I'm sorry for the long wait for the update... school, yet again, is a killer. -_- But, luckily, I've still scraped up some time to write chapter ten for all of you guys (that just so happens to be during math class when I don't feel like listening to the teacher =P). I hope you all enjoy it (:

Carlisle Cullen

More weeks had passed since I'd last spoken to either Esme or Erin, and the dreary weather of mid-April hadn't helped in lifting my melancholy spirits in the slightest. Nobody had dared speak to me about my somewhat recent encounter with Erin by the tree, and she herself didn't bother to give me more than a second glance whenever I caught her gaze in the hallways. She'd stopped coming to meet Ryan, Clark and myself after school as she used to, and ever the two other guys seemed as if they were beginning to avoid me more and more with each day that passed. I'd taken to simply going from class to class and day to day without any social contact with anyone, unless, of course, they took the initiative and spoke to me first.

This routine of mine continued on for a number of weeks, during which I had acquired a job at the local café; the one that my friends and I often visited. I'd only been working in the small town coffee-shop for about a week and a half when none other than Esme decided to pay me a visit.

The delicate jingle of the door chime signaled her entrance on a dismal Wednesday afternoon. She walked silently up to the counter where I stood, pulling a few dollar bills out of her pocket as she glanced up at the menu. She then ordered a small mocha, and watched my every move as I filled the cup and handed it to her. She began to turn around to walk out the door and back into the cold, spring rain, but then must have changed her mind as she turned back around to face me once again.

"Come sit down with me?" she offered, making a small gesture towards a table near the wall. I nodded eagerly before informing one of the higher-ranked employees that I was taking my break and following her over to the table, pulling up a chair.

"So what brings you here?" I asked casually, resting my elbows on the table in a carefree manner. She took a small sip of her coffee before she responded.

"Well, I don't want to seem creepy about bringing this up, but... you're dating that girl? Her name is Erin, right?"

I blinked in astonishment, "Huh? What makes you think that?"

"I, um... well, I saw you two at that oak tree a few weeks back. You looked like you were, uh... having a tender moment." She suddenly became fascinated with the black paint finish on the table in front of us, as if she were embarrassed.

Running my fingers through my tousled blonde hair, I replied, "No, we're not dating. She just had to tell me something and got a bit... carried away. That's all."

"Really? Cause it sure looked like you two were a couple. Your faces were basically glued together -"

I cut off her sentence by holding up my hand, "I know, I know. I can definitely assure you that we are not going out."

"Then what was up with all the tongue dancing?"

Tongue dancing? What the hell? I shook off the thought and responded, "She kissed me first. I didn't want her to, but she just kinda forced it upon me."

"But you kissed back. Didn't you?"

"No. I did not kiss her back. We both felt badly about it afterward – but, really, what is the huge deal? Does that upset you or something?"

She paused for a few short moments, taking another sip of her coffee to most likely try and buy herself some time, "No, not in the slightest."

I studied her face, "So you came all the way here just to talk to me about Erin? That doesn't seem like you."

"Well, no. I came here cause I felt like getting myself a cup of coffee and... I felt like talking to you. That just happened to run through my mind, 'cause I saw her on my way here. She looked like she was running away from something – or someone – though. It was kinda weird."

I felt as my forehead creased in consternation, "Running from who?"

Esme shrugged, "No idea. She just looked really upset about something; I didn't see anyone going after her, though. Who knows, maybe she was just trying to get out of the rain."

"Possible," I replied, nodding slightly. "Anyway, um, I gotta get back to my shift. Are you free later?" I asked innocently.

"Yes... do you want to hang out or something?"

I smiled encouragingly, "If you'd like to."

To my pleasant surprise, Esme cracked a slight smile back, "That sounds great. How about in the park?"

"Works for me. I'll see you in about an hour." I stood up from my chair and smiled at Esme one last time before walking back around to the counter and watching her walk swiftly out the café door.

##

The last hour of my shift at the coffee-shop seemed to drag on for what felt like forever as I waited for the clock to strike four. After a very slow tick of the minute hand, I punched out and, grabbing my coat, walked out of the door and started towards the park. I'm making progress here, I thought, stuffing my hands in my pockets as I walked down the slippery sidewalk, I finally get to just hang out with her. Casually, that is. It's not like we're stuck in a forest all night again. My eyes wheeled around, searching for Esme as I entered the park. I spent a few minutes looking for her, before I felt a light tap on my shoulder and her midnight blue eyes greeted me on the other side.

