*I don't own twilight*
Okay guys, like you all requested… the chapter is here… Edward is here… all the stuff that you have been waiting for has arrived.
I hope you like it… sorry for the wait... I hadn't actually planned for it to take so long, my laptop broke and I had to wait for my brother to get his fat ass off the computer for an hour so that I could finish this off.
I'd like to give thanks to all of my readers and dedicate this to my good friend Capt. Torie Bones…
Enjoy… oh… AND REVIEW!!!
Bella PoV
We arrived at the house about five minutes later and what I saw in front of me could not be prepared for. (Links on my profile)
The picture I'd seen hadn't done the house justice. It was beautiful... but huge! It was obviously 18th century, the white weather boards placed strategically to make it look larger than it really was, the paint seemed as fresh as when it was first painted. The climbing ivy crawled up the west wall, up to the roof. Its branches would tap against the window on a windy night. You could see the small shreds of sunlight that were breaking through the ever constant rain cloud that lay over the town filtering onto the glass wall that was the back of the house.
"Holy... this is... just... How big do you think the garage is? Do you think we can fit all of the cars into it?" Typical Emmett, the only that ever mattered to him when we moved is if we would be able to fit all our cars in the garage.
"Emmett I don't think that the size of the garage is on everyone's minds right now." Rosalie said while still gaping at the size of the house in awe.
I could hear Alice squealing in the background but that was normal.
The strangest thing that I heard was nothing. There was nothing there to be heard. The odd bird call here and there but other than that…nothing… nothing but desolate silence… I liked it.
"Just smell that pine!" My father shouted from the house.
Uck. I hate pine. It reminds me of the horrible disinfectant that my mother used to use when I threw up. I would make sure that the garden was filled with flowers, hundreds of them so I could only smell their sweet scent.
Mom walked toward me and asked me simply, "Do you like it?"
"I love it Mom."
"Come on inside, I'll show you your room. It's all ready."
I walked without watching where I was going into my new home; the place that I knew would imprint memories forever into my mind.
I walked through the new house with my eyes wide open. It was surly one of the most beautiful places that I had been throughout my life. The walls were all neutral and the carpets an oatmeal cream. The broad windows that covered the back of the house gleamed with their fantastic clarity, a view of the whole surrounding forest from them. I knew I'd sit there for hours just watching. Or reading a book… one of the many that I was sure surrounded the walls in my bedroom.
"By your quietness I'd say that you loved the house." Mom said laughing melodically.
"So much mom. It truly is beautiful." I laughed to myself thinking about how funny it sounded to be describing a house as beautiful.
"What are you laughing at dear?" she asked with amusement written all over her face.
"Oh I'm just thinking about how strange it sounds to be referring to a house and furniture as beautiful." I giggled and my mother laughed along heartily with me.
"We're only on the ground floor dear. There's another two floors to see Bella. And you have to see your room, so move along we still have to get all your books and accessories for school tomorrow."
I turned swiftly, smelling my mother's sweet freesia scent. "Two? There are two more floors?" She nodded and my mouth fell open.
I could hear dad laughing in the kitchen and saying, "Bella..." under his voice and I could just picture him shaking his head from side to side with amusement at my sheer surprise over our new family home.
"Come on... I want to see the rest of the house with my baby girl." My mother said as she held her and out for mine.
I smiled and took her cold hand into mine. Mom's hands had always been cold, ever since I could remember dad would tell me it was because her heart was too big and she needed all of her warmth there... when I look back, the story seems rather strange now.
Rhythmically I walked up the wooden staircase, still holding mom's hand. The neutral walls and carpeting continued throughout, that was until we reached the second floor, third room on the right.
My new bedroom.
"Come on, I need to know what you think of my skills!" Alice said loudly behind me, her careful hands grabbing my arms and steering me through the door. "Eeep! Close your eyes Bella!"
I snapped them shut and I was plunged into a momentary darkness.
"And... open!"
I opened my eyes slowly, trying to take in my new surroundings. And suddenly, I stopped moving.
A sanctuary was before me.
My own private sanctuary.
The walls were vermilion green and teal, not too overbearing but not unnoticeable. A queen sized bed was against one of the vermilion walls accompanied by a small bedside locker. A large desk was in front of the open window and a brand new laptop sat on top of it waiting for me to use it. A black wardrobe, four doors and a dressing table included, stood with its heavy back against the east wall of the bedroom and le Marceau de resistance, shelves after shelves covered my walls filled with every book I could ever want or have ever read.
"Wow." I stood still my mouth gaping open ready for any bug that may have wanted to make residency in there would have no trouble just flying on in.
