All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer; I just like to play with her characters.

No copyright infringement is intended.

Thanks to darcysmom, twimom817 and EdwardsMyObsession1971 for beta'ing and pre-reading. I greatly appreciate their help and support.

Never Let Go

Chapter Sixteen

Bella

I was so out of it that I hadn't realized it was Carlisle that sat next to me on the couch. Only the fact that it was a man's voice – other than my Dad's registered. When I realized it was Carlisle, I felt horrible and curled even further into myself. Squeezing my eyes shut, I chastised myself for acting this way. I knew Carlisle was coming over, and I shouldn't have been surprised to hear the knock on the door. I felt movement on the couch next to me and the scent of honeysuckle wafted over me.

Only one person I know smelled like that and I wasn't sure if I wanted to see her or not.

I opened my eyes to find Esme sitting next to me. Her eyes were full of concern, her arms warm and waiting.

"Bella, sweetheart … come here, honey." Esme cooed.

I leapt into her embrace and hugged her tightly. The torrent of tears that flowed down my face couldn't be helped. It felt so good to be wrapped in a mother's loving arms. It had been so long since I'd felt pure, unconditional love, and it was wonderful.

"Shh …." Esme crooned. "Everything will be okay."

She held me until my tears ran out and continued to hold me while Carlisle examined my wrists and ankles. My skin was still red and tender. Carlisle apologized for any stinging before he applied ointment and rewrapped them. Esme told me about the clothes she had purchased for me earlier that morning. I was thankful she had done that for me. I had no desire whatsoever to leave the house.

"When you feel up to it, we'll have a girl's day and go shopping in Olympia."

I nodded, hoping that one day I'd feel up to going.

I settled in on the couch, curled up next to Esme. My arm was wrapped around her and held her hand in mine; it was the most comfortable I'd felt since walking home that fateful day.

"Bella … what do you want us to tell Edward, sweetheart?" Esme asked softly.

"I don't know." I whispered sadly.

"He's already asking questions, and he'll know something is wrong when he calls and you don't answer."

"Baby girl … I called and shut your phone line off this morning. Edward will panic when he calls and your phone line is disconnected."

"If you tell him I'm here, he'll want to come over."

"Charlie? Carlisle? Can you give Bella and I a few minutes?" Esme asked.

Dad and Carlisle stepped out the front door onto the porch and closed the door behind them.

Once Esme saw that the door was shut, she turned to me.

"Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me why you're so adamant about keeping this from Edward."

"Something bad happened to me, Esme. I don't know what Carlisle and my Dad told you, but it was awful," I sobbed. "I don't want Edward to know because it would kill him and … I can't … I can't bear the thought of him looking at me differently because of it."

"Oh, Bella," Esme whispered as she pulled me into her arms once again. "All I know is that you were assaulted – Carlisle didn't give me the details. I understand why you might feel the way you do, but do you really think that Edward would look at you with anything less that complete love and affection? I do agree, however, that he won't take the news of you having been assaulted very well at all, but that anger will fade quickly and his concern for you will overshadow that."

"Esme … I'm a mess. I don't even know if I could be around Edward right now. You saw how I flinched away from Carlisle. I know I'm safe with him and it happened anyway. It's crazy but I can't help it. Can you imagine how Edward would feel if I did that to him?"

"Sweetheart, how do you know that you'd flinch away from Edward?"

"I don't … but I don't want to push my luck either. I can't hurt him like that."

"So you're going stay away from him and ask him to stay away from you?"

I nodded.

"Tell him that I'm home because I was … as …."

"Assaulted?" Esme finished for me.

"Yeah …. Tell him that I love him and I miss him but that I'm not ready to see him. I need some time, Esme." I sobbed. "Tell him that when I'm ready, I'll tell him everything, but I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to get to that point."

"I can tell him that, sweetheart."

"Is he going to hate me?" I asked, my tears still flowing down my cheeks.

"No, Bella. He won't hate you but he won't fully understand until you open up and talk to him."

"I can't … I can't do that right now. Oh God, Esme, the nightmares are so bad. I can hear his voice telling me what he was going to do to me and how much better I was going to be than my Mom. I don't want to sleep because he comes back in my dreams."

Esme held me tight in her arms and I could hear her sobbing with me. I vaguely heard Dad and Carlisle ask if everything was okay and Esme told them no.

