His concerned face became unfocused as visions from last night flooded into my mind. Me, hiding in my room; the gun shots; speeding away from the murderous face; and finally, images of a beautiful angel seconds before the crash. My brain went into overdrive for a few seconds with these images, before completely shutting down. For a second time, the image of that beautiful angel comforted me as my world faded to black.

I woke up to the familiar bright lights of the hospital again, and a confused haze filled my head for a few seconds. Then reality came crashing down. My mother was dead, my step father killed her, and I still didn't know the degree of my injuries. I had no family and no place to go. My mother was dead.

It took all I had to keep calm as I ran this through my head over and over again, still not completely grasping it all. It was like a scary movie or a nightmare or something. I no longer had a family, nor a home, nor any idea of where I was heading any time soon.

Finally, after staring at the ceiling contemplating my current situation, I finally had to get some answers. I rolled over to the side, glad to know that the dizziness was beginning to wear off, and pushed the call button. One of the newer nurses came running.

"Is everything okay," she asked rushing into the room. She looked pretty fluster. She must have just started working here.

"Um, yeah, everything is…okay, I guess," I said, but not quite believing it myself. Nothing was really "okay" anymore. "I was just wondering if Car-, err, Dr. Cullen was free to talk to right now. I kind of just had some questions."

The nurse gave me a sad smile before answering. "I'll go see if he's in his office." Then she turned to walk down the busy hallway, leaving me to think about my life some more. Out of all of what has happened to me in the past twenty four hours, two questions kept popping into my head. The first one was pretty obvious: What was going to happen now. Being sixteen and having no family pretty much left one option: foster care. That scared me, a lot.

The second question was something that had been bothering me since the crash: Who was the beautiful angel that kept popping into my head? I was going to ask Carlisle, but I didn't know how to bring it up, because, the way I saw it, there were only two options: either I hit the man, in which Carlisle would probably bring it up himself, or he was a figment of my own imagination, in which Carlisle just might think I'm crazy, or in shock. I really didn't want to go into those conversations right now.

As I wondered about this, Carlisle entered my tiny hospital room. He stood at the end of with something on his face that could have been called a smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "How are you feeling Bella?"

"Physically, I'm feeling a lot better. Mentally…" I couldn't quite think of the right words for this kind of situation, so I just shook my head, but Carlisle understood, nodding his head. The air started to become tense, as we both knew the discussion that was coming.

"So, how bad are my injuries?" I wanted to start with something simple, not quite ready to go into the future yet.

"Well when hit the tree," Charlie paused for a second to give me a strange look, but I hardly took note, seeing as I was just glad I didn't run over anyone, "your head collided with the steering wheel and you past out. Other then that, you just have a few real minor scrapes and bruises. Your truck is actually in pretty good condition still. I can't say so much for the tree though." He chuckled a bit at that fact, before his face became serious again and the tension rose back up.

I took a deep breath before opening my mouth to speak a question I really didn't want to hear the answer to. "Carlisle, what's going to happen to me now?" I whispered, staring down at my hands.

"Well, a social worker will be in later today to discuss that with you, and then, after that, I'm really not sure…" His voice faded off and I looked up to see a sad frown plastered across his face as he shook his head. "I'll be back to check on you later," he said before turning around and walking out the door, eyes to the ground.

I felt like crying, and screaming, and just falling off the face of the earth. Instead I just stared up at the tiled ceiling, which seemed to have become a habit lately, and waited for someone to come and tell me everything was going to be all right. Sadly, reality wasn't that nice, and I wasn't quite sure everything would ever be alright again.

For three hour I sat there, unmoving, staring blankly into space, until the annoying clicking of heels halted at my doorway. I glanced up to the smiling face of a woman wearing a black dress-suit. She walked up to my bed and extended her hand. Confused, I shook her hand, waiting for an introduction.

"Hi, my name is Jessica Stanley, and I work for Social Services here in Chicago. You must be Isabella Swan," she said quickly in a high-pitched voice, still with a smile plastered on her face. I opened my mouth to correct her on my name, but slowly shut it, not really seeing the point of the minor correction anymore, nor did I really want to talk to her. What she did was going to select my future; a future that I wasn't ready to face.

I nodded, and her smile dropped a bit at my lack of response, and indifferent expression. "Well Isabella, I have a few questions to ask you before I determine were you will be living until you reach adulthood." And off she went, with a bunch of basic question, for which I gave the most basic answers, trying to use the least amount of words possible.

At one point in our mostly one sided conversation, we started getting into my family, or lack thereof. "Isabella, do you have any living family that you know of?"

"Nope," that was my sixth, different, one-word answer in a row. I was keeping track in order to keep my sanity though all this.

"You had said that you were living with your mother and step father, what about your real father? Do you know where he is?"

"Dead," seven answers. I knew that this was a little cold, but I really didn't want to get into it. I happened a long time ago, and I did all of my grieving. I was usually okay with telling people the story, but that would completely destroy my one word answer streak with this overly peppy woman.

*************************************************************

Ten Years Ago

My mother and I were sitting in our small kitchen in the town of Forks, Washington, when the news arrived. We had been talking about my day at school, of how I learned how to read a new book, and of how career day was coming up next week. My dad was supposed to come in and educate my first grade class on what it was like to be the Chief of Police to the good people of Forks.

The doorbell rang, and I quickly jumped out of my chair and stumbled over to answer it. Pulling the heavy door out of the way, I saw one of the officers that my dad worked with. He had taken me into the station quite a few times to meet his friends and they were always really fun to hang out with.

But today, even as little as I was, I could tell something was off. Officer Harry's eyes were bloodshot, and he looked incredibly broken standing in front of me. My mother came up behind me and shooed me out of the way, telling me to go play in my room.

After I got to my room, a loud sob came from down below. I quickly rushed to the top of the stairs in time to see my mother crumble to the ground, as Officer Harry engulfed her in his arms.

My father had been shot during an attempted robbery at the gas station.

We stayed in Forks long enough to attend the funeral and say our goodbyes, then we packed up and moved across country to Chicago. I really didn't want to leave, but I knew we had to go. Every time my mother looked around the house, or the town, or at all of the familiar people, it would take all see had not to break down.

The strange thing about the move was that, even though she took me away from Forks, it always seemed as if most of her stayed there along with the memory of my father. Ever since that day, Renee never seemed to really smile, or laugh, or love again. It always seemed as if she was only there in body; never mind, never spirit. Yeah, she did marry again, but that was solely to support us economically, and she always thought I needed a father figure in my life. But…that didn't turn out so well…

****************************************************

Present

For about twenty minutes Ms. Stanley asked me questions in an attempt to get me to open up. Finally, she gathered up her things and told me how she would be back within the next couple days. I looked up as she left the room, and saw Carlisle leaning against the wall across from my room. I was hoping that he would come in and talk to me for a bit, maybe take my mind off of what had been going on lately, but, to my disappointment, he just followed Ms. Stanley down the long, busy hallway, leaving me to stare at the ceiling some more.

A/N- Thanks for the amazing amount of support! So, I know that the beginning here is a little slow, and a bit depressing, but the Cullens will be entering soon (within the next couple chapters). Also, always remember that reviews of any kind are welcome, and they motivate me to ignore everyone in my real life and focus on writing. Which is good news for you! Also, it might be a few days before my next update. I have to work…and sleep. See you soon!