Disclaimer:

I of course do not own Twilight or any of these characters we all know who does. No copyright infringement is intended.

I pulled myself back together as much as I was able, knowing that the second I walked back into the house all eyes would be on me, watching, looking for a moment of weakness or uncertainty. I didn't want my family to see me as being weak, I had been weak for too long. Now was the time to be strong. Taking a deep breath, I prepared to stand and make my way back to the house. The door opened making me jump and my heart skipped a beat. In walked Rose, who took a seat opposite me without saying a word, and I sat down too. We sat there in stunning silence for what felt like hours, but I knew that it would only be minutes. I wondered who would speak first; it turned out to be Rose.

"Edward, I… Shit, sorry." I glanced at her and saw tears glistened in her eyes. "I wanted to be all together when I did this, but looks like that isn't gonna happen." She took a deep breath and I waited in silence for her to continue. The only thing I did was reach over and take her hand in mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze. She smiled weakly at me before she continued. "I know that I don't say this to you often enough, but I love you. You are my baby brother, my flesh and blood and I will do anything to protect you. I know that you have been through some shit, and I feel bad that I wasn't there for you, or you felt like you couldn't tell me what was going on but-"

"Rose, I know. Please-"

She cut me off, as I had done to her.

"Edward, please don't. Let me say what I have to, I need to do this. You have been living some kind of double life these last few months. I can honestly say that I am glad that you had found someone, and at one time I would have been pleased that it was Bella, but after the stunt I heard she pulled at the dance, well I could do some serious damage to that bitch. How she could do that to you? It makes me so fucking angry."

I smiled at my sister's passion and fire to protect me. I always knew that she was there for me. She was like a lioness and I knew where she got it from. I could see in her the passion and protectiveness of both our parents rolled into one person, and I felt the love radiating off her for me at the same time. I stood, moving to her and wrapped my arms around her I gently kissed the top of her head and I spoke into her hair.

"Rose, I know. Bella is, was, important to me. What I know now is that I meant nothing to her. She threw away what we had. It's gone, done, dead, and buried." I stepped back from her. "She is my past. I now have a future to look forward to, just not sure what form that will take. I will soon be done with school, and I cannot wait to put that nightmare behind me. I know how much you love me, and I love you. I'm just sorry that it came to such a head before I realized what I have around me. I have great friends and a loving family. I just think that the past should be left there. I know that-"

My next words were drowned out by Emmett as he burst through the door.

"Yo! So this is where the party is at? You two having a private party out here, or can anyone join in?"

He stood there with a beaming smile on his face. His head moved back and forth between the two of us so fast, I feared that he would give himself whiplash. I laughed at him, and Rose simply slapped his arm playfully before she allowed him to pull her into his waiting arms. She didn't fight him, there was no point, he could quite easily win. Emmett's face lit up as he asked,

"Anyone for ice-cream? Your folks don't have any in, I'm heading a scouting party down to the local store to get some before it closes. You coming?" He looked directly at me. I felt a chill run through me at the thought of going into town, even though it was late and I knew deep down that there would be very few people at the store, I still worried that people would stare at me or whisper behind my back. Emmett obviously picked up on my concern, as did Rose. She extricated herself from Emmett's hold and put her arm around me supportively while Emmett reassured me.

"Hey, if you don't wanna go, it's fine. If you do, you know that I will have your back if anyone says anything, or even looks at you in the wrong way." He slammed his point home by smashing his fist into his hand several times. This earned him a glare from Rose to which he responded by holding his hands up in mock surrender laughing. "Hey I got his back babe. You know that. I am only looking out for him."

I smiled at him, and knew that he meant every single word that he spoke. Nodding my answer, he clapped me on the back and we headed out to his jeep. Rose went inside quickly, I assumed to tell mom and dad where we were headed. When she returned, she opened the front passenger door and was obviously pissed that I had called shotgun already, but didn't argue. The drive into town was filled with Emmett's inane chatter about, well I couldn't tell you what. I knew that he was trying to keep my mind occupied and stop me brooding about the expedition. That might sound like I was being overly dramatic but I was honestly scared that someone would say something to me and I would crumble into a million pieces. Just knowing that I had Rose and Emmett there helped, and I didn't feel the full scale panic that I had expected, that was until we pulled into the parking lot.

