A/N Thank you so much for those of you who took the time to review it always makes me smile when i know that there are those who enjoy what i'm writing and thats why this update is happening but I will remind you that while I write for myself as much as I do it for you, its The positive reinforcement from you all that keeps me updating so please take the Time to review and tell me what you think. Phew now that is out of the way please enjoy this Chapter!

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"I Used To Think The Worst Feeling in the world was losing someone you love, but i was wrong ... The worst feeling is the moment when you realize that somewhere along the lines you've lost yourself. "

"Stop being a sentimental fool, Bella." I muttered to myself, now feeling like my skin was on fire as my cheeks reddened and my throat constricted without my consent. I hated my days off. "There's a reason I work 80 hours a week. Fuck Darien for making me take the day off." I spoke to the air.

Roughly wrenching myself off of my couch as if it bit me in the ass, I started pacing around like a caged animal, pulling at my hair until it hurt. Why would all these damn recollections come tonight, dammit?

I worked too hard to block everything out. Nothing quite got rid of the memories like my obsessions could. It was only as I dreamt or when needles were involved that I managed to function.

Most addictions need a trigger to begin to take hold on you, mine was no exception. It had flourished because of a senseless boy. That is, if you can call a 107 year old vampire with severe anal retentive problems that thirsted for my blood so much that he decided to play a game, a boy.

Cheating, manipulative bastard, just hand me some lighter fluid and my zippo. Then again, I'm sure even sparkle puss isn't immune to a Mini Uzi up the ass, Bitchella piped up savagely.

If only, the rest of me sighed.

A game that was the reason I was sitting here—in the huge and desolately empty apartment that I shared with Darien—chugging down whiskey.

"FUCK!" I screamed while hurling my empty glass into the wall.

"Fucking great, now I have to clean the damn glass before Darien gets back." Letting an unrestrained scream rip from my throat, I stalked over to my bag and rummaged through it roughly, looking for my cigarettes, finally finding them after searching for what seemed like forever.

"I swear to fucking God, women's purses must have black soul-sucking holes in them. Shit's never where it should be." I continued to rant.

I quickly lit one and took a huge drag, my hands shaking violently. The smoke went down harshly, making my chest feel battered and abused. Smoking it to the filter didn't help calm me; neither did the two other ones I lit up in succession.

Nothing would save me tonight, I could already tell.

I couldn't comprehend the reason I was in this morbidly retrospective mood, tonight of all nights, but whatever the reason it seemed that it was going to be one of those nights. The ones that rendered me incapable of breathing as each recollection pounded me into submission. I usually excelled at keeping everything in, never really prone to expressing my grief. What irked me the most was that I knew I was better than this. The thought that he still managed to debilitate me was repulsive.

It was unfathomable that after becoming incapable of tears, I now found myself fighting them down.

I thought I was done with this. Hasn't there been enough suffering? I asked myself, lamenting ever having met Edward.

'No, you haven't. What makes you think that your pain will ever suffice? It won't ever be enough to make up for all the mistakes you made. Whatever happens to you now was borne from your own naiveté and foolishness. You allowed them to strip your soul. You abandoned your family, just as easily as Edward abandoned you in the woods.' a voice chimed from the recesses of my mind—one that I always tried to keep under lock and key—the tone both mocking and incensed.

"Shut up, Shut up. Just Shut The Fuck Up." I screamed as I fell to my knees, throwing my hands over my ears as though it would keep the voice away. "It wasn't my fault," I repeatedly whimpered while rocking back and forth like a child. A part of me understood that it really hadn't been through any fault of my own. However, my overbearing conscience would never believe my innocence, and I couldn't even fucking blame it.

Where the hell do you go to forget when the one reminding you is yourself? Easy; you can't. You never escape when your mind is the asylum.

My heartbreak and anger finally unleashed in a torrid stream of tears that didn't help alleviate the crushing burden left by his phantom-like presence. This is what I have been reduced to, drunk and laying in a fetal position on the floor, my screams turning into sobs that wracked through my body relentlessly. Edward had broken his promise. That bastard promised me that I wouldn't remember him and his godforsaken family of sparkly disco balls of venom. He promised that it would get better with time as if my puny human mind was merely a sieve. What a fucking joke.

Once again, I had no control of the depredation of my mind. Visions danced behind my clenched eyelids, pouring out in quick succession with seemingly no end in sight.

Flashback

(Bella's house in Forks, One Year Prior)

Edward. Fucking. Cullen.

That controlling, judgmental, holier-than-thou bastard spent months emptily declaring never to leave me, only to go around and do just that. Even as I stared at his face that last time—his beautifully cold and unemotional face mocking—I hadn't believed the words that were coming out of his mouth. It was hours after he'd left me broken in my own fucking living room—recounting everything he and his merry band of sparkle fucks had done to me—till it sunk in that Edward was really gone.

