April 2003

Thirteen / Fifteen

The doctors wouldn't Edward see his mother, because she bore all the scarring and bruising of being thrown from a car. Edward's mother lost a limb to the brute trauma of being jettisoned. For a horrifying moment, her ankle had hung by a thread of thin tissue.

Edward had been wearing a seatbelt, but his mother had not – and Edward had thought to warn her, but then he'd quickly turned to the task. To the car's dashboard, to his rearview mirror, to his side mirror, to the rain-soaked asphalt. Edward had felt himself losing control of the car, aquaplaning on a slick road. He'd felt himself seize up, freeze with panic. He'd been too inexperienced to gain control of the machine. For three seconds that changed his life, he watched the car speed toward a tree.

The tires burned while they screeched, and the car had crashed forcefully. Edward was jostled violently back and forth. The airbags burst forth with explosive force, and Edward – too close to the steering wheel – had felt his ribs crack. Disoriented and shaking – hands trembling – he had turned, and the windshield had cracked into dozens of pieces, and his mother was gone. Physically jettisoned from her side of the car.

People around him had started screaming. Ribs shattered, chest burning, head spinning, Edward had stumbled out of the car. The front fender had been crushed like an accordion and tree bark dented into the car's black innards. His mother had flown for meters like a rag doll. Edward was speechless with horror, and his breathing came in shallow bursts, and his screaming had been fruitless.

Mom, mom, mom. "Please, please, please."

Edward ran towards her. The cars around them had stopped, and their hazard lights blinked around them. A woman started screaming. A man had the good sense to stop Edward midway to his mother – grabbing him with both hands by the shoulders, and it hurt. The man's face would become blurry in Edward's memory, but not his hands – cracked, and brown, and strong.

Edward still saw his mother's mess of red hair, and the blood trickling down her nose, and the scrapes on the left side of her face, and blots of blood trickling from the windshield. Edward saw the disoriented look in her emerald eyes, which were still open even though her head had slammed hard against the asphalt.

The memory of his mother smiling would fade, but not the memory of his mother dying.

Edward was released with his ribs taped up.

That day, Edward went into the bedroom and took a whiff of her clothes, intuiting that she would slip away – because how could anybody survive what Edward had seen – and he crumbled in his parents' closet. It was fucking weird, but he wished he could have bottled that scent. He knew he would recognize his mother's scent anywhere, but he could not recall it vividly, and the scent became faint.

His mother died three days after Edward was released.

Nobody ever explicitly said: "Sorry, kid. Mom's passed."

Edward was told by way of his father's sobs of horror-qua-denial, echoing through the house. Those sobs stretched into an eternity, and then an eerie silence befell the house.

The silence was never lifted again.

Carlisle had gone into his son's bedroom later, possibly more composed. His eyes were still crazed with grief and horror, red-rimmed with tears. His jaw was thick with stubble, and Edward knew. Edward had known from that first round of sobbing. Father and son had looked at each other wordlessly. Understanding had passed between them, and Carlisle inched forward with his arms open for a hug.

Edward had recoiled away, feeling that he did not deserve his father's comfort.

From that moment forth, Edward was haunted by an ache. It was sharp longing, and it was relentless. It was physically painful: he could feel it hurting the left side of his chest. At night, that longing intensified, and his eyes burned, but he would not let himself cry for his mother. Nights were spent in flares of insomnia, where he bargains with a God he never really believed in. This isn't real. This isn't happening. I'll go back. I'll go back, and then I won't get in that car. At night, Edward feebly came to grips around the idea that he would not see his mother ever again. His mother's face slipped away like mist, and the ache deepened.

The funeral happened all but three days after his mother died, and the casket had been half-closed, and Esme had wept in horror because Elizabeth had lost half a leg, and because her skin still bore the scratches and burns of the pavement rubbing violently against it.

Edward barely finished the 9th grade in May. Those weeks were hell – for his father, especially, because Edward could not sleep. He could not sleep, and so he would escape the confines of the house to run around Millenium Park at night. Edward would run up and down the lakefront. In his grief, Edward sought out fights, and he had his first smoke by Millenium Park. Carlisle spent a dozen nights haunted while hunting, looking for Edward in an icy, windswept Chicago –- and every night, his embrace became more desperate, and he trembled around Edward, while his emotions raged.

Growingly increasingly desperate, Carlisle suggested Washington. "Esme's there," Carlisle suggested. "We need a change of scenery," his father had declared, and Edward had packed a duffel bag.

