Chapter 10

"Come on Bella, you don't know if you don't try." Renee Dwyer scolded her 6-year-old self in a motherly tone staring down the pink tutu cladded girl who's hair was pinned back perfectly into a neat bun, unfortunately not a good reflection of her actual abilities as a dancer.

"But mommy I suck. All the other girls are way better than I am." Bella answered back with sad eyes, crocodile tears welling at the brim. Renee stared her daughter down before looking away with a defeated sigh, "Are you sure?" The kid nodded quickly, "Fine then, we can go."

Bella cheered giving her mother a toothy grin enthusiastic to leave and even more excited to get ice cream, double scoop. "I'm sorry I'm not a better dancer mommy."

She shook her head, "That okay honey. One day you'll find something you're meant to do, something that you love no matter what even if it's not always easy, and I'll love you no matter what."

She remembered the exact moment she told her mom she was leaving for Forks, leaving her for Charlie. She could pinpoint the crestfallen expression on her face at her only child moving away however Bella was certain that even behind her curtain of sadness that there was a small part of her happy at her decision; now she could leave to travel with her new husband without having to worry about her.

Bella loved her mother, sure their relationship was unconventional at times largely at part of her mothers free expressive spirit in contrast to Bella's much more reserved personality but that aside Bella didn't really have many people in her life she trusted, her mum however, her mum was always there for her. Of course she wanted her to be happy, even if it was at the expense of spending the next two years before college in a rainy town she hated with her dad who she hadn't properly seen in years.

Forks was cold, and wet. She hated cold.

And then she got there. Things with Charlie were awkward as expected but as a pleasant surprise to her their relationship got better over the course of time. Charlie was much more like her compared to her mother. It was no wonder that her parents marriage had crumbled apart; Renee was a caged bird desperate to soar and Charlie ate the same meal for dinner three times a week without falter.

And then in the midst of it all, the adjustments to a new school midway through the year, the weird relationship with her practically estranged farther and the friends she'd never expected she'd make, there was the Cullens. And they had flipped her world off its axis.

Moving to Forks she had expected pulling herself through the next two years caring little about the drab town population 3000 where everyone seemed to know everybody; what she hadn't expected was to fall in love with a Vampire.

She hadn't expected herself to fall in love generally, the Vampire part just made it even more unexpected.

Edward Cullen was a mystery. He was gorgeous in every sense of the word he could give a Greek god a run for his money, super intense, mysterious and above all else just so alluring. She had found herself thinking about him more than she had been willing to admit, he was like a magnet to her mind, a colliding train that she couldn't find herself looking away from.

She thought of him saving her in Port Angeles.

Finding out what he was, not caring.

Going to their meadow for the first time, the beauty and the seclusiveness. Their first kiss, him sparkling beautifully like a diamond under her fingers.

She thought of everything up until the night of her eighteenth birthday. The night it fell apart.

And then lastly the moment her world completely fell beneath her feet. Trapped within the walls of her own mind with nowhere to escape from she was forced to live it all again, the wound that never quite healed tearing open in her chest.

The lies. Her heartbreak. Her embarrassment. She stumbled around the forest like an idiot desperate to get him back. She's sure she would have done anything. And then the blistering pain that engulfed her for hours. She had glued her world back together after that but it was never the same, the cracks had seeped their way through.

She had convinced herself that she had hated him, his family. For what most she couldn't decipher; for treating her as a throw away rug? For the lies? For blaming him for the twisted monster she knew she had let herself become?

But it was misplaced to try and continue lying to herself. She could no longer continue to deny her feelings, good or bad.

At some point she had to stop running. The emotions that she had hidden well behind her façade for so long now eating away at her, slowly rising to the surface.

She loved him. Maybe she had never stopped.

She could feel a large hand wrapped around her own entwined with her fingers. The sensation of feeling returned spreading throughout her body, a gush of warm heat outspreading in her chest alongside a course of energy. Her eyes snapped open fluttering bracing against the bed frame.