A/N: Okay, I'm about to do something that I never thought I'd do. And yes, I know it's been done often but it seems to fit with the situation so please just roll with it.

BELLA

I stood in the shower just feeling the wonderful comfort of watching the beautiful crimson rivers flow down my arm and mix with the water that was currently running down the drain.

It had been five months since Jacob murdered Edward and things hadn't gotten any better. To be completely honest they had gotten ten times worse.

Charlie and I barely spoke anymore. No matter what we started out discussing, it somehow made it's way back to Edward. And since Charlie had no idea what really happened, I would have to spend twenty to thirty minutes listening to him talk about how much he hated that boy for breaking his daughter's heart. After three months, I just couldn't take it anymore, so I just stopped talking.

Charlie knew that I was having a hard time dealing with all of this. When he wasn't complaining about what Edward had done, he was trying to nconvince me to go see a doctor. I, however, refused and since I was eighteen, he knew he couldn't force me. He also knew that he couldn't make me move back in with Renee. He eventually stopped talking when he realized that nothing he said was making a difference.

We've spent the last two months just going through the motions, like two people who were just living together. Not like father and daughter. That just added to my depression about everything.

My human friends, Angela, Ben, Mike, and even Jessica stood by me and tried their best to help and keep me sane. Unfortunately, since none of them knew the truth about what happened, there wasn't much they could do for me. Besides, they had all gone on to college and were working towards their futures. I didn't want my petty problems to get in the way.

Sadly, the only six people in the world who knew what really happened to Edward and could actually help me get through this, were the only ones who I couldn't go to for help. Not only because it was my fault Edward was taken away from them but also because their lives and family was alot better off without me.

I knew the Cullens still cared about me and wanted to help. Alice had, after all, spent the better part of two months calling and coming over, begging Charlie to let her talk to me. Charlie, however, stood by his promise and didn't make him talk to me. I knew that I had hurrt her feelings, and probably the rest of the family's as well, but their lives were better if I wasn't there. They'll eventually see that. I could take the constant hurt and agony of dealing with Edwerd's murder alone as long as it meant the family stayed safe.

I was left with nothing to comfort me except my weekly ritual of slicing my arm open and watching the rivers of blood pour out into the tub. It started by complete accident, of course.

It was two months after the incident and I was shaving my legs. I knicked myslef pretty and it hurt like a bitch and bled horribly. However, I fouynd the physical pain of the wound numbed the emotional pain of losing Edward. The blood that ran down my leg didn't bother me at all. In fact, I was transfixed by it. There was something so wonderful and fascinating about watching my own blood pouring out of my body.

I could stand in the shower for hours just watching it flow out until there was none left. I thought seriously about doing it on some nights, like tonight. It was actually the second time this week. I knew I shouldn't have done it tonight but after what happened this afternoon, I couldn't help myself.

FLASHBACK

Mike, Jessica, Ben, and Angela were all back in town for their respective schools' winter breaks. We had all decided to take Mrs. Newton's SUV to Port Angeles and spend the day shopping and hanging out.

The day started out great. My friends told me all about their college experiences and I told them about what I had been up to. In light of what happened, I decided to put college off for a year or two. I told them about my job as a secretary down at the police station. An adavantadge of being the daughter of the chief of police. We even talked about things that happened in my two years and Forks High and wondered what happened to our grauduating class.

Knowing what happened and how I still felt about it, they were kind enough not to mention Edward or the Cullens at any point. It was nice and I was actually having a good time. It was the first time in months that I wasn't thinking about Edward, the Cullens, or what I had lost. I think I actually may have laughed a couple of times.

I knew it couldn't last, though. Around four o'clock, things went downhill.

Jessica had menitoned that she wanted to go into a dress store. Her school was having a winter ball the Saturday after the beginning of term and she wanted something new to wear. So that's when Ben and Mike went to a game store and promised to meet us in a couple hours.

We walked into the shop listening to Jessica chatter about the kind of dress she wanted and how excited she was about the whole thing. As the door swung closed, a familiar voice floated over to me from the otherside of the store and caused me to freeze.

