"How is it, being here for you?"

Edward sounded concerned—worried almost, to Bella.

"It's OK," she answered honestly. "I'd barely been here when he died. It's . . . " She shrugged. It hurt, but it was a lesser thing amongst what had transpired in the last few months.

His thumb circled over the back of her hand.

"You've been crying."

When she looked at him quizzically, he said, "Your tears have a particular smell."

Right. Senses beyond comprehension. She smiled a little, but nervously.

"Something happen at school?"

She sighed. "Yes."

"Were you invited to leave for the afternoon?" He raised an eyebrow.

"That's one way of putting it."

"Hmm," he hummed, thumb still moving in faithful circles.

"My counsellor suggested I do a couple of things, one of which was draw."

"Good," Edward murmured. "You said it helped you before, when you moved to new places."

"It did." She bit her lip.

"It isn't helping now?"

"It has, sort of." She picked up the book she'd laid on the coffee table, bringing it to her chest. "She said I should draw what I've been thinking about—what I can't stop thinking about."

"And did you?"

"I did. And that's why I'm not at school." She smushed down the guilty feeling, at being so evasive with him.

Edward said nothing, but raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.

"I lost track of things. . . sketching at school, and then it was class time, and the teacher saw it."

"I see."

"You haven't, actually." Her throat felt dry, and her heartbeat too fast.

Edward moved his hand, tucking her hair behind her ear. "OK."

She swallowed nervously again. "I told you that I was messed up, Edward." She held up her hand a little, knowing what he was going to say. "And I know you think I'm wrong. I just need you to understand where I'm at."

He nodded, eyebrows pinched together.

"I don't think like normal people do, Edward. Not anymore. I think about—I think about things that I don't want to. I can't seem to stop them. They're just there. All the time." Her breath shuddered out. "When I go to sleep. When I'm at school. Everywhere."

"What do you think about?"

"I think about what happened to me." She was watching him from under the cover of her dropped eyelids, trying to be surreptitiously aware of what his face was doing. It was still pinched with worry, but nothing else. Not yet.

"I think you need to see what it is that I think about, so you understand what I really am. What I was." Her shoulders shrugged, as if this was of little consequence

She leaned forward, and putting her hand on the book, flipped it open to the page she'd drawn on that morning. She sucked in a breath as she did.

In the foreground was her face, pinched in pain, strained by fear, and something else, something even she couldn't name. Her arms were planted into the surface of a bed, and behind her, one hand at her hip, the other holding the lip of a belt that circumnavigated her chest, was a man, whose head was tipped back. His face was contorted in pleasure.

The act was invisible, but as clear as if she'd drawn every intimate piece of anatomy, and action involved.

And because she didn't want to look at him, or see the disgust that must be uglying his perfect features, she turned the page back, revealing the first drawing she'd made the night before.

Her head was at the top of the page, an outstretched arm disappearing off its margins. The lines of her face were tight with control, fear worn in the widening of her eyes. At her neck was a man's hand, thumb pressed into the bulge of her windpipe. He leaned over her. The position suggested a close, and unwelcome movement.

"This is what I think of, Edward." Her tone was its own condemnation.

She realized that Edward's hand remained on hers, but she couldn't make herself look at him.

Her images had left him wordless. Shocked perhaps—so much so that he probably couldn't move. She pulled her hand away, sparing him the need to.

"It's OK, Edward. You don't need to say anything. I know it's messed up. You can just go, if you want to."

Now she looked at him. He stared back, face a grim mask.

She stuck her gaze back onto the familiar territory of the page. "But I'd prefer you just go, rather than stare at me." She whispered this, but flushed angrily.

"I'm sorry. I'm—" He paused, swallowing. "How accurate is your drawing?"

How accurate was her drawing?

Her eyebrows pushed together, and her nose wrinkled angrily, looking at him.

"Is his face a true likeness?" he asked.

"Why?" What did it matter?

He was incredulous when he answered. "Why? Do you really have to ask?" This was almost growled out.

"It—I don't know, I guess it's accurate. It's hard to say—"

"I don't want to be mistaken, Bella, when I find him."

His meaning clicked, and her face paled.

They were facing each other now, and at this transformation, his own features melted in another feeling entirely. "I'm sorry," he murmured, putting his hand to her cheek. "You say I'm not a monster, Bella, but you forget what I am. I am that, and so much worse. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for what you went through, and that I didn't take you from there at the first opportunity. You deserve so much better—"

"I don't need your pity, Edward."

"My pity? My pity?" He shook his head, and cupped her face with both hands. "I love you, Bella. I have no pity. I have anguish that you've been hurt so much." He waved his hand towards the pictures. "But I am a monster, and I want to find the man that did this to you and make him suffer. I would like to tell you that I won't, or that it will pass, but I know it won't, but to pity you. No. I want you to feel joy, and happiness. If you don't want to be with me, knowing what my nature wants, I'll understand, but I will do whatever I can to make you happy."

It floored her. "You think I want you to leave me?"

"I would understand if you did."

"How do you want to even be with me, when I'm like this?" She pushed her hand into the air, hovering over the book.

"You were raped, Bella. Of course you think about it."

Oh.

Yes, that would explain him staying.

"I wasn't raped, Edward," she mumbled.

"And how, exactly, do you reason that out?"

She shook her head. "No one held me down—"

Edward looked at the page in front of him, and then back at her.