"Oh... hi." I smiled, hoping my cheeks weren't flushing into a bright red.

"Hey," she replied. "Want to go sit in the gazebo? It's still raining pretty hard." I nodded and followed her over to the gazebo that sat directly in the middle of the area, taking a seat on the bench inside. It seemed that her and I were the only two people in the park; I assumed that everyone else had been more intelligent and taken shelter inside a warm building rather than an outdoor gazebo. Esme took a seat next to me, sitting closer than usual but still keeping a few inches radius between our bodies. An awkward silence passed between the two of us for a few moments before I mustered up the courage to break it.

"So, what have you been up to?"

She paused before answering my cliched question, "Nothing much; school, babysitting my little sister. Not anything too grand."

I blinked, not recalling that certain piece of information, "You have a littler sister?"

"Yeah; her name is Alice. She's ten years old."

"Oh, that's cool."

Esme smirked lightly, "Eh, not really. Don't you have any siblings?"

I shook my head, "Nope. Only child." She gave a small nod and turned her gaze to the floor of the gazebo. Watching her make this movement reminded me of the last time I had spoken to her in the forest; it brought back the memories of the brief description that she had given me about her personal life and the horrors it entailed. Thinking about that for a few moments led me to the thought that Esme often worried excessively over her younger sister, which would explain her frequent absences from school. After what she had told me about her father, the thought had never occurred to me that she endured the torture he inflicted upon her to protect her sister. Then, without thinking, I suddenly blurted:

"How's your dad been?"

Still staring at the wooden floor, the emotion in Esme's eyes drained and a black stare came into its place instead.

"He's been fine," she murmured. "Hasn't been home very often."

I gulped, deeply regretting my question as my cheeks flushed a bright red, "Well... that's good?"

"Yeah. Alice isn't too fond of his absence, though."

I raised one eyebrow, "She doesn't know about... what he does?" I pressed, trying desperately to make my extremely personal question as discreet as possible. She seemed to be trying to blink back a few stray tears before she answered my inquiry.

"No." Her voice was nearly inaudible as she continued, "She doesn't know about anything... because I shield her from it. Whenever he's around, drunk or sober, I try to hide her. I'd rather that he hurt me than lay a finger on her. She's young; she shouldn't have to endure that level of trauma at her age."

"Why don't you call the police on him?" I asked hastily.

She paused for a few seconds, "He would know that it was me if the cops showed up at the house. I can't risk that."

"But if they took him away, he wouldn't be able to hurt you," I pointed out.

"Then Alice and I would be taken into foster care," Esme replied matter-of-factly.

"What about relatives? You could stay with them, couldn't you?"

"No. There's none nearby, and... well, they wouldn't welcome me into their home, anyway." She must have noticed the questioning and rather confused look on my face, because she then continued, "You see, they blame me for... my mother's death." She once again looked away to the wooden floorboards of the gazebo that sheltered us from the cold rain as she said this.

"They do?"

She nodded, "I was wither when she died. They all think that it is my fault."

Following her gaze and shifting awkwardly, I asked, "If you don't mind me asking... how did she die?"

"... Car accident," she whispered. "A truck was about to hit me, so she knocked me out of the way... she got hit instead... and died on impact." I closed my slightly parted lips, staring at her as she kneaded her hands together in an attempt to occupy herself.

"I-I... I'm so sorry," I said softly.

Esme didn't seem to acknowledge my atonement as she continued, "We had been planning a day of enjoyment for a while. We didn't get to 'hang out' with each other very much, if you will; she worked a lot and Alice had to come along most of the time. She'd said a few months before that we'd soon take a day for just the two of us, to go into town to shop and what not. We had to postpone the date several times, 'cause things like work or school would always come up and we'd have to cancel. But, finally, we got to have that day. It was a really nice day out, sunny, not cloudy and all that, so we decided to walk into town instead of taking the car. We'd shopped around for a little while, talked, laughed, everything. The first half of the day was the best I'd ever had in my life; I'd been longing for so long to be able to just talk with my mom, to be able to just be with her without my father or sister around. After we'd walked around the whole town, we decided to go get some ice cream shop that was nearby, so we started walking there. It was lunch hour on a Friday – I had the day off from school – so the roads were pretty busy with all the people trying to make their way to a fast-food restaurant so they wouldn't be late to work on their way back. We reached the edge of the road, getting ready to cross. I had begun to step out onto the road, when a van came bustling towards me and my mother grabbed my wrist to pull me back onto the sidewalk.

