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"I was a happy child," Bella began, her voice very soft. "My parents, my sister, my friends – everything was fine. My mum's friend Susan has a ballet studio, and I started taking classes when I was five."
"You must have looked so cute," Edward murmured. He was playing with her hair, now and then brushing his fingers over her back and neck.
"I liked doing it, and by the time I was twelve, we were actually considering if I should audition at the English National Ballet School, but Mum and Dad were against it at such an early age. It was no big deal for me. I went to school, and attended ballet school two or three times a week."
She paused, and Edward wasn't certain why.
"Hmm?" He kissed her temple, encouraging her to go on.
"I don't want it all to sound more dramatic than it actually was," she said.
"Just tell me the stuff you feel okay telling me," he encouraged.
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "When I was thirteen or fourteen, well, like most girls, I started getting boobs."
Edward couldn't help but smile at her choice of words. He kissed her hair.
"Yes?"
"You see, ballet dancers aren't supposed to have boobs. Maybe tiny ones. Not…"
She swallowed.
"I was embarrassed all the time, trying the most ridiculous things to hide them. And then I got this idea, that it was happening because I wasn't skinny enough."
Edward wanted to intercede, to tell her that she was way too thin, and that she was beautiful, and that her boobs were amazing, but he held his tongue.
"So I stopped eating."
"You stopped?"
"Not entirely, of course. I would eat apples, and an occasional bite of crispbread. Carrots, and salad with no dressing. I fooled everyone for quite some time. I told my parents that I had eaten at school, and I'd tell my friends that I wasn't hungry. That worked for almost a year before Mum intervened. I promised to eat better, but I only invented new strategies to hide the fact that I wasn't. At one point, I weighed less than ninety pounds."
"Oh, God." Edward squeezed his eyes shut.
"And the worst thing was… I still had the boobs!" Bella laughed a little into his armpit.
"What happened?" he asked in a flat voice.
"They managed to talk some sense into me. My parents, and Jackie, and Susan. I agreed to go into therapy. Luckily, I never fell as deep as a lot of other girls do. Maybe I had some survival instinct, I don't know."
"Thank God," Edward whispered, drawing her a little closer, noticing once again that he could feel each vertebrae in her back.
"The thing is, I wanted to get better, because all the time, I had been really miserable. Not to mention that my usually flawless grades in school were dropping, and that my chances to ever become a professional dancer had diminished."
"Oh, Bella," he whispered into her hair. His heart constricted painfully at the idea of her suffering.
"But I managed," she said, and there was some pride in her voice. "It took me a long time, but I had so much help. And then, I met Alec, and he loved me the way I was, and that, I think, was very healing."
"And then he dumped you." Edward's blood began to boil.
"Yes," she said sadly. "There was a small relapse, but I managed."
"Come here," Edward murmured, pulling her as close as humanely possible. "You're so beautiful, Bella. The most beautiful girl in the world. I'm so glad you're okay now." He pulled back so he could look in her eyes. "You are okay now, aren't you?"
"I am, Edward." She nodded. "It's still not an easy subject for me, and I have to fight so as not to relapse into bad habits whenever things get difficult, but, yes, I'm okay."
"Okay," he whispered. He placed a tender kiss on her lips.
"Do you want to cook dinner?" she asked, and Edward almost started to cry at her courage and strength.
Instead of a reply, he pulled her up with him, kissed her again, and walked her to the kitchen.
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