Bookends By: Bella's Executioner.

Rating: M- this means if you're under 16 you are agreeing to break your own ToS by reading this and I'm not your mother so be responsible for yourself.

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer is the sole owner of the world of Twilight. She is Bella's creator. I am Bella's Executioner.

A/N: Bookends is the very first fanfiction I started writing. It's been on this site, moved and come back. It has errors, fuck ups and lots of proofs that I'm human but it also has all of my heart and soul in it. I welcome you into this world of pain and love and hope that you enjoy. I also welcome your thoughts as you read—pm me or review and I'll be happy to discuss the story with you.

Chapter 2: What a time it was

-**-Bookends-**-

BPOV

I was staring off in to space again.

It was better than seeing the bleached roots of my, gag me, step mother. My father's wife- that had a better ring to it.

I was only on day fifteen of my twenty one day sentence in "Folsom". My father's wife son, Renesmee, don't ask me how that was a boy's name, let alone a name at all, was bobbing his head to the travesty that he called music and was making me queasy. He was such a little prick. He went by Runny for short.

Yeah, 'cause that makes you sound more manly. I thought.

I focused on my three remaining squares of shredded wheat and didn't try to hide my grimace. Freakin' alarm clock. Bet the middle aged Barbie set it just to piss me off. Her make up was so caked around her crow's feet that it cracked when she fabricated happiness at seeing me enjoy my breakfast. I slopped all three squares in my mouth at once and tried not to suffocate as I rushed to finish.

I wouldn't have gotten up. I wouldn't have bothered to come into the kitchen. But I thought there was no earthly reason why people would be up at 7 am on a Saturday. Enter the Spunky-Brewster twins.

I shoved away from the table and poured the rest of my milk down the sink. It was going on and on about her day and I was wondering how hard it would be to shove my spoon in my ear. I actually had the bowl of the utensil against my lobe when I heard my dad come in the room.

I dropped the silver, probably actual silver, spoon in to the Greek porcelain basin. It landed with a clink to the tune of a couple thousand dollars worth of sealant scratching. I didn't bat an eye. I turned to find my father masking his grimace with a smile to Joan Crawford. Funny, if I hadn't heard the scrape of silver on the outlandishly priced ceramic tile work, I would have thought that was just his regular smile. It certainly was the only one he ever graced me with.

"Good morning," he glanced at me awkwardly, pausing to find the right endearment. Finally I looked away and he settled on, "sweetie." Nice. Eleven years and all he could do was greet me like I was some random kid he was forced to acknowledge on the street.

I kicked myself as I fled from the room. There was only one place I wanted to be- well two places really, but only one that I was allowed to go to. I was blushing in fury and seriously considering finding some way to abuse sleeping pills for the next five nights. Maybe I had some old cough syrup in the bathroom.

By the time I hit his room the tears were flowing. And I wasn't a pretty crier. Snot ran down to my upper lip and my cheeks were puffy and red. I didn't bother to knock. My brother and I were not shy around each other.

He was still gloriously passed out on his king sized chocolate clad bed. I just stumbled to the leather couch and hugged my knees to my chest. I buried my face in my Garfield covered pajama pants. I sighed, trying to just inhale and exhale. I rested my cheek on my bent knee and stared out at the lake.

The morning sun cast a golden glow behind the thin clouds. There were birds floating on the water. The rain had stopped.

Perfect. Six more days and no more rain. Bet it would be all bright and sunny too. Guess now Renee and I go like totally hang at the mall, I thought sarcastically. Another silent tear slipped down my cheek.

"Well, get you ass over here already," a grumbly voice muttered in a sleepy haze. I smiled wide at the sound of my big brother's voice. I had a lot of stuffed animals growing up- okay I owned a lot of them now. But the best teddy bear in the world was Emmett.

He was probably the biggest thirteen year old you ever saw but not in that awkward goofy teenage guy kind of way. Emmett was muscular and lean and huge. His dark curly hair was cropped short this season- football practice had started and all. His chest rumbled and he didn't bother to open his eyes as I fought with my height deficiency to get on the bed.

I landed with a flop, not intentional, and the air whooshed out of my lungs. Em threw a scowl at me with one eye. Then his annoyance melted away as he opened both eyes to examine my face.

