I don't own Twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of the story.
Thanks to my Beta MadMooey18 for her continuous help, support, and love.
Bella grimaces as she tastes what is supposed to be chocolate milk. She had promised Edward that Phil knew how to make chocolate milk before asking Phil if he knew how to make one. Phil told her that he had never had one, and she turned down Edward's offer to buy it for her, and now she wants to surprise her mummy, but has nothing.
Yes, she agreed with Edward to put it off for two days, but her mummy woke up super sad this morning and is in her bedroom crying, and Bella wants to make her stop crying. She doesn't want her to cry.
"I will call Edward. He will bring the chocolate milk then go back home for dinner," she mutters to herself as she gets off the chair slowly then wobbles to their land line with the help of the crutches. She carries the phone over to a nearby couch, then once she is seated, she dials the number she knows by heart.
After three rings, Mrs. Esme answers, "Hello, Cullen residence, how may I help you?"
"Hi, Mrs. Esme, this is Bella. Can I speak to Edward?" Bella rushes. Usually she like to talk to Mrs. Esme, but she is in a hurry.
"He is visiting our neighbors. Is there something I can help you with?" Esme asks.
Bella almost drops the phone from her hand. He told her he couldn't come to her house today, so he could play with someone else? He lied to her? Why would he do that? He is her friend. Friends do not do this. Does he not want to be her friend anymore?
"Bella, sweetie, are you still there?" Mrs. Esme's voice breaks through her thoughts.
"Yes. I am here. I just wanted to tell him that I won't be surprising mummy anymore. Bye," then Bella hangs up before her voice breaks.
A tear rolls down her face as she tries to make sense of what just happened. Why would he do that to her? She would never do that to him. She would never choose to play with someone else instead of him. She would never cancel her plans to hang out with someone else if he had dibs on that day with her first.
Does he no longer want to hang out with her? But why?
Maybe it's because you are too much, a voice whispers in her head. She shakes her head and tells herself that that isn't true. She is an okay person. Nothing is wrong with her, but that voice persists. You always needed his help before the accident and even more after it. He never needs yours. Of course he will try to be away from you. Admit it. You are too much, and a burden he shouldn't have to handle.
She feels a sob about to burst from her and quickly claps her hand over her mouth before any sound comes out. Her shoulders shake and shiver as she cries even harder and more and more tears flow down her cheek. She doesn't stop crying. She can't stop crying. What is she going to do to with herself? Why is she so difficult to love?
She needs her mummy. Her mummy will hug her and help her feel better, or at least they will cry together. She knows that her mummy is so sad already, but she has no one and she feels as if she will burst if she doesn't talk about her feelings to someone. Plus, her therapist told her to always talk to her mummy if she is feeling hurt. Mummies know more about stuff than kids and can help them.
She slowly gets up once her crying becomes less. She uses the crutches to walk toward the stairs and then she starts taking every stair, step by step, left foot and left crutch, then right foot and right crutch. She keeps doing that the way Phil taught her. After five steps, she finds herself breathing heavily, so she pauses for a minute leaning on the railing and staring down until she finds her heart finally return to its normal speed. She goes back to her climb, and takes two more breaks, but finally, she makes it to the top of the stairs.
Slowly, she walks to her parents' bedroom. She puts her ear to the door, but doesn't hear any crying. That's good. It means that her mummy is feeling better. Bella knocks on the door then pushes it open.
"Mummy, can I come in?" Bella asks, peeking through the door. She finds her mummy leaning onto the head board with a book in hand.
"Of course, darling," her mummy answers her, tapping the bed beside her.
Bella walks slowly until she reaches the bed then hoists herself up. She crawls until she reaches her mummy then hugs her.
Both of them are quiet for a minute until her mummy asks her, "Is everything okay?"
Bella nods her head without raising it.
"What happened?" her mummy persists.
"Nothing," Bella mutters to her but only a couple of seconds later, her shoulders start shaking and her whimpers follow.
Her mother rubs her back slowly as she tells her, "You can tell me anything that happened, and I won't be angry."
Bella cries even harder and pulls back to look at her mum and asks her, "Can you fix me?"
Renee is taken by surprise by her words and runs her fingers through her daughter's hair and asks her, "What do you mean, sweetie? Nothing is wrong with you."
Bella shakes her head and tells her, "I am too much, a burden. I don't want to be that anymore."
"Sweetie, don't say that," Renee admonishes her daughter in an offended tone.
Bella sits up straight and swipes away her tears and tells her mum, "You know I am right. I am difficult, a lot, a burden."
