"If both my parents had died and I was sent away, no matter how crappy my foster homes could be, my life would be no where near the hell it is now! If I had been forced from everyone I cared about, I wouldn't...I wouldn't've...I...I h-h-have to g-g-go."

With that, Bella picked up her lunch and left.

Though I had no connection with her whatsoever, I couldn't help but hurt for her. Something terrible had happened before she had come to Forks, something that would make her dream about an alternate universe where her pain was not an issue. Something that made her wish that she had left Forks sooner. What did she regret? "I wouldn't...I wouldn't've...," she had began. What wouldn't she have done?

Was there anything I could do to help her?

I doubted that I would ever find out, judging by her behavior over the next few days after that conversation. I never saw her come into the lunch room, but sure enough, she was there in biology, only inches away from me, but far outside my reach. She almost never looked up at Mr. Banner, her eyes always on her paper or the lab. The only words that I ever heard out of her mouth were generally among the lines of "pass the microscope, please?"

I missed her voice for some strange and odd reason. Her silence in biology somewhat depressed me. It wasn't just a matter of concern anymore. Something made me feel obligated to help her. It felt like somehow, she was hurting herself more than anyone else ever had, and that I was the only one paying attention. Was everyone else so obtuse? Why was it that the person who is naturally anti-social was only person who might be able to reach her.

I couldn't help but be proud of her anyway. Red flags went up and she knew to follow them. Had she not told me about the red flags in her relationship with that one person back home? She was clever, and definitely very cautious. In this day and age, so many girls were so desperate for so many things that they would give anything for them. Bella would protect herself before letting anyone else but herself harm her ever again, no matter what she wasn't receiving in return.

And she didn't seem to take anything for granted. The way that she had criticized me for not being grateful for what I had was a sure sign of that. No one had ever told me that I was being ungrateful.

The week finished with no resolution to Bella's problems, and no answer to my curiosity.

I decided to find her during lunch on Monday. We had no limitations to where on-campus we could eat, with the exception of the carpeted areas, so really she could've been anywhere in the school other than the classrooms and certain hallways. I finally found her, sitting at one of the abandoned picnic tables in the courtyard.

"Do you really have that much of a desire to sit alone?" I asked her, sitting on the bench opposite of her.

"I'm not alone," she declared.

"So, we're back in elementary school and we have imaginary friends again?" I wondered, teasingly.

"Hm. Shouldn't Friday be your rude day. You hadn't mentioned Friday or rude, yet. You must be off schedule. It's Monday, your observant day," she reminded me. She definitely was observant to have remembered all of that.

"I did say that didn't I? Well, are you going to explain your little friend?" I questioned, truly curious as to how she "wasn't alone."

"I guess he is sort of imaginary, but I didn't completely make him up, either," Bella explained, not meeting my eyes with hers. She seemed either embarrassed or nervous to explain.

"I don't think I understand what you're saying," I admitted.

"I don't...um...I don't think I should...I can't," she stammered.

"Bella. I told you I would be here. The fact that I sacrificed my lunch time to come and find you should prove that. I'm not going to tell anyone anything. I'm only here to support you," I assured her, wondering if I sounded like a complete lunatic. She had been here for all of a week and I was already swearing secrecy to her as if I were her best friend.

"Okay, don't think of me as some sort of mental person," she requested. And I had thought that she would think I was loony.

"Cross my heart," I swore cornily.

"I had this friend, Jacob - "

"Had?" I interrupted.

"I'm getting there. You know, you're not making very many points here in your task of proving that you're concerned," she warned me. She had a point.

"Sorry, that part just kind of stuck out," I apologized.

"Anyway. We had been friends for years. Pretty much our whole lives. He was my best friend and he was always there for me. Our Junior year, we started dating. Everything was working out perfectly. I don't really socialize well, so it felt nice that the only person that I really ever connected had felt that way for me.

"One day, about a month ago, he didn't show up for school, and he hadn't called me or anything, saying that he wasn't coming like he usually did. He knew I didn't like facing the day alone. I may not have been that good with people, but that didn't mean that I hadn't tried. I really didn't like being by myself. Anyway, he didn't call. But when school got out, his father did. He told me that Jacob had killed himself. Or at least it looked like it," she explained.

