Author's Note: I'm updating cause I want to, but I just don't know if I should keep posting this story. 0 comments on last chapter. Zero. And six votes. Do you guys dislike the story that much? I'm not one of those authors that begs for comments or updates based on the amount of comments, but it'd be nice to get a little feedback.
Sorry guys. Bad day. Enjoy this chapter lygsm.
Happy Ever After
Chapter Six
Bella
Warning: self harm and mental disorders. may be triggering. if this offends you, skip the part between the two asterisks (*). no offense meant to any self harmers. i know what its like, i do it myself. but this is bella's character, so it has to be in here.
Bella awoke with a start, feeling out of place and scared. She was an insomniac, true, but she'd thought she'd get more sleep than an hour and a half. A good night's sleep was three hours, because half vampires only sleep for about four to five, but the most she'd gotten in the past few years was two to two and a half.
Bella pushed herself out of bed, noting that it was still dark outside the window. She estimated it to be about four in the morning, judging by the amount of light and noise from the city around her.
The girl threw on a dark maroon skater skirt paired with an off white long sleeve top that hugged her frame. She laced chunky gold necklaces over it. She figured she might as well try to look good, not that her ugly face and body could ever possibly be anything more than that. Ugly.
Bella knew she was not attractive. Her hair might be soft, but so what? It was too long, but she just didn't have the heart or the time to cut it. In her opinion, her eyes were too big, she was too fat (which caused her to keep starving, even though she was already deprived of food), too short, too many scars and bruises, her nose was too small, her lips weren't full, she had a nasty scar going down both her collarbone, jaw, and shoulder. The half vampire was full of flaws like that. How could she ever be pretty?
And despite what she was and what she had been through, Bella still wanted to be pretty. Every girl does, right? They want to feel pretty and good about themselves. But no one likes a girl with scars, Bella knew.
This was one of those times she wished she had parents. She imagined it:
They would live in a nice house with all her aunts and uncles and her grandparents. Because she was half vampire, her dad would be vampire and her mom human, though she would guess she's a vampire now that they got rid of her. Right now, her dad would walk in and hug her to his chest, telling her she was his beautiful princess and that she wasn't allowed to kiss boys until she was married. Bella would laugh and her mom would lean against the doorframe, rolling her eyes, amused.
Her aunt would bounce in, ready to take her shopping, because she would love clothes. She would be her dad's sister, not her mom's, because she's hyper and excitable. Her husband, her uncle, would be her mom's slightly older brother. He would be quiet and reserved, but was just as fun-loving and cool as her dad.
Her grandparents would be soft, sweet, and gentle. Dad's parents, she thought. It would make more sense, since he was the older vampire. He had to be, because otherwise how would her mom have had her? And sometimes, just sometimes, Bella wondered if they missed her.
The teen shook herself out of it. Dreaming and imagining did no good. It only led to hurt. She had to stop now, before she got too deep, too emotional. The best way to avoid a broken heart is to pretend you don't have one, right?
***
Bella looked down at her side of the shared bathroom with Stevie. There were four drawers, the top being for morning essentials, the second being for night stuff, third for shower/hair stuff, last for...her blades.
She had been clean for about four days now, ever since she’d left Stonyfield. But that was all about to be ruined. The longest Bella had been clean since she first started cutting was three weeks. The trigger for the break in that record was when James had whipped her repeatedly, each time making her say that she was worthless. It was only the truth. She was worthless. She didn't have a family, and the friends that she did have would soon see how dysfunctional she was and leave her, just like her parents did.
Bella rolled up her sleeve, snorting quietly at the irony of the color of the shirt she was wearing compared to the color of the blood she was about to expose.
White versus red.
White represents innocence, liveliness, energy, happiness. Red is for blood, demons, darkness, depression, hatred.
Bella brought the blade to her skin, already seeing the scars that lined her wrist, the cold metal barely touching her before she ripped it across the width of her forearm. Again. Again. Again. Again. Flashes of James, Her Royal Sinus, Thomas Cartwright, Samantha George, Mr. Christopher...sneering faces....disgust...
"You're a freak!"
Slash.
"Worthless, pathetic!"