"I know we said it would be two rooms but we decided to have it made into one... you'll need the space." Mom said sweetly.
I turned to her with tears in my eyes, "Thank you so much. Thank you." I pulled her into a hug and she kissed my cheek.
"Anything for you darling."
Alice stood near me looking a little down but I soon turned to her and hugged my big sister. "Alice you're amazing. You really are. My room is amazing and I promise you can do my hair and make-up for the next three years and I won't say a word!" She squealed in my ears and I laughed knowing that I would regret everything that I just said.
"Well isn't this a picture... three of my best girls looking beautiful as ever but forgetting it's someone's birthday.... hmm... now I wonder what she would do if I picked her up and carried her into the living room where mounds of presents stood waiting for her..."
I hadn't noticed dad walking into my new room with a huge grin on his face. "I think she wouldn't be too happy about that."
"Tough. Alice, Esme if you don't mind I need to carry my baby daughter downstairs." In seconds he'd swooped me up into his arms and started to tickle the sole of my feet.
"Dad!" I squealed as he carried me back down the stairs and into the living room.
The living room was illuminated with hundreds of candles, the theme of neutral and simplicity carrying on. Thought the simple elegancy stood out as it did in every room. I'm sure that only my room and the living room had been the focus over the last week...
A huge birthday banner headed the fire place and a stack of multi-coloured presents we're littered all over a white table clothed table.
"Happy Birthday Bella!" my brothers, sisters and my parents chorused. I blushed with embarrassment.
"Thank you." I hugged everyone in turn, each kissing my face.
"It's time to open your presents! Come on! It's time!" Alice squealed happily. And I put on a brave face.
30 minutes later and I was opening my last present. My fingers were aching and the air smelled of about 5 different perfumes.
"Last one." Emmett said hopefully, his eyes drifting to and fro wearily.
"I swear if you people ever buy me any presents again. I'm going to kill you."
"Oh Bella don't be silly! You lo-" Alice started but I cut her off.
"Did you hear me Alice… kill you… as in death." I said seriously, and she closed her mouth, though her left hand was missing somewhere behind her back.
"Aww! Bella you should see all of the clothes you have to try on in your new closet!" Alice enjoyed this too much. Worried? A LOT. Her ability to overlook my last threat was disconcerting and worrying that she didn't believe me… oh how wrong she was.
I ripped off the paper and threw it onto the pile next to me. Actually, correction, the MOUNTAIN next to me.
It was in a small black velvet box with gold embroidery. Pulling the drawstring I tipped the bag and saw the one thing that mom knew I loved. I started to cry.
"Mom you can't... you can't give me this. It's yours."
"Not anymore. Every youngest daughter in our family gets this. You're my youngest daughter. It's your right."
I jumped up from the couch I'd moved to and held my mother in my arms sobbing into her caramel hair.
"Thank you. Thank you so much mom. I love you so much."
A small golden ring inlayed with a small ruby sat snugly on my right hand. It had been passed down for the last 200 years by my grandmother's and aunties and cousins until my mother had given it to me. It was a priceless heirloom in my family and I couldn't believe she'd trusted me with something so precious.
I released my mom and walked back to the chair and sat down, wiping my eyes on the sleeve of my shirt.
I looked up and I knew something had changed in those few seconds I'd hugged my mother.
"Bella I know that it's your birthday and all but we..." Emmett started but dad stopped him.
"Isabella, we have something to tell you. And we swore to wait until your 17th birthday to tell you."
I suddenly felt sick. Dad called me Isabella. He only ever called me that when I was in trouble or something drastic was going to happen. Everyone had moved closer to me, and Alice had hold of my hand.
"What is it? Is something wrong? You know I love you all, no matter what it is. "
"Bella, since you were a child, you will have noticed certain things about us..." Dad stopped, he was wracking his mind to see how to phrase what he wanted to say.
"We are different from other families. We're not a normal family Bella."
"I don't understand... What's wrong?"
"Bella, we're vampires."
At that moment, I felt like I was going to fall into a black oblivion.
* * *
"Um… What?" I asked, slightly taken aback by what I was hearing. I looked pointedly at each member of my family; Mom, Dad, Alice, jasper, Emmett and Rosalie
"You heard me Bella." My father said.
"That… I mean…" I was unable to get a complete sentence out of my mouth.
I sat on the floor, with my whole vampire family surrounding me. Just waiting for a reaction or for me to say something grammatically coherent.
"Um… yeah…" I was ruffling up my forehead, thinking things over, how this could even be possible.
"See, the thing is Bella. You're not a vampire. You're not like us. You have to make the choice. Do you want to grow old or do you want to become a vampire? But..."