'Be careful, dear,' she had said, not loosening her tight grip on my wrist, 'we don't want you getting hit by a car. Now wait until it's completely clear; then we can cross.' I nodded and looked back and forth a few times, then when my mother gave the signal, we both started walking across the road to the ice cream shop. We'd barely gotten halfway across the road before a huge freight truck came hustling down the road. Hearing the loud honk of the horn, I stopped in my tracks and stared at the oncoming vehicle, terrified. The truck was about ten feet in front of me when I felt a shove from the side and I went tumbling across the road. Just as I stood up and turned around to see who had pushed me out of the way, the truck came in straight contact with my mom and struck her down. The driver didn't even stop after he hit her; just kept driving, like a typical hut-and-run accident. I stood there petrified for a few split seconds before I ran over to her body that lay in the middle of the street. Most of her bones were broken and her limbs were askew at different angles as her sightless eyes stared up at me from the ground. I sobbed and shook her body over and over again, until I finally realized that it was lifeless and never to be animate again. I'm not sure how long I sat there over her body, but I remember an employee at one of the local cafés coming out to the scene and calling 911. The ambulances and police cars arrived in a matter of minutes... but she was already gone. I don't remember much of what happened after that, but one of the policemen took me back to the station where my father picked me up and took me home. I stayed out of school for about a week after her death, and during that week was when my father really started to change. He'd always been an alcoholic, and I'd known that for years before the incident. He'd stopped drinking as heavily for around a year, but after my mother's passing, he started right back up again. This continued for several months, and just when I thought that he was finally starting to cope with her being gone a little bit better, it only got worse. By that time, my birthday had passed and I'd turned ten. Alice was only five at the time, so she didn't understand any of what was going on with my father. For all she thought, he just had a bad day at work whenever he would come home and start drinking or doing whatever he did at night. After I had put Alice to bed, he'd be drunk beyond sense. He would go on rampages and hit me and yell at me, telling me that it was my entire fault that my mother had died the way she did. This continued for a few years, but it wasn't until I was about thirteen that the..." Esme paused here for a few seconds, taking in a shaky breath before she spoke the next horrifying words, "... that was when the sexual abuse started. He'd drink even more than he ever did before, then he... he'd start on me. It was like my punishment for causing him to be miserable, it was him trying to torture me into being a better daughter. I had no choice but to let him abuse me in that manner night after night; after all, I was only thirteen and couldn't do much about it. I had to constantly wear long sleeves and pants to school to hide the cuts and bruises he'd given me. As for the face wounds, well, I had to wear excessive amounts of makeup to conceal it. To this day, he still hasn't stopped doing... that... to me. He doesn't do it as often anymore, but still does it nonetheless. It's at those times when I think the most about how things would be if my mother were still alive. I'd probably live a normal life with a normal family. I'm honestly surprised that he hasn't killed me yet; but, sometimes... sometimes, I just wish that he would." It was at this point Esme finished, her arms were wrapped tightly around her herself and her eyes were squeezed shut in an attempt to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill over. I was left speechless, the only form of comfort I could give to her was placing my hand lightly around her shoulders and pulling her into my side. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead upon them, her body shaking with gentle sobs.

"I-I'm sorry, Carlisle," she choked, "I shouldn't have told you all that."

I shook my head and gave her shoulders a squeeze, "No. It's better that I know."

She lifted her head a few inches off of her knees and looked at me with swollen, tear-filled eyes, "Why?"

Giving her a small encouraging smile, I stared deep into her gorgeous, dark blue eyes and asked softly, "Because it'd be right for me to know these things about you... that is, if you'd like to do me the honor of becoming my girlfriend."

… um...yeah.

Thoughts, comments, concerns? Reviews always put a smile on my face after enduring yet another one of these gross and snowy winter days :P