This chapter ismostly in Alice's POV and her mind is a bit jumbled. She will start one idea and then break off into another. If anything is unclear just tell me, okay?

She also had flashbacks that will be italicized because even though she is a vampire who is supposed to not remember her painful human life, she can remember parts. It happens later that she blocks it all out until she forgets but she's never told anybody about her human life experiences.

Chapter 13 of THAT Girl

Directly following the departure of Edward's lovely Bella, I knew he would pounce. Edward was always the most attentive in the family. Catching every single tiny, insignificant detail. Quite annoying actually, because you cannot get away with anything.

Perhaps Carlisle was correct to advise me not to come so quickly after he's found me, a crazed, blood thirsty monster, in that awful place.

To think I'd put my trust in that horrid woman. My stepmother was, in all respects, a wonderfully affectionate and generous woman to me. At least until my father became ill. Then I discovered her real nature.

Once more I felt the sting of her hand across my face. Her mouth scrunched up and all her beauty contorted into utter hatred, making her most unbecoming.

Of course, it need not matter what her appearance was for we were always in complete privacy when she felt the need to punish me. When around her friends during social outings and such I was her dear daughter. In our house it was different.

"You wretched child! Your father is on his deathbed and you constantly continue to tell lies. You see nothing of the future and have made it all up! God will not take pity on your soul. You will burn in hell for eternity!" she screamed at me. "Your father dies because of you. Your dramatics with visions and most likely all other sorts of witchcraft and sorcery! You've made his life miserable and all he's ever done is love you, instruct you, and teach you all that he knows about everything. This is how you repay him?! I daresay he now hates you. Disowns you as his child. For surely your are not worth it in the least bit!"

She beat me a few more times before she felt satisfied with my punishment. I know I'm not evil. They aren't lies, but true collections of the future. It isn't as if they happen often, but only once in a while. But does my father honestly hate me? I know my stepmother does, but does my father? The man who's always praised and admired me? The man who cared for me when nobody else could understand my situation? The man who took it upon himself to teach me at home instead of making me endure public schooling where all the others would surely be cruel to me?

I couldn't believe it to be a truth. But what the woman says bears resemblance to a possible reality. I was a burden to my father. I tired him and made him grow ill. If he dies, it will surely be my entire fault and nobody else's.

In truth, she was more the monster than I am, what with being a vampire. At least I have the common decency to not hurt humans. When, even though she was human, her main job in life was to hurt others. Most especially me, her poor and unfortunate stepchild.

What kind of a woman deludes a child into thinking that she killed her father? For eight years I carried that guilt. For eight years I believed that she had an honorable reason to hate me so much. I believed that everybody had a right to label me as abhorrence. A detestable creature that flawed all plans of perfection in many people's lives.

They all think I've forgotten what happened, forgotten what they did to me. I'd not be able to forget even if I tried to my entire life. Of that I am positive because that was what I spent my life doing.

Trying to forget the horrified looks, the downcast eyes, the mentions of 'unnatural' whenever my name was spoken.

She told him I was going away to a very special school. She told him not to worry about me at all for I was in her capable hands. She told him that it would be far better for him. She told him awful lies. But the worst part was that he believed her.

I did not blame him for finding love for when she wished it, she was an extremely lovable person. I blame her for all the times, in the presence of no one but the mice in the house, when she was an extremely unlovable person.

The 'special school' was very far from any kind of school I'd ever heard of. "It's a place where you will fit in," she told me. "Everybody there is just as abnormal as you are, my dear Mary."

She called me Mary in public as her way to make me feel uncomfortable without having to go somewhere alone. She knew my dislike for the name.

It was a hospital. But not the friendly type with clean white walls and nice nurses. No, this hospital was one that housed murderers, rapists, fanatics, and people with various birth defects and disabilities. But mostly, this hospital housed ordinary children like me who, in some chance of misfortune told a guardian of an occasional strange doing or simply annoyed a person enough to get them to send you here.

When I arrived at that hospital, many hands reached for me and dragged me into the building. The faces blurred together and they tossed me into an unsettlingly dark room. I could not se anything but I conjectured that there was nothing in the room to see anyhow.

I was a very frightened child of only 11 years. When they came for me again, after what seemed like days, they took me into a cafeteria. I guessed it was meant to be breakfast but I couldn't even discern one food from another. It all tasted disgusting nonetheless.

Many others were eating alongside me. Their faces blurred together as well. Still a distant memory as recently as this had happened, too. None of them looked in the least bit like a crazy person, the type of person you would expect to see in this hospital.

After that dreadful meal, the adults who had led my to that dark room, directed me towards a counter where a friendly looking lady was sitting amongst many bottles and jars of various medications. She handed me three different sized pills and showed me how to ingest them. Then rough hands grabbed me and they shaved my head so that I was bald.

Then those adults brought me back to the dark room.

And even today I can remember that same routine. My hair grew back over a few months and they kept cutting it. When I was 16, nearing 17, they stopped cutting it. But by the time I went through many changes, my hair was still incredibly short because there was no time for it to grow back.

Until all I could remember was the darkness enveloping me, that was the rest of my life. The only other things I remembered were intense pain for days and a strange male voice. And then I wandered around for a long time before I realized that I could see the future in frequent visions about people I didn't know at all. It scared me in the beginning. At least until I saw Carlisle coming for me.

Somehow he heard of me and started searching for me immediately. When we finally met, he took me as his own daughter for her knew all about what had happened to me when I endured that excruciating pain.

I became a vampire and he was one as well.

But visiting my Uncle Edward's family was hard for me. In addition to trying to disguise the odd changes in my appearance, such as my eye color that is caught somewhere between burgundy and bronze making them an odd orange shade, I had to resist a strange blood lust that I had never really experienced before. Usually, blood wasn't an issue because I had never had human blood, but being in a room for hours with humans breathing on my and sitting so close with their throats so near me… I won't even think about what could have happened. I'll have to stay away from humans for a while. Or maybe being around them would make it easier? Maybe I could develop a resistance to Carlisle if I worked with him at his hospital?

I'll have to ask him later. But these human memories haunt me so much that when I divulge into them my sleepless nights are enveloped with those scenes repeating in my mind. I have nightmares even when I cannot even sleep.

Bella's POV

I have a beau! Edward Masen shares my feelings! I believe that news is the best news I've even gotten in my entire life.

All the time I walk around with a silly smile on my face and this only happened two days ago. Yesterday I spent the afternoon with Angela because this was a prior arrangement that we had. She had something important to tell me. But I had something to tell her as well.

She is getting married! Ben proposed to her the day before. The day I was at Edward's house. The wedding is to be in July, only a month's time away. She's asked me to participate in her wedding. Her mother cannot afford an enormous wedding but wants her only daughter to be able to celebrate her very special day like a queen so it will be a fairly large celebration no matter the expense.

Between the news of Angela and Benjamin, and Edward's wish to be my beau my life seems perfect. And I really hope it lasts.

OMG. I have finals at school coming up so instead of studying for them I spent today writing this chapter for you guys. See how much I love you all?

But sadly, finals also means no time for the story. So the next update may not be for a little while. I hope you like this chapter though.