Finding Love, Chapter 4:

Edward Cullen

"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book(Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom(when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this(or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death." Anais Nin


After Bella fell asleep I tucked her in and made my way into the living room. Charlie, her father, and Jasper were in a discussion that wasn't going too well. Charlie was obviously disagreeing to whatever Dr. Jasper was saying, but Jasper wasn't giving up.

"Charlie, this is a wonderful idea. She's not going to be able to heal if she stay's where it all began. Your house is where they went a lot. She has millions of memory's there with him. It's going to hurt her far worse to stay at a constant reminder."

"That's her home, Jasper. If she wants to be there and not here I won't tell her other wise. She's a grown woman and we both know she's stubborn. If she doesn't want this I won't force her. Besides, where is she going to go?"

Jasper seemed to take a break from talking to think. That only took him a few seconds then he was right back at it. "Here," he stated matter of factly.

"What!" I shouted, speaking for the first time. Both men looked at me like I'd grown two heads.

"What's wrong with here, Edward?" Jasper practically demanded.

"Didn't you say they owned this place? What would bringing her back here do to her?"

"Yes, they owned it, but she hasn't been here in over three years. Her memory's here are dull in comparison to her memories there. Look, I don't expect you to understand, you don't even know her, but when Bella loves, she loves with all she's got, when she hurts, everything hurts, what I'm saying is she's passionate and this, this could kill her. It can bring her to the point where death sounds a hell of a lot better then being on this earth anymore. She loved Jacob with everything, without him, there's no her, at least that's the way she's going to feel, if she doesn't feel that way already."

I stared at Jasper as if looking at and entirely different person all together. I knew Jasper the physiologist and I knew Jasper-my sisters boyfriend-but I've never know Jasper-the loving best friend. He really cares for this girl and I could see that he's right.

"Then when are you going to ask her to stay?"

"When she wakes up," He turned back to her father, who just stood watching us silently. "Charlie, I need to do this, I need to try, I need to save my sister." Jasper pleaded.

"Sister?!" I all but yelled. "When in the hell did she become your sister?" I asked confused. Jasper sighed annoyed.

"Since the day she was born, Edward. Isabella is my baby sister." He stated matter of factly.

"What?" Alice asked as she entered the room. "Jazz, what are you talking about? You never said she was your sister."

"I know darling. I just wanted to tell her first. I didn't want anyone to know before her, but Charlie already knew, of course."

"So he's not your dad?" Alice asked confused. She'd told me how Jasper never talked about his family. He never went as far as to tell her his parents' name, ever.

"Unfortunately no, but he's been more of a father to me then my own ever were. Isabella and I share a mother, Renee." I saw Charlie take a deep breath as Jasper's mother name slipped from his lips. "I found out that my mother-our mother- was in a relationship while she was with my father. My father found out too, so he left. Charlie was new to Forks and my mother was a friendly women, he had no idea she was married. When I was two or three years old my mother became pregnant with a little girl, Isabella she named her. When the girl was born Charlie turned up at the hospital to see the birth of his daughter, he met me there. She never even told him about me, he had no idea that I was Renee's until he sat next to me and I introduced myself. Three days after Isabella was born our mother went missing. Charlie tried to find her, he loved her, even after, but I knew he would never find her, Renee can hide really well if she wants to, and it was obvious that she didn't want us to find her, so we never did. Charlie took Isabella home with him, and he took me with him, too, but the courts wouldn't allow him to keep me. I had to live with my grandparents, but Charlie always visited me and brought me things, he even put me through college, while at the same time putting Isabella through. He worked hard for us and I'm proud to be able to call him my father of sorts. I look up this man and I will for the rest of my life, because I owe him everything."

Alice walked around Charlie to get to Jasper, taking him in her arms. Charlie walked over to him too, patting his back. I just stood there, shell shocked that he was actually Bella's brother. I would have never guessed. "How do you know Jacob?" I asked ingenuously. "I thought he was your childhood friend, not Bella."

"He was. I've known him almost all of my life. My grandparents didn't live far from Charlie and Bella. They lived closer to the local reservation though, so I had to go to school there, on the Rev. I met Jacob there and we went through every grade together. It wasn't until his sophomore year in college that he met and fell in love with some girl from Forks. He'd told me that she was beautiful, and smart, and that her father was chief of police. I instantly knew he was talking about my sister. I think he freaked out when I went crazy on him. I threatened to cut his manhood off if he hurt her in anyway. He was so confused as to why I would have that kind of reaction to some girl I had never met. When I said her name he wanted to know how I knew it, I told him the truth, about everything. Jacob was a good guy. He helped me get to know my sister without me having to have to tell her who I was."

"I don't understand, why haven't either of you told her the truth about you?"

"What am I supposed to say Edward, 'Hello, I'm Jasper Whitlock and we share the same mother who cheated on my father with your father and then left us both at the hospital two days after the day you were born,' I don't think so Edward. I'll tell her in my own time, but for now she needs Jasper, her best friend, not Jasper, her newly found brother."

