Bella always kept tea and pantry staples in the house. She learned early on that a kitchen devoid of all food would definitely raise eyebrows.

She usually picked up odds and ends for her pantry at the convenience store across the street from Thelma's, but she had to face the grocery store to get her dinner groceries. She kept Edward in mind as she walked the aisles, peeked into people's carts, and tried to remember what food went with what.

After two hours, she settled on chicken, rice, and green beans. It sounded simple, and with the help of a sweet old lady she met in the canned food aisle, she knew how to season all of it and how long to cook the chicken so she didn't kill Edward with salmonella.

Bella picked Edward up from work Monday evening. The ride back to her house felt tense. No one knew what to say or how to start to say it, but they both knew a lot needed to be said.

As she pulled into the driveway, she finally spoke, "I thought you might be hungry. I made dinner."

"Dinner? For me?" He asked, surprised. He had learned a lot about Bella over the past few months, but he had never seen her cook.

"Don't ask so surprised. I can kinda cook." She chuckled.

Bella parked the car, and they got out. Edward followed her up the front steps and waited for her to unlock the door. He glanced at the porch swing where they had spent so many evenings and wondered if tonight would be the last time he would come over to Bella's.

"I have everything ready. I just need to warm it up." Bella said as she sat her purse down on the entryway table. "Have a seat. You can start a fire if you want." She motioned to the couch and then the fireplace.

He took a seat and watched her move around the kitchen. She pulled Tupperware containers out of the refrigerator and pulled off the lids. Huge scoops of food were put on a plate. She popped it in the microwave and set the timer for five minutes. Soon, the smells of food warming filled the kitchen and living room, making Edward's mouth water. When the timer dinged, she pulled the hot plate from the microwave, carefully putting a towel under it so Edward would not burn his hands.

"Aren't you going to eat?" He asked her as he took the plate she had held out.

"I already ate. If I go to bed on a full stomach, I have weird dreams."

He stared at the food. It was piping hot and smelled delicious. It had been a long time since he had a home-cooked meal, but he felt awkward eating alone.

"Please, go ahead. I am fine." He gave her a look, and she nodded her head. He tucked into the meal, and she got a start a fire in the fireplace.

Once the fire was roaring, Bella made herself busy cleaning up the kitchen while he ate. When he was finished, he brought his plate to her. "Thank you, that was the best meal I have had in a long time." A blush ran across his cheeks.

"You are very welcome. I'm glad it turned out. It's been a while since I have cooked anything fancier than mac and cheese." A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.

"It was delicious," Edward replied awkwardly. He was twisting his fingers together.

The silence between them was deafening.

"Let's go back to the living room so we can talk." Bella finally said. Edward took a deep breath and turned to walk back into the living room. He sat down on the far end of the couch. Bella sat on the other side. As much as she wanted to be right next to him, to hold his hand and tell him every dark thing about her, she knew she needed to keep her distance and be mindful of her words.

Before she could start, Edward spoke up, "I need to apologize. I should have stood up for you. I should have grabbed that son of a bitch by the collar and thrown his ass out in the street." Edward was hunched over, his hands were balled into fists, and he was hitting his legs.

"Don't." She murmured, laying her hand briefly on his forearm. His eyes met hers, and she jerked away. Before she could do anything else stupid, like kiss him, she folded her arms across her chest. "Please don't hurt yourself. And you have no reason to apologize. I was out of line yelling at you. I know you were trying to diffuse the situation. I've just dealt with John and his bullshit for a long time."

Edward would not meet her eyes. How was he supposed to make her understand that his duty was to protect her? He couldn't save his mom from his father, but he had a chance to make amends of sorts. He could protect Bella from any harm that may come her way.

Edward sighed and settled into Bella's couch. It was time to tell her about his past, all of it. "My mom was fifteen when she married my father. He was thirty. I was born a year or so later. He and my mom always fought. She was feisty." He looked up to meet Bella's eyes, "In some ways, she reminds me of you."

A small smile found Bella's lips, "Really?"

"You don't look anything like her, and in most ways, you are the complete opposite, but Friday night, the way you looked like you were about to jump the bar," Edward shook his head up and down. "That was pure Shirley Masen. She took no shit." Edward grinned at her.

"Anyway, she would fight back until he would beat her so bad she didn't have any fight left. I think he thought he would break her. She was so young, and he wanted a cook and a housekeeper, someone that would raise the son he hated and keep him happy in the bedroom."

"He hated you?"

"Yes, he reminded me daily that if my mother had been doing her 'part,' whatever that means, I would not be here to cause him stress. He loved to rub in my face how much it cost to raise me and how, without me, they would be happy, and he wouldn't have to drink."

