Bella's POV

August, 1997

High School. Purgatory.

I entered into the school, armed with my class schedule and book bag, and tried to figure out where I needed to go. I thought about trying to find my locker, but decided to do that once I actually had something to put in it. Maybe at lunch time.

I hated to admit that I was nervous, but I was exactly that. I was nervous about being in high school, nervous about meeting new people, and nervous about seeing ones that I already knew.

I instinctively looked everywhere for Edward. He had called me the day before and we exchanged our class schedules and I knew that I'd have fourth period English with him. I wanted to see him. And at the same time, I didn't want to see him.

We'd gradually been growing more distant with one another since the last half of eighth grade, and I knew that was all my fault. I felt bad about it, tremendously. But I knew that if I let myself get too close to him right now, he'd see through my pretenses and wonder what was wrong.

He's probably already wondering that, idiot, I told myself.

Yeah, he probably was. Edward wasn't stupid. The exact opposite, actually. And he knew me well enough to know that something was up. I just didn't want to talk about it. It was easier that way.

My family was falling apart, the family that was unconventional, yet I had come to love and grown comfortable with. I wasn't close with my mom any longer, that had been happening since I'd moved out of her house. Nadine and I had grown close, though I didn't particularly get along with her daughter, who used to live with us, and that caused for some tension. But lately, things had gotten bad. And I mean, dad and Nadine not talking to each other—while Nadine sneaks phone calls to men that she'd met on the internet – bad.

Earlier this year, my dad surprised us all and brought home our first computer. We were all anxious to try it out and play with the internet, something we'd all heard about and dad used sometimes at work, but none of us had much exposure with it. He signed us up for an AOL account and we all made screen names. I had fun browsing sites like Encyclopedia online and reading about my favorite authors. Nadine, on the other hand, hit the chat rooms.

She found pictures of beautiful women on the internet and sent them to the men she chatted with, saying she was the woman in the photos. She had the phone company install a new phone line in the house and hid the extension under the stairs and turned the phone onto silent when my dad was home. She slept on the couch all day and was up all night, chatting online with these men, taking her secret phone into the coat closet, where I could hear her moaning and talking dirty as I put my sister and stepbrother to bed at night.

If Charlie knew what was going on, he didn't tell me, but he gradually began to fall apart. His way of dealing with things was working longer hours. My older stepsister had moved out by this time, so the responsibilities fell to me.

I cooked, cleaned, did the laundry. I helped the kids with their homework and then did my own after they went to bed. I didn't like this routine, but I thought it would be temporary. I thought that Charlie and Nadine would work this thing out – they were newlyweds, after all. I thought my dad would realize what this was doing to us kids and step up and make changes. I thought Nadine would quit being stupid and stop acting like a 25 year old floozy. None of that happened.

I didn't really worry about us all getting along okay, until a day right before freshman year started that we ran out of food in the house. I'd tried getting creative to use every last can of food in the pantry, every slice of bread, every bag of peas. But, there was nothing left.

I tried waking Nadine, but she was passed out cold. She tended to drink while she prowled online, and I'd found an empty box of Franzia White Zinfandel in the trash can that morning.

I called Charlie at work. I was told he was out of the office.

There were few people I knew and trusted in Forks. I was embarrassed just thinking about calling any of them.

Edward would want to help me, but probably wouldn't be able to. His mom was probably passed out cold just like Nadine. And if I called him, I'd have to explain things. That thought alone made me sick to my stomach. I didn't want him to think less of me. I couldn't bear to lose him.

Jessica's family wouldn't understand about any of this if I told them. She wasn't raised with the same things as Edward and I were. Her parents were still married, and appeared to be in love. Her mom stayed at home and took care of the house and the laundry and still found time to run five miles a day and cook dinner each night. Jessica and her little brother had not a care in the world except for being kids. I knew that my family was not like hers and I also instinctively knew I would be looked down upon by them for my family troubles though none of it was my own doing. I couldn't call her.

So, that only left me one option.

I made my way upstairs to the small desk of my father's where he paid bills and found his checkbook. I could only hope he had money in the bank.

I found his signature on his returned checks and took out a blank piece of paper and practiced his signature a few times. Once I was confident that I had it down, I carefully signed a blank check and ripped it out of the book and put it into my back pocket.

That day, I distracted the kids as best as possible, sending them to play at a friend's house, hoping they would be able to have a snack there. When they came home, I would call the pizza parlor and order pizza and salad and try to space the food out over the next couple of days.

I set to work on the housework and the laundry and when I turned on the washer the water wouldn't come out.

I shut it off and played with it a few more times and realized I was not getting water out of it anytime soon.

I went into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. Nothing. I flushed the toilet, and the water flowed down into the bowl and didn't come back up.