Carlisle had locked the house, and the two had boarded a plane. Esme's name became a crazed mantra. "Esme can… Esme can. Esme can take care of you," Carlisle would say. Carlisle conveniently ignored that Elizabeth had smacked her lips distastefully at the very sound of her sister's name – until Grace Masen had died, and the sisters had reached an entente in their decades-long war.

Carlisle and Edward left everything exactly as it was. Carlisle had given the floors and the kitchen a good scrubbing. The house became a time capsule of their lives before Edward had wrecked them. Carlisle had begged Esme not to tidy up, and a pile of magazines would be left strewn on the coffee table for two decades.

An hour after Edward and his father landed in Seattle, his father dumped him on Esme's doorstep."I – I – I - you had three meals a day," Edward's father would confess years later, eyes filled with shame, his face contorted into a plea for forgiveness. "And your clothes were clean, and Esme could chase after you so you could brush your teeth, and… I couldn't. I could barely get out of bed after your mom died. Could you ever forgive me?"

Unbeknownst to Edward, Carlisle had gone to sleep at a hotel – the act of taking Edward from Chicago to Washington had drained him of every bit of strength.

Esme opened the door and smothered Edward in a hug. She wept messily into his hair, as if drawing comfort from Edward. "Oh, sweetie. Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie," Esme chanted tearfully. "I'll take care of him, Carlisle."

Edward barely registered his father's goodbye: his eyes fell on that strange girl.

Isabella.

Edward had always found her odd, even exasperating.

Edward had seen her but a handful of times. His early bouts of curiosity had turned to jealousy quite quickly. Whenever Isabella was around, she hogged everybody's attention, even Edward's parents. Edward's earliest memory of Isabella was the day following his grandmother's funeral. Carlisle, his father, had spent hours pushing her on a swing. When Edward had demanded the same attention, Carlisle had denied it. "Come on, son. You know how to push yourself." For eight-year-old Edward, that had stung.

Aged ten, aged twelve, aged fourteen – Edward recurringly found her annoying. It was stressful to wait for her to manage to make sounds, to communicate, his move. Edward couldn't stand her. As a young boy, it felt like punishment to be forced to play with her, because she just sat there, in her strange wheelchair, trembling. Those eyes – those big, brown doe eyes the color of honey – unsettled the shit out of him. Strange, no question.

Thirteen-year-old Isabella was sitting in her strange wheelchair – the padded one, with high push handles, in the middle of the room. Her face was friendly, but not prying, and her lips were twisted into a soft smile that was bereft of pity or sadness. Discreetly, her grief swirled in her eyes, which even then had been so fucking expressive.

In the deepest echelons of his heart, it struck a chord that Isabella was looking at him like a fucking person. Not a bereaved person, or a broken person. A person.

"Hey, Edward," Isabella said squeakily, and Edward was startled by how normal the cadence of her voice sounded. She sounded less retarded every month, Edward thought. Later, Edward would be privy to the way she and Esme practiced plosives and fricatives in the car. "Did you have a nice flight?"

Edward would realize, hours later, that she had practiced that sentence over and over again. Thirteen-year-old Isabella still struggled with certain sounds.

"Yeah," Edward huffed. He turned to his aunt, that woman whose mannerisms were so eerily familiarly unfamiliar. "Where can I – uh. I need to use the bathroom."

Edward was in limbo that first day – happy to be away from his mother's house, where the memory of her laugh still echoed off the walls at night. Esme was skittish and chatty; she had set up board games on the den's roundtable. Edward had refused to play, and instead asked with great ennui to watch television. Though Isabella wasn't allowed to watch television unrestricted, Edward would be – and he lost himself watching Cartoon Network. In the evening, Edward was part of an elegant, stilted dinner.

His father picked him up at nine.

Father and son slept side-by-side on a king-sized bed.

"I love you, son," Carlisle rasped before falling asleep, and Edward heard him sniffling. "I'm sorry, my boy." His father collapsed into a deep slumber without eating. Edward would one day relate to how Carlisle slept those months – like death. It was sleep that felt like sinking into molten lead - heavy, leaden slumber that left one feeling more exhausted after waking.

Watching his father weeping and crying, Edward felt his childhood rupture even further. If his mother's death had been seismic, so was watching his father collapse like a house without a support beam. The shock had been so profound that Edward had not really felt any emotions – neither grief nor anger.

