truth. We know that you didn't give shit about anyone but yourself and that's why you left Charlie, and that's why you took forever to graduate to "find yourself" while you had a kid who needed you, and how convenient that you only graduated when I was old enough to take the bus to school! You barely cooked for me, never helped me with my homework, never been a shoulder to cry on, never help me through anything!"

"Bella you're so unfair! How can you say something like that to me?" Renée said in a choked-up voice. She was crying, of course she was.

"Oh my god but will you HEAR YOURSELF?" Bella said, her cold voice taking more volume, her body perfectly still now. Somehow this was helping. She hardly felt any nausea anymore "It is always about you, isn't it? Everything in this relationship had been always about YOU, and how I made YOU feel, and how your selfish, self-centered behavior was always justified!" Was she still talking to her mother? "I did everything for you! I cooked, I cleaned, and I listened. God, I listened. If you were happy, we both had to celebrate, if you were sad, we both had to mourn. How about how I felt? When did that ever matter to you? I was the one helping you, I was the one taking care of you when you were sick, I was the one to hear you talk about the men you'd date. I would stay for you, and I would leave for you. I moved to Forks for you." This is your fault. the abyss condemned Somehow this is all your fault

"You left to stay with Charlie!" Renée answered, her voice pained and... vexed?

Bella laughed a dry, foreign cold laugh "You tell yourself that Renée" How could she actually believe she'd willingly go to that cloudy, wet, green… "Careful Bella" Edward's voice threatened "Oh for fuck's sake!" she grabbed her hair "If you hadn't taught me to never speak up, never exist; always please others, always fucking sacrifice everything I feel, like it's my sacred duty in this mortal existence I would have never, never, NEVER!"

She couldn't go on, and as her throat sealed shut and her chest contracted, her palm hit the door as hard she could. Once. Twice. Three time. Until the abyss calmed down and her breathing was even.

"I can't deal with you when you're like this Bella." Renée said in a sad puppy voice between sniffles.

"And when is that?" Bella answered, her voice barely more than a whisper "It's the first time I speak my mind."

"I can't believe you'd actually think that...this isn't like you."

"How would you know"

"Maybe this was a mistake. You coming back." This statement sent a shiver in her bones. "You're eighteen now. Perhaps it's best if…"

Renée stopped, interrupted by Bella's low humorless chuckles.

"Don't worry mom...Something tells me I won't stay long anyway."

Dear reader

This had to be done.

Give me your honest opinion.

Oh and, just a reminder: I really have nothing against yoga or gluten free veganism. Really, eat and practice what you want. It's just my opinion that Renee is a narcissist who lead the way for future abusers like Edwards to just take advantage of her daughter (all with the best of intentions, of course – Hell is paved with those)

See you tomorrow for this week's last update