Chapter Six - (Dreams)

BPOV

As I wake up, I keep my eyes closed, feeling the sunshine on my skin, shining through my window. I roll onto my back, but the texture feels different – I slowly open my eyes, only to see the bright blue sky looking back at me. I sit up, taking in the scene around me. There are beautiful pink and purple wild flowers scattered throughout the whole clearing.

I stand up, wrapping my arms around myself. I turn around in a circle, taking in every inch of this beautiful paradise. I see something in my peripheral vision and turn to see what it is. It looks like someone is in the shadow of the trees – I squint my eyes to try and get a better look just as the person steps out into the sun.

It's Edward.

He walks towards me with that crooked smile on his face as I stay where I am, frozen on the spot. Watching him close the distance between us. My heart rate begins to spike and I don't understand why. I mean, it's only Edward.

He stands in front of me, looking at me intently and I can't stop looking into his captivating green eyes. He cocks his head to the side and smiles at me. I feel myself blush, causing me to finally look away from him.

He steps closer to me and cups my right cheek, forcing me to look at him. I feel the electricity shoot through my skin, making my breath catch in my throat.

He leans forward, and I close my eyes as he whispers in my ear,

"Bella, let your walls down."

I'm startled awake at the sound of glass smashing downstairs. I sit up abruptly, completely confused from my dream of Edward. I rest my head in my hand and run my hands through my hair. What the hell was that about?

I crawl out of bed and head downstairs. I walk into the kitchen and see a glass bowl smashed everywhere along with Charlie's vomit – he clearly drank himself stupid until god only knows how long in the morning.

I cover my nose with my hand and go back upstairs to get changed. I grab a pair of old sweat pants and throw on a plain polo shirt. I head into the laundry room to grab some bleach and an old rag to clean up the vomit.

I go back down to the kitchen and begin to clean up Charlie's disgusting mess. If it wasn't for the strong aroma of the bleach, I would probably be dry reaching by now. One day, I'm going to treat him like the animal he is, and rub his nose in it.

I decide that I might as well clean the whole house since I've practically had to clean the whole kitchen. I get up off of my knees, grab the cleaning products and begin to clean down the kitchen bench, microwave and oven. Once I'm done with the kitchen, I head upstairs and return the bleach to the laundry room; I go into the bathroom and scrub the floors, clean down the shower, basin and toilet until they're all shining.

As I get further into the cleaning, I can't help but seethe about all the work I do around this house without any praise. Charlie is hardly ever home; he's always at the station, or down at La Push getting his drink on with Harry Clearwater.

He treats this place like a hotel and it really pisses me off. He needs to wake up and stop treating me like shit over bullshit that's happened in the past, because he would be nothing without me. He's too lazy and too incompetent to go to the store to buy the groceries. He wouldn't even know where to start with how to do the house work, let alone paying the house bills.

After I'm done with the house work, I head back upstairs to have a shower, letting the hot water relax me. As I wash my hair, my mind wanders to the dream I had about Edward. I don't know how to explain it, it felt so real. And what did he mean by "let your walls down"? What walls? Argh, this is so frustrating!

I get out of the shower annoyed, wrapping a towel around me. I brush my teeth, and then head into to my room. It's a rare sunny day in Forks so I decide to go down to La Push beach. I put on a pair of dark blue denim shorts and a black tank top. I head down to my car, locking up the house in the process and drive down to the reservation.

As I'm driving, I see a few of the Quileute boys' cliff diving — these people are crazy. I park my car, and head out onto the beach. I walk along the sand to a spot among the trees where there's a thick, broken branch lying between two trees. I sit down, gazing out at the water and watching all the families building sand castles and splashing around in the water together. This brings back memories of when I used to come down here with my mom and dad when I was younger.

I dig into the sand, placing it into a bucket until it's filled all the way up to the top.

"Tip ova momma, tip ova!"

She picks up the bucket, tipping it over to form a sand castle. I clap my hands together excitedly.

"Yayyy! Sand tasle!" I exclaim.

I jump into her arms, wrapping my arms around her neck. She falls backwards, wrapping her arms around my back, squeezing me tightly.

"I lub you, Momma. You make da best sand tastles!"

She kisses me on the forehead, tucking my hair behind my ears.