"Esme said I could stay with her as long as I wanted," Edward said quickly that next morning. Carlisle had eyed him with that groggy-eyed, exhausted expression. Edward avoided his father's eyes, because he felt wracked with guilt. He spoke to the patterned green carpet.

"Can I stay with her for a week?" Edward asked, and his voice was nonchalant and at odds with the turmoil in his heart. "To sleep overnight."

Edward had barely heard his father's ascent.

The next day, Carlisle dropped off Edward, and he looked drowsy by the end of the drive. "I love you," Carlisle repeated, and his voice was weak and his expression was morose. His eyes were permanently crinkled, like he had aged a lifetime in less than a month. "Be good, sweetheart. Please be good for Esme."

That week, Esme behaved like Edward was a houseguest visiting Seattle, not her bereaved and beleaguered nephew. Esme would flit into his bedroom at nine AM after three polite knocks. "Are you decent?" she would ask delicately, and Edward would groan, because he had just managed to fall asleep. Esme would screech at the sight of Edward's half-naked body, and then she would trill about breakfast.

Edward's manners kicked in before fully fading, and Edward acquiesced.

Groggy and disoriented in that way of the severely sleep-deprived, Edward sat face-to-face with Isabella at the kitchen table. Again, another sentence that she'd practiced – and again, another sentence that indicated she hadn't interacted with kids their age too much. "Did you like the pancakes?" she said, and Edward intuited her eagerness had to do with talking.

"Uh-huh." Edward scarfed down an elegant culinary interpretations of buckwheat pancakes.

"Edward, Bella and I thought it'd be lovely to show you the Chihuly Garden," Esme trilled. "Bella loves the Chihuly gardens."

At this, Isabella pinkened brightly and lowered her gaze bashfully. Months thereafter, Edward would find that blush fucking lovely.

"And the ss-space need-luh," Bella explained shyly. "The space needd-luh is cooler."

Edward grimaced, and he saw a sting of hurt shame in those doe eyes he'd love one day.

Later, Edward watched with morbid curiosity as Esme lifted her daughter from her wheelchair into the van. At the next parking lot, Edward watched as the procedure was repeated. Out in public, though, Edward's morbid curiosity met its match. Suddenly, it was not just Edward watching – it was adults and little kids alike, pointing as their party walked past the serpentine lines of tourists waiting to go into the Space Needle.

Edward was irritated by Isabella's excitement because he still felt so numb. He could see her excitement in her eyes, in those disconcertingly expressive eyes that pierced him uncomfortably even then. Isabella would yelp when the elevator started moving, and she'd answer questions from little kids with irksome self-assuredness.

The minute the elevators opened at the top of the Space Needle, Edward walked away from Esme and Isabella. Edward wasn't awed by the Olympic Mountains, or the urban sprawl, or the rotating restaurant. He was just exhausted, strangely numb, in the mood to sleep. Esme would pester him, in the way of an overly attentive tour guide, but Isabella had the good sense to stay away.

"We ddd-duh-on't have tuh go to the Chihuly Garr-dden," Bella said pleadingly, the second they descended the elevator, and Edward sighed an audible huff of relief. He couldn't have thought of anything less fucking interesting.

"Thank fuck," he muttered.

Bella's shoulders were hunched, and Edward felt a hit of remorse almost immediately.

Esme insisted that they have hot dogs by the waterfront because the day was sunny and the sky, a sparkling blue.

There was a gaggle of teenage boys standing ten feet from them. All of them were older than Edward, and all of them were casting merrily mocking looks in their direction.

Isabella was holding a corn dog, but her arm was trembling so hard that she could not take bites on her own.

"Bella. Sweetheart, here, let me help," Esme said fussily, and Isabella reddened.

"Mom," she pleaded bashfully, and if Edward had been less self-involved and dastardly, he would've noticed how easily the word flowed. Mom.

"Here, darling," Esme said, and she wiped Isabella's rosebud mouth with a napkin. She took the corndog from Isabella's hand and brought it closer to Isabella's lips. At first, Isabella looked on with horror, but Esme seemed oblivious. The teenagers by the waterfront were gawking at the display with beady-eyed glee.

Edward's listlessness only grew. He was excruciatingly embarrassed to be seen with this girl who couldn't control her body – to stop it or to move it. He walked away. Away from the boys, and away from this woman and her daughter. He walked and he walked. Esme began to yelp after him, first quizzically and then hysterically.