I understood his reasoning, his…situation, but he's wrong. He should have told her this. They both should have, a long, long time ago. "What now then, what is Jasper her best friend going to do that Jasper her brother couldn't?"

"Jasper her best friend is going to be there for her until Jasper her brother can. Look Edward, I don't expect you to understand; your life is perfect, you've never had to go through your parents not wanting you, or never having your baby sister near, or of never getting the opportunity to beat guys who thought about going after her up. You don't know what I'm going through, so please, let me do this my way."

"Jazz," Alice called him, a slight disapproving shake of her head, a warning. "If anyone knows what you're going through babe, it's Edward." He glanced from her to me, his face confused.

"I was adopted into the Cullen family Jasper. I certainly know what it's like to not be wanted."

"What?" He asked bewildered. "Alice never told me-"

"It's not my story to tell, sorry." She whispered.

"I'll tell it, besides, there's a good outcome to this story. I hope you don't mind listening Charlie?" He shook his head, taking a seat on the nearest couch to him. I followed his lead and took a seat on the love seat while Jasper and Alice took a seat on the longest sofa nearest them. I inhaled deeply, gathering my thoughts, and remembering the last time I was with my birth parents, the horrific day I turned two.

"Some say, as a child you see things that dissolve from your memory as you grow, but I just can't keep myself from thinking that the person that came up with that theory didn't see the things I saw growing up. Everything that happened to me started when I was two years old. It was a few days after my second birthday that I saw my father walk out the front door of our middle class home and never return. I remember waiting as long as I could by that door for him to walk through it, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, but he never came back through it.

"My mother, I suppose like any women who'd just lost their husband, cried, a lot. I always tried to comfort her, reassure her, but nothing ever seemed to work. She just cried, and cried and cried, sometimes she wouldn't leave her room for days, and I would go hungry for those days; this lasted months, practically an entire year. When I turned three she started eating again, just marginally though. I would get feed more regularly and she looked healthier, which in return made me smile more. I thought things were finally getting better for her, and me. I thought that until she brought a guy name Laurent home with her one night.

"I was only three, and at the time I didn't understand the things that I saw, the things he did to her. He would strip her and make her walk around the house naked, right in front of me, and she would do it. He would slap her and yell at her and rape her right in front of me and I would cry and scream and yell for him to stop, but he wouldn't, he never did. The sick part was, she liked it. I remember that she used to scream 'more' or 'faster' or 'again'. I used to be so scared all the time. And that Laurent guy, he was a monster. After he would finish with her, he would call up his friends and they would come and they would have a go at her. And she liked it." I screamed in exasperation and disgust. "I remember that he used to smoke, Laurent. After his friends would finish with her he would take his cigarette and put the end of it out on her bare back. The smell of burnt flesh would fill the air instantly and I would pass out, always waking the next day in the same spot.

"This continued until I turned five. That's when things got worse. I supposed she'd been taking drugs since she met him, but together they got worse and open with it. She would come home smelling like vodka and vomit every night. She appeared aloof; her eyes were red and glassy. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I was just a kid, I knew nothing about drugs, but when I saw her stick a needle in her arm, I knew that was wrong. I loved my mother, the women that I knew when I was one and two, not the women I knew when I was three up. That lady wasn't my mother, that monster destroyed her. I hope he disintegrate in the jail cell that he's in for what he's done."

"What happened, Edward?" Jasper asked curiously.

"I woke up one morning and headed downstairs to find something to eat. I was six or seven years old at the time. By then that was my morning routine; wake up, get dressed, brush my teeth and find something in the house for me to eat. Little did I know that that morning was going to be so different.

"I was in the kitchen when they came home. I'd just found myself a pop tart and I was silently eating when Laurent came in the kitchen and told me to join him and my mother in the living room. When I finished my meal I went, my mother looked confused as to why I was in there, but Laurent just smiled and motioned for me to step forwards, so I did, I was so stupid, naïve even. If only I'd known what he was thinking, I wouldn't have went in there. I would have hid in my room like I did every day.

"When I went into the living room Laurent held up a little bag with black rocks inside it, or so I thought that was what they were. He placed them on a spoon and held a lighter under the spoon; the rocks melted into a clear liquid. He took out a syringe and sucked the liquid into it. He squirted a little out of the syringe and then tapped it a few times before grabbing my arm. I yanked away from him, and my mother screamed at him, but he just punched her and she went silent. He told me he would kill her if I didn't test their new product. I said no, calling his bluff, but he wasn't bluffing. He took out a knife and sliced across her arm. She screamed out in pain and I knew that he really would kill her, so I held out my arm for him. He stabbed me roughly with the syringe, making me scream out in pain. I think it was about seven or eight seconds later that I started to feel weird. I was dizzy and numb and I couldn't breath. I found myself gasping for air and clawing at my chest. I thought I was going to die. Six years old and I thought I was going to die.