Slice.
"Pitiful!"
Cut.
"Disgusting!"
Tear.
"You'll never have a family, not that you deserve one."
Carve.
"This is your fault!"
Gash.
"I see now why your parents gave you up."
Rip.
"No wonder your parents didn't love you."
The words worthless, freak, ugly, stupid, and weak were now carved into her arms. Worthless, freak, and ugly were on her left arm, stupid and weak on her right. Other various gashes were torn into her skin, causing blood to rush from her arms rapidly. She held her limbs delicately away from her body, already going into Cover-Up Mode.
***
She wrapped her thin appendages with white gauze, from her wrist to her elbow, effectively making the blood seep into the bandages. These would have to be changed at lunch at school, so she tucked a roll of gauze into her black bag on the floor beside her. She finally pushed the ends of the bandages into the wrappings before pulling her sleeves over her wounds. She looked the same as she had when she'd first come into the bathroom this morning...
...except now she had a slow smile on her face.
Bella exited the bathroom with her bag, glancing at the digital clock beside her bed to see that it was just about 6:30 a.m., time for Stevie and Nash to get up. She stared at the sleeping blond girl. The scent of fresh blood from her own arms plus Stevie's was enough to make Bella fly out of the room, just as the other girl was stirring, confused and groggy.
Bella wound up outside in the chilled September air, sitting in a deserted park near the Shelter. It was close enough to the parking lot that Bella would see when Nash and Stevie came out. Nash had gotten a car from the Shelter, a beat up Chevy truck that Bella absolutely adored, and drove Stevie and Bella around wherever they had to go. Stevie would be getting her own license within the next few months.
Bella was about to check her cell phone (again, gift from the Shelter. She didn't know where they got the money to do this stuff, but she wasn't about to complain) when it happened.
Bella had been diagnosed with plenty mental disorders by the orphanage medic. According to Dr. Reed*, Bella McCarty was depressed, anorexic, an insomniac, very mildly autistic, and bipolar. Although she'd been shocked at Stevie's IQ, Bella was a child genius, most likely because of her vampire side. Her IQ was that of 148, but her creativity and logic went far beyond that. Reed hadn't tested her for autism, but he figured that you had to have some sort of autism to be that intelligent. Bella had laughed in his face. Reed was full of bull, what the fuck would he know about being bipolar or autistic? (Besides if her intelligence was from her vampire side, then she wasn't autistic. Obviously.)
But there was another disorder, one that Reed hadn't been able to identify. It was very rare, almost unheard of. Pain. That was the only way to describe it. Chronic pain. It was enhanced by her half vampire way of feeling things. It was always random. She would feel a sharp stab and then agony would rip through her abdomen, head, and other areas. It was scary, to see her during one of these episodes.
And it happened there in the park.
Bella doubled over, the excruciating pain lighting a flame in her chest and shoulders, the burn rippling across her torso. She let out a tiny gasp of agony but kept her pain to herself. She just hoped this wouldn't be a long one.
After several minutes of pure torture, it was finished. Glad for its short duration, Bella sat on the bench, eyes closed, panting. It took quite a toll on the girl, for it had been happening for so long, ever since she was young.
She vowed to find the cure, to stop her feeling of being helpless against her torment.
"Hey, Charming? You coming to school?" Stevie called to the half vampire. Bella looked up, even more grateful that the episode had stopped when it had. "Leave without me and die a slow, painful death," Bella replied, lifting her bag and slinging it across her shoulder, ignoring the flash of white hot pain that was caused by pressure on her arm. She jogged over to her friends, careful to stay within the human speed range.
"What're you doing over here, Lightweight?" Nash asked, slinging an arm over her shoulders, leading her over to his Chevy. Bella shrugged the arm off, the pain in her upper body taking over her senses.
"Eh. I can appreciate natural beauty," Bella said, gesturing to the abandoned park and the trash that was strewn across its lawns. Graffiti littered the sidewalks and fountains. It was actually really shitty. The humans snorted.
Bella climbed into the passenger seat, Stevie in back, Nash obviously driving. Still feeling the after effects of the Pain, Bella stayed quiet throughout the ride as Nash and Stevie discussed the Shelter's lunch food.
