AN: So, I know this isn't how it goes in the book, but I kind of forgot about the part where her mom comes and she flips out. And I had already written it, so, yeah. XD

And, as usual, I woke up screaming, the cold realization that no one cared, no one knew why. Because there was no reason. There is no answer to the whys. It was as if, when he had left, my heart had been torn out and left bleeding on the floor. Except, I couldn't find it, so there was a hole leaving me wide open and vulnerable.

My voice was starting to go hoarse, and I started to shudder. The nothing of the dream seemed to be creeping into real life, and it was freezing over me. At first I tried to fight it, but the cold, the nothingness, entranced me. I was like a deer caught in the headlights, mesmerized. Charlie stood at the door watching me, saying nothing. He seemed to see that something had happened, that I had made a decision.

The nothingness washed over me, and I was gone. In those seconds, I could see his face frozen in perfect clarity. Then it was gone.

I stood up fluidly, brushing past Charlie and into the bathroom. I picked up my hairbrush, and mechanically tugged through my tangled hair. I tried not to look at my reflection in the mirror. My face was pallid, and my eyes were sunken and blank. My dark hair tangled around my head, and I kept at the rats' nest that had been developing.

Charlie was still watching me, and he finally spoke, "Bells?" My head stopped brushing for a moment, and I turned to face him, "Yes Dad?" He was staggered, my voice was flat, not one note of hysteria or anguish. I was good at this game. Maybe I would live, maybe I could survive without him, if I didn't have any feelings at all.

This felt better, I could live through this. The icy numbness that held me was almost comforting, I didn't have to think. I didn't have to remember. I didn't have to forget. I could just be.

"Err... Nothing." Charlie murmured, and after watching me for a few seconds more, he turned and walked down the stairs. He must have been confused. Now that I think back on it, I think that Charlie was more terrified by the sudden change, rather than my coma like state in the beginning. At least then, my position had been obvious, I had been in pain, I didn't want to talk about it, and I just wanted to cry in peace.

After that, it was unclear. I wasn't even sure myself, I was so afraid of remember, yet I was too much of a wimp to forget. His face, his hands, his eyes had made such a lasting impression on me, if I forgot them,