"I'd like to stay here tonight, Charlie, if that's okay. Bella needs a Mom right now."

"Es … I can't pull you away from Edward and Carlisle – they need you too."

"Bella needs me more. You understand, don't you Carlisle?"

"Of course, love. Edward and I will be fine."

Eventually, I settled down, and Carlisle gave me another anti-anxiety pill. Esme walked me upstairs to my room and sat down on the bed next to me, drawing circles on my back until I fell asleep. When I woke up a couple hours later, she was sitting in the chair in the corner of my room, reading a book.

Thank God for Esme those first few days. The second night was the roughest, and somehow she knew it would be. She went home while I was sleeping, and when Edward got home from baseball practice, she and Carlisle told him the basics of what happened to me. Just as I expected, he wanted them to bring him over to see me right away. Esme explained that I wasn't in any state to see visitors – even him. She came back and stayed the night with me as promised.

I tried to help Dad get the paperwork together so that he could register me for school the following day. It should have been a simple transfer, but I asked Dad if I could do homeschool for the rest of the year which was only two and a half months.

"I want to get you back to a normal routine, Bella. Part of that will be going to Forks High School."

"No … I'm … I … no Dad. Please don't make me." I sat at the table shaking my head.

Esme sat next to me holding my hand, trying to soothe me but it just wasn't working. I was working myself into another panic attack.

Dad knelt down beside me and gently rubbed my arm.

"Shhh, Bella. It's okay. I won't push it because it's only a couple of months. But you're not going to slack okay?"

I nodded and tried to take a few deep breaths to calm myself.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"Have you talked to Phil or Mom today?"

"Yeah. I talked to Phil this morning. Your mom has some type of infection in her lung so they're keeping her pretty heavily medicated so they can fight the infection."

"How's Phil?"

"Honestly? He's devastated, kiddo. He and your Mom were so looking forward to their wedding and spending some time with you in Mexico, and then this shit happened, and your mom's in the hospital and you've come back to Forks to live with me. It's not exactly how he wanted things to play out – how anyone wanted them to play out."

"I feel horrible that I just left them."

"Bella …" Esme chastised. "Don't you feel bad. Your mom has a long recovery ahead of her – it's going to take her some time to heal – mentally, emotionally and physically. Some things she may never overcome. It's possible that she'll heal faster knowing that you are taken care of and she can focus on getting better."

"Esme's right, baby girl. Phil understands. He knows that you wouldn't have wanted to go back to the house. He also knows that you have your own healing to do."

I sat and thought about all my mom's injuries – at least the ones I knew about. I knew she'd been raped – Phil told me that much and if it hadn't been for Phil, I would have been too.

Esme must have known what I was thinking about because I retreated further and further into my head.

"Come on, Bella let's get you upstairs and into a nice bath then we can tuck you into bed."

Esme let Dad get me up the stairs. He sat me on the toilet while she grabbed some pajamas and things for me out of my room. She helped me stand and I undressed myself while the water poured into the tub.

I could hear her gasp as she took in the bruises all over my body; on my breasts where he had grabbed me and dug his fingers in deeply; on my back where he pushed his knee against me as he wrapped the tape around my hands and ankles; on my hip where the weight of his body pushed against me as we hit the floor.

I looked up at her ashamed that she had to see me like that and her eyes were brimming with tears.

"Please don't, Esme. Don't pity me," I choked.

"I don't pity you, Bella. I feel sad that this happened to you and you have to relive those moments. I wish more than anything that I could take them all away, sweetheart. No mother ever wants this for their child."

I hugged her fiercely before realizing that I was naked as the day I was born. I shied away quickly and stepped into the bathtub.

My dreams were awful that night. Not all of them were about him – some of them were about Edward. He found out what happened to me and he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I dreamt that I went back to school and the other kids were mean to me. They would laugh and point at me saying I was the girl who was assaulted and afraid of men. Edward stood with Jasper and Alice and they laughed too – saying that I wasn't strong enough to defend myself and that I deserved what happened to me.

I woke up from that particular dream in a hysterical fit. It took several minutes for Esme to calm me down, but she did. She even forced me to tell her what the dream was about. I felt awful that my subconscious would even conjure such a dream. Esme promised me that Edward and our friends would never treat me that way.

