(Disclaimer- i don't own twilight. but i own kyle. and anna. and lana hensley.)

This, my friends, is from Annabelle's mother's point of view. yes, it is. and i'd just like to
say that i spent like three hours searching through all of my story, sunrise, looking for this woman's name!
I could not remember it for the life of me, and I couldn't figure out which chapter it was in!
and then i wound up finding it in the chapter that I'd checked before I'd checked any others.
the FIRST chapter I'd looked for her name in...it was in there. i apparently didn't check well enough
the first time. darn me. but. anyway. HERE IT IS!
read. and PLEASE leave reviews!!

Funerals

I was sitting inside the church pew. My head had fallen into my hands, and the room around me was hushed. Everything here today was black. Clothing, expressions, murmurs. Everything was dismal, but not one single thing was genuine. It slightly irritated me that these people, my friends, could be so falsely upset when I was facing them, but return back to their complacent selves the second I turned my cheek. I understood that they hadn't really known her well, but she'd been my daughter.

And she was dead now.

The last year and a half of her life, she'd been locked up in a mental hospital, been put there by the hands of her own mother, by me. It was a selfish thing to not want to have to deal with an insane daughter, to have to hush her every night when she screamed bloody murder for the characters she created in her pitiful little head. But I was a selfish, horrible mother. I realized that now. I didn't see any other option, though. What could I have done? Should I have continued to take her to the doctor, let her see a psychiatrist and pray that maybe if I just took her one more time…that instant would be the one where she miraculously got better? That even after all those years of ineffective psychiatric help, this next time that I took her, she'd become sane, normal? She'd never been normal. Never.

But despite all of the stress she'd caused me, all the pain that her horrified, tortured screams caused me, I loved her, and I wished I could have helped her more than I had. I'd hoped that the hospital would aid her in bettering her mind, so that she could come back to me, to be the daughter I'd always wanted. It sounded horrible in my head now, these thoughts, these wishes for a normal kid. I should have loved her as she was, and I had, but not enough. I should have been there for her. But she wouldn't let me be. All she had wanted was those people…those dreamt people. And it hurt me so much to see her in such a horrible state, missing these imaginary things with such intensity that she nearly ripped the hair from her head in the middle of the night.

What could I have done?

The priest stood before his audience of artificial mourners, cleared his throat. The room fell silent, all eyes on him or the floor. One pair of eyes was set on me, but I ignored them. I didn't want to look at my husband right now. I was so lost in self-loathing I could hardly think straight. The little part of me that hated what I'd done was made much more forceful by the other half of my conscience that denied my wrongs. That other, horrible half, told me that what I'd done was right, that she'd been crazy and she'd belonged where I'd put her. She'd belonged where she was now, in that coffin in the front of the room. She'd made the mistake of running away. She'd made the mistake of standing up to the police officer. If she'd have only listened to him, to that man with the gun, she'd never have been shot. He'd never have shot her.

She wouldn't be dead.

I'd imagined the scenario several times in my head. I'd seen her wild eyes as she stood in the middle of the street, a knife clutched tightly in her right hand. Her hair was slick with rain and gnarled around her scalp, her white hospital clothes torn and dirtied. The police officer stood, flanked on either side by his two trusty sidekicks, each with a gun aimed at her face. In my head, I pictured her to laugh a sinister, mad guffaw. The officers flinched, tightening their fingers on the triggers. I could feel mine tighten now against the side of the church pew, running through the images in my head as though I'd been there myself. My eyes flooded still with the image of her shaking her head as they repeated their instructions for her to drop the weapon. Then she lunged forward, knife held out in front of her, prepared to slice through the officer's chest.

The loud snapping sound of a handgun reverberated in my head. Tears fell down my cheeks as I was shaken back into the present by my husband's hands. I looked to him, seeking comfort in his grip, but found his eyes to be filled with fury. He shook me hard by the shoulders, glaring madly. His lips curled into a snarl as I slowly watched each of my friends and family circle around me, their faces matching, each and every one masked in anger. I gasped, feeling the painful grasp on my shoulders tighten.

"This is your fault, Lana! It's your fault that our daughter is dead!" He shouted at me, his eyes burning with the intensity of his words. I felt a sob building in my throat. He blamed me. Of course he did. Tears rolled down my cheeks and he gritted his teeth at the sight of them, looking disgusted. His hands pushed me away from him, my body crashing back against the pew, a gasp forming on my lips. I stared at him with large, desperate eyes, begging for forgiveness. He didn't seem to want to grant me that anytime soon. I sniffed.

"You should be the one in that coffin, Lana!" He barked at me. "You should be dead!" I balked at his words, the words that shot out and sliced me like the sharp blade of a knife. He hated me, and he was right. It was all my fault. All my fault.

"Lana!" I heard him say again, but his lips did not seem to move, his voice sounded distant. My eyebrows furrowed, trying to understand. My hands were shaking, the pew and floor beneath me beginning to melt like butter in a frying pan. My face felt red-hot. I couldn't breathe. I reached for him, and I felt his hands on mine, but in front of my eyes, I saw him with his hands in his pockets. I shook my head, feeling crazy. Feeling like Anna.

"Please…" I whimpered, wishing that I could understand. The room around me spun, the black-clothed bodies swaying with demented laughter. I felt someone grab my wrists as I clawed my fingers into the air before me, but I could see no hands here. I thrashed against the wooden bench.

"Lana!" He shouted once more. My eyes shot open, a wild scream filling the air around me, my mind intuitively realizing that it was my own. I saw my hands scratching at the white of his nightshirt, and I curled them into fists, shoving them behind his back as he threw me into a hug. The room was dark around us, the church gone.

It'd all been a nightmare. A dream brought on by the guilt that I tried not to feel. I suddenly understood the lunatic reactions Anna had to her dreams, comprehended the intensity of the emotions they stirred in her. I'd stuffed her in a little white cell because of those dreams, because they'd caused her mind to shut down, to stop functioning properly. I'd never understood her then, never really tried to. And now that I was able to, she was no where to be found. Because I'd made her miserable, so miserable that she'd escaped from the hospital, that she'd run away. She could die, out there alone like she was. She could be dead right now for all that I knew. She could be shot by one of the many policemen that were out there searching for her, even at this very moment. And it would be all my fault. I'd have killed her.

What had I done to my daughter?