Chapter 2

EPOV

Masen Swan puzzled me. I had been wracking my brain all the way to the church. The more I thought about his appearance, the more he resembled my Bella. He had the same heart-shaped face and the familiar pale skin. I knew he had to be hers, I just wondered why she never told me.

I logged onto my computer once we got home from the church that night and typed in the name 'Masen Swan'. His picture popped up instantly, holding a trophy in his hands. I clicked on the link beneath the picture.

Apparently, he had won some huge science competition in D.C. with his project on computer robotics. The article called him "masterful" with technology. However, it wasn't him that interested me at that moment, it was the beautiful chocolate-haired woman standing next to him. Isabella Swan, my Bella. She was standing next to him, a hand on his shoulder, clearly proud. I had been staring into the face of her son.

'Oh my god…' she had a child, what if there was a husband in the picture, what if she was happy without me? I shook my head to clear the thoughts from my head. I was engaged, Tanya loved me.

'No, she loves your money.' I knew Tanya had no real interest in me, but I was lonely, I needed someone who would stay with me, even if it was for purely superficial reasons. Bella had left me alone, so clearly, she didn't want me like I thought she did.

My eyes skimmed over the picture again. Masen was an arrogant child, in love with himself. I wondered how someone as sweet and innocent as Bella had given birth to such a boy. His smirk seemed to mock my intelligence through the screen, just as it ha din the car. Clearly, he thought he was better than everyone.

I closed my laptop after a few and plopped down onto my bed. To be truthful, it wasn't the first time I'd thought of her in the sixteen years that we'd been apart. But it was the first times in years that I longed to see her standing beside me again, with the same radiant smile on her face. 'She's gone, she moved on.'

"EDWARD!" Tanya's piercing scream met my ears. I closed my eyes and tried to block her out.

BPOV

"Masen, what are you doing?" I asked suspiciously.

"Oh, just browsing software." He said rather nonchalantly. No, he was to calm to be looking at software. He was up to something. I snatched the computer from his hand and looked at the screen.

Masen wasn't the type for porn or anything, that wasn't his style, heck women weren't his style (men weren't either if that's what you're inferring.). If he wanted to see something naked, it would be the inside of a computer or an expensive hard drive. That wasn't what I saw, what I was looking at was my worst nightmare: Edward Masen.

I had chosen not to inform Masen of his parentage for fear of upsetting him. He had felt abandoned by his father, I was the first to tell him that that wasn't the case. Still Masen had always been curios.

"What are you doing looking at articles about him?" I demanded rather harshly.

"He was in the limousine that hit me. I was just wondering who he was in case you decided to take him up on his offer." He shrugged.

"Oh, so that's it? That's all this is about?"

"Yeah, should there be something else?" he asked suddenly interested.

"No. Nothing, don't ask questions, just go to your room." I stood up and walked into the kitchen.

"…Who is he to you?" Masen asked softly. That was out of character for him, he had never been one to ask.

"None of your concern." I should have known then, Masen would get the information he wanted if it took all he had. Even if it didn't come from me. Therefore, I went into his room and unhooked his computer. He wouldn't be searching anything else that night.

"Mom, c'mon, please. Just tell me what it is, you don't normally keep things like this from me." Masen said desperately.

"No, this is something you need to keep your nose out of. I mean it!" I was so close to tears.

"Mom…"

MPOV

I knew I only had a little time, my mom only slept around four hours every night. It wasn't that she stayed up late or got up early, that was just all the sleep she needed to function.

Mom kept a bolted down safe in her room, even I didn't know the combination, it was for important things, things that not even I could know about. So if info on Edward Masen would be somewhere, it would be there. I lightly traced my fingers over the door and tried to rotate the knob. I wouldn't take me long to figure it out, things like that came naturally to me.

It only too me about five minutes to put in the right combination, the safe finally clicked open. I reached inside and pulled out anther metal box. Sadly, it was locked. I had expected she would do something like that but I hadn't planned for it. She could have hidden the key anywhere. I placed the box back in the safe and closed it.