Her head was still shaking. "I won't say I enjoyed it, but no one forced me—"

"You're telling me you wanted that?" He'd dropped his hands from her face to find her fingers..

"He paid for sex, Edward. "I spread my legs and let him." She gritted the words out through her teeth. "I am not a victim. I had a choice, and I made it."

"You weren't allowed to leave, Bella. I doubt very much you elected to do that of your own free will."

"I was a whore, Edward."

She didn't recognize all the feelings that flickered over his face.

"You—" He stopped himself, setting both hands beside her. "I love you. You matter to me. Your well being and your happiness—these matter to me. That someone hurt you matters to me too, more than it should."

"He wasn't there to hurt me Edward. It was just sex."

He looked at the drawing again, and then said softly. "I don't think it would haunt you so much if it was only that." Now his hands slipped around her, pulling her closer to him. "I love you, Bella." His forehead rested lightly against hers.

He loved her.

He'd said as much before, but not in the face of this.

Tears of relief, and grief, too, welled up. "I don't deserve you." Her voice was raspy with emotion.

"You stole my line." He smiled, and then, very slowly, moved to kiss her. It was soft, and gentle, and stole her air in a way that made her head swim pleasantly.

When he pulled back, his forehead was furrowed. "You don't see yourself clearly, Bella. You are remarkable in so many ways, not the least of which is your courage, but you. . . lack perspective when it comes to understanding what you've been through."

"I think I see myself quite clearly, Edward."

He shook his head. "How can I help you, Bella? To see what you are? To know that you're safe?"

This answer was easy. Immediate.

"Be with me."

They were standing together, arms around each other.

"I am."

She shook her head, and God help her, she blushed, thinking of it. "No, I mean—" and her glance stole back to the coffee table.

He looked stricken. His eyes widened, and he choked out a horrified, "No! I can't Bella. I could—"

But she'd backed away, shaking her head, thinking she understood far better than he did, the reasons for his rejection.

"Bella, it's not—"

She held up her hand. "Just let me talk." Then she looked down for a moment, considering how to put this all together. How to not squirm under the shame of this rejection. These words were difficult.

"When I left here, I trusted people. They'd been good to me, largely. I learned very quickly, that this was not the case everywhere. That—" and she looked at the coffee table again, "was not the first time someone hurt me. No," she clarified, seeing him grow tense again, "not that way. It was just one of the last manifestations. I never knew if someone was going to hit me, rob me, or grope me—it wasn't a matter of if it would happen, but when. And not knowing—not knowing when or where, but knowing it will happen, that's the most difficult. That's why I'm so freaked out over everything, Edward. I am completely screwed up."

He interjected. "You are not, Bella, and it doesn't help you to keep saying that you are."

She didn't bother to disagree, but shrugged. "By the time I met you, I'd had enough experience, and enough warnings from the other girls that I knew what to expect. I kept wondering, that first night, when you would take what you'd paid for." His face twisted painfully, but she went on. "And the second night, when you brought your car." She stopped, letting out a bitter laugh. "They'd warned me about guys with nice cars. Patty said 'you're more likely to wind up bent over one than in one.'" She capped this with a huff of breath out. "And then when you stopped me from falling at the pool, I thought you were just trying to get me to trust you, to let my guard down. I kept thinking, will it be here? There? When you told me I didn't have to stay—I almost said yes, but then I was terrified it was a test, and that it would be so much worse to trust you and find out it was a lie. So I locked my door when I went to sleep, and hoped I wouldn't wake up to find you—" she couldn't finish the statement, "that's what he did." Now both their gazes went back to the drawing on the table.

He walked towards her and took her hand, frowning and grimacing before he spoke.

"I can't, Bella, because I won't risk killing you, but even if I could, I wouldn't."

She pulled herself away, anger making her heart skid and trip over itself, her legs mimicking the action too. Edward caught her before she could fall, the distance closed between them instantly.

His face was pained and anguished, and if she could trust her senses, she would have thought his voice trembled in speaking. "You aren't asking me to make love to you, Bella, because it will supplant what has happened to you, you're asking to have your worst fears confirmed. That I'll betray your trust, that I have no noble intentions. And if I said yes to what you're asking, I would betray your trust in the worst possible way. So no, I will not. Even if I would not risk killing you in the attempting of it, I would not, because you are in no way ready."

She jerked herself away from him, ears ringing, limbs rattling with rage.

Now he was almost squinting, head turned, as if he was trying to listen to something.

"Bella?" he asked, like she'd said something.

"Do you jerk everyone around like that?" she finally managed.

"I don't speak the truth so plainly, no, because they're not worth it. You are."

The shaking grew. "But you're certainly used to being in control."

He didn't respond, still squinting, still seeming to be listening.

"You are such a jerk. And I am so done with having men make decisions for me." With this, she turned and grabbed her coat, yanking the door open and tromping angrily down the stairs.

It was difficult to start the truck, her hands shook so much.

When he appeared at the window, rolled down for the heat of the day, she jumped in her seat.

"I love you," he said. "I will be here for you, no matter what. When you are ready to have the company of someone who will tell you the truth, honour who are you are, and not try to force your hand in your choices, I'll be waiting."

The tears didn't stop her from finally getting the truck to start, but they made driving difficult. For the second time that week, she drove blurry eyed, this time in the opposite direction, both literally, and figuratively, away from a surety of love.