My last moments with him were poisoned by his harsh words. In my panic, I ran out to my porch after him and screamed for him to come back to me. Told him that I would forgive him, if only he would return, but no amount of pleading or crying would bring him back. My pleas fell on deaf ears.

My knees buckled beneath the pain, motionless for an indeterminable time. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours…even I couldn't tell you. Losing all sense of time, I finally slipped into a blissful coma.

I woke up later, finding myself in my bed—with no recollection of how I had ended up there—ensconced beneath layers of blankets that did nothing to warm me. Shrugging away the cobwebs from my mind, I guessed that Charlie was the one to bring me here. For a second my mind refused to remember what it was that had caused the dry tear tracks I felt underneath my fingers. My memory only returned when Forks proved itself uninhabited and hollowed from all forms of vampirism.

That's when the spell broke. It seemed as though the haze I had been encumbered in for the last year and a half had been viciously ripped away in the absence of any vampiric manipulation. I was helpless against the memories that came back in a rush that left me struggling for breath, and upon closer inspection left me heartless. With each one, I came closer to clarity. The weight of what I discovered slammed into me. It was right then, as I sat in my bed that I understood that even with my ability to block Edward from my mind, and Alice from my future didn't save me in the end. I wasn't immune to their ability to enrapture humans. I was just as hypnotized as every other unfortunate being to be unlucky enough to cross paths with those psychotic corpses. In that moment I found out that learned helplessness wasn't something to be trifled with. It was a disgusting condition that stripped you of everything.

Both my brain and body seemed to shudder with this information. The overload had me running into the bathroom and expelling all of its contents, the taste of bile in my mouth was rancid. When I could finally stop heaving, I went to the sink and brushed my teeth until my gums bled.

A year and a half of my fucking life wasted. I gave him my soul, but all he coveted was my humanity, a fact made glaringly obvious in his absence.

It saddened me that after giving this being all of me, he had decided to cast me aside. I knew that most families were dysfunctional, but I couldn't forgive them this. They lost their right to be called my family when they held their tongues against Edward and Alice's many transgressions. The Cullen's were the only ones who had taken the time to take care of me since Sarah. Well, I mistook their use of my humanity to further their image as care.

Their façade was a grotesque pantomime that slighted those who were truly benevolent. They were little more than the monsters that myths made them out to be. I had thought that their in-human beauty was heavenly, but after today it was glaringly obvious that their humanity was a farce. I had been a project, a pet, nothing more than a distraction to be used until they decided to get the hell out of dodge. They were certainly capable of leaving on a whim and disappearing into the depths of whatever hell had created them.

From the very beginning it seemed I was ensnared by Edward. He thrust me into a world that wasn't my own, threw me into waters so deep, so suffocating and daunting that the mere thought of moving on was jocular at best. I felt like a child who had innocently followed a stranger who promised me chocolate. I thought that if he loved me even a tenth of how much I loved him, that it would be enough.

I was a moron for thinking he was capable of even that. The saddest part of this whole thing is that love was truly the farthest thing from my mind when I came to forks. In hindsight, I was manipulated into loving him. He played an award winning role in the beginning, doing everything in his power to render me completely dependent on him and his family. He was a gentleman straight out of a classical novel, full of smiles and gentle caresses. Never once did I realize that men like that could only exist in a fucking novel—that those characters were unrealistic in their essence—two dimensional and unvaried at best. Once he had me foolishly believing the mask that came naturally to him, the real mind games began.

It happened in stages that were leisurely deceptive. Immortals perceive a few months as nothing more than seconds would seem to a human. Why wouldn't he invest in them to break his human?

He knew of my need to belong, and I allowed him to take such control over me. When you spend your whole life serving the needs of the ones that really should be taking care of you, all you really end up wanting is someone to just let you be. In a flash, it seemed that the Bella that had once been independent and self-assured disappeared into the casts that Edward and Alice had decided to stuff me into. Sure, I had been shy at times…however, this quivering mass of meek obedience was merely a cadaver. The Cullen's had massacred everything that inherently defined me I would have chosen the slaughter of my body over this.

The first time Edward had let his meticulous illusion crack was a truly terrifying experience. He hadn't seen my tattoo before and the fury in his obsidian eyes had been a reality check that I was incapable of heeding. Without my consent a freezing hand had grabbed my left arm and roughly raised it above my head as he inspected its content. After what felt like an eternity he turned his eyes towards me and snarled, showing me the monster he always carefully concealed. Realizing his blunder, Edward ran and disappeared. Had there not been bruises on my arms, I would have thought I had imagined it.

That he loathed something that was so precious to me should have clued me in, don't you think?

It was days before I saw him again, his return brought about crushing lies and even more unnatural influencing. I found myself forgiving him without a second thought.

If Edward was the mastermind behind everything, it was only because he had found me first. His sister was a close runner up.