I was exhausted the next morning when I finally woke up. I hadn't ever recalled being tired after sleeping but I was and Esme looked just as tired as I felt.

"Sorry I kept you up all night," I apologized.

"It's okay, sweetheart." She smiled.

"Bella … I think you should call Alice today. She'd love to hear from you, and I think it would help you to have a girlfriend around."

I nodded knowing she was right, but I was afraid of Alice's reaction too.

"Bella … I know what you're thinking. Alice isn't going to look at you any differently. Deep down, under your fears you're the same Bella that we love so very much."

I wished more than anything I knew how to find that Bella.

EPOV

I don't know why, but something felt off that Thursday afternoon before school let out for spring break. My morning had gone by without a hitch – I'd had a couple of mid-terms and I felt pretty confident that I'd aced them without incident. We had a baseball game that afternoon – a home game. I looked around, hoping to see my parents and Charlie in the crowd but my Mom sat on the bleachers by herself. She wore a worried expression on her face and her eyes were puffy like she'd been crying.

As I gathered my stuff from the dugout and headed toward the locker room, I stopped to talk to her.

"Is everything okay, Mom?"

"Your Dad had to leave town for an emergency. I'm just waiting for him to call, sweetheart."

"Where's Charlie?"

"He's with your father, honey."

My mind immediately went to Bella and the sinking feeling I had in my stomach that rolled in just before the game started.

"Is Bella okay?"

"I don't know anything , sweetheart. I can only assume something happened with Bella because Charlie was panicked and asked your father to go with him. If that is the case, they've gone to Phoenix and they'll call after they arrive."

"How long ago did they leave?"

"About an hour ago."

"Okay. Let me go grab my stuff from the locker room and we'll go home and wait for them to call."

Mom nodded and I jogged to the locker room.

We stopped and got a pizza on our way home, knowing that it would be a few hours before we'd hear anything. After dinner, I showered and came down to sit with Mom on the couch. The phone sat ominously on the coffee table. I had one more test to study for the following day so I pulled out my book and pulled out my notes but I couldn't focus. My thoughts continued to wonder to Bella and before I knew it, I was picking up the phone and dialing her number.

"Hi, you've reached Bella. I can't come to the phone because I'm either at rehearsal, practice, or piano lessons. Leave me a message and I'll call you back. Thanks!"

My mom lifted her head from the pillow at the end of the couch as I listened to Bella's message.

"Anything?" She asked.

"No, just her machine."

"Didn't Dad say anything?" I whined.

"No, honey. All he said was Charlie got a call from Phil and was on his way to Phoenix and needed him to go with him. He said he'd call when he had more information."

Mom and I fell asleep on the couch and woke up just after two a.m. to the shrill ringing of the phone.

"Carlisle?" Mom asked groggily.

She jumped up from her spot on the couch and went into the kitchen. I couldn't hear all the conversation from where I was sitting so I followed her. She sat at the breakfast bar with her head in her hand listening intently to whatever my Dad was saying.

"Okay. Call us soon, we're so worried. Tell Charlie if he needs me to do anything on this end to call me, okay? I love you, babe. Bye."

Mom sat the phone on the counter and looked up at me. Tears were welling in her eyes and she looked tired.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Not much. There was some sort of incident at the house concerning Bella and her mother. They are both at the hospital. Renee is in surgery and Bella has a pretty good bump on her head. Dad says she's in and out of consciousness, but she's okay. He said she'll be fine when her pain medication wears off."

"What happened to them? What kind of incident?"

"Dad didn't say, sweetheart. He'll call again in the morning when everyone has had a chance to get a little sleep and calm down. Now I want you to go on up to bed. He promised that Bella would be okay and that you shouldn't worry."

I trudged through my final the next day. Thankfully, it was a pretty easy subject for me and I wasn't worried about it. I did however, worry about Bella all day. I hoped that when I got home that afternoon that my mom had a little more information.

"I haven't heard anything, Edward." Mom smiled just as I was opening my mouth to ask.

"Nothing?"

"No, sweetheart. I would tell you if I heard anything."

That night, Jazz came over and we played video games in an attempt to keep my mind off of Bella. I'd told him, Alice and Emmett what was going on with Bella and they were as frustrated as I was that we didn't have more information.

Jazz wanted me to stay over at his house that night, but I didn't want to leave in case Dad or Bella called.