Dad was speaking but I couldn't breathe. I wasn't like them. I'd always known it, now it was like a horribly ugly truth that was staring me in the eyes smiling grimly.
"Isabella, I know it comes as a shock to you, hearing all of this but you need to know the whole truth." Dad said grimly. "You're not a vampire because..."
"Darling, vampire women cannot have children. Alice, Rosalie, Emmett nor Jasper are our biological children. We adopted them into the family when they were turned. You must understand how much we love you." She tried so hard to make me understand, her tone sympathetic and her manor was so motherly. But it didn't change the way I was actually feeling, struggling to comprehend everything that I was hearing.
"We found you, hours old outside of one of the hospitals I worked at 17 years ago. You had been abandoned and I brought you home. Your mother was scared, lord we all were. You have to understand that you may have another family that misses you. Take them into consideration before you decide."
My throat closed and my heart ached.
I didn't belong anywhere did I?
That was when Alice though it would be a good idea to stand up and make her way over towards me, to try and touch me.
"Bella, we tried to tell you, we really did want to." She said as she reached out to touch me, but I cringed away. I could feel the sadness radiating off of her.
"Bella… please…" she was dry sobbing now, and she tried to reach out to me again but I moved from her loving self.
"This is a lie! You're all lying to me! You're my parents! You're my family! This isn't real! I belong here! Not with anyone else!" I jumped up onto my feet and ran upstairs, my tears clouding my vision. My thoughts clouding my senses.
They didn't really want me anymore, I was a mistake to them, they were just saying this because they wanted to repulse me, so that I would run away myself, I knew I was adopted but onw they we just sick of me… I think.
* * *
Seconds, minutes, hours passed as I sat on my bed sobbing my life away. Having not a clue as to how I was going to deal with my strange family. I didn't even know if I could call them family anymore. I knew something was wrong, that they were different… but I didn't know that they were this different.
I felt numb at the thought of my whole life being a lie. Two vampires raised me. My whole family were vampires. I was someone else's baby. My heart ached more and more. My real parents didn't want me but these two 'people' did.
Thinking of that made me feel even worse.
'Well done Bella.' I scolded myself.
From beneath my pillows I could hear a soft knock at the door.
"Go away!" I yelled.
"Bella… please…"
"I said GO AWAY!" I screamed.
Ignoring my protests Rosalie entered anyway, not caring that I didn't care for company.
I heard the door open and I lifted my head, and I saw Rosalie approaching me bed with caution, but determination.
"Bella, what are you thinking?" she asked quietly as she sat on my bed with me.
"I...I…I knew t-t-that s-s-somet-t-hing was-s-s wro-o-ong wii-i-th our f-f-amily." I said sobbing but trying ever so desperately to get the words out of my mouth.
"I-I-I knew it." I repeated. "But I couldn't bring myself to believe that it was anything out of the normal, strange, paranormal… or whatnot."
Rosalie took me into her arms and shushed me like a baby.
"I know it's difficult but you don't know how lucky you really are Bella. Esme and Carlisle love you. They love all of us and they had a big enough heart, no matter how risky to take care of a human in an all vampire household. Everyone knew the rules. Your seventeenth birthday you'd be told the truth about everything and you'd be given the choice to continue on with life as it is or change it."
"I don't want it to change –"I sniffed up, and wiped my tears away "- I want to wake up and it all be untrue. Like it never happened."
"But it did. And you can't ignore the truth Bella. Are you going to come back downstairs? Everyone's worried."
I nodded and she hugged me again. Rosalie took hold of my hand and stood up with me. We walked back downstairs together back into the living room. Back into the living room filled with vampires. The vampires I called family.
We entered the living room and I saw Jasper holding Alice in his arms and mom and dad sat together, she was on his lap crying dry tears.
"What if she doesn't want to be with us anymore Carlisle? I can't lose my baby." She said quietly.
"You won't lose me, mom. Ever."
She jumped to her feet and ran toward me. "Oh my darling girl! I'm so sorry we didn't tell you." She kissed my face and hugged my tightly to her cold skin. "I love you, you know that? Your father and I both adore you."
"I know mom. I do." I held her closer to me, I regretted my reaction earlier.
"Good, never forget that."
I moved to the sofa and Jasper piped up. "I think you'll have some questions? Am I right?"
Jasper was always the rational one of the family. The whole atmosphere would calm just from him being there.
"Well… I have a couple... I want to know everyone's stories. What you all were before I came into your lives."
The whole room almost chocked, I swear. An uncomfortable silence passed before Alice spoke up.