"Rose, this is the perfect dress." the voice encouraged. "You should get it for your date with Emmett tonight."

"I don't know, Alice." Another familiar voice replied. "It's a little revealing, don't you think?"

"That coming from the girl who wears a dress with slits on both sides, clean up to your hip." Alice replied.

Suddenly, Angela was waving her hand in my face.

"Bella?" she asked. "I've called your name like five times. Are you alr-" She stopped when she saw over my shoulder what I had heard. "Um, Jess, do you you mind if we come back?" She whispered to Jessica.

"What, why?" Jessica whined.


"That's why, Angela replied pointing at what was going on behind me.

"Oh." Jessica answered as her eyes got wide. "Yeah, that's fine. Let's go."

"Thanks." I whispered as Angela grabbed my shoulders and steered me out the door.

As we walked through, I chanced a glance in the direction of the voices. My eyes locked with Alice's for a brief moment and she flashed me a sad smile as the door swung shut behind her.

END FLASHBACK

I went through the rest of the day in a daze. I couldn't remember what was said or what we did. All I wanted to do was get home and get my hands on my razor blade. However, I didn't want my petty issues to ruin my friends' day with me so I stuck it out until Mike dropped me off around nine.

I got home and went immediately to my room, grabbed my blade and got into the shower. I sat there for awhile after I made the cuts, contemplating just letting it all flow out. Then maybe I could be with Edward and my anguish would end.

Two faces popped into my head in that moment that made me realize, I couldn't do it. Charlie and Renee. Regardless of my current relationship with them, I couldn't make them go through the pain of losing their only daughter. Knowing Charlie, he'd probably be riddled with guilt and I couldn't bare to put him through that.

It was with that thought that I ran my arm under the cold water and climbed out of the tub. I grabbed the first aid kit and wrapped up my arm. After putting on several layers of gauze, I put on my PJ's and brushed my hair.

I sighed and headed to my room for what I thought would be another near sleepless night of listening to my lullaby and wishing it was Edward laying by my side humming it.

JASPER

I sat in the tree just outside Bella's window, staring into her empty room. I was waiting for her to get out of the shower. It broke my heart to know what was taking her so long.

It had been five months since the mutt murdered Edward and Bella wasn't getting any better. In fact, she was getting worse. She almost never ate and barely slept. She walked around looking deader than we did. She and Charlie hardly ever spoke anymore. She only left the house for work or when her human friends were in town and wanted to spend some time with her. Worst of all, she was cutting.

She needed someone to talk to. Someone who knew what really happened that day who she could tell her true feelings to. Someone like me or Alice or someone else in our family but she refused to talked to us. God knows, we tried. Alice spent two months trying to talk to her but Bella told Charlie that she didn't want to talk. Charlie, who blamed us a little for Edward's "leaving", was more than happy to tell Alice to leave.

I knew how badly Bella wanted to talk to us about this. How badly she needed one of us to be there. However, she refused to do it because she didn't think that she deserved it. She was still balming herself for everything that had happened and thought we'd be better off without her. Which wasn't true at all. We were all much better off once Edward brought her into our lives. Sure, she seemed to be a magnet for sadistic vampires who want to kill her but that didn't matter. She reminded the family of what it was like to be human. She brought us all back to life and taught us so much. None of us wanted to see her spiraling the way she was.

Carlisle had said from the beginning that it would be best for us to just leave her alone. It would only make things worse if we tried to push her into letting us help her. However, his plan to just sit and watch from a far wasn't helping much either. And when she started the cutting, he was at a lose for what to do.

He tried to talk Charlie into getting her a therapist but Charlie refused, saying there was nothing wrong with her daughter. Then he gave Carlisle a twenty minute rant about how it was his son's fault that Bella was like that in the first place.

After that phone conversation, Carlisle knew that Charlie wasn't going to be any help. Instead, he told us that he wanted Bella to be watched as much as possible. We were to call him if she ever went to far with it.