Charlie Swan found Edward asleep on a bench by Careek Park, which was three hours away on foot. To Edward, who had wandered, it had taken five hours. Charlie Swan descended from a police cruiser; Esme had been following one of the police officers in her own van. She had been weepy and unsettled.

"Please don't tell my Dad," Edward begged – because he'd vacillate between self-absorbed running away and love for his Dad. Anger would come a couple of weeks later, and his anger would consume him.

Esme's choice at that second was agonizingly difficult, and her mouth and brow trembled with strain. "I haven't…and I won't," Esme decided finally, lips trembling.

The fiasco of their first day as a broken-yet-blended new family had not deterred Carlisle or Esme. Edward had returned to Esme's the day after that – and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. Edward spent that heady summer locked in his room or running around the Swan's pond; Esme hesitantly agreed to the arrangement, unsure of how to deal with a teenager.

Edward realized quickly he was intruding on Esme and Isabella's well-built routines and their mutual adoration. Edward had never seen a thirteen-year-old so attached to her mother, but he supposed Isabella was different. Edward, who had grown up exploring the Chicago lakeshore with his mother – and who had prowled the streets as a teenager – found Isabella sedentary. Lame.

Mentally, he felt disoriented, and that translated into discomfort that made his skin itch. The relentless mild drizzle, the vibrant greens, the inky sky – even in the middle of Seattle suburbia – was dizzying. Edward lived in a swirl of gray, green and rain. There was an unrelenting pitter-patter of rain, and a smell of petrichor, and eerie bright green. Edward's skin itched to get out, to go back. He felt perpetually homesick, because he was in somebody else's house, every fucking day, and it was tiring.

In those first hellish months, Edward hated the homey feel of his Aunt Esme's. The house reeked of the pungent, potent scent of lemony pinewood. Edward despised that Aunt Esme sliced artisanal bread to craft sandwiches, and that they had homemade pea soup for dinner. Edward hated the way Esme cleaned, ironed and folded laundry with militaristic precision.

Esme was aggressively competent at motherhood, and everything in her house was unsettlingly perfect. Both Carlisle and Elizabeth had been atrocious where Esme had been fiercely competent. Edward had grown up on easy-to-make staples, like boiled fish, instant rice, and clementines. In Chicago, his parents took turns helping him with his laundry. Edward ended up with wrinkled basketfuls of clothes. Edward and his dad would untangle that basket on weekends.

Edward would become angry at his mother so often - because she was airheaded, terrible at housekeeping, despised PTA meetings and chaperoned. Elizabeth always seemed just as invested in helping Somali students adapt to their new Chicago home as she was invested in her own son. Indeed, Esme would be flustered and breathy, like she was stressed adjusting to the burden of caring for two teenagers instead of one. Aside from her breathy asides, her difficulties never showed. Esme found time to wax the wooden floors and feed them all homemade asparagus bisque.

Edward was trapped in that eerily perfect house, with that strange girl. Isabella.

Then Tanya Denali changed everything.

August 2003

Thirteen/Sixteen

Edward realized he was fuckhot on his first day at Dewey Day School. The summer between his old life and his new one, Edward had grown nearly a foot. His face had cleared, his jaw had sharpened, and his beard had thickened. The realization was courtesy of one Tanya Denali, and it smashed into him as roughly as that airbag.

Edward had been an artsy-qua-dorky, albeit self-confident, tween.

Puberty had been particularly unkind; he'd grown gangly, even ugly, before he had grown into the sharpness of his jaw. He'd looked a little bit like a Habsburg in the early stages of puberty. Then, Edward had sprouted unseemly peach fuzz rather prematurely, forcing Carlisle to teach him to use a razor blade rather prematurely. Along with peach fuzz, Edward had been besieged by acne. It had cleared up after a trip to the dermatologist and a daily dose of Clearasil.

Edward had been raised by an artist and a liberal doctor, and Edward behaved accordingly . An advocate of letting him be, his mother had let him grow his hair to his shoulders. Edward had been raised listening to instruments from across the world, and his mother had indulged his fascination for different instruments. Edward was as likely to play the Djembes one summer as he would be to play a Chinese Guzheng the next – because it was their idea of fun. Edward and his parents had travelled, and Edward's mother had indulged him.

