12

Bella leaned against the wall in the bathroom, her knees pulled to her chest, and her tears falling down her face. No matter how many times she tried, she just couldn't fathom the fact that her mother had sent her to live in Forks with Charlie, knowing that either Jacob Black would fuck her straight, or Charlie would. What had Bella done to deserve to be tossed aside, to be abused like that? Kiss a girl? Let a girl touch her? So Bella was gay. She was still Bella, still the same smartass she'd always been, wasn't she?

"Honey, are you okay? We're getting a little worried about you," Rose called out, but when Bella couldn't answer through her sobbing, the door to the bathroom was thrown open. The tall, leggy blond looked down at her sadly before grabbing a clean washcloth and wetting it. "Oh, honey, we're so sorry."

"I just . . ." Bella shook her head and took the washcloth from Rose, trying to clean her face. "I don't understand what I did that was so horrible for them to do this to me."

"You didn't do anything," Rose said, sitting on the floor next to her. "Some people just can't accept those of us that are different, I guess."

"Do your parents accept your relationship with Esme, Carlisle, and Emmett?"

Rose sighed. "No. I mean they haven't kicked me out of their lives or anything, but my life . . . My parents are what you'd call high society, Bella. They think I'm living below my station. I don't think it has anything to do with me being bi-sexual, either. I think if I'd found lovers who they thought of as high-class, they would be fine with it, but because they didn't grow up in the same social network as me, they deem them unworthy of me. It's a load of bullshit, of course. I can't imagine loving anyone the way I love them. They just . . ." Rose blushed. "Sorry, I'm getting carried away."

"I think it's romantic that you love them the way you do," Bella whispered.

"Romantic?" Rose laughed. "I don't know about that. I just . . . I can't live without them, Bella. I refuse to live without them."

"I understand that," Bella murmured, feeling her skin warm thinking about Alice.

"Yes, I suppose you do. Are you feeling better? Carlisle had to sit on Alice to keep her from following you."

Bella laughed. "Why?"

"Because she gets a little . . . anxious when it comes to you, Bella. From the first time she saw you climb out of Charlie's car, she'd begged us to go rescue you." Rose grinned and stood up, holding her hands out to her. "Let's go put her out of her misery, shall we?"

Bella laughed again and allowed Rose to pull her to her feet. She wrapped her arm around her shoulder, almost in a maternal way, even though Rose couldn't have been more than a few years older than her. She was a nurturer by nature, Bella presumed. When they walked into the living room, she laughed even harder when she did, in fact, find Carlisle sitting on top of Alice while Emmett, Esme, Jasper, Edward, Garrett, and Kate snickered under their breaths.

"You can get off her now," Bella quipped, and when Carlisle climbed off Alice, she walked over and sat next to her, shifting so that she was facing her. "I'm okay."

"I know," Alice whispered, covering her hands with her own. "Thank you for getting the asshole off me."

"I'm not an asshole," Carlisle muttered.

"Dude, pretty sure you farted on me," Alice jibbed, causing everyone to look from her to him.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Got you to stop trying to pinch me, didn't it?"

"Whatever." Alice shook her head and looked back at Bella, winking at her. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"As okay as I can be." Bella shifted her attention to Garrett. "So what do I do?"

"You want to press charges?" he asked.

She nodded. "Nobody does that to me, to anyone, and gets away with it. So tell me what I have to do?"

Garrett grinned. "I've already started the paperwork. Just need your signature, and I send them to my friend in the F.B.I. He will contact us about our next step, of course. I'm sure he'll be here as quick as he can. Charlie Swan and his . . . friends have been on his radar for a while now."

"I just . . . I just don't understand," she whispered. "So I press charges against him and Jacob, and then what happens? He has full legal custody of me, Garrett."

"Not for long," he said. "If you're agreeable, Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, and Rose have requested temporary guardianship over you. All I need is your consent and I can have the paperwork sitting before a judge tomorrow morning."

Bella quickly nodded. "But what about my mom? Will she fight it?"

"Renee won't be a problem," Kate quipped.

"How can you be sure?"

"Well, first of all, when she sent you here, Bella, she relinquished her parental rights over you."

"She . . . she did?" Bella asked, her lips trembling.

Kate frowned. "She did. Now, she could fight to have them reinstated, honey, but no judge in their right mind is going to give her custody back after learning that she sent you here for the sole purpose of letting Charlie Swan sexually abuse you."

"How can you prove that's what she did?"

Garrett and Kate shared a look. "Because it wouldn't be the first time Renee has facilitated sexual assaults with Charlie and his friends."

"So, they really think they can . . . force the gay out of people?"

Garrett nodded. "Between Charlie Swan, Jacob Black, and his father Billy, we have documentation of at least ten girls who were sexually assaulted in an effort to cure them of their disease, as they put it. To them, being gay is punishable in any way they see fit, Bella."

Bella took a deep breath. Things were worse than she had suspected. As she sat there with Alice by her side, she couldn't help but wonder if it would just be better to disappear together, and let someone else stop Charlie Swan.

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