[Disclaimer] Everything Twilight belongs to Mrs. Stephenie Meyer

[A/N] Thanks, to those of you, who keep reading my story. Your support is highly appreciated.

**17**

It's sunny, the first warm day within the last two weeks. My elbow still hurts when I lean up on the sill in my room. I want to go outside and play, but I'm afraid I'm going to wake up Dad when I walk down the stairs. Then he'll be angry again. He's angry often enough. Pulling up the sleeve of my shirt I look at the bruises on my arm.

Little freak. I'll teach you a lesson.

My father's voice is like thunder in my ear. I wished he would just disappear. He's mean. When he drinks that smelly stuff, he gets even worse.

Blinking away some tears I look outside again, noticing someone in our backyard. He's around my age. His hair is pretty. It looks red in the sunlight.

He leans down and picks something up from the grass. Did he lose his ball in our yard? I don't like playing ball. I can't catch properly.

Adjusting the pink plastic tiara on my head, I feel myself getting angry when he sits down on my swing. My swing is my happy place. I don't want him to be on it.

As quietly as possible I tiptoe down the stairs, sighing in relief when I see that Dad is still snoring on the couch. The cans with the beer are all over the table. I need to put them away before Mom comes home from her shift.

"Hey!" I call towards the boy. "That's my swing. I didn't allow you to go it."

"Sorry," he mumbles, jumping up from the swing. "I didn't know there's a kid living in that house."

"Just me," I whisper, taking a step backwards. Maybe he's going to hit me now. I could run back inside the house but he's probably much faster than me.

"Hi, I'm Eddie. Who are you?"

I cross my arms in front of my chest and swallow. I don't want to tell him my name. I hate my name. It's for a boy. Not for me.

"Don't you have a name, princess?"

Princess? Oh shit, I'm still wearing my tiara. Now, he's definitely going to hit me. I take another step backwards but stumble over something on the ground. My backside hurts when I fall down. When I try to support myself on my arm it hurts even more.

"Ouch," I cry out, rubbing my aching arm.

"Did you hurt yourself when you fell?" he asks, reaching out his hand to help me stand up.

"Yes,"

"Do you want my Daddy to look at it? He's a doctor."

"No, I'm scared of doctors. They have needles." I tell Eddie quickly when I carefully sit down on the swing.

"My Daddy is not scary. He's fun."

"No," I protest, sighing in relief when my arm stops throbbing.

"You can't know that, princess. Where's your Mommy?"

"At work. Yours?"

"She's baking in the kitchen. Do you want to have a piece of apple pie too?"

"I can't eat food from strangers. My parents don't allow it."

"We're not strangers. We're neighbors."

I nod my head and start rocking back and forth on the swing.

"Want me to push you?" he offers, stepping behind me. "I'll push you if you let me on your swing after you."

"Kay," I whisper, enjoying the pleasant feeling in my stomach when the swing moves up higher and higher. I want to wear a skirt while I'm on the swing. Maybe I can find one of Mom's old ones in the attic. There must be some clothes from when she was a girl, right?

"I don't like playing with girls. They're crybabies. My cousin cries all the time." Eddie tells me when the swing finally stills again. "But you're okay."

"I don't like playing with boys. They're mean to me."

"I'll never be mean to you. Do you want to see my piano? It's cool!"

"Do you know how to play?"

"A bit, my Mom is teaching me how to."

"Brian, you little shit, I told you to stay inside for fucks sake! What's that glitter thing on your head? Stupid faggot!"

I cringe when he grabs me by my injured arm and wince as he roughly pulls the tiara from my head. It cracks in two when he throws it behind him. My beautiful tiara! He's so mean to me.

"Let her go. You're hurting her!" Eddie growls with anger in his voice. No one has ever defended me before. My heart swells with love. Eddie is my hero.

"Her? Did my sicko of a son tell you he's a girl? Well, he's not. He's just a sick piece of shit!"

I wake up, my entire body covered in sweat. It takes me several minutes until I manage to get my breathing under control again. What a horrible nightmare. I haven't thought about my childhood in years. I don't wish to be reminded. Moving my fingertips over the blankets, I realize I'm alone.

"Alice!" I whisper into the darkness. "Alice, where are you?"

She doesn't answer and so I walk down the stairs, finding her and Andy curled up on the couch. They look cute together, so very peaceful. For a while I just sit down on the couch table, unable to take my eyes off my sleeping wife and our son.

"Bella?" Alice mumbles, blinking at me tiredly. "Did I fall asleep?"

"It's okay. Let me bring Andy to his room. I'll be right back." I tell her, lifting the boy up to carry him upstairs.

"Momma?"

"Shh, sleep, honey. It's late."

His eyelids flutter and when I put him down in his bed, he's already snoring again. Kid always snores. He inherited that from his mother.

"Sweet dreams, Andy." I whisper as I close the door to his room behind me.

"Are you okay?" Alice asks me when I enter the living room again. She wraps her arms around my middle and pulls me close. "You're trembling. Did you have a nightmare?"

"Sort of,"

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"No," I croak, leaning my head against her delicate shoulder. "I just want to forget."

Alice squeezes my hand and sighs. "You need to trust me a bit more. We can't make this marriage work if we don't tell each other everything."

"I know. But it's so painful. My childhood was so fucked up. Charlie, he…he hit me. He was always drunk and always furious."

"God, Bella, I'm so sorry. You mother should have done something. She should have protected you."

"Renee was working most of the time. When she was home, she was tired. I was a burden to both of my parents because I was a freak."

"You're not a freak. You never were a freak. I don't like it when you speak so low of yourself."

I sigh, closing my eyes for a moment. The picture of the miserable five year old boy with the broken tiara pops up in my head. The memory is painful, excruciating even.

"I'm here for you. I'm never going to leave again. I love you."

"I love you too," I whisper against her neck, pulling her on my lap. "Do you think, I'll ever like myself?"

"Maybe, one day. You need to accept your past first. It's a part of your life."

Nodding my head, I reach out my hand to grab the phone from the table in front of us. It's time for a lot of unpleasant conversations…