"Three days before my sixth birthday, he beat my mom so bad I thought he had killed her." Edward shuttered, thinking about the reoccurring nightmare he had had since then. He swallowed the lump formed in his throat, "I knew it was close to bedtime. It was getting dark. I went to find my mom so she could read me a story. I looked all over the house. My father had left hours ago, and I was so scared that she had left with him. I remember calling for her, but no answer."

Bella let out a slight noise like she was in pain.

"I'm sorry, this is a lot. You don't need all of this after everything you have been through this weekend." Edward told her.

"Have you told anyone about this before?" Bella asked.

Edward shook his head no. It was all too painful to say out loud, but he trusted Bella so much, and she needed to know all of this to understand.

"You can tell me anything, Edward. It's okay to let it out."

"So I was calling for her, and I checked everywhere but her bedroom. I was not allowed in there. I stood at the closed door for a long time. I had to check, though. I had to know if he had convinced her I was awful and didn't deserve to live, and they had run off together to live happily ever after without me. I took a deep breath and opened the door. She was slumped on the floor, her face swollen and bruised. She had large welts on her arms and legs. Welts I knew came from his belt. I screamed and ran to her, throwing myself in her lap. She yelped in pain. I felt awful for hurting her. Later, we found out she had five broken ribs. I slid down beside her, and she wrapped her arms around me, and we both sobbed. Then she asked me to help her up. She limped down the hall and put me to bed like nothing happened."

Bella had so much she wanted to stay, but her words were stuck in her throat. Edward stared at the fire as he relived the moment in his mind.

"It was not your job to protect her. You were a little boy, and I am guessing if you had tried, he would have beaten you, too." She was silent momentarily. Then she said, "he did hit you, didn't he?"

"He did, not like my mom, but like I said, I know what a belt welt looks like."

Bella wished she could cry. The emotions she was feeling right now threatened to tear her apart. She wanted to hold him, remind him every day that none of that was his fault and that she loved him.

"Edward?" He turned to look at her, almost like he forgot she was there, "where are they now?"

"My father, I have no idea." Bella nodded.

"My mom is still in Missouri, but I have cut her off. I know that sounds awful. She tried after my father left, but she was twenty-six, had no high school diploma, and no useful skills that could keep food on our table. She would take in ironing and sewing, but Bella, she was terrible at it." He chuckled. "Once, she had taken in a local preacher's suits for Sunday services. She worked so hard all week, hemming and ironing. That Sunday, we actually went to church. She wanted to see her handy work." He started laughing now, and Bella joined right in. "Both his pant legs were too short, and they didn't even match. The left was two inches shorter than the right, and she had used so much starch I am not sure how he managed to bend his knees." They laughed for a few minutes, Bella picturing this poor preacher in his cockeye hemmed high water Sunday pants walking stiff-legged in front of a congregation yelling about fire and brimstone with his white socks showing.

"Wow, Edward, I wish I could have seen that!" Bella giggled.

"It was something, but after that, what little sewing and ironing she was doing dried up. That's when things took a bad turn. I begged her to call my grandmother. She was not wealthy by any means, but she and my granddad had a farm, and at least we could eat regularly. But my mom was proud. She had promised the day she left she was not going back to that farm, and she meant it. You see, my grandparents did not want her to marry my father. They saw right through him. A man like that only takes a child bride for one reason."

"So she let you starve instead of swallowing her pride and going back home?" Bella asked, her brow furrowed.

"Yeah, she did, and she was starting to realize she didn't have to stay home all the time. She was young and beautiful and wanted to be free. She thought I was old enough to take care of myself so that she would live her life, and moving to the farm would stop all of that."

"Wait. What do you mean by 'old enough to care for yourself?' Edward, you were what eleven, twelve?" Bella raised her voice with indignation.

"Twelve when she started to um…" Edward trailed off. This was not something he liked to think about, let alone talk about. No one, not even his grandmother, who eventually saved him from all of this, knew what really happened.

Edward turned to look at Bella. "I want you to know that I do not condone her actions. It kept food in our house and kept me in school clothes, so for that, I am grateful, but Bella, what she did was not a selfless act. She wanted to do these things. She was not forced, alright. I need you to understand that. She made these choices because she became very selfish. She still is, and that is why I no longer speak to her. It is not because she sacrificed herself for me or because she had no other choice. I need you to please understand that."

"I understand. She was selfish." The look in Edward's eyes scared her a bit.