"What brought this on?" Renee asks trying to understand why her daughter feels that way.
"I am not too sure I want you to know," Bella mutters, suddenly too shy to tell her. Will her mummy think she is stupid for the surprise she was planning? She used to think that the idea is fun, but the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that it sounds stupid.
As if reading her daughter's mind, Renee pushes the hairs that are sticking to Bella's forehead back and tells her, "I promise I won't think it is silly or stupid."
Bella takes a deep breath before she tells herself, "it's okay." Then she looks up at her mummy and tells her, "I was going to make a surprise for you."
"Sweetie that is so sweet of you," her mummy interrupts her before she could finish.
She gives her mummy a look that makes her mummy make a zipping motion over her lips. "I was gonna make a surprise for you and Edward said that he wanted to help. Suddenly he told me that we should put it off because he was having a movie night with his parents, but I called his home ten minutes ago, I discovered that Edward was lying to me and he is playing with their next door neighbor. I didn't even know they had a next door neighbor. When did that happen?" By the end of Bella's rant, not only is she mad, her tone is also demanding.
Renee is silent for a moment before she asks Bella, "What was the surprise?"
"Mummy! Focus!" Bella snaps in anger.
Renee rolls her eyes at Bella's frustration and then pushes her curiosity to the side and thinks over Bella's words for a moment before she tells her, "To answer your last question, I think he simply forgot. That happens all the time. Maybe he was too excited about seeing you to really think of his neighbors."
Bella sometimes forgets to tell people stuff. It's like if she was to reach back enough in her mind she might catch those thoughts but her arm is too short to get to them. Yes, this must be it. Edward simply forgot. It happens to her all the time. It must have happened with him too, but that doesn't explain his lie. Forgetting things is okay, but lying to someone is horrible. She can't help herself when she forgets, but when she lies, she does it on purpose which is why she has never done it.
"He lied. Lying is bad," Bella tells her mummy to remind her of the other thing.
"I think you should ask him why he lied," her mummy tells her.
"It's because I am a burden," Bella states again like it's very obvious.
Renee takes a deep breath as she thinks over her next words knowing that what she is about to tell Bella will be hard for Bella to understand. "When Edward decided that he wanted to be friends with you, it was because he liked you as a person. Him treating you as if he doesn't like you, isn't your fault. It is his. Have you ever pretended to be someone you are not in front of him?" her mummy asks her.
Bella shakes her head. She has never done that. Her daddy always told her that honesty is the best policy and she believes that. She always told Edward that honesty is important. Of course she will not be dishonest with him.
Renee nods her head as if she expected Bella's answer and continues, "Edward knows you. He knows how you are like. His choice to lie to you is wrong and bad, but it is not your fault. If he told you that something you do annoys him and you ignored it then we would be having a different discussion, but he did not."
Bella nods her head and hugs her mummy as she wipes some of the tears that started falling while her mummy was talking. She knows that her mummy's words are correct. They make sense, just like 22=4, but she can't help but feel like it is somehow her fault for being a burden. Edward always helped her in school. He still helps her. He spends a lot of time explaining things to her that he thinks are very easy. What if he is tired of teaching her? What if he decides that she is too much and stops being her friend because she needs a lot of help?
She can't have that happen. She needs to make sure that she is no longer a burden. She needs to stop depending on him and needing his help, or he will stop being her friend.
Bella pulls away to look at her mummy and tells her, "I know that I said I don't need you to hire a teacher to help me with my homework because Edward does that already, but is it okay if I change my mind?"
Renee sighs to herself understanding why Bella no longer wants Edward's help and knowing that nothing she will say now will make a difference. "Sure, is there anything else I can do that will make you feel better?"
Bella shakes her head then quickly kisses her mummy's cheek and gets off the bed and slowly starts making her way to her room.
Once she goes inside her bedroom, she gets on the bed and then pulls the phone to her and takes a paper out of the first drawer in her nightstand. She copies it slowly and carefully then double checks to make sure that she didn't dial the wrong number s that has happened many times to her, and then she pressed the call button.
Almost after the second ring, the phone is picked up. "Hello, this is Amanda Thomas, how may I help you?"
Bella takes a deep breath then answers, "Hi Doctor Amanda, this is Bella. You told me that I can call you anytime. Is that still okay?"
She hears some sound of shuffling in the background as Dr. Amanda replies, "Of course, sweetie, is everything okay?"