Pulling into a space near the store I noticed that there were the cars of a lot of the people from my school parked up at the far end. They did this often, just hang about in the store lot listening to music too loudly and smoking. My heart started to quicken as I recognized some of their cars. Mike Newton was here which meant that Jessica would not be too far away, I half wondered if Bella had made it back into their favor yet, I mean after all what happened to me at the dance would ensure that, wouldn't it? It was only when Rose yanked the door open and leaned in asking,

"You coming or what?" I snapped myself out of my mental ramblings and managed half a smile, and she knew instantly what was worrying me. "C'mon, they haven't even seen us yet, no one will mess with Em; you know that."

I nodded slowly before I got out of the Jeep and dropped my head down making our way into the store. No one crossed our path on the way in, but I put that more down to the fact that Emmett was walking ahead, almost like a bodyguard clearing a path for me. Once we were inside he grabbed a basket and headed straight for the snacks aisle, dumping in pack after pack of chips and various other goodies. Rose just shook her head, fighting off a smile.

"We came for ice-cream, Em." She scolded him, not that he paid her any attention and started eyeing up the candy. I laughed at him, and bravely suggested,

"I'll head over and grab some ice-cream. You guys want the usual, I take it?"

Rose looked at me questioningly, squinting her eyes at me before she nodded and said. "Okay, we'll be there once I manage to get him away from here."

I walked away, once again dropping my head down. The people that I passed paid no attention to me as I made my way to the freezer section and this alone caused me to feel better about myself. Once there I stood staring into the large freezer unit, searching for Rose's favorite ice-cream - Ben & Jerry's Phish Food. They had just about every other variety apart from this, and then I spotted it. Lurking in the bottom corner I saw my holy grail and reached into the freezer to grab it when a familiar voice spoke softly behind me.

"Hi Edward, glad to see that you are back home."

I stood up so quickly that I made myself dizzy, a knot of nausea built within me, and then I came face to face with the owner of the voice, Tanya. She smiled nervously, reaching out to touch my face, but I flinched away from her, causing her to recoil.

"Sorry, you startled me. I wasn't… I erm…" I mumbled out.

"I know. I'm sorry, I should have thought, but I would recognize that cute butt anywhere and just had to come over and say hi. Rose hasn't been the best at telling me what's been happening since. Well, since. You know."

I nodded at her, knowing that this was how it would be, people treading on eggshells around me, not wanting to say the words. Feeling brave, I decided to say them for her.

"What, since I tried to kill myself? It's okay Tanya, you can say it." I stared right at her, watching as her face started to crumble and tears filled her eyes. I stepped towards her and she took a rather hasty step backward, glancing around as if she had expected someone to appear out of nowhere. This reaction confused me as I remembered everything that had happened between us, every kiss, every touch and to have her look so scared of me, was concerning.

Her cell phone rang, startling both of us, and as her eyes looked at the caller ID, I saw a look of what I could only describe as panic cross her face. I watched as she tried to cover this with a fake smile as she answered it, keeping her voice low almost as if she didn't want me to hear the conversation.

"Hey baby… yeah, I'm just at the store getting what you asked for… I know I will be there soon… Yes. I know… I'm sorry, please don't be angry… What outside the store?... Okay… I'm coming now."

I could make out an angry sounding male voice at the other end. She finished the call, looking at me a, weak smile on her face before she said,

"Sorry, I gotta go. Nice to see you're on the mend."

She hugged me quickly, surprising me before she turned on her heel and disappeared down the aisle away from me. I was left staring after her as she almost ran out of the store. Then I heard Rose's voice break through my confusion.

"Hey, did you find it? Oh, was that Tanya I just saw? What did she want?"

I turned to look at her, "Yeah, she just said hi, and then she went. It was all a bit strange."

"What do you mean strange?" Rose asked absent mindedly as she grabbed a couple of tubs of ice-cream from the freezer.

"I'm not sure. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. She was weird, and then she got a call and it sounded like she was scared of whomever was on the other end and she practically ran away."

Rose turned to look at me. What do you mean, scared? Shit. She must be back with that asshole."

"What asshole?"