"She started dating, I guess you could call it. Rich men, married men. She would let them wine and dine her. Then she would convince them to take the fun to their hotel room. She would make sure they had plenty of room service liquor, and she would get them drunk and seduce them. Once they had passed out from too much booze and sex, she would take whatever cash was in their wallets and leave." Edward bit his lip and stared hard at Bella. Her face was blank. No expression whatsoever. He wondered what she was thinking.

"She would come home around the time I was leaving for school, hand me some money to stop by the store on my way home for whatever grocery items we needed, and she would sleep all day."

"How long did that go on?"

"Until I was fifteen. She had been seeing this guy every time he came to town. His name was Harold. He was gross. He even came by the house a few times. He would bring me baseball cards and bubble gum like I was a child. He called me Sport." Edward snorted. "One night, she was out with Harold, and I'm not sure what happened exactly because she never gave me all the details. It was late. I was already in bed, and he had either dropped her off at our house, or she called it an early night and left him at the hotel. But she was all dressed up when she burst into my room and told me to start packing. I jumped out of bed to hear Harold screaming and pounding on our front door. I guess he caught her stealing cash, or she didn't want to put out because he was pissed. I thought maybe I could reason with him or at least get him to calm down enough to go home and sleep it off. The last thing we needed was cops and child protective services at our house." Bella's eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open. She was taking in every word.

"I opened the front door and smelled the smoke. I looked out on the lawn, and he was standing in our yard with a gas can. He had lit our house on fire. He was screaming he was going to burn it down with us inside. No one treats Harold, whatever his last name was, like a chump. I turned around to go out the backdoor before he made good on that promise, and my mom was sitting in her easy chair, smoking a cigarette like nothing was wrong. This was all just a typical day in the Masen house.

"Good God, what did you do?" Bella whispered, her hands covering her mouth.

"I tried to reason with her, but we were running out of time. It was starting to get smoky, and I was coughing. I pulled on her arm. I tried to plead with her. She just kept saying she was going to call his bluff and then call his wife. I was not going to die in that house with her. I ran out the backdoor and next door to the neighbor's house. I rang their doorbell until a very grumpy man answered. I told him to call the fire department and the police. Thankfully, he did."

Once the fire was out and Harold was long gone, I returned home, and Mom was sound asleep in her bed like nothing ever happened. The front of the house was charred, but we could still live there. She still does."

"What the fuck Edward."

"I know. She promised to be more careful and only date out-of-towners from then on. Things did settle down—no more angry men at our front door, at least. A few months later, we got word my Granddad had passed. I thought maybe she would be open to moving in with my Grandma, but no. She wouldn't even attend the funeral. I went and talked to my Grandma. I asked her if I could live with her help on the farm. She was thrilled. She said she needed the help, but when I got there, I saw their hard farming days were behind them. She kept a small garden and some chickens, nothing like the operation they used to run. She knew I wouldn't move in with her unless I could be useful. My mom was so mad at me that she didn't speak to me for three months."

"How is your grandmother now?"

"She passed away when I was seventeen. I stayed at the house as long as I could. I kept the small garden and sold vegetables and eggs to the neighbors to keep the lights on. My grandparents had mortgaged the farm to the hilt, though. There was no money when she passed. The bank knew the situation and held on as long as possible, but eventually, they had to foreclose. I dropped out of school and started working in a factory in town. My boss had a son away at college, so I rented his room. Then, the draft notice came. That was that. Off to Vietnam, and well, you know what happened then." Edward absentmindedly shifted on the couch as he rubbed his hip. It was stiff from sitting so long. "I need to get up and walk around if that's alright?"

"Of course, Edward," Bella replied. Edward got up and stoked the fire, then headed outside. Bella left him alone with his thoughts. He had let her in tonight, and she was glad. It helped her understand him better, and she fell in love with him that much more.

Edward walked down her porch steps and started to stroll the sidewalk. He lit a cigarette and hoped he hadn't completely overwhelmed her.

He came back into the house after two more cigarettes. He wanted to know about her. She had been cagey about how she ended up in Forks, and while he didn't want to play the I told you first card, he was ready to press her a little.

He sat back down, grateful for the mug of tea that she had made while he was outside.

"What about you, Bella?" He asked, taking a sip of the tea,

"What about me, Edward?" She ran her finger over the top of her mug.

"I have told you about me, my life, my past. I want to hear about yours." He looked at her and immediately regretted it. She had a look of horror in her eyes.

"I don't think it's a good idea." She whispered. This was the conversation she feared. There was no way to talk about her past without telling him the truth. She didn't want to lie and tell him the story she gave to everyone else. He deserved more than that, but she loved him too much to say the truth. The truth would be losing him forever

"You didn't pressure me so that I won't pressure you, but I want to know you, I-I lo…" He swallowed hard and changed the direction of his words. Now was not the time to confess his love to her, no matter what Roger thought. "I think we're good friends, and I want you to trust me like I trust you, that's all."