On his first day of sixth grade, Edward's mother had embarrassed him into social implosion. "I love you, Teddy," Elizabeth had called out through the iron wrought gates. Edward had always hated being called anything but Edward, and his father had been staunchly of the same mind. Elizabeth called him Teddy Bear sometimes, when she found him specially endearing. Edward tolerated the nickname from his Mom.

A boy named Trevor Mellow had heard – I love you, Teddy –, and Edward had become Trevor's animate punching bag. Trevor Mellow had never picked on Edward before – but his mother's declaration of love had put a target on his back. Within hours, every other kid – especially eighth graders that were burlier and taller – would call him Teddy. He would get declarations of love from both boys and girls. That mocking declaration coming from his crush at the time almost killed him of embarrassment.

Edward had spent Middle School in the middle strata of its social hierarchy. Edward in middle school was neither popular nor unpopular. He'd been embedded in a tight-knit group of friends that – just like him – had budding talents and interests for the arts. His best friend, Alejandro, could sketch. Could really sketch, and he was a talented cartoonist.

Everything was different now.

On his first day at Dewey Day School, sixteen-year-old Edward shot out of the car like a bat out of hell. Esme barely had a chance to say goodbye, and Edward barely cast a glance at Isabella. Disheveled despite looking presentable, Edward had walked through the two French doors that led into the school's main foyer. He had brought sunglasses with him and intended to keep his distance, as terrified of social shame as he was of sharing his story.

On the registration line, Edward caught sight of a hot strawberry blonde – chesty, long-haired, leggy, and blue-eyed. She wore a crop top and bell-bottom faded jeans. Her eyes had met his, and then roamed his body from head to toe. Her grin only grew.

Edward had found her beautiful.

The girl's lips twisted into a flirty smile, and Edward echoed it with a crooked grin that came naturally. For the first time in months, Edward felt something good. It was neither shame, nor grief, nor longing.

It was butterflies.

Edward walked alone through the hallway eliciting stares. His stomach twisted and his palms dampened. He skipped the Student Activity Fair happening in the gym, fearing it would seem needy and dorky to walk through it. Instead, he'd headed into sophomore Trig. In that classroom, he'd encountered two unexpected people.

The hot blonde and Isabella.

The two girls sat in opposition: Isabella by the window, and Tanya by the wall, on two poles of a diagonal line. One day, Isabella would tell him she loved the Red Alder that grew by the window.

Isabella looked up with her huge doe eyes, and they widened. Edward's heart squeezed, and he wondered what the fuck a thirteen-year-old was doing in sophomore-level Trig. Wincing, Edward pointedly avoided eye contact. Isabella had the good sense to follow his lead.

"What's your name, new kid?" Tanya asked, and she smiled a perfect smile, and Edward found the wherewithal to speak.

"Cullen," Edward said, in a half-assed attempt to be suave. He gulped.

"Cullen. Nice to meet you, Cullen."

"Edward," Edward blurted stupidly.

Tanya's lips twisted into a coquettish smirk. "Cullen Edward? That's your name?"

Edward grinned, then sputtered. "I'm Edward Cullen," he clarified, feeling like a moron.

"Don't you want to know my name?" she pouted.

Edward's grin widened. "What's your name?"

"Tanya Denali."

Edward signed up for football tryouts with a pencil stub. Edward hadn't been athletic in Chicago – but everything was different now. If the new Edward was hot now, then the new Edward could be athletic as well. Edward was following his father's example and starting anew. Carlisle had decided to handle his grief by excising his life from Chicago as if excising a tumor.

Tryouts were on Wednesday. It was Edward's rotten luck that it was the sunniest day all summer. Edward muttered to Esme that he needed to be picked up after 6:00 PM. Esme had hesitantly acquiesced, attempting an interrogation that was met with grunts and mumbles.

The sun beat down on Edward's face as he lined up with the other football hopefuls. Coach Clapp, a burly man with a booming voice, barked out the first drill. "Line up in a three-point stance," he shouted. "Feet shoulder-width apart, hands on your knees, back straight. On the whistle, explode off the line and touch the cone."

Edward channeled a handful of memories from Middle School PE and tensed, wishing he had watched football on TV more diligently. He took a deep breath and assumed the position. The whistle blew, and he shot forward, feeling a surge of power. Edward touched the cone with ease and turned around to see the coach's approving nod.

"Next drill," Coach Harris hollered. "Shuttle runs. Start at the line, sprint to the first cone, touch it, turn around, and sprint back to the line. Do five sets."