Alice, a tiny woman by any measure, was gifted with infinite techniques of domination and no conscience to stop her from wreaking havoc. She always looked at me with eyes that bespoke malevolence hidden beneath an innocently grinning face.

She was constantly scolding me in that grating, bell-like voice of hers. "Bella, I'm just trying to make you beautiful, as beautiful as you can be. It would make Edward so happy. Don't you want to be beautiful? You should want to make your love happy," as though I was worthless without her tutelage. The repeated barrage of slurs and nit- picking had implanted within me, feelings of severe inadequacy.

Their joint effort left me conditioned better than Pavlov's dogs—only getting rewarded for good behavior—feeding me scraps of affection. Edward relentlessly pulled me close enough to tantalize, never going further than propriety would allow before pushing me far away from him, tantalizing and taunting me. He became the prize that I continuously yearned for, set upon the highest of pedestals while leaving me far beneath him.

Every meal was chosen for me—denied the basic freedoms any cognizant being was awarded. I was told when to sleep, study, and wake up. My clothes were chosen for me, I could no longer drive myself anywhere after Edward had his sister, Rosalie took out the spark plugs out of my car. I was watched almost constantly—my only reprieve was when Charlie would be home for dinner or I was showering—and why wouldn't my actions be watched? They were, after all, doing it out of love. They didn't want any harm to befall their adorably clumsy—not to mention precious—chattel. It seemed that after having met them my clumsiness only became worse.

The more I believed in their lies, the more I could barely function without Edward's consent. Then the James issue occurred and it just reinforced my feelings of dependency.

Darien was the only part of me that I managed to keep clandestine. While Edward was able to cajole every minute facet of who I was, Darien stayed safely tucked away in my mind where even I forgot about him, at first we had emailed but when thing's started going south I cut off all contact with him. One night, I deleted all proof I had of his existence, without understanding why the hell I was doing it. One more of those damn feelings that I couldn't stop. He was too pure to ever be sullied by anyone else. While my mind had failed in saving me, its salvation of my best friend was enough for me to be indebted to its inner workings.

I allowed them to erase me from the inside out, to dazzle, coerce, and seduce me into following their every whim.

I'd never abhorred shopping until I discovered that Alice's frozen existence revolved almost exclusively around it. It became the bane of my existence. Her incessant manipulations began to eat at me, reminiscent of acid melting through bone.

I suffered for hours that bled into days, sitting in the vast bathroom inside of the Cullen mansion, being plucked, prodded, and changed from head to toe. Whenever I would sit through the Bella Barbie sessions—looking into the mirror, frantically trying to find myself within this imposter staring back at me—I never could find a resemblance. I was buried, rendered incapable of speaking out to these people who had become my family, silenced by my need to find a safe haven.

I was never safe though. I merely allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security. Where were my instincts then? Edward had told me once that his kind was built to be predators. He had warned me that everything about them was designed to the core to both attract their victims and to make those victims come complacently. However, he'd also told me that, like all animals, human beings were innately capable of sensing that his kind was dangerous. What fire crotch failed to tell me however, was that the mind rape occurred instantaneously when a vampire chose his or her prey.

Where the fuck was my instinct to survive when faced with the ultimate predator, and tried to claw my way out of the hell I was living in?

I wish I could say that it had ended there. After I had successfully become a diminutive shadow of my former self, Edward broke me even more.

They say, a woman always knows, I should just tattoo the words on my lily-white as like scripture.

I started noticing how Edward would disappear some nights—thinking I was blissfully slumbering—making sure to always be back by the time I woke up. His disposition altered after each encounter, simultaneously happier and more controlling. At first, his disappearances occurred only once a month before it condensed slowly to every week, and then it would occur a few times a week. I stayed silent it's not like I could prove anything. The vertically challenged pixie bitch covered for her brother each time he lied to me, saying he was going away to deal with the thirst. Yeah, the fucker had even started going away for days at a time. The first time I had voiced my concerns to her, she just waved her hand in the air as though the mere thought of Edward's indiscretion was impossible.

I kept my silence up, each time he would leave me to go. It wasn't until I had found a strand of long blonde hair too dark to be Rosalie's platinum tresses that I was incapable of denying it. The next time, it was the scent of the woman's perfume. It became almost a ritual for me to find different proofs for what I already knew. I played my part bidding my time, their meek little virgin girl would do nothing. They had trained me to be the perfect pet, and breaking that mentality was excruciatingly painful.

Golden boy seemed incapable of stopping his adultery— his need to dip his wick into some woman who wasn't me—too important. It was degrading. It took three months of sleepless nights to finally confront Edward about his illicit affair. Even then it drained me to utter those three words.

Looking straight into his ochre eyes, I asked, "Who is she?"