"I don't know much about my past, but my name when I was human was Mary Alice Brandon. I was seventeen years old when I was changed. I have the power to see the future. I saw Jasper when I was wandering around and I knew I had something to look forward to. A couple months later I found him in a cafe lost. I took hold of his hand and well... I've been with him ever since. Jasper's human name was Jasper Whitlock and he was in the Civil War in 1861, he was turned a little while after. He has the power to change the mood of a person or a group of people."
My jaw dropped. "Together? You mean like... together together? Boyfriend and girlfriend?"
Her face blushed and she replied, "Well... we're married. We were married before we joined Carlisle and Esme. The sibling thing is a cover... well everyone knows we're adopted but we found love in the people we were put with."
"Holy hell. That's weird, no offence Alice or Jasper."
"Hey! You forgot about Rosalie and me!" Emmett piped up in the background.
My jaw fell again, "You too!?"
"Yeah." He smiled stupidly and I threw a pillow at him. "Rosalie saved me from a bear attack, I was dying and she found me while she was hunting. I fell in love with her from the moment she saved me. I have super strength. Obviously!" He flexed his muscles and everyone laughed.
I looked at Rosalie and she didn't speak. "Rosie?"
"I was engaged but I was almost killed. Story over."
I immediately knew something was wrong with Rosalie and her story. Something had happened to her and she didn't want to tell anyone about it. Mom spoke up.
"Bella, do you want to know our stories?" She pointed at her and my father and I nodded crazily.
"I was married before I met your father. I was married to Charles Evenson and he wasn't a nice man Bella. I fell pregnant a month after he returned home from the great war. I ran away and I gave birth to a son. He was the most beautiful little boy I'd ever seen. Apart from my two strapping boys over there." She winked and continued her story, her dimples on show from a beautiful smile. "He died a few days after he was born, he was ill when he was born and he couldn't be saved. I tried to kill myself the day he died by jumping from a cliff but your father saved me and turned me into a vampire. I've never looked back since that day." Her voice started to crack as she finished her story, and I knew that the reality of what she was saying still hurt her.
Alice sighed and hugged Jasper.
"Your father's story is much more interesting than mine though."
"Oh contraire, your mother may think her story is plain but she has no idea that she even has a power. She has the magical inability of many humans to love everyone and everything around her." He leant over and kissed her. Alice clapped, I closed my eyes and heard Emmett snigger in the corner. "I'm the son of an Anglican pastor which throws the religion idea out of the vampire myth window. My father led vampire hunts constantly and tried to get me to join in doing so. I didn't understand his ideas but agreed. One night though, I was attacked by a coven hiding in the sewer of 1640's London – people, let alone vampires, didn't smell fantastic during that era." The boys laughed and I heard Jasper say "Man-stank!" under his breath, I giggled.
"Anyway-" he stressed, looking at the boys. "- So I was bitten and I tried to kill myself numerous times, all of which failed. One night though, I attacked a deer in the woodland after being unable to resist my thirst any longer. Subsequently, I realised that I could live on animal blood, just as I could human. I resisted blood lust and I became a doctor."
I couldn't believe the amazing stories that they'd kept from me for all of those years. Though edited, the were all amazing, mine seemed petty in contrast.
"So let me get this right, you're all like... over a hundred or at least very close to being so?" Six heads nodded at me.
"Any other questions you want to ask?" Jasper asked calmly, a sudden ease fell over the room.
"When you go into the sunlight... Why do you always cover up?" I curiously asked.
"We sparkle... We're sparkly vampires. Basically, we're our own bloody disco balls." Everyone in the room laughed at Emmett who sat with his face in his hands.
"Jasper." A usually excited voice suddenly became monotonous. "He's coming. He's coming to get Bella."
All eyes suddenly turned to Alice who stared forward in a daze. "He's coming to get Bella. He calls her his drug. He's been tortured by her for years and he's finally caught up, he's coming to get her!" She began to shake as Jasper ran for paper and a pencil.
Alice frantically drew and a face began to appear on the paper.
He was impossibly beautiful, even for a drawing. His facial features perfect and angular, high cheekbones, strong jawline, a straight nose, and full lips. His hair was messy and his eyes penetrated my fragile human soul.
"Who is it Alice? What is his name?" Jasper asked frantically.
"His name... His name is Edward Masen."
WHOOOO!!!! Okay so I know I said that Edward would be in this chapter, but I didn't necessarily say that he would… appear just be mentioned
Did you guys like the extra long chapter??
I really do have to thank Capt. Torie Bones SOOOOOO much for allllll of her help during this chapter, it would never have gotten anywhere near this stage and length and awesomeness(is that even a word) if it wasn't for her.
Anyway... I hope you guys liked this chapter
What did you think of it… oh I know!! TELL ME IN A REVIEW