Edward had never done shuttle runs before either, but he was starting to get the hang of these drills. He sprinted to the first cone, touched it, and turned around. He felt his legs burning, but he pushed through the pain. By the time he finished the fifth set, he was panting, but he was also exhilarated.

"Good job, Chicago," Coach Harris said. "You've got some speed. Let's see how you do in the passing drills."

Edward lined up as a wide receiver. The quarterback threw him a pass, and he caught it with one hand. He sprinted down the field and made it to the end zone. When he did, sweat dripped down his back and his every muscle burned with excertion.

Edward couldn't believe it. He had made the catch. He was starting to think maybe he wasn't as bad as he thought he was.

When he spun, ecstatic and breathing heavily, he noticed Tanya eyeing him speculatively.

"Cullen," she called loudly, then beckoned with two fingers. "We're going to the mall after Kyle showers."

Edward hid his eagerness to join them. "Cool," he said, careful to keep his voice emotionless. "Good for Kyle," Edward quipped dryly.

Tanya's cat-like smirk widened. "D'I have to spell it out for you?"

"Yes," Edward said, with a hint of a cocky, lopsided grin.

"D'you wanna come, new kid?"

Edward did. Edward climbed onto Tanya's station wagon with Tanya's best friend and her boyfriend Kyle. Tanya drove, and Edward felt crushingly lonely. He answered Kyle's questions curtly, skirted around the subject of his Mom, and felt disconnected. Disconnected, not only because he didn't know any of the people they were discussing, but because he didn't find it particularly interesting.

At the mall, Tanya grabbed him by the hand and lured him off to an ice cream parlor. Edward bought her two scoops; he talked about Chicago. Edward talked about the Bean, and about biking up and down the Lake Michigan waterfront. Tanya listened with interest.

Tanya kissed him on the cheek not five days after that, and Edward felt good. It felt good, to dream about being with a girl he found beautiful. His mood improved, and Esme commented about it gladly. His father commented, too. Only Isabella seemed skeptical, and the contempt in her eyes seemed to grow. Her contempt bothered him more than Edward imagined it would, but he ignored her.

Edward kissed Tanya not long after, in her station wagon.

September was a respite from his grief – a blur of football games, house parties, and mall trips. Tanya sat by him as his date was at a Friday night football game, under the stadium lights. Edward, then starting out as a punter, felt a thrill knowing that a hot senior was cheering him on. After the game, they wandered through the parking lot, talking about everything and nothing.

The following weekend, they attended a house party – Tanya had been invited. The music blared, the air was thick with laughter and the scent of cheap beer, and Edward grew drunk on the scent of Tanya's strawberry perfume and on cheap beer. They found a quiet corner, and their kissing felt so good that its numbing effect lingered.

In October, they went on a shopping trip to the mall. Edward, who had never been much of a shopper, found himself enjoying Tanya's modeling. Tanya worked at Abercrombie, and Edward learned to fold clothes and work the counter. It took the manager a week to offer Edward a job.

As the autumn leaves began to change color, so too did Edward's feelings. They cut class; Tanya suggested they drive off to Tiger Mountain State Forrest. Edward lied about updating his driver's license. Edward received his first blow job at a parking lot, and he came home after skipping feeling like floating. Endorphins ran like wine through his veins, and he wondered if he was in love.

Tanya was his date to homecoming, and Edward had sex for the second time in his life in Tanya's bedroom. Edward had lost his virginity to a different girl in Chicago, in the dim lights of an attic. The girl had been an upperclassman. Edward had met her at an elective theater class in Chicago. With her, his one previous experience had been shit: he'd lost his erection out of sheer nerves. The girl had been so nervous that she'd clenched, hurting them both during the process.

Though he felt experienced, he was still so nervous that his hands shook as he tore off the condom packet. "You're not a virgin, are you, honey?"

"No," he gulped, forcing his confidence forward.

Tanya smirked knowingly, and she rolled the rubber on – and it was ecstasy. It was better than anything he'd ever experienced. His body – his balls – exploded in pleasure, and in those glorious ten minutes – hard-fought ten minutes - all his pain was numbed. Once it was over, Tanya cuddled up over his chest, and her fingers skirted curiously across the angry red scarring on his torso.

"What happened?" she asked. Had Edward been less sex-addled, the curiosity in her tone would have been warning enough.

In those moments, what he felt resembled love, and he told her. He told her everything. In a quiet, raspy murmur, he told her everything.

