Disclaimer: The only thing that's mine is the plot of this story. SM owns.

The name of this chapter comes from the lovely song A Twist In My Story by Secondhand Serenade.

Mari is the best because she's good with words & numbers xD Big thanks!

Pretty please read A/N at the end.

Chapter 6: A Twist In My Story.

"One's past is what one is.

It is the only way by which people should be judged."

Oscar Wilde.~

I've never had moments in my life that were worthy of slow motion. It's never happened to me.

I know "slow motion" is not really possible in real life. However, I know that some moments in a person's life can feel that way.

The most important ones, the most terrifying ones, the ones that really matter; those are the ones which would feel like slow motion. The ones that you can't really believe are happening. Sometimes you want them to end, to move forward. Or maybe you want them to stop moving altogether; to savor them, to live in that frame of time for the rest of your life.

In any case, a "slow motion" moment is a defining one.

I've never had it. Until today, until now…it's happening right now.

Bella left him. She just told me. And it feels like time has ceased to exist. Nothing else matters. I feel like I'm not really here; as if this is not really happening.

Her lips are moving. She's talking. I think she's been talking for a while, but I'm too out of it to pay attention. I've heard bits and pieces of her sentences.

"…you just don't care apparently…see you in that club, with that girl…it's doesn't matter anymore…I'm just stupid…"

I think she's upset that I haven't said anything after she told me she left him. I think she's under the impression that it's not important. How wrong is she! If she only knew. If she only had any clue, any clue at all of the magnitude of my feelings for her.

If she only could get inside my brain, my heart, my soul, to know that she's the only thing that matters. The only thing that's ever mattered. I wish she could understand that this moment right now, that sentence she said, the passion in her eyes; are taking the breath out of me.

I try to focus on her, or better put, on what she's saying. I'm already focused on her. She's all I see. But I need to make sense of what she's saying. I will my brain to listen to her.

"I know this is not how it was supposed to go…I know…we weren't…I wasn't…but if you want me to just…if you don't want to be with me anymore I can—"

I still don't really understand where her line of thoughts has gone. But I stop her. I grab her waist, pull her to me and kiss her. I kiss her like it's the first and the last time I'll ever kiss someone again. I grab her hair and her waist and keep her as close to me as she can get. It's lips, tongues, teeth and passion. All the agony, all the bitterness, all the desperation; everything, I give her everything I have.

She nips, sucks and bites my bottom lip. She pulls hard on my hair and fists my shirt in her hand. She knows I love that. I make sounds that are loud and raw. I'm burning. We're burning together. I'm getting intoxicated by her essence.

We take turns pushing each other against the walls of the hallway. When it's my turn again I open the buttons of the shirt she's wearing. I kiss her chin, her neck, and her breasts. I can't stop. I grab her tights and lift her up. She wraps her legs around me and pulls my face to hers.

She kisses me as if she understood. As if she finally gets the immensity of my feelings for her. She is kissing me with more than just lust or animalistic passion. It's deeper than that. I'm drowning in her touch. In the way her lips mold against mine, in the way her hands grab my hair and caress my back.

If we keep this up, I'll take her right here against this wall. It wouldn't be the first time.

She moves her mouth to my neck.

"Did…you…really leave him?" I pant breathlessly. She murmurs a quite yes to my skin, before resuming her nibbling.

Suddenly, a strange paranoia settles inside me. For a moment I'm concern with the fact that this is all we ever do. Bella and I rarely talk. We have sex, eat, and fight. That's what we do. But It needs to change.

She's already working to get me out of my pants. I still her movements with my hands.

"Bella, Stop…" I say sadly. I'm a man. Of course I don't really want to stop. But we need to talk.

She looks at me as if she can't believe me. Nevertheless, she stops.

"Why?" She asks so softly. It almost pains me to hear it. She feels rejected. For the first time ever I wonder, really wonder, what Bella has been through. Everyone has a story. People have different backgrounds, different situations that made them who they are. I've never questioned Isabella for her behavior.

I don't really know where my common sense has been this past year. Why haven't I asked her the right questions? Why have I let her play me the way she has?

I'm about to get lost in my turmoil of internal rhetorical questions when I look at her. The answer magically appears. There's no room for questions when I look at her. Her hair is a mess, all curls and tangles. Her lips are red and swollen from our kiss. Her skin is flushed with the most gorgeous pink color. Her clothes are out of place. Her eyes are bright, deep brown, confused and mysterious. She's my answer. She's my common sense.

"We need to talk…" I tell her, answering her question from a few minutes ago.