I went back to Charlie's desk and found the water bill unopened with a red strip across the envelope that said "Final Notice".

I ripped it open and looked at the balance. Over $400.00. It appeared the bill hadn't been paid in months.

Our water had been shut off.

I became frantic, and looked for all of the other bills, ripping them open as I found them. Our gas and electric bill was past due as well. The mortgage hadn't been paid in months. My dad's car insurance had been cancelled.

What the hell was going on?

I dialed the station again and asked for Charlie. I told the operator that it was his daughter and I needed to speak with him urgently.

"Bells? Is everything okay?" Charlie's voice boomed over the phone.

"Hi Dad. No, everything is not okay. I need you to come home. I need you to come home right now." I told him.

"I can't do that Bells. There's a lot going on today."

"Well, there's a lot going on here too. Our water has been shut off, the power and gas is about to be, and you're probably going to lose the house to foreclosure. Not to mention, we don't have an ounce of food left in this house and Nadine is passed out cold on the couch," I told him icily.

Charlie was silent.

"Charlie, I am your daughter, not your wife, not your mother. I can't keep taking care of everything around here and hope that I'm doing okay. The doctor has called twice to ask why we haven't rescheduled Rosalie's check up. The bills haven't been paid and we have no food. I can't drive and I can't go to the grocery store and I don't have any money. Your wife is not helping with anything. What am I supposed to do here?" I was furious and the hot tears were blurring my vision and stinging my cheeks as I yelled at my father.

I heard him sigh, and then promise to be home shortly.

Charlie restocked the kitchen with food and left me three hundred dollars in cash. He grabbed a bunch of the bills from his desk and shoved them in his coat pocket and then I heard the garage door opening and the car starting up.

Nadine woke up a few hours later and went to the computer without a word. She called me to ask her to bring in another box of wine from the garage and a glass and then proceeded ignoring us all again. She didn't even ask where the kids were. A few hours later, I heard her yelling at me from the bathroom asking why the toilet won't flush.

I was scared of what was happening, but I knew it was up to me to hold it together. I needed to be the strong one here, for the kids at least. And I was afraid that if I told anyone one single thing of what was going on, that I would fall apart. Edward knew me so well; there wasn't much I could hide from him. But I had to try. If he looked too closely, if he pried or prodded to find out what was going on, I might lose it.

I caught a glimpse of his soft bronze hair as he walked down a hallway between first and second period, but I didn't dare call his name. I was glad I had spotted him, though. Somehow, I felt better knowing he was actually here.

I didn't see him again until I walked into the English classroom that we would share together. He looked up at me and grinned his crooked smile and I thought for a moment that maybe, everything would be okay.

Edward never asked directly what happened to cause our distance, but after that first day of school, we became inseparable once again. I hadn't realized how much I missed him. I felt lucky that he accepted me back without many questions. Maybe he had missed me too.

By Thanksgiving, Charlie and Nadine had their last fight. She threw a few suitcases of clothes and things together for her and my stepbrother, and loaded up her car. She hugged me and asked me to come with her. I told her no. She told me that she was heading south to meet a man that loved her and they had been talking for two months and that she would call me soon. I never saw or spoke to her again.

Edward snuck into my bedroom window that night. I hadn't called him. I don't know how he knew that something had happened or that I might need him. He didn't say a word, just lifted up my covers and climbed into bed with me, like old times. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and tucked my head under his chin and we fell asleep.

Towards the end of the school year, I noticed that Edward was talking more and more to a girl that had come from a different middle school than us. I didn't know Tanya well, but she hung out with Jessica sometimes and so I had talked to her here and there. I wondered what was going on with them. Maybe he had a crush on her.

The thought of him caring for her crushed me harder than I'd thought possible. As I dealt with the new overwhelming emotions and tried not to look him directly in the eye, I finally realized that I was jealous.

Jealous? Did I care for Edward? Tremendously. Did I like him? I guess so. Edward and I had a strange magnetism that drew us to one another. We knew each other so well that it didn't matter we didn't always speak what we felt. My heart hurt with the possibility that he might care for someone else as I believed he cared for me.

But what could I do about it? There was nothing I could do. I decided to wait it out and see what happened.

Edward came up to me on the last day of school our freshman year and told me he wasn't taking the bus home with me. Tanya had invited him over to her house and he was going to go hang out with her. I asked him if he liked her. He looked at his feet. I asked him if she was his girlfriend now. He just looked at me.

"This won't change anything between us, Bella. I'll always be there for you. You're my best friend."

"Everything's going to change, Edward. I just don't know how yet." I whispered to him. I didn't understand the force or the meaning of my words at the time, but they corresponded with the nagging, incessant feelings constantly at the forefront of my mind. Change was coming. We just didn't yet know the magnitude of it.