October 2003

Fourteen/Sixteen

Edward shared his story with Tanya on a Saturday night.

By Monday morning, his mother's death was the subject of ravenous, rabid gossiping. Rather than endure, Edward stole a bicycle from the student parking lot. For the first time since April, he let himself cry. Without telling Esme, he rode to the apartment his father procured – six blocks away from Esme's.

Edward biked until his legs were sore, his hair was damp, and his skin was burning. It felt like being whipped by cold air. The sensations mitigated his anger, transforming it into numbness. Edward managed to procure cigarettes by using the last fifty bucks his father gave him that week.

The cigarettes couldn't lull sleep. Anxiety gripped him all that night: his head wouldn't stop spinning with Tanya's betrayal. His anger burned hotter than his fear, and both kept sleep away.

At the crack of dawn, Edward took pedaled the stolen bike to his Aunt's.

The Seattle sky was a muted canvas of gray, punctuated by streaks of pale sunlight that struggled to pierce the thick, overcast clouds. A cold wind whipped through the suburban streets, sending leaves swirling and dancing.

The house, nestled amidst towering trees and lush greenery, exuded a peaceful charm. Edward parked the stolen bike beside the weathered wooden fence that bordered his aunt's property. He lit a cigarette on the walkway that led to the porch. The wraparound porch overlooked a small pond and a canopy of lush green.

It was were he would propose over a decade later.

Isabella.

"What are you doing here?" he spat, taking a drag with great proficiency. He sucked in the smoke and exhaled it in a perfect O.

Isabella glared contemptuously.

It was refreshingly unsettling. Everyone walked around on eggshells with him. Everyone in the family – Esme and his father. Courtesy of Tanya, that pattern had extended into his High School. People were whispering now, about Edward's dead mother and Edward's broken soul.

Isabella's gaze hit him again – sharp, observant, and piercing - and her gaze made his skin prickle.

"Enjoying the lovely weather," Isabella said dryly, and it took Edward a second to recognize her sarcasm.

It was so strange to hear someone be sarcastic. It was the first time someone really spoke to him – addressing him not as a cause and victim of grief, but as a person. "And I was here firr-sss-tuh," Bella added snippily.

Edward took another drag. "Touché."

Isabella had wrapped a thick quilt around her body. Quietly, pensively, she was looking out to the pond.

The silence stretched.

"What are you doing here?"

Isabella scoffed. "What, you're int-e—rroga-ttt-ing me?"

Edward smirked darkly. "Tell me yours, I'll tell you mine."

Bella eyed him uncertainly, eyes full of distrust. "Some tt-times I can-tuh sleep," she said flatly.

"Likewise," Edward said.

Bella made a face, and she lifted her book. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Isabella and Esme had spent hours lining up outside Barnes and Noble so that Isabella could get her hands on a hardback copy.

"You're not going to ask me?" Edward half-marveled.

"I figured you're b—buh-ack from a party," she muttered. "Or something."

"No," Edward said, feeling a stab of indignation. "I can't sleep, either."

Sympathy flashed in her doe eyes, but she was filled with growing disdain for him. "I hear hangovers do that to you," she said under her breath, turning her attention to her book.

"I'm not hungover," Edward insisted hotly. She lifted her face to eye him suspiciously, and a slanting sunray hit her just so. The sunlight lit the honeyed hues in her eyes and warmed the delicate bridge of her nose. Unbidden, the thought came to Edward that Isabella would be really beautiful one day.

"Bravo."

"I wasn't partying," Edward said bitingly, unsure of why he felt compelled to tell her that.

"And Tanya didn't mind?" Isabella asked sardonically, emiting a faux gasp.

"Tanya is…" The word bitch sat between Edward's lips, and his eyes burned.

"Shallow, vapid, rude, superficial…?"

Edward's snorted. "And you know this because...?"

"The way she treats Mr. Yee," Isabella supplied as if this were self-evident. "She talks back, and she makes fun of him, and…she spa-ah-t out those treats that he buh-rott us, with the coconut? From T-reen-ee-duhd and T-tuh-bago? She's just really rude, I think, and I overheard… Well, I overheard her giving someone a pep tuh-talk about how important it is to chase your happiness and go after the guy you want, even if he has a girlfriend. And she makes fun of Dahlia, you know, in trig class?"