"I love you too, baby, and you make great sand castles too."

She smiles at me and I smile back, planting a kiss on her nose.

Dad walks over to us and sits down.

"Now this is why you're my two favourite girls in the world."

He plants a kiss on both mine and Mom's cheek before lying down next to us.

"Dada, tan I do play in da wada?" I ask him.

He smiles at me, pinching my check.

"Of course you can princess. Just stay where we can see you, and don't go into the water past your knees."

I jump off of Mum, and run towards the edge of the water. I fall over but stand up, brushing the sand off of me and walk the rest of the way. I giggle as I splash around in the water. I turn around to face my parents, and I see Dad sitting on the ground with Mom leaning up against him as she reads a book.

"Dada, tome play wif me!" I call out to him.

He stands up, kissing my mother on the cheek before walking over to me. He begins to run towards me slowly, holding his arms out. I turn and run the other direction, making him chase after me. He scoops me up in his arms, putting me on his shoulders before continuing to run around. He places me back on the ground, and begins to splash the water at me. Mom joins us, kneeling into the water and splashing the water around with us.

In the water, I spot a shell coloured in all sorts of greens and blues.

"Look, look! A pwitty shewl!" I exclaim, pointing to the shell.

Dad picks it up, holding it out to me.

"It is pretty. Maybe we could put it on your sand castle," he says with a smile on his lips.

I grab both their hands, pulling them back to where our stuff is.

"Tum on! Dets put it on da sand tasle!" I say enthusiastically.

I let go of their hands, running the rest of the way by myself before placing the shell on top of the sand castle.

"There we go," Mom says.

"Now it's just as beautiful as you, princess," Dad adds.

"I told you, I can't get it yet!"

I hear two people arguing, pulling me out of my thoughts. I look around and notice that it's gotten a lot darker from when I came. How long was I daydreaming? I look around again and see the culprits of the argument. I notice one of them is a short slender boy from my school — I think his name is Ben— and a dark skinned boy with short, cropped black hair. It seems to be that Ben owes him something. I try and get a better look at whatever the other boy is holding, and I notice a small clear bag with white powder in it. Oh! He's obviously a drug dealer.

Ben spots me, a shocked and horrified expression covering his features. The dark skinned boy looks over at me, quirking his eyebrow at me. I narrow my eyes at him, causing him to smirk at me. Ben whispers something to him before running off towards the car park, leaving the other boy to walk over to me.

"Hey there, beautiful," He says with far too much eagerness in his voice.

He looks me up and down, and I roll my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest. I scoff, typical male.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" He asks me. I cock my brow at him.

"None of your business. I'm not interested in people like you."

"And what exactly is a person like me?" he asks, looking at me expectantly.

I stand up, placing my hands on my hips.

"A pathetic, lowlife who pushes people to take drugs. Honestly, how can you do that to someone? Drugs screw up everyone's lives! How can you sell them to innocent people, without feeling the least bit bad about it?" I spit the words out at him.

He places his hand over his heart, in mock hurt.

"Ouch, someone's feisty,"

His voice is laced with sarcasm, annoying me further than I already am.

"But for your information," he adds.

"I get asked for them and provide them. I don't push them on people who don't want it,"

"It sure didn't sound like that with Ben just then—"

"Don't go making assumptions, doll face. The kid owes me money — I wasn't giving him drugs."

I purse my lips at him, causing his lips to form into a gigantic smile.

"Anyway, my name's Jacob. Jake for short."

He extends his hand out to me. I look at it with a disgusted look forming on my face, then look back to him. He drops his hand, placing them in his pockets.

"And your name is…?" he asks.

I roll my eyes, and then turn my back on him and begin to walk way. Man, this guy is persistent.

"Like I said, none of your business," I yell to him over my shoulder, as I'm walking back to my truck.

As I'm about to drive away, I see Jacob leaning against a red Volkswagen Rabbit with a huge grin on his face. He raises his hand and waves at me as I drive off.

Stupid, arrogant, persistent jerk.

I don't understand people who try to drown their sorrows by turning to drugs. It doesn't solve the problem, it just intensifies the feelings. It may make you feel happy and numb the pain for a while, but it always comes back in the end. And once the high fades, everything turns to shit again and you feel ten times worse. I often wonder what could possibly cause someone to have to go through, for them to turn to drugs.