"What did that bitch do now?" he all but bellowed. This is where my brother and I differed. That bitch was two different people to us. For him it was Renee, for me it was our father.

He, being the all-state-ball player and champion, garnered loads of attention and admiration from my father all of the time. They always had something to talk about and dad was usually eager to test that theory. There was plenty of strain in the relationship too, just not quite the 'sweetie' kind that I dealt with.

Em abhorred Renee- our step... father's wife. Don't get me wrong, I hated her too. Maybe even more than my father in some ways. See all that attention that Em got for being a boy from dad, I got for being a girl with dear 'ol Renee. Mall was a four letter word that I carried mace to ward off because I had suffered thorough one too many trips with her and Runny. Em detested the way she treated me but he mostly just detested her. He hated empty headed blonds.

I couldn't fault him on the logic, but she wasn't the source of my pain this weekend. I was crazy and stupid and I just couldn't explain it. This trip to Victoria just seemed too hormonal. I was hyper sensitive to usual crap that I thought I was pretty good at suppressing. I didn't feel like turning into the couch-confessioner quite yet. So I changed the subject, diversionary tactic style.

"Alice sent me an email with some of the samples of the fall line."

The burly bear finally woke up at the mention of high fashion. I covered my giggle in a cough.

"Any Armani?" Was he actually drooling…

I shook my head. "Don't know. It's like you going over baseball stats and Mike spewing car names. It's all Greek to me." I shrugged my shoulders. He huffed and loped out of bed to turn on his computer. I was glad that clothes made him so easily drop the S.I. but those raging female hormones were making me teary eyed at the thought that yet another person was okay with ignoring my pain.

"On your hotmail?" he asked scratching his butt and letting out a giant burp. What a catch!

"Yah," I offered through tight lips.

"Oh, and Bells," he typed my email address in and I wondered if it should bother me that my brother could fraud my identity so effortlessly.

"Yah?"

"You ARE going to tell me what's up."

Crap.

"Oh?"

That's it stupid. Cry for two weeks straight that you hate being ignored and then play dumb when someone finally pays you some attention.

The look that I got in the reflection of his giant back window said the same thing in Em language.

"I dunno…" I mumbled under my breath. I picked at the fading orange kitty on my thigh. Em tapped his index finger on the keys of his keyboard. Just annoying enough to make me feel like I owed Trebek my answer in the form of a question.

"I'm just jonesing for home. It's stupid… It's a girl thing." That should do it.

I looked up in time to see Em shaking his head with a shiver running down his back. Nothing stopped a guy from talking to you faster than the hint of 'girl' things. The only thing quicker would have been to just blurt out tampon or vagina. He was totally enraptured with the pics of Alice modeling the new Cullenista line of clothes in the next breath.

Alice was the youngest designer on the west coast. Cullenista had been getting attention on the world market and she was selected to show at New York fashion week for the last two years in a row. This year she was to be featured in a fall junior's campaign for major retail stores that would include the current 'It' designers. And that was where my fashion knowledge ran out. My brother was the apparel linguist. I could tell you if I thought it looked cute… but then I was wearing five dollar cartoon pants while Em slept in fifty dollar designer silk boxers.

I liked all of the looks she sent me this time. They were part of her "Perfect Little Pixie" line. I snickered at the name. It was no secret that her four foot ten inch stature made her an oddity in the world of grown-upns, but the nick name Pixie was not an endearment to her. It was a seemingly nice way to call her short. And the guy who coined the phrase never said it as nice as perfect little pixie.

I laughed harder as I came to peek around Em's shoulder. Alice's adopted cousin, Edward Masen, was anything but nice when he made fun of her. I believe she was the "fucking little pixie bitch" to be exact. Em looked down at me with a cocked eyebrow. I shrugged. Edward had a way of making me smile even when he wasn't around.

And then that thought made me smile wider. It had been exactly five days since I sent my last note to him. That meant it was my turn to get some mail.

I bolted out of the room with a burst of energy that I hadn't experienced since the last Edward-mail day. I ran down the two flights of stairs and through the winding hallway that ran through the two formal dinning rooms and foyer. I was practically vibrating when I reached the mail cache to the left of the front door.

