Truth is bitter. Truth is a curse. Truth is poison disguised as nectar and truth is the footprints on your heart. Truth is the drink life forces you to drink and it's the worst motherfucking hangover.

––x––

The Cullens like to say grace before they eat. It's awkward for me to just sit there and not even know how to do this. It's more awkward that I don't want to. I kind of just want to crawl inside a hole and stay there till this storm passes.

Carlisle Cullen hasn't said a word to me. He gave me a polite nod and walked off once Edward did the obligatory introductions, and I awkwardly pulled back my empty outstretched hand. Edward sighed and kissed the top of my head in apology.

Ever since then, dinner has been served, drinks have been poured, and forced laughter has made its way in the air thanks to Esme Cullen and her strange way of carrying on a one–sided conversation.

I don't miss how Mr. Cullen casually throws in a snide remark or two about morals here and there, even when we are discussing something as lame as a TV show. It makes it a little harder to swallow down my food, but I do it. I keep reminding myself that this is important to Edward.

Edward, who is visibly tense and going to bend his fork if he grips it any tighter.

I place my free hand on his leg, just barely moving my fingertips. He looks at me and gives me a small smile, almost apologetic. I shake my head; he has no reason to be sorry.

It just is how it is.

"So Bella, how are your parents?" Esme asks, again trying to start a conversation. Too bad it's the last thing I want to talk about.

Edward stops chewing.

"My Dad retired – a while back," I say quickly, hoping that'll be the end of it.

"And your mother, Renée?"

"You remember her name."

She smiles. "We were friends. Kind of."

"She…" I take a deep breath. "She passed away."

Her eyes widen. "Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I had no idea." She gives a questioning glance to Edward, who just shrugs.

I shrug too.

"What happened to her, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Cardiac arrest. I was sixteen."

"Oh, sweetheart, that is awful."

"Figures," Mr. Cullen mumbles under his breath.

"I'm sorry?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Nothing."

Edward chimes in, his expression that of supreme annoyance. "No, Dad, what? Just blurt it out. Dinner is already going downhill so might as well."

I put a hand on his but look at Carlisle Cullen. "If you have anything to say to me, Mr. Cullen, then let's just get it out of the way right now, please."

He takes a deep breath and looks directly at me. "Statistically speaking, most women who end up on the streets prostituting themselves usually come from a family where one or both parents have died before the child is an adult."

"Carlisle, that's an awful thing to say!"

"It's a fact, Esme. No more, no less. Just another statistic."

Edward wipes his hand on a napkin and throws it on the table. "I think we're done here."

"No we're not," I tell him, because fuck it if I at least don't get to say my piece. I look at Mr. Cullen again. "I may be no more or no less than a statistic to you, Mr. Cullen, but I actually made an effort to go out of my comfort zone and do this –" I wave a hand towards the table "– for someone I love. And while I get why you don't like me, I think Edward would at least appreciate if you could make an effort too."

"An effort for what? You know, to be honest with you, whatever I had heard about you before I knew of your profession –"

"– past profession," Edward cuts in.

"…all of it actually had me convinced that you were a good person. But tell me, Bella, why would someone like you – someone who was once a good student and had a perfectly normal life – allow circumstances to manipulate her in such a way?"

"You don't know things about my life. You're making assumptions. You're stereotyping me." I hate that I sound like a petulant child being chided.

"Give me one good reason not to, Bella. Everything I know makes you the gold–digger cliché. Enlighten me. Is your father proud of what you've become?"

I visibly flinch.

"Dad, that's not fair," Edward grits out between clenched teeth.

"I think she's capable of defending herself, Edward. Tell me, Bella, how convenient is it to find a very rich client, make him fall in love with you, quit your life full of sin and get a bed of roses to lay on for the rest of your life?"

"Carlisle, you are way out of line –"

"Make me fall for her? Dad, I'm capable of making my own decisions –"

"Look, you guys. Stop." I take a deep breath again. Hold it together, don't fall apart, don't let him break you. "I wish I could say something…anything to shake you out of your prejudices, Mr. Cullen. For what it's worth, I don't intend to lie on a 'bed of roses' for the rest of my life. I'm assuming Edward told you that I want to get a proper education, and he wasn't kidding. I do. I have applied to the local university."

"And let me guess. My Samaritan son is going to pay the tuition."

I clench my jaw. I swallow down the lump in my throat. "No. I have some money saved. And there are scholarships, student loans, part time jobs…"

He barks out a bitter laugh. "Scholarships are given to exceptional students with outstanding grades. Even many deserving students don't get them, leave alone you. They are not a joke. Student loans are provided to people who have a credible background. Everything about your life is shady. And God help you with a part time job when the only thing you're good at is selling yourself."

"Dad!"

"Alright, Carlisle, that's enough!" Esme's face is twisted in fury.

Oh, but Carlisle Cullen goes on. "Let me tell you something, Bella Swan. You don't fool me. My son is naïve, but I'm not. At the end of the day, you two are not the only ones affected by your relationship. Take your rose–tinted glasses off and understand that you are manipulating a man with a little daughter. You're also affecting her life."

"With all due respect, Mr. Cullen, I am not manipulating anyone. I love your son. Not his money."