My mother abandoned me on Thanksgiving when I was only thirteen years old. To me, that's one of the most horrible things someone can do to you; someone telling you they love you, and that you mean the world to them, just to leave you without an explanation. That happened to me, and it didn't cause me to turn to drugs. It may be because my dad is Chief of police, and drilled how bad drugs were into my head at a young age, making them seem unappealing to me.

But it could possibly have something to do with everyone's subconscious. If you're the tiniest bit interested or curious about them, then it builds up in the back of your mind. And when something horrible or tragic finally happens to you, you break down and all the things that people have said about how great drugs make you feel, suddenly make them appealing and you succumb to the temptation, ruining your life even more. You waste all your money on them, depending on them to feel the tiniest bit of peace again, only to cause the habit to become worse; all because of the addiction.

I pull up to my house, noticing Charlie's car in the drive way. That's odd, he's usually home after 10 and it's only 9:30. I climb out of my truck and head up to the front door. I open it slowly, stepping inside, I try to head straight for the stairs to escape to my room, but of course he's faster than me and steps out of the lounge room and into the hall way.

"And where have you been?" he yells, stumbling towards me.

He's obviously been drinking for a while. He smells like the inside of a damn Bar.

"I was at La Push. Why?"

I cock my head to the side and give him a puzzled look.

"You haven't cooked dinner. I'm starving!"

My jaw drops in shock. Did he honestly just say that to me? Is he joking?

"Last time I checked, you had arms. I'm your daughter, not you're goddamn servant! You can make your own meals!"

I can't believe he's acting like this. Charlie has spoken me pretty rudely before. But never in my life has he ever talked like that to mebefore. His eyes narrow at me as I finally look at him. A fire blazes inside of them.

"How dare you talk to me like that! After everything you've caused, you owe me a cooked meal. I go to work every day, bringing home the money."

I clench my fists at my side, the anger rising up inside of me with each word he spits at me.

"You may bring home the money, but who's the one who pays the bills? Who's the one who buys the groceries? Who's the one who pays the house mortgage? I do. I do everything around this house, keeping it from falling apart! You're nothing but a self absorbed asshole caught up in the past, drinking your life away! You're supposed to be my father! You're supposed to be there for me, but all you ever do is abuse me and put me down! I hate you!"

I feel my eyes forming tears before they fall. I wipe them off of my cheeks, and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I can see it in his eyes again, that pulsating fire brewing up inside of him, and I know he's about to snap again.

"You stupid, little bitch! I've lost everything because of you! You're nothing to me. Do you hear me? YOU'RE NOTHING!"

I walk backwards toward the door as he begins to stumble toward me. I close my eyes from fear, before his hand collides with my right cheek. My breath catches in my throat as my head falls to the side because of the impact.

I cup my cheek, and turn my head towards him. I don't know what I expected to see on his face, maybe shock or regret, but not the full force of anger in his eyes. I feel my eyes stinging. I push past him, running up the stairs as the tears fall down my face.

I go straight to the bathroom, strip off my clothes and get into the shower. The tears don't stop falling, and it soon becomes difficult to breathe because I'm sobbing so hard. I slide down the wall of the shower, wrapping my arms around my waist. I try to get control of myself again, but find it impossible to do so. I hate this feeling, I can't take it anymore. I don't want to be anywhere near Charlie anymore, I just want to live in peace for once!

I crawl out of the shower, wrapping the towel around me and walk into my room. I change into my sweats and oversized jumper, curling up in my bed and sobbing into my pillow as the tears begin to fall again, the pain overtaking me.

I try thinking of anything to stop the pain, anything at all. I think of the sun shining, and purple and pink wild flowers. I remember my dream of Edward from this morning, and I breathe a sigh of relief, Edward. I'll see him tomorrow.

My lips curl up into a smile as I finally fall asleep.

Oh, Ohhhhh. Look's like Bella's got into a bit of a pickle :O Sorry for the late post guys! I've had a busy week! Thankyou for reading this, and adding it to your favourites and story alert! To my Beta; Jenndur! She's seriously such an amazing friend and Beta! I love you babycakes!

-Natalee-x