"You want to stop seeing me." She says with conviction, fixing her hair and her clothes.

I sigh and tug at my hair. I want to roll my eyes at her so bad. Can't she see what I really want? I've asked her to stay here with me a million times. She must know. She must know how I feel. Maybe she's just toying with me, as she usually does. Maybe she's looking for reassurance. I've always seen these little acts of her as cruelty. When in reality, they're insecurity. I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out.

"No, Bella…that's not it. I want to know everything. I want to know everything about you…everything about him…I need to know all of you Bella…"

"You already know me." Her voice sounds so weak. I think I'll never be able to understand how she can do this. How she can change from one mood to the other so fast. She turns her back to me. She's still close to me. I still can touch her. I don't.

"No, Bella…I don't know you…tell me…just tell me…did you really leave him? Why? What took you so long? Why were you with him in the first place? Share your story with me Bella, I don't care if you're scared…I promise I won't judge. I just need to know, your past, your present, everything…please sweetheart…don't deny me." I coax her softly.

After a big sigh and a look of defeat so heavy in her eyes, she proceeds to tell me. She tells me about the disaster that was her parent's marriage. How his father, a really important business man, cheated on her mother constantly, and as a result her mother turned into an addict. She told me about being bullied in high school because everyone knew her situation at home and casted her out socially for it.

I listen intently to her story. As sad as it makes me to know the bad things that happened to her, it's fascinating to get to know her; really know her. We started off sitting on the floor of my hallway, but after my muscles couldn't take it anymore, we moved to the living room. We sat on the biggest couch; she curled on top of me and played with my shirt. In the meantime, I caress her arms and hair. When she got to the hardest parts, her voice broke. Like when she told me about having to check her mom into a rehab center and dealing with the aftermath of living alone with a father who didn't give a shit about her.

This was all before she graduated high school.

Her senior year was torture. Her mom was still in rehab, because her process was slow. She didn't want to be helped. Bella spent almost all of her free time going back and forth to the center. She didn't really have a social life. Her peers continued to look down on her, and then she went from bullied to being ignored altogether. I think it was worse for her. I think after the hard times she had in her family, attention is what she needed the most, maybe in any form.

I don't tell her this of course. I stay quite throughout her whole tale. I just pet her hair and kiss her forehead when the need to do so strikes me.

She surprised me when she tells me she wanted to be a journalist. She wanted to write for an opinion column in an important newspaper. And she intended to really do it. After high school she went to Europe to a prestigious university. Being her father a busy business man, who didn't really want her close, money wasn't an issue. Her mom was improving and was even considering filling for a divorce. Bella told me about being scared at first. She didn't want to leave her mother behind. She knew she was being taken good care of, but she was still apprehensive.

It wasn't until a visit, where she had a real serious talk with her mother that she decided to change everything. The process of rehabilitation was hard on her mom, and she had to fight depression along with her addiction to prescribed pills. But there were days better than others, where she had clear and smart thoughts to share with her daughter. On what of those days she encouraged Bella to go to Europe.

She told her how she deserved a fresh start, where no one knew about her past. She could be free of all the judgmental looks she had live with her whole life. Her mom advised her to be strong and not let anyone look down on her anymore. She asked her to never care for other's people feelings more than her own. She used herself as an example. How her unconditional love to Bella's father had placed her in a position where she didn't know herself anymore.

Bella went to London with those thoughts tattooed on her mind and heart. She set herself the task of, for once in her life, standing out and being free. She started to work on her confidence and the way she looked. She told me how, as soon as she started dressing according to fashion trends and her amount of money, she started dating.

"Guys are no different because of the country. They care about a woman's appearance much more than they should. It doesn't matter what part of the world they're in." She said sadly.

She admitted how she disregarded her studies for her social life. She went out almost every weekend and got crappy grades on almost every subject. She even lost her passion and love for journalism. It didn't really appeal to her anymore. She was in love with the attention she was getting. Girls hanged out with her, because now she had the same interests than them; looking good, staying fit, shopping, going out with hot guys. And guys wanted her for the new found sexuality in her.

In the blur of social gatherings she was in, she met Rosalie Hale and Tyler Crowley; two Americans that were studying abroad like her. They introduced her to the world of magazine design and publishing and she soon found herself changing career paths.

She graduated a year later than them but kept in touch with Rosalie, who had come back to the country. Thanks to their friendship, Bella got an internship in Los Angeles.