"Then prove it. Considering how head over heels my son has fallen for you, there is nothing I would like more, Bella. Prove me wrong."

And with that, he gets up and walks off to another small room, slamming the door behind him.

Edward gets up too. "I need to talk to him. I won't be long." But before going, he bends down and kisses my cheek. "I'm so sorry," he whispers.

And I want to tell him he doesn't have to be. I want to tell him it's okay.

But it's not. I feel like someone has slapped me. I want to run from here before I throw up everything I've forced myself to eat, but I can't seem to move.

Frozen like a statue; imbecile and immobile and utterly fucking powerless. I feel like my life has been summed up in this one moment.

"Come on, Bella, let me show you the rest of the house," Esme says in that gentle tone moms use with kids who wake up from nightmares.

Are you fucking serious right now? I want to shout at her.

"Okay," is what I whisper.

––x––

This is a huge house. And by that I mean it–just–does–not–end huge. The corridors are long, there are way more rooms than these two people need, the backyard stretches into more and more trees than I can see past, and Esme's constant chatter about where she got which artifact from is somehow making this a longer ordeal.

I appreciate her attempt to distract me, but all I want right now is to hide myself in Edward's arms.

We finally stop at Edward's old bedroom. I sit on the bed with Esme and look at the framed photo on the bedside table – that of Edward with baby Sophie in his arms. He looks so happy. I almost smile. There's another photo where Edward has an arm around a girl I've never seen before. The picture is definitely from her graduation, but she is so tiny, she barely looks a like high school student.

"That's Alice," Esme says. "Edward's little sister."

"Oh. Where is she now?"

"Abroad for further studies. She's researching for her PhD."

I put the frame back. I feel like I'm disgracing these people just by touching their stuff. I'm too small in this huge house.

The walls of this room are still adorned with Edward's school medals and certificates, and diplomas and graduation caps. It's as if he still lives here.

"I don't believe in packing away memories," Esme tells me when I ask her about it. "What's the point if you can't relive them every now and again and see how far you've come?"

"Sometimes memories are painful, Mrs. Cullen."

"You know what that means, don't you?"

I shake my head.

"It means it's time to make new memories. Happy memories."

"I'm trying to. And failing. Always failing"

"Oh sweetie, no. Failure is not permanent. Failure is human."

"How do you do it?"

"What?"

"Stay this positive, happy person all the time."

She shrugs. "Accept failure. Work hard to make sure it doesn't happen again. Hope that things will get better. And appreciate every happy moment you get."

"You sound like my mom."

Her voice becomes softer. "Your mom was a wonderful person, you know. We weren't very close, but you know how small towns are. I used to run into her from time to time. You're all she used to talk about."

And just like that I start to cry. I cover my face with my hands and weep like a little girl. I feel tired and drained and alone and I hurt everywhere and I want my mom. I miss my mom.

"She must be so ashamed of me," I say.

"I don't believe that." Esme puts an arm around me, and although any other time I would cringe away, I let her hug me. In fact, I hug her back and cry on her shoulder.

"How can you be sure?" I hiccough.

"Because you're not a bad person. You haven't caused anyone harm. You were just a victim of circumstance."

I shake my head. "That's not true. I chose to be…this."

"Because you couldn't choose to be anything else."

"But you heard what Mr. Cullen said –"

She sighs. "Listen to me, Bella. My husband… He is a good man. I am so sorry for whatever words were said tonight. No one deserves to be treated like the way you were. But you have to understand…Carlisle…he has very clearly defined ideas about everything. He's rigid in his opinions. I don't know if Edward told you, but Carlisle was once very poor. He is a self-made man. He has faced foster homes and scholarship rejections and disappointments and more failures than you can imagine. And that has made him very cynical about everything in life. But he has firm faith that if you keep on working, you can achieve something; because he achieved it. He made it happen. And the way he looks at it, he thinks you gave up. You took the easy way out."

I look at her incredulously. "You think it was easy? To strip myself of all dignity and touch the lowest of lows?"

"No, sweetheart. But he does. And that's where he's wrong. From the moment Edward revealed your past, I knew this wasn't going to be easy for any of us, but I swear to you, I had no idea things would escalate so out of control."

"I am not that person," I whisper, more tears filling my eyes. "The kind of person he thinks I am? I am not that. I don't want Edward's money. I just love him – is that so bad? Can't I love someone without being judged for it? Don't I deserve to be loved back without everyone shaming it?"

Tears fill her eyes, too. "Of course you do. And for the record, I think deep down even Carlisle knows that. He's only looking out for his son. He'll come around. I promise you."

"I wouldn't count on that."

But it's not me who says it. We turn to see Edward leaning against the bedroom door, looking a little angry, and mostly sad. "Come here," he says to me, holding out his arms.

And I get up and run straight into them, not caring that I'm creating a scene in front of his mom.

I breathe deeply, trying so hard not to cry out loud as he holds me tight.

"We're calling it a night," he announces in a detached voice.

"Edward, I'm sorry about –"

"Don't mention it, Mom. It wasn't your fault."

He kisses the top of my head and takes my hand, and without another word we walk out of the room and the long corridors and the huge staircase…back into our – my – smallness.

––x––