I don't know why I always felt so possessed to write to Edward. We weren't particularly close when he came to visit during the Christmas holidays. In fact, I think in person we had maybe spoken five words to each other our entire lives. But I never had a problem talking to him on paper.

He was like this safe outlet for me...Or at least, I sent him stuff and he didn't reject it— he returned suit and sent me mail right back.

I discarded ninety percent of the massive pile of letters since this was not my house and the correspondence that was received here was not my concern. I noted a rather weighty envelope addressed to Charles Swan and Family with my grandmother's return address in the corner. One of the elites must be sucking the soul of another innocent in a matrimonial sacrifice. I had few cousins—and I wasn't close to any of them.

Finally, I found it. A small postcard sized piece of paper with a dizzying array of green and red swirls all over it. I hugged the picture to my chest and ran back up to Em's room. He was still playing on line when I jumped on to the couch to reverently appraise my latest piece of mail.

For the last three years I had diligently sent Edward a letter that summed up the highlights of my week. A weekly update seemed reasonable to me. Months were too long to remember the important things as they usually became unimportant over enough time. And daily letters were beyond pathetic even for me. So I decided he should hear about my mundane, silly life once a week.

It had made him smile when he was around me in person to just sit and listen to me twitter on about nothing. And I loved that someone was willing to at least just sit there and hear me. So I had hoped that the letters would be well received. I settled on letters since I knew Edward didn't have access to email all that often and there was a distance in snail mail that could help settle my nerves over putting so much of myself out there for someone to reject.

The anxiety over the first correspondence had given me the craps so bad that I had to miss five days of school. On the fifth day I finally found peace of mind. Five days exactly from the one when his letter left me, I got a reply.

I don't know what I was expecting. Edward was a smart guy—two years older than me. He read everything. He was funny. He was introverted. He had an angry streak in him that made people afraid to be around him. I wasn't expecting sonnets to arrive in the post that had been composed just for me, but what I got was not something I would have expected.

Edward was a private artist. He sketched his moods and his thoughts but only in the privacy of his own room and only for his own serenity. I had been privileged enough to watch him draw on many occasions when he stayed at Alice's house in the winter. But I'd never been allowed to see any of his work.

I reverently ran my fingers over red circles and green ribbons on my postcard. I smiled remembering the first picture I got. It was an apple. No note. No words. Just a red, perfect shiny apple with our addresses and names on the back side of the page. I had accepted the apple with a hell of a lot of pride. Edward was hard to get along with—even for me. But that little red apple spoke more than any amount of useless words.

So I kept sending him my nauseatingly detailed accounts of book reports and movie nights. And he continued to reply with his abstract conceptions of the crap in his life.

I could tell by the deep grooves of the red lines that he was angry. That made me angry. His mother was on my most hated list just above the two poser parental units that were downstairs in this house.

In juxtaposition to the scarlet hatred, the light green colored lines were so soft and gentle. I smiled as I fingered the giant green eye in the center of the page. It was my eye. The color was too hard to miss. Green, light as sage, with golden amber hints reflecting around the edges. I didn't know exactly what it meant but I imagined it could mean that thinking of me was a soothing thing rather than a frustrating thing.

"God, he's still sending you those?" Em was rifling through his drawers to change. I flashed a big goofy grin as I nodded. He chuckled. It was just as silly and stupid as my weird emotional breakdowns in this house, but my success with Edward was validated each time I got one of these postcards. It made me happy. I didn't know why it meant so much to me that he was willing to take time to mail these every week but it did.

"Fucking freak." Em whispered.

Anger flared so sharp in me that I actually balled my fist like I thought I could get a hit in on my massive big brother's face.

"HE IS NOT!" I shrieked. The room was red and so was my face. I felt a kinship or a bond with Edward that I didn't have to share with anyone else. It was my own… private. And it made me very protective of him.

"Take it back Em!" I scolded. "YOU don't get to judge anyone!"

My pointed glare shut him up and he huffed out of the room. Tears of rage were flowing down my cheeks. I was sorry to throw that back in his face—I carried a lot of secrets about the guys in my life and it wasn't fair to use it against him. But Em didn't know what kind of hell Edward lived in. I did.

I touched the corner of the card where the red pulled back to look like flames and scowled.