"By the time I started living in LA, I was already sick of everything. I kind of wanted a fresh start again, just like London was for me. But it was impossible. I would've never made it. It's a dog eat dog world. I had to be tough. I had to keep using my ways to get what I wanted, and if that meant being a bitch, well I was going to be one."

She met James, her husband, while interring in LA. He was the CEO of a computer company in Seattle who started courting her while on his business trip. She told me he treated her good and was unimpressed with the glitz and glamour of the live in Los Angeles. It instantly attracted her to him. That's how at the end of her internship, that happened to be the end of his trip to LA, she packed up everything and came here to Seattle.

It was hard for her to find a job that was both stimulating and prestigious. Seattle is not really known for its fashion industry, but eventually she landed a small job in the magazine she's currently directing.

She married James 4 years ago at the age of 24. They dated exclusively for a year before he proposed.

"I said yes, of course. I wasn't in love with him…It wasn't in me to love anyone. But…I thought he'd make a good husband…like…if I had to spend the rest of my life with someone, he'd be a good choice."

She talked about him in a robotic voice; like he's of no importance whatsoever. It was shocking to me at first. I always thought he was more important to her. But she's not even in love with him. I had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling at her. I wanted to know why she hadn't left him. She put me out of my misery before I lost it. She said they were trapped in a mindless circle. That it was easier for both of them to just get on with their lives, to not complicate everything with a divorce. She's aware he's cheated on her, but she doesn't care nor blames him.

"About year and a half of our marriage, I was beginning to be successful at the magazine. I was climbing my way up. I was still taking orders from snobs, and running coffee errands, but I wasn't the "new girl" anymore. But one day out of nowhere he didn't want me to work anymore and when I didn't stop, he started treating me differently. He said I was more in love with my job than him…which was true. When he saw I didn't even flinch when he said that, he started paying no attention to me, working late every night. He wouldn't call or let me know, he would just miss dates and dinners. We became strangers, more than we already were…but it was kind of easy for me. I had a successful husband, I was respected and accepted in the social circles…and he…well I still don't know what he had…" She trailed off.

I mull over her words again and again. I mull over her words again and again while we take a break to eat. I'm now standing in the kitchen pulling plates and silverware to place our newly delivered food. She's been silent for a while and each time I catch her eyes, she looks down as if embarrassed.

After I cleared our plates, I ask her to join me on the couch again. Without me having to ask her she starts speaking again.

"When it was our two year wedding anniversary, we didn't meet or anything…and for some strange reason, I started crying. I had a full out breakdown, I cried that whole night. It was so weird. It felt like I hadn't cry in forever. I was so desperate for it to stop…I…I tried to find some anxiety pills, but of course we didn't have any. It scared me, because it reminded me of my mother. I didn't want to be like her…but I felt so lonely, so insignificant…and then I met you."

My breath hitches when I think of Bella ever feeling insignificant, as much as she means to me. It's just inconceivable. I can't help but feeling a bit thrown off by her mention of me. I thought she wouldn't talk about me at all. And, now that she has, I want her to keep going.

"What about me?" I ask slowly.

She breathes deeply and looks up at me sweetly. I've never seen that look in her eyes before; so sweet, so tender. There's a small smile in her lips. My heart ignites on fire at the sight.

"You...you were so different."

"Different how?"

"Just everything Edward…everything is different about you…you are probably one of the most handsome men there is and yet you…you aren't cocky or shallow…on the contrary, you're extremely smart and nice. You talked to me with both vulnerability and strength in your voice. Your voice is so unique, and your eyes…I just see goodness and kindness when I look at them…and I don't even know what those things are."

I stare at her with my mouth hanging open. I thought she was going to talk to me about sex. Maybe say how I was giving her the release her husband wasn't. She didn't mention our sexual activities not even once.

I still don't know why she has made the decision to leave her husband. Was it because of me? I stop myself before getting my hopes up.

"Bella, I—"

I'm cut off by the annoying sound of her cell phone ringing. I cringe notoriously when I hear it. If there's a sound I hate, it's the one of her BlackBerry.

She moves from her spot on my lap and does the unimaginable. For the first time since I've met Bella, she silences it and comes back to me.

I think with amazement, that maybe…just maybe…I can let myself hope.

Mari said this was another cliff...I don't really think so...but if it is SORRY.

Once again Thank You so Much for your support. It means a lot.

So, now you kind of know a bit about Bella and she's being nicer, yes? Let me know if you still hate her.

Also, reviewers get a little teaser of next chapter. ;)

PS: If you want to read my random semi bipolar rambles, follow me on twitter LisbethTejada.

Till next time, xo.