It would have to wait until the day after. I needed to find that key.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you yesterday." Mom said as she sat down.

"I really don't care. You haven't yelled in my entire sixteen years of life, you're actually a bit overdue." I shrugged and sat down at the kitchen table.

"That's no excuse. You are my son, I hate yelling at you, it makes me feel like a bad parent." She sighed and sat down across from me.

"You raised a nationally ranked science fair champion who may or may not be a terrorist."

She smiled at me and then leaned across to kiss my cheek.

"I love you." she stood up and then left. I drummed my fingers on the kitchen tabletop and thought. If I were my mom, where would I hide a key that I never wanted my son to find. A large smile spread across my face.

I walked into the living room and opened my mom's music box, I cringed at the sound that came out. It was Claire De Lune, her favorite. I absolutely hated it and had always tried to avoid hearing the garbled mess.

"There you are." I snatched the key out and rolled it in my hands. Did I want to know what was in the box, knowledge wasn't everything after all…

"Screw that."

"Screw what?" my mom called from the other room. I shoved the key into my pocket.

"Nothing, sorry, talking out loud." That key suddenly felt like it weighed 20 pounds.

My mom went off to work at the publishing company she worked at. She didn't even bother with the school argument that morning, she knew I wasn't going in that day.

I reopened the safe and pulled out the box. I thought for a few moments, what would my mom say if she saw me sneaking around. We never kept secrets; then again, the box was a secret. I stuck the key in and turned it, satisfied by the click I heard. I lifted the top and looked inside.

It was nothing, just a few pieces of paper, our birth certificates and her will. That was stupid, why keep things I knew about locked anyway? I picked up the box, turned it over and dumped its contents onto the floor. I froze, my birth certificate lay right in front of me, mocking me with the plain black ink.

Edward Masen

That name was written right where a father's name should go. Okay…so that was just one thing, Edward was a still a common name right? And Masen was a common last name. then why had my mother freaked out so much when she saw his picture, why had she wanted to hide it form me.

'Because I had been staring into the face of my father.' I put my head in my hands, what had happened? Why wasn't he with us? Why hadn't he stayed with my mom? I sifted through the papers again and saw a manila envelope. I'd already crossed the boundaries of our trust, I doubted she would care if I looked just a little bit deeper.

I opened the envelope and grimaced. I was greeted by smiling faces, happy people. They were rich, I could tell. A huge house rested in the background, my father standing in the middle with whom I assumed to be his family. The rest of the photos were even more. They were of the two of them, my mother and him. I held one of them at eye level, juts the two of them, sitting together.

I suddenly felt angry, rage ripping through me like a fire, licking my insides, burning everything it touched. I felt out of control, furious at the thought of us being alone for so long without him. He got to ride in limousine, running around with all the younger women, all blonde and busty, leaving his son to rot in misery. I ripped the photograph right down the middle, he didn't deserve to be pictured with her.

I shoved the other half in my pocket and put the paperwork back in its holder. Mom would never have to know.

"You should get your bike fixed, you won't be able to get to the library without it." mom said at dinner.

"I know, I just don't know any decent places to take it. and I don't spend that much time in the library anyway, it's not like they'll miss me." I shrugged my shoulders.

"Please, you'd spend all your time there if you could, I'm telling you, by tomorrow, you'll be suffering from withdrawal syndrome." She laughed.

"Yeah. You're probably right, you're always right." I stood up and put my plate in the microwave. I knew she didn't expect me to eat it in front of her in the first place.

"What's that sticking out of you pocket?" she asked suddenly. I looked down. The half of the photo was peeking out.

"It's nothing, just something I got out of my room."

"Alrighty, head off darling, lord knows you're tired from you're long day of hard work." She laughed loudly at her own sarcasm.

"Okay, whatever. Lay off the pasta, you know it makes your ass huge." I ran before she could get up.