I passed out shortly after that and woke up hours later to beeping and unfamiliar voices. I was so scared and my mother was nowhere to bee found. I panicked and the machine went frantic. That's when a blond haired, blue eye man in a long white jacket came into my room. He introduced himself as Doctor Carlisle Cullen. He told me I needed to calm down, that it was important for me to calm myself. It took me a few minutes, but I managed it.

"I asked him where I was and where was my mother and Laurent, but he just looked and me sympathetically and sat in the chair next to my bed. He started to explain to me what had happened and that everything would be fine. It turns out that Laurent had given me too much of the drug and it nearly killed me on the spot. What he didn't tell me, though, was where my mother and Laurent were. In fact, he avoided answering that question all together.

"'Where is my mother?!' I screamed at him, taking him completely off guard. He finally caved and told me that my mother had been murdered. I didn't cry-couldn't seem to shed a tear; I still haven't 'til this day shed a tear for her. I don't know why and I know that it seems so heartless of me, but I just can't. Anyway, it turns out that Laurent panicked after she called the police to get help for me and slit her throat. She died instantly, right next to my body.

"Carlisle told me that Laurent had run. He ran like the coward he was and he hid well. They couldn't find him for years. It would be my junior year of high school when they caught hm. I was alone. I was six years old and I had no where to go and I had no one to be with; my mothers dead, my father never wanted me, and the man that killed my mother was on the run. I had no home.

"Like any other case, they called child services and I just didn't care. When someone would speak to me I would just stare at the wall ahead of me and blink, sometimes not even that. One evening, right before his shift ended, Carlisle made his normal stop into my room to visit me. He was the only person I stared in the eyes. Everyone else just got the non verbal treatment, so did he, but at least he got an eye stare.

"Anyway, he came into my room and started his usual talking, hoping I would respond. I didn't. While he was in there Child services came in and told me after I was discharged in two days I was going to go with her to my new home. She talked about a place where I would live with other children and have many people to play with. I still didn't care. Carlisle listened to her talk too. I watched his face as she talked. He seemed…apprehensive about what she talked about and it showed clear as day on his face. He asked to speak with her out of my ear shot and she went with him. I lay back down on my bed and was closing my eyes when after a few seconds Dr. Cullen came back in. He looked…hopeful. I was confused.

"He sat on my bed this time, not in his normal chair. He stared at me and a smile broke out on his face. I blinked at him, bewildered by his sudden mood change. 'Would you like to come home with me and my family, Edward?' he asked. I looked at him concern laced in my features. But his smile seemed to win me over in the end. I had concluded that no one with that smile could ever be harmful, so I went and here I am, twenty-one years later with a family that loves and care about me and I couldn't have been happier.

"Look Jasper, I know our stories differ, slightly, but we both had to deal with unfit parents, and we both know how it feels to never get to know a sibling. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we're not that different and I understand what you went through; more then I can express in words. If you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here."

I stood from my seat, heading for Isabella's room, but Jasper stopped me, asking the one question I tried to avoid while telling this story. "Who was your sibling that you never got to know?" He asked curiously. I turned to see that all eyes were on me. I gulped, pushing back the uneasiness of this specific topic.

"My little sister…Jane. She was also killed by Laurent that night. My mother was six months pregnant with a baby girl. She had let me name her and I named her Jane." I turned away from them and walked into Isabellas room, a single tear falling down my cheek for the lost of my innocent little sister who I never got to meet, or know.

Isabella was still a sleep on the bed, her position slightly different then when I left her. She looked somewhat tranquil, peaceful, more serene then before; she looked absolutely beautiful. I walked over to her, kneeling beside the bed and brushing her hair from her eyes. That's the first time I head her whisper my name. "Edward." She called clearly. In fact it was so clear I thought she'd woken up and caught me touching her. I quickly pulled my hand away from her head and stood. She didn't move, but she did murmur again, she was talking in her sleep. Wow.

"Stay with me, Edward." She whimpered. "Please." I kneeled back in my spot beside her bed and took her hand. She relaxed instantly and I was pleased.

"I'm not going anywhere Isabella. I'm here."

I sat with her for hours, her father or brother poking their head in to check on her every now and again. They didn't question why I was still there, or why I was in the room with her, they just let me be which surprised me.

After her talking subsided I noiselessly left the room and went back out to the living room with the others. They all looked up, asking silently if she'd waken, I shook my head no.

"We're going to have to wake her soon." Jasper informed me. "We have to tell her about the plan." He stood from his seat and walked over to Alice and I, his attention more on Alice. "are you staying tonight, or are you going to the house?"

"I'll stay with you." She whispered. Jasper looks awful; he's going to need Alice.

"And you Edward, when are you heading out? I'm sure Tanya is worried."

"I'll leave after you tell her, if that's alright?"

"Of course-" he began before the cries from the next room made us all jump and run. Isabella....