Her eyes drifted from his, "I have made some horrible and costly mistakes, Edward."

"Nothing you could have done will change my mind about you." He wanted to reach over and touch her, to hold her hand while she poured her heart out, but after she jerked back from touching him earlier, he kept his hands to himself.

"I grew up in Oak Park, Illinois. I had a little sister, my mom was a school teacher, and my dad was the manager of a local bank. We lived in a yellow house with a white picket fence. We had a dog. I moved to Chicago right after high school because my dad always said I was a big city girl stuck in a small town." Edward nodded. It all sounded so rehearsed, like she had told this story a thousand times before.

"Why all past tense? Did something happen to your family? Do you still talk to them?"

"No."

"No, nothing happened, or no, you don't talk to them?" He asked genuinely.

"No, I don't talk to them."

"Why?"

"Edward."

"I have sat here and told you some of the ugliest things that can happen to a person, things that no one knows. There is nothing in your past that is going to scare me or make me leave." He said with a sharp edge to his voice.

"Fine, you want to know, I will tell you." She said flatly. This was not the part of the story she had planned out. This was walking too close to the truth.

Bella tucked her hands under her to hide the fact that they were trembling. "I got to Chicago, and I joined a secretary pool and could afford to rent a small apartment with several girls I worked with. We were all on our own for the first time. Things were good at first. Then Betty got married and moved out. Bea hated the winter in Chicago. She was from Florida. As soon as the snow melted, she went back home. That left me and Tawney. She was gorgeous and only worked as a secretary until she was discovered for the pictures. Well, it wasn't Hollywood, but she moved out to start making adult films in New York. I couldn't afford the rent alone, so I had to pick up a side job."

"Many people work two jobs, Bella, and there is no shame in waitressing or working as a phone operator to make ends meet." Edward looked at her with soft eyes.

"I worked at a gentlemen's club." She let the words hang in the air.

Edward's brows knit together, "You mean you took your clothes off in front of men, and they paid you for it?"

"Yes," Bella whispered.

"Did you sleep with those men?"

"They were not allowed to touch us, but sometimes I would meet them after my shift and—"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"You asked me how I ended up in Forks. Something happened to me the last night I worked at the club. I don't remember much, but I will tell you what I remember." It was Bella's turn to not look Edward in the face. This was part of her story no one knew. Not even Beverly knew everything that happened in Chicago.

"I want to know, Bella."

She nodded, "One morning, I woke up behind the club. The sun was starting to come up. I remember it was blindingly bright out. My blouse was torn open and bloody."

"Bella, were you…?"

She cut him off. "I had no idea where I was. It took me several minutes to start to piece it together. Once the fog cleared, I searched around until I found my purse. My cash had been taken, but I still had my wallet. I got my car keys and walked until I found my car." Bella swallowed hard, "I left Chicago that morning and started driving. I headed west. When I made it to Montana six weeks later, I wrote to my family. I pretended I was a friend and that Bella had been in an accident, hit by a train. Nothing left to bury."

"But why? You have a family that loves you. Why did you not just go home?" Anger tinged his voice.

"They are very religious, Edward. They would have turned me away as soon as they discovered what I had been doing in Chicago. Better dead than a stripper and a whore."

There was silence between them again. He had so many more questions for her. How did she fund her travel? Did she keep stripping? Something worse? Based on the look in her eyes, she couldn't take any more shame tonight.

Finally, Edward said, "How did you get from Montana to Forks?"

"Ran out of gas, walked into town and into Thelma's bar. She took me in and gave me a makeshift family. I met Jimmy and Bev. You." Bella smiled for the first time since she started telling her story. "Things turned out ok."

Bella gave Edward some time to process. Then she looked at her watch. It was half past four. She knew he needed some rest. He had worked all evening. She stretched and yawned. "I think it's bedtime. Let me get my keys, and I will take you home." She smiled softly at him.

"No, I think I will walk. Good for my hip, you know." He needed some alone time to clear his head, and the walk home in the cold air would be perfect. He stood up and walked to her front door. He turned the knob and pulled the door open. Before stepping through, he leaned back around the door and said, "Merry Christmas, Bella."

"Merry Christmas, Edward. Will I see you tonight at Thelma's?" Her stomach flipped with nerves. She would not blame him one bit if he never wanted to see her again.

"You bet. I'll be there." He winked at her and closed the door.

He walked several blocks toward home when a neighbor's Christmas lights caught his attention. He stood there watching the lights blink off and on, and he realized, for the first time in months, he didn't want a drink.