We all wished we could do more but Carlisle said it woldn't work unless Bella wanted it too. She had to be willing to accept our help before we could give it.

I sighed as she finallt walked into her room. She was wearing a camisole and a pair of gray sweat pants. My heart broke when I say the layers of gauze wrapped around her arm and smelled the fresh blood on the towel she buried in her laundry basket. The anguish and anger that was coming off of her waves almost sent me reeling out of the tree. I had to take a couple deep breaths to keep it under control.

She sat on the edge of her bed for a moment before turning on her C.D. player. Her lullaby floated out though the window as she climbed into bed for another night of hardly any sleep.

I wanted nothing more than to be able to help her with that. Unfortunately, the first couple of nights I tried, she ended up waking up from a nightmare in a worse state than she was before she fell asleep. After that, I decided that it may be best if I just let her deal with that on her own too.

I sat there feeling her anguish, anger, and fear rolling off of her as she tossed and turned for about two hourse. After that, I couldn't take it anymore, I focused my powers on trying to put her in a deep enough sleep where not even the dreams could wake her for a good eight hours. She needed to be able to have a good night's sleep for once. About an hour or so after I did this, Alice joined me in the tree.

"How is she?" Alice asked staring into the window.

"Not good." I replied sadly. "She did it again."

Alice eyes got wide with shock, fear, guilt, and sadness.

"That's the second time this week." she stated. "We have to do something."

"I know but how can we help her if she won't let us?" I asked.

"I don't know. Maybe one of us should just go in there and a make her listen."

"Carlisle says that'll only make it worse."

"Well, not talking to her isn't helping! She needs to know this isn't her fault, whether or not she wants to hear it! That's the only way she's going to get over it."

"I know that, Alice. We all do but we can't force her to listen if she doesn't want to."

"Maybe not but there has to be some way we can get to her. We have to try because if we don't do something soon, one of us is going to come here and find her dead one day. I don't wanna see that happen and I know you and the rest of the family don't want to see it happen either. And Edward definitely wouldn't want that to happen. He'd been very unhappy with us if we didn't do everything in our power to keep her safe." Alice ranted.

"I know that. We all know that. But if we can't get her to listen than what's the point?" I asked.

"I don't know. I just know that someone has to do something and make her see the truth of the situation. Get her to understand that this is nobody's fault but Jacob's. Let her know what Edward would want, you know? Maybe if she actually takes the time to hear these things then maybe she'll understand."

"But who's going to make her hear them?"

"Something's telling me that it's going to be you." she stated.

"Why me? She closer to you or Carlisle even. We've barely had a conversation in the time that we've known each other. Why would she want to listen to me."

"You'll see." she said with one of her annoying smiles that said she knew something that I didn't "Anyway," she moved on before I could question her further. "Esme wants me to take over and you to go home, take a shower, and relax. She's worried that you're spending too much time here. She thinks Bella's emotions might take over yours. She doesn't want that to happen."

"I know." I replied as we hopped down from the tree. "I've put her into a deep sleep. Hopefully, she won't wake up for awhile. Give me a call if she does and needs some emotional control."

"I will." she replied. "Do me a favor, though, and think about what I said."

"I will." I gave her a quick kiss and hug before running into the woods.

When I got home, I showered like Esme wanted me to. However, I couldn't relax. I was too busy doing what Alice asked and thinking about our conversation.

The facts were Carlisle's plan to let Bella work through it on her own wasn't working. Bella was hurting herself and in desperate need of an intervention. She needed someone to tell her that this wasn't her fault. Someone to help her get over this and move. Personally, I felt that she just needed someone in general. Someone who knew the truth and understood how she felt. Someone like me. I guess Alice was right. I was the best choice because I was connected to her emotions and could understand better than anyone.

I knew Bella needed help and that I had to be the one to help her. However, the one thing I didn't know, was how the hell I was supposed to help someone who thought the didn't deserve to be helped.

A/N: Well, what do you guys think. I know the cutting thing might be out of Bella's character but considering everything that had happened, I'd said anyone could fall into the category. Anyway, review and let me know what you think.