(Disclaimer- I do not own Edward Scissorhands. I do not own any aspect of this story except Amy. If I did own it all, you could bet I wouldn't be sitting here writing a fanfic about it!)

Chapter 5

"Amy! What in the world happened to you?" Rainy cried.

Amy had not had a pleasant hike back. She had fallen more times than she would like to remember, and once she had landed with her bad wrist underneath her. She had almost given up and lay down on the road to be run over at that point, but she had struggled on. Then she had gotten lost, the neighborhood looking identical at every spot to every other spot. But she made it.

"I had a seizure and fell down a hill," Amy said, not completely untruthfully. She had had a seizure, and she had fallen down that damn slope. More than once.

"Oh sweetie . . ." her mother said sorrowfully. "I'm so sorry."

Amy was bundled up; wrist carefully wrapped up separately, and pushed into the car, as they went to the hospital for the second time that week.

On the way home, loaded down with painkillers, more medicine for her epilepsy – more powerful stuff this time – and a heavy cast on her arm, Amy explained what had happened in more detail, carefully interspersing fact with fiction.

"I was coming home from school, and I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, so I got lost. And then I saw this big abandoned mansion on a hill, so I decided to go look at it. And while I was climbing the hill, I started to feel funny, so I turned and started going down, and the next thing I know, I'm at the bottom of the hill, and everything hurts."

Rainy looked at her daughter quietly. She felt that there was something she wasn't being told, but Amy looked back at her with large, innocent eyes.

Amy stayed at home from school for nearly a week before her mother finally made her go. She was dreading school so badly that her hands were shaking, and visions of the students were haunting her nights. Maybe her injury would make her a celebrity of sorts, and people would want to sign her cast. It wasn't likely, but she could hope.

Dragging her heels, Amy entered the school building. The first bell had already rung, she had to hurry or be late. But something strange was happening. The loud, obnoxious students were quieting as she passed, unashamedly staring at her and pointing at her cast. A couple of airhead cheerleaders giggled. The word spaz was tossed around.

Face burning, she reached her locker and opened it, still feeling hundreds of eyes on her. Then, as if nothing had happened, they started to walk to class. More than one craned over her shoulder, trying to see inside. And then Amy realized what it had all been about. A lewd drawing, intending to represent her, she supposed, was taped onto her locker, with the word Spaz on it. Face flaming, she ripped it off and crumpled it up, shoving it into her backpack. Furious, she glowered her way into class.

Classes passed uneventfully except for the occasional whispered spaz, and freak or even monster. While walking to the cafeteria, Jake, a football player, dropped in beside her.

"Hey look, I'm really sorry about that drawing. Some jerk was bragging about it on the field yesterday," he said.

"Really?" Amy said hopefully. Maybe she had a friend after all.

"Yeah." His hand slid into hers, over the cast. It felt natural. Amy was light-headed with relief and joy. "It's a lame and pathetic way to hurt someone." Amy, blissful was about to agree, when his hand suddenly tightened forcefully, and started twisting. Amy was forced on the ground, sobbing.

"We've got better ways of doing things. Isn't that right Trish?" Jake called. A figure detached itself from the shadows. Smoking a cigarette. If a teacher caught her, she would be in trouble.

"Right," she drawled. She dragged hard on the cigarette, and then, accentuating every movement, took it out from between her smeary lips, and brought it down to Amy's arm. Before Amy could scream, Jake clapped his hand over her mouth. She kicked and thrashed, but to no avail. Jake was a football player, a quarterback. She was an undersized, slender girl with a broken wrist.

Smiling maliciously, Trish dug her cigarette into Amy's arm. Her desperate scream was muffled away to almost nothing by the large, sweaty hand clamped over her face.

"Just so you know –" Jake muttered into Amy's ear, "- there's no way I would touch a disgusting whore like you unless it was to hurt you. You make me sick, you unnatural spaz freak."

Trish giggled, a high-pitched, nasty sound, and jammed her cigarette into Amy's leg.

Then they all heard the sound of clicking footsteps down the corridor. Jake loosened his grip in surprise. Amy took her small blessings where she found them and bolted. At the end of the hallway was a door. She slammed her body into it, forcing it open, making sure her wrist was well out of the way. Nevertheless, some shock jarred it, aggravating the hurt it had just received.

"You filthy disgusting freak!" Jake howled. "You better make sure you never come back! We don't let retards like you stay here!"

"Mr. Allan, what is this –?" Amy heard a teacher begin. She was glad he was going to get in trouble, but it wasn't enough. Tears burned her eyes. She should have known better. All these years of experience, and she forgot it all, just because it looked like someone might be willing to toss her a bone.