Rose waved her hand absentmindedly, while she looked at Emmett.

"No one. Come on, let's get back home before mom and dad send out a search par-"

She stopped before she finished the sentence, and again I felt like people were treating me differently.

"Search party? For me, really there is no need for that. I never go missing."

The look on both Rose and Emmett's faces was a picture as I realized what I had said, and the reason that she stopped before saying search party. One was needed to find me that night on the beach. I needed to lighten the mood somehow.

"Last one to the checkout pays!" I yelled over my shoulder as I ran down the aisle with them following quickly behind me.

Once we had made it back into the parking lot and to the Jeep, I noticed that Emmett was distracted by something and I turned to see what it was. A cold chill of recognition ran through me as I watched Tanya arguing with a man in front of a car. I saw him grab her arm roughly as he pulled her towards him. I saw Emmett move toward them, and Rose grabbed his arm saying. "Em, don't. Please?"

Emmett stopped and continued to watch the scene as it played out before us. Then we watched as he pulled Tanya towards him, kissing her roughly, which she then reciprocated, reaching around his neck and pulling him towards her.

"Typical Tanya. She just cannot see how bad that asshole is for her. Let's just hope she sees the light before it's too late and he puts her in the hospital." Rose muttered under her breath.

We all got into the jeep, but I could not take my eyes off Tanya and James when a sudden familiarity ran through me. It felt like I had seen this before but I couldn't remember when or where I had seen this. I just wished that I could since it might help me piece things together. As we drove out of the parking lot I saw Bella walking from her car being followed by Jessica hot on her heels. At first I thought that they were going to the store together, and then I watched in horror as Jessica pushed her from behind, causing Bella to fall to the sidewalk. Once she was down there I saw Jessica shout something at her as she laughed and walked away, back to her little group. So I was wrong. Bella wasn't back in the arms of her previous friends it seemed, but that was no longer any of my concern. She had sold me out, so why should I rush to help her now? I turned my head away and closed my eyes.

The drive home was quiet, and I was watching the looks being exchanged between Emmett and Rose through the mirror. Breaking the deathly silence that had descended was risky but I wanted to know more.

"What did you mean Rose, when you said, she sees the light before he puts her in the hospital? Has he hurt her before?" Again there was another set of glances. "Please just tell me. So much is blurry and fuzzy. I think I have a vague memory of Tanya being hurt at some point, but I don't know when it was. She is your best friend, and to think of someone hurting her it upsets me. She was always so good to me."

Emmett stifled a laugh, covering it up with a cough. He knew about me and Tanya. I remembered telling him everything that day on the beach when I poured my heart out to him. Rose didn't pick up on what happened and replied, sighing loudly before she answered me.

"What I meant is that she is caught up with that asshole, James. She won't listen to anyone; there is just no reaching her. Tanya will not hear a bad word said against him, despite the fact that she has had a black eye recently and refused to say that he had done it. She claimed to have hit her face on a cupboard door. Like I believe that crock of shit."

I tried to keep any sign of emotion from my face and out of my voice as I replied.

"Rose, if you have tried and she has not listened to you, there is nothing more you can do. Just be there for her when she finally comes to her senses. She will need you to be there for her."

We stopped discussing this any further as we arrived home and we headed inside with our spoils. The rest of the night was spent watching movies as my parents discreetly left us alone in the lounge. I headed to bed with a nagging doubt in my mind that I couldn't shake. Something about seeing Tanya with James felt very familiar, but if Rose said they had been together for some time I would have seen them together before, wouldn't I?

Authors Note:

Thanks so much for reading this, and please do leave a review to let me know your thoughts. Sorry for the delay in this chapter. Things will start to unravel more with the whole Edward and Tanya situation in the next one.

A massive thanks as always go out to Cosmom for betaing this into something grammatically correct for me! And also to Kitties1 for her hard work.

This chapter is dedicated to Kitties1 and I would like to wish her a very Happy 21st Birthday! (coughs) she has become a very special friend to me and someone that I am so thrilled to have in my life. Please do go and check out her story: Isabella Swan, Submissive. It is filled with British humour and she is just about to post the first part of Edward's POV which moved me to tears. She is a very special person. MWAH!