Bella stutters for a moment as she tells her, "I was told something about myself before the accident. I don't know if it is true, but maybe it is, and if it is, then I need help. Maybe it's not true but then that means that my brain is stupid and doesn't work cause I should be able to do all of the other things that the kids in my class can do, but I can't. I know I am not stupid, but sometimes it feels like my brain is stupid. Can you help me?" When Bella has finished all of that, she feels like her heart is beating too fast and like she can't take enough air inside, her shoulders are shaking, and she can't see in front of her.
"First off, I need you to take a deep breath for me. Can you do that?" Dr. Amanda asks her in a firm tone.
Bella nods her head but when she realizes that the doctor can't see her, she feels stupid and manages to gasp, "Yes."
"Okay then, do it for me. Take a deep breath if you can," Dr. Amanda instructs her. Bella complies with her order. She doesn't feel like that helps her breathing any differently, but then Dr. Amanda orders her to do it again, and again. Dr. Amanda continues ordering her to do that until finally Bella can see in front of her and it doesn't feel like her heart is going to jump out of her anymore.
"Do you feel better?" Dr. Amanda asks her.
"Yeah," Bella answers her sniffing.
"Okay, now can you calmly tell me what you were talking about earlier? I didn't understand what you said."
So Bella does. She tells her everything that has happened to her in school and how her parents felt. She explains what her parents told her and how without Edward's help, she wouldn't have gotten good grades.
"I don't remember the name of the thing Edward's parents were talking about, but I remember that it had something to do with not focusing and having a lot of energy," Bella finishes.
"ADHD," Dr. Amanda mutters after a moment of silence.
"What's that?" Bella asks in confusion. Is that even a word?
Dr. Amanda tells her, "It's an acronym that stands for attention deficiency hyperactivity disorder."
"Ohh," Bella mutters in understanding. Now she remembers what Edward called it.
"Do you think I have it?" Bella asks, hoping that Dr. Amanda will have the answer she wants.
"I don't know, but we can find out together. Does that sound good?"
Bella shrugs to herself and tells Dr. Amanda, "I just want to feel like I am not stupid."
After Dr. Amanda assures Bella that she isn't stupid and they will figure out together what is going on, Bella hangs up with her and then puts the phone down. She goes over the words she will say in her next phone call.
"What if you call and Edward is already back, how will you tell it to him? You will chicken out like a coward," Bella mutters out loud to herself. She picks up the phone and then quickly puts it down. She does that a second time, and then a third, but finally the fourth time, she quickly dials the number she knows by heart and presses the call button before she can talk herself out of doing it.
After two rings, Mrs. Esme finally picks it up. "Hello."
Bella sighs in relief then tells her, "Hi, Mrs. Esme. I just want to tell you that my mummy is getting me a private teacher, so Edward doesn't need to come and help me with school anymore."
"He just came home from the party. Do you want me to go tell him to call to you once he is done showering, so you can tell him that yourself?" Esme asks her.
Bella shakes her head and frantically tells her, "No need. You can tell him. I have something important I need to do."
"Sweetie, is everything okay?" Esme asks in concern.
"Yes, everything is okay. Bye," Bella mutters and slams the phone down. She doesn't want to talk to Edward because she doesn't want to explain things to him. Also, she is hurt and angry at him, very hurt and angry. She doesn't want to talk to him.
A couple of minutes later the phone rings and she reads the number of the person calling. It's Edward's home.
"You are not answering the phone," she lectures herself. The phone rings a couple more times before it stops. Then it starts to ring again and after many rings it stops. Then it rings a third time and it stops. That is the last time it rings. Bella feels sad that he didn't call her again and again until she answered. He is not supposed to stopped. He should know that she is very hurt and angry. Bella reaches to the phone to call him back just to yell at him for hurting her feelings but stops herself after dialing two number.
She will not do that. Edward needs to know that he hurt her feelings. If hurting his feelings back is the only way to make him understand, so be it.
If he is going to start lying to her, she is going to stop answering his phone calls.
Hello lovely people,
I apologize for my disappearance, but I am back. I am half way through writing the upcoming chapter and my beta is currently editing the next chapter of my other story. I will try to update as soon as possible on both ends.
Things are taking a turn to the worse for my relatives in the West Bank, so I hope every one of you reading this is contacting your representative, signing letters, marching, and posting on your social media.
We need a ceasefire now.
We need to put an end to this genocide.
Also, I hope you are taking part in the boycott against McDonald, Starbucks, and Disney . Our money shouldn't make a profit for people who support genocide and apartheid.
You can find me as Aseel Ayelia on Instagram, substack, and Tumblr, if you need to stay updated on what is going on or read my original writing.
Until my next update,
Stay safe