She angrily wiped her eyes. Who would understand this ache she felt? Who would know what it felt like to be so alone?

Unwillingly, the answer came to her. Edward. He could understand. If anyone could understand, it was him.

No! she argued to herself. He's dangerous. But then she remembered the sadness in his eyes, and could not believe that he would willingly hurt someone. The scissors. Granted, she would have to be careful. But she bet that you could really talk to that man, and that he would listen. That was good. She had ranting to do. Besides, she had promised the man she would visit.

Amy stumbled up the hill for the second time. Fury and pain fueled her onwards, as did the need to talk, to rant, to unload.

She lurched towards the door, and slammed on it with a rock she picked up. Even in the state she was in though, she was careful not to scar the wood.

When nobody answered the door, Amy opened it herself, flinging it wide, and running in. Edward was halfway down the stairs, eyes wide in amazement, his scissors snipping. He continued his descent, and said "Amy –," but she cut him off.

"Look what they did to me!" Her voice was high-pitched with excitement and fury. The shameful tears were back, and they were leaking down her face, she couldn't stop them.

Edward stood and stared. Amy strode over and jabbed her arm out towards him. She pointed at the ugly burn, viciously stabbing at it with her finger. "Look! Look what they did!" The tears were falling down her face faster, and she almost strangled on a sob rising in her throat. "I thought he was nice, and then he grabbed my hand and hurt me, and a girl burned my arm and my leg with her cigarette, and they called me horrible names, and – " By now, Amy was crying too hard to keep talking. Over her stormy weeping, she thought she heard Edwards voice say, "I'm sorry."

She sobbed for nearly fifteen minutes, practically on Edward's shoulder. He was alarmed. He was afraid of damaging this strange young woman even further, like he had so many others. She didn't need to lose more blood. And he was frightened by the tale Amy told. The thought that such things could happen had never even crossed his mind.

A thought slowly came to him. Perhaps such things were . . . common? The thought was terrifying. He was beginning to be glad of his forced exile.

Finally, Amy lifted her head, the tears ending. She felt hollow, numb, and yet . . . better. She gazed at the pale young man with bloodshot eyes.

"I'm sorry— I'm so sorry. I've gone and blubbered all over you," Amy said feebly.

Edward felt a strange emotion, a mix of sadness, pity, and empathy. This girl knew what persecution was, as did he.

Amy took a deep breath, and walked over towards the stairs, sitting down on the first step. Edward followed and stood in front of her, instinctively knowing that she needed someone to talk to.

Amy took another deep breath, and started in.

"Everything was great, until I turned nine," she said bitterly. "I was popular, well-liked, funny. I had it great, I was healthy, and not zombie-like because of medication. And then in fourth grade, we found out that I had epilepsy."

Edward tilted his head, looking confused. His scissors rasped against each other.

"Epilepsy is a disease of the brain, where you can have seizures or convulsions at any time. I had a seizure. Right in class. Right in front of everybody. Things were just . . . never the same after that. People started avoiding me, because I was a 'freak' and they were afraid if they got near me they would catch it. Of course epilepsy can't be caught, like a cold, it's a problem in your brain that you're born with. Well, not always, sometimes it's caused by trauma to the head, but whatever. I was born with it. Right after that grand mal seizure in class, I started getting picked on. I lost all my friends, because they didn't want to be seen with the spaz girl."

She gave a breathless sob. "The teasing wasn't so bad until a week ago. Then they started really scaring me. Following me around. Chanting spaz over and over again. Throwing my books in the toilet. And then today," Amy shuddered. She still had another three weeks of school left. What was she going to do?

Amy looked at Edward. Sympathy seemed to radiate from his entire being. It made her want to cry again. She sat up straighter, and dried her eyes. She was not going to be weak.

She chanced a glance out the window. The sun was setting gracefully past the mountains.

"Listen Edward, I've gotta go. Mom will be worrying."

"Will you come back?" Almost his first words since she got here.

"Yes. I'll come back."

Edward watched her inelegantly galloping down the hill. He was happy that she'd come back. He'd about lost hope. But to see her in such a state was upsetting. He couldn't believe there were people out there who could do such things. Unless they were like Jim. Yes, he remembered Jim now. Jim would have been capable of doing something horrible like that. He had hit Kim. He would've easily been able to hit Amy. It was good that he was dead.

Edward slowly turned around and walked up to his attic, walking stiffly, with his arms spread out to his sides.

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