"Edward … go on, I'll call you if I hear anything." Mom encouraged.

The next morning, Jazz's mom took me home bright and early. Mom was just hanging up the phone as I walked in the door.

"That was your Dad. They'll be home sometime tomorrow."

"How's Bella?"

"She's still in the hospital. Your Dad has taken over her care but she's got a mild concussion and is suffering some side effects from it. He didn't go into greater detail than that. He sounds exhausted. He did say that he hasn't left the hospital since they arrived in Phoenix. He's been staying with Bella, so Charlie can take care of some things."

I was so anxious for my Dad to get home the following day. I wanted to ask him so many things. I wanted to know when Bella was going to be home from the hospital. I needed to hear her voice and have her tell me that she was okay.

Dad looked beat when he walked in the front door the next day. While I helped Mom get dinner on the table, he showered and came downstairs looking tired but marginally better.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Edward, Son, that's not my story to tell. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to have some patience in getting the answer to that."

"Why do I get the feeling that it was something horrible? I had a bad feeling on Thursday that started just before my game."

"Don't let your imagination run away with you, Son."

"I can't help it, Dad. How's Bella?"

"She's … she's okay. She's got a pretty good bump on her head but she'll be fine."

"Did you release her from the hospital?"

"I did. Listen, Son … give her some space, okay? She knows you're concerned and she'll talk to you when she's ready, okay?"

"Did you tell her I was worried about her?"

"I did, Edward. Bella is well aware as to how concerned you are. She asked me to tell you that she'll be in touch."

"Were those her exact words?"

"No, Son." He chuckled. "I'm paraphrasing, but it gets the point across, does it not?"

I nodded.

Monday morning, I had Mom and Dad drop me off at the ball field. It was spring break and Emmett, Jazz and I were planning on throwing the ball around for a few hours before we went over to Emmett's to hang out. We had baseball practice later that afternoon and went straight from Emmett's to practice.

Dad picked me up from practice and took me straight home. Mom had cooked my favorite meal of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy and apple crumble for dessert. I showered quickly and took my place at the table.

"Son, we need to talk to you about Bella."

Dad's tone of voice had me on edge. Something was wrong – really wrong.

"What about her? Is she okay?"

"Yes and no." Dad replied.

"Sweetheart … listen to everything we have to say before you go jumping out of your seat, okay?" Mom asked.

I nodded.

"Edward … Bella is home with Charlie. Your father and Charlie brought her home yesterday to stay. That said, you can't go running over there to see her. She's in a pretty bad way. Thursday's events have altered her and she asked me to tell you that she loves and misses you very much but she's not ready to see you."

"What?" I asked, barely holding in my emotions. "What exactly happened to her in Phoenix?"

"That's not our story to tell, Son."

"You keep saying that," I growled, gritting my teeth.

"Edward, sweetheart, I'm going over there tonight to stay with Bella for a while … she needs a mother right now. I will talk to her and see if I can't get her to talk to you, okay? I know how worried you are, but she's a bit … skittish and frightened beyond belief. So, as your father suggested, give Bella some space and let her come to you, okay?"

"Mom …" I said, shakily. Tears formed in my eyes and I tried mightily to blink them back but was unsuccessful.

Mom rounded the table and pulled me into her arms.

"Take care of her, Mom. She's everything," I sobbed.

"I know, honey. I know she is."

"Tell her I love her and I'm always here for her."

"Oh baby, she promised that when she's ready, she'll tell you everything. We just have to get her to a point where she's comfortable enough to do that."

"Tell her to call Alice. Alice is worried about her too. Make sure she knows that she's not alone." I begged.

"I'll tell her, Edward. I'm sure she'll be reassured to know that she's got plenty of people who love her and care about her."

I watched as Mom pulled out of our drive and headed to Bella's. I decided to go upstairs and write Bella a letter. If I couldn't tell her over the phone how worried I was and how much I cared for her, I'd put it into words on paper. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever imagine that it would be a year before I saw or heard from Bella again.

A/N: I know … a year is a long time and these two have been through so much together and apart. Bella's been through some heavy stuff – stuff that is difficult for an adult to deal with let alone a teenager. She's scared – she doesn't want Edward to pity her and she knows that he'll wish that he had been there to protect her. Now it's all up to her … but go easy on her – she thinks she's protecting them both.

Thoughts?