As she spoke, her words grew more fluid, and her consonants came easily. The ice in Edward's heart cracked, and admiration bubbled through. A feeling from childhood returned – a childhood that had crashed, burned, and ended on a slippery road in Chicago. That sense of homecoming that came from meeting someone good. Isabella reminded him of his parents because Isabella was kind, and Edward liked her. As a person.

"Who the fuck is Dahlia?"

Isabella grimaced. "Dahlia sits next to me in trig class. She's a senior. She's going to community college next fall, and um… She's a bit on the heavier side? Tanya calls her a dyke?"

Recognition sparked in Edward's eyes, and Isabella sighed dejectedly. "You two are made for each other."

"I sure as fuck hope not," Edward said bitingly. "She's – She – I told her something really private, and well, she kept asking– She told other people, and – And – "

Edward's anger burned anew, and he breathed heavily. Edward had been enamored after his third sexual encounter – but that had dissipated like steam out of a window.

"Oh," Isabella said, and she schooled her face into what Edward thought was the perfect degree of sympathy. She didn't pry.

"About my mom." Saying it at that moment hurt as much as it had hurt with Tanya – like tearing out stitching from a wound before it healed, leaving it bloodied for people to touch. "And about a scar on my ribcage."

"Oh."

It would be the most beautiful irony of Edward's life that Bella's discretion made him want to tell her.

"She was an idiot about it. She said some dumb bullshit about my Mom's dead defining me and…" He looked at Bella expectantly, almost pleadingly. "Just like a clusterfuck of clichés, and it was just annoying bullshit. 'This doesn't define you, and time heals all wounds, and God has a plan for you."

Isabella's face contorted into an infinitesimal cringe.

"I, uh. I hate it when people ask me about my… my issues ," she said, gesturing at her legs. "Not because I mind talking about it, but because it's private, and I want to talk about my story in my own terms. And I'm not a fan of God-has-a-plan-for you. Not always. It's helpful from the right people at the right time, but… A woman at a Home Depot said that to me once, and it just felt… condescending and..."

She sighed, trailing off.

"I … I was inter-few-ed once," she said, and it sounded like a non-sequitur. "About my… problem…for the local county paper. The interviewer asked me that. She asked me if my cerebral palsy defined me, and I said no. But then I thought about it for a long time. That phrase is a bad cliché. Things shape you and they change you, but then to say that they define you… It's like saying you're reduced to that one thing."

Edward couldn't speak. For weeks, Edward had felt piercing grief, guilt, longing, anger, and even depression. It was the first time he felt understood.

There was a hint of a smile on the sympathetic line of Isabella's lips. "That said, I… And don't get me wrong, I think Tanya is an aw-fff-ull person… but I just think she didn't have any way to really… empathize, I suppose, and that was the best she could do. Don't close yourself off to her just because she hasn't experienced pain. A lot of people haven't. Even grown, eh, adult folks."

Edward took another drag. "It's not just that she's.. what's that word you used?... It's not just that she's a vapid cu - bitch. She told everybody. I'm done with her."

Isabella spoke very cautiously, looking at him reticently. Her voice was low and very gentle. "It's your pain and your story, and she shouldn't have done that," she said softly. "But, Edward… I…"

Isabella hesitated, peering at him with those enormous doe eyes, and Edward found her eyes hypnotic. She seemed to find something in Edward's expression that gave her the courage to keep talking. "There's nothing to be ashamed of. You know that, right? It was an accident. A horrible accident, but an accident. That's what the adults all say, and… maybe it bears repeating."

Once she was done, Isabella waited with bated breath, hugging her waist, as if waiting for a grenade to explode in the distance.

Realization did explode in Edward's mind, weighty and liberating.

"Thank you."

Isabella spasmed as if startled, shocked. She shook her head and smiled ruefully, and Edward thought it was so adorable, that smile. "Don't – don't mention it," she said bashfully. "Sorry for – I mean, it's none of my business."

"You loved her. My Mom." It was a statement.

"I did," Isabella said, and her eyes were impossibly sad. "She was like an angel. I don't understand how she gave birth to such a doofus."

Edward's laughter bubbled.

"Doofus? Did you just say doofus?"

Isabella glared at him spitefully, but there was a glint of playfulness in her eyes. "Huge doofus. You put ice down my back, and you sheared my Samantha doll, and you… Well, now you're just meaner than ever."

"Whatever, Baby Bee," Edward said, and the hint of playfulness in his tone made Bella smile.

She rolled her eyes. "That, too. You made fun of my bee costume, and I was six."

"Whatever, Bee. Whatever."