"Still, I think Meat Surprise is pretty delicious!" Nash protested, his eyes snapping to Bella's every few seconds. She knew he thought that she had no clue what he was doing, but she did. She knew exactly what Nash was trying to accomplish. Trying to figure her out.
Good luck with that.
She would never be pieced together like a puzzle, she would never fit, she would never be a constant. It pained her, but Bella knew that once she was out of high school or once James came looking for her, she could never see Nash again. She wouldn't be his best friend from that shelter when they were in high school. He wished it and so did she, but how could it ever work?
In fact, how could it work past this year?
She wasn't getting older. Her body would forever be that of a sixteen-year-old girl's, never moving forward. She was cursed to this frozen life of being haunted by her demons. As so many have said, she couldn't drown them. They knew how to swim.
But Nash wouldn't push it. He knew, above everyone else, what it was like to be lost in your own mind. To be burned alive by your own thoughts. He knew. Maybe he didn't let on that he did, but Nash understood. And Bella knew that.
The Chevy pulled into the parking lot, and Stevie was the first out, anxious for first period. She'd told Bella about her History quiz the night before, sweat dripping down her face in fear. Bella told her that she thought it was stupid for Stevie to get a test on her second day in Forks. Stevie told her to shut up so she could study.
Nash and Bella sat in the car silently before Nash reached out to take Bella's hand. Bella instinctively recoiled, but Nash expected this, taking a strong hold on his friend's hand. Bella could've pulled away, but she didn't, her energy depleted considerably after this morning's Pain episode.
"McCarty, let me just tell you something," Nash said softly, looking down into Bella's hard blue eyes. After knowing her for several days, he trusted her completely and hoped she could soon trust him in the same way. The slightly younger girl had come to mean so much to him in such a short period of time.
"I am here for you. If you need to talk, you can tell me. Anything. I mean it. I don't care if you're secretly a fairy in disguise or you just can't deal anymore, I am here. I promise," Nash vowed and Bella's heart broke at the sincerity in his eyes. Unlike all the other promises people had made her, she felt like maybe she could believe in this one.
"Thank you. I know you are there. I am for you as well. I know. I know. I know." To anyone else, this might've sounded like a redundant phrase, but to Nash and Bella, it was a reassurance that they would stick together, that they would have faith in each other no matter what happened.
The pair of teens exited the car in an almost cautious manner, almost completely unaware that they were being watched intently by a coven of golden-eyed vampires. Bella felt eyes boring into her from behind and she whipped around, eyes darting across the length of the parking lot. She noticed the pack of vampires from the day before, staring at her as they gathered around a shiny silver Volvo. She leveled her own gaze at them, but they didn't turn away. Her stare was not one of malice or anger, but curiosity and suspicion.
She waved Nash forward, who glanced back at her as he walked into the school. Bella's eyes connected with the blond male first, then the pixie, then to the familiar looking blond woman, and then to the dark-haired muscular man. Their eyes were soft .... and loving? Finally, Bella looked to the bronze haired boy and nearly crashed to the ground.
It was earth shattering. Their eyes connected and suddenly Bella's body felt attracted to his, like magnets, like they had to be together. Edward. His name was Edward, Bella knew, but she had no idea how she knew. All she could think of was being near him, her skin touching his, knowing he was by her side.
Bella despised this feeling of needing someone else. She could depend on one person and one person and only and that person was herself. She could never trust another the way she had trusted so many and so many had betrayed that trust. The walls around her heart were too strong to crumble beneath the beautiful Adonis' gaze.
So Bella forced herself to turn around and jogged up to Nash, who was just going throug the doorway of the school. She could feel their eyes on her back. More importantly, she could feel his eyes on her back.
And she could feel that things were changing.
Author's Note: Did you guys see my Dr. Reed? For Criminal Minds fans!!! I know I spelled it wrong, I did it on purpose so I wouldn't really have a Dr. Spencer Reid, but I had to have him in somewhere.
Pain disorder is an actual psychological mental illness that I have researched thoroughly. It is caused by a number of things, but there isn't too much information on it. I will delve further into this disorder later in the story.