"What do you mean 'it looked like it?'" I asked her, cocking my head to the side.

"Well, there was no note. From the looks of it, he suffocated himself with house cleaner. There were no signs of struggle. His father had called the cops and all that fun stuff to make sure he wasn't murdered or anything. There was nothing that the cops could find that signified any kind of homicide. Only Jacobs prints were on the bag, and his fathers were the only other prints on the cleaner can. At first, Jacob's father was questioned, but his boss vouched for him that he was at work when Jacob died," she concluded.

"Didn't you talk to him about this? You know, before?" I clarified. Generally depressed people show sings of impending suicide. Bella seemed like the observant type that wouldn't miss a beat. It seemed odd that Jacob's psychological problems would escape her.

"No. That's what I was asking you about earlier. He should have known what his death would have done to me, but he didn't even tell me that he was considering anything like this. He didn't show any sign of disappointment with where his life had been headed. There had been no change in him," she explained, remembering. "That's why I was wondering if he had even cared about me. If he didn't want me anymore, he could have told me that before he killed himself. What he did looks like he meant for me to suffer. It's like he's telling me 'By the way, I hate my life and you didn't make it any better.' How am I supposed to live with that."

It took me a while to respond. Bella had been through a lot. She had to deal with losing the only person that she had been able to connect with. Someone that, from the sounds of it, she had loved unconditionally. Then she had to deal with the burning doubt of his true feelings.

"And your imaginary friend?" I prompted after a few moments of silence (with the exception of Bella's quiet sniffles).

"Well, it's less of an imaginary friend than a presence. Whenever I think of Jacob, I tend to feel him, too. I was just wondering whether he would think that I was being a wuss. I was thinking about what he would say about how I was taking this. Whether he would try to tell me that he did love me after all my questioning. I wondered if he thought moving to escape was an act of weakness," she told me.

"Do you ever think you'll get over it? I mean, of course it'll always hurt, but do you think that you'll be able to live life, grateful that you had all of those years with him? I mean, my parents are dead, and sure I miss them, and I think about them a lot. But Carlisle and Esme have always been there, and I've learned to accept that and be happy with what I you thing that you'll be able to move on?" I wondered.

"And start dating again?" she guessed, predicting my real question. "True love is only once in a lifetime. Like I said, lightning never strikes the same place twice. That's also what I mentioned earlier."

"And you were completely sure that this was true love?" I asked. "No offense, but only one year of dating doesn't determine that," I pressed. "People who get married with shorter dating spans generally are the quickest to divorce, and even those who date for years end up becoming unfaithful. How are you sure that this 'my life is over' Jacob guy was the one that you were destined to be with?" Bella seemed to think for a moment.

"Jacob's skin was always abnormally warm, and thought the heat in Phoenix is extreme, his touch felt right. It didn't feel like it was that hot. Everything felt cold at the end of the day when he went home, and nothing ever meant as much as it did when I wasn't with him," she explained, the grief increased in her eyes with every words that left her lips.

"Once again, I mean no disrespect, but I feel the same way about my family, I mean the whole emotional part," I backfired. "Besides, true love is something that's meant to be. If you and Jacob were destined to be together, do you really think fate or any god out there would really let him leave you? Maybe some sort of higher power killed him because you were still with him when you weren't supposed to be. All I'm saying is that, as hurtful as this may be, it happened for a reason, and you should be open to whatever the change has in store for you," I continued. Then the bell rang.

"I have to go to my locker and get my bio book. I guess I'll see you in class," she announced, beginning to walk off. Then she turned on her heel and looked back at me. "And how do you think I should feel if some god really did kill Jacob because I wasn't listening? Is that supposed to make me feel so much better?" She spun around and headed towards the building.

Even when she was gone, one of her comments still rang in my ears:

"Lightning never strikes the same place twice."

Rarely could you ever mark a spot on the ground and accurately say that lightning would strike it, so the odds of lightning striking any certain place even once is slim. With the divorce rate in America increasing, I wondered if was anyone truly being stuck at all. Or was that some drunk cupid during his first day on the job? Bella had been lucky enough to experience a love that ended the way one should: till the death. But with all the liars and pretenders surrounding me, would I ever be struck even once?