His surprise had been tangible; the perfect vampire hadn't thought I would ever be capable of questioning him. It stung that he thought me so dense that I wouldn't notice his indiscretions. The thought that he would lay with another woman before coming to hold me as I slept was a repugnant one. I felt as though my skin was vibrating off of in an attempt to get away from the realization that the Cullen's had defiled me in every way bar actual rape. His family had left me to live in darkness, like I was undeserving of the truth. They watched as I made an absolute fool of myself, allowing him to touch me, sleep next to me, hold me when I meant nothing. I felt used as they watched my defilement in silence. It was a bitter pill to swallow—knowing that even as I threw myself brazenly at him—I wasn't up to par with the women Edward found pleasure in…I was unwanted.

I tore myself apart, tortured myself to near insanity imagining the various women he had lain with. I no longer felt like a woman—stripped of all femininity by this sadistic imposter.

Still, I was powerless to fight the need to stay in his good graces. Regardless of all the agony he had put me through, I couldn't leave him. Like a heroin addict needing a fix, I needed Edward. That's truly how pathetic a creature I had been reduced to.

Once more, he adopted his role quite convincingly, begging my forgiveness for his infidelity, to look into his eyes, and believe him.

I gave in and once more was compelled to give in, all I could do was whisper out brokenly, "Promise you won't do it again. That it was the last time. Do it for me" I beseeched him.

In true Edward fashion he kissed my forehead and said "I promise, Love" and for a while he was good on his word, attentive, loving. However, it wasn't long before he started up again.

Each time I caught him he would make his promises—each time I was made to believe him—every time he claimed it was the end, it was always "I promise, Love."

Flashback (Earlier That Night)

This time we were in my house when I confronted him, for the first time refusing to look at his eyes. In that moment he repulsed me.

It was a cycle that appeared never-ending and everlasting until I broke it, by breaking myself. I could feel the insanity eating me. I finally felt my soul rip apart as I snapped. I just barely registered the mournful wail of a wolf in the distance, my body convulsing at the agony its howl intoned. This moment in time was a culmination of all the duplicity that bound me to this deranged monster. I couldn't listen to him utter his empty promise again.

I wrenched myself away from his arms running into my kitchen, picked up the sharpest knife I had and held it right above my unmarred wrist.

"Is this what you fucking wanted? To break the human?" I hissed, the word rolling off my tongue, tasting poisonous.

"Well good fucking job, asshole, you succeeded. Now you better fucking TELL ME." I had started in a semi- composed voice, but with each word my voice had risen until it had reached screeching proportions. It hurt my ears, so, I could only imagine how it felt like to his supernatural ones.

'Good. Let that motherfucker hurt.' Bitchella piped up. I had missed the crazy bitch in my head. In Edwards' presence, she had all but disappeared.

His silence was deafening.

"GODDAMN YOU TO FUCKING HELL, JUST FUCKING TELL ME, EDWARD!"

Calming me in that moment took gargantuan effort, but I managed to speak in a quieter tone.

In a chilling voice that I barely recognized as my own, I continued. "Listen up Edward; you and I both know that if I spill even one drop of blood you'll be on me quick as lightning. What with me being your singer and all. Now, no one wants to have to play hide-the-corpse…so, if I were you I'd choose to be honest, for once." Malice was evident in each syllable.

I hadn't noticed, until then, that I had been pacing as I yelled at Edward, but when I looked around, me I saw that I was in my living room.

Eventually, he asked, as though speaking to a wounded animal that would lash out at any moment, "Tell you what, Isabella?" I flinched at his use the name he knew I detested with a passion.

For the first time, I voiced the most acerbic thought that had consumed my every waking thought.

In voice shaking with the weight of my emotions, I whispered, "It will always be her, won't it? She will always mean more to you. Why couldn't you ever just choose me?"

With hard eyes he responded in a voice laced with indifference. "Compared to her, you are nothing. You were a passing fancy to a bored immortal. You entertained my family and me while I strengthened my control."

I never thought that I would be jealous of a dog, but in that moment I wished that Edward was as compassionate as Old Yeller's owner and would shoot me instead of killing me with his emotional terrorism.

"Control...you mean to tell me that—" my voice hitched, the words refusing to come out. In my grief, I made the mistake of looking directly into his eyes, what I saw there was far from comforting.

Pure hatred mixed heavily with triumphant humor shone at me as Edward began stalking over to me like the predator he was. I was spellbound, incapable of movement. I could do nothing but listen as he began to speak. "Listen closely to me, Isabella, my family and I are leaving. You will not see or hear of us again, and you will forget about our existence as we shall forget yours." His voice adopted a demanding tone as if he were willing me to internalize the orders he spat out.

With those words, he gave me one last lingering look before he parted with, "Take care of yourself; don't do anything reckless. Charlie needs you."

I could only stand there, stunned, as the knife I was clutching clanked to the floor.