Chapter One

Bella

I had lived with my mom Renee until I was twelve but then she got sick and within six months she was dead and suddenly I was all alone. She had known she was dying, although she kept it from me almost to the end, and had spent her remaining time making arrangements for me to live with her friend Lizzie whose daughter was my own best friend.

My mom hadn't wanted me to go live with my dad, their divorce had been really bad and although she tried to keep things polite for my sake, my dad hadn't. He had visitation rights which he used occasionally always complaining we lived so far away but he always insisted on her sending me, escorted by a flight attendant at her expense, to stay with him in Forks for two weeks during the summer and a week at Christmas or New Year. She hated the idea of me staying with him and had tried to stop the visits but failed.

They had divorced when I was two and I'd visited my dad every year since then although given the choice I would probably have stayed away from Forks, at least as I got older.

Mom and I travelled a lot and she homeschooled me until I was eight when we finally settled down in Phoenix Arizona and I was able to attend a real school. I loved it, not only the variety of classes but the chance to make friends, real friends for the very first time. If I'd gone to live with Lizzie I could have stayed at the school I knew and loved, along with all my friends, but when my dad came down to Phoenix for the funeral he informed us that I was going back with him to live in Forks.

I didn't want to go, I had no friends there and it rained constantly, besides my dad was the Police Chief and had to work shifts so who would look after me? Who would help me with my homework, watch TV and laugh at the crazy ads? Who would I go shopping with and talk about things? Dad didn't have a wife, he didn't even have a girlfriend, and his house was cold and draughty.

I didn't have any warm clothes, no waterproof coat or even boots. I really didn't want to go and I begged Lizzie to talk to my dad. Asked her to explain to him that I wanted to stay here with her but she said he was my dad and now my mom was gone I was legally his responsibility but she promised to speak to him after giving him the letter my mom had written explaining her wishes but when I saw her next she just shook her head sadly.

"I'm sorry Bella but your dad is determined to take you home and I guess he is your legal guardian now. Your mom never spoke to him about your future if anything happened to her although I don't think he's really interested in her wishes."

She could see how upset I was and hugged me,

"Maybe he'll let you come visit and we can talk on the phone any time you like."

I packed up all my stuff but then dad told me I could only take two suitcases as we would be flying up to Forks.

"What about my books? My things?"

He tutted, he didn't like it when I questioned him.

"You heard me, just what you can get in the two suitcases, Bella. You can buy new books and most of your clothes aren't worth taking, you'd freeze to death in an hour wearing them in Forks."

I did the best I could with Lizzie's help, stuffing the two cases he had laid on my bed to bursting point and having to sit on them to get them to shut and lock. Looking around at the room that had been mine since I was eight I felt the tears fall once more and wiped them away with the back of my hand. I heard my dad coming up the stairs, I didn't want to cry in front of him. I remembered he didn't like me to cry or "make a fuss". He said I was too big to do that, he'd told me that when I was six and I never forgot, I'd already learned it wasn't wise to forget anything he told you.

My bedroom in the house in Forks was the same as I remembered except a little smaller but it had a huge built in closet. It had an old faded rug in front of the bed, the rest was polished floorboards that echoed as I walked on them. The furniture was the same as I remembered from my visits too, a single wood framed bed with an old patchwork throw over the blankets, a desk and chair in the window and a bedside locker. There was no heating in here except a small radiator which failed to take the chill off and I had to share the only bathroom with my dad.

He brought my two cases up and laid them on my bed,

"Unpack, put it all away tidy then make a list of the things you need and come downstairs. Sue Clearwater made a pot roast for us so I hope you are hungry."

I nodded feeling suddenly very alone and scared but I opened the first case and began taking the things out one by one and putting them into the deep closet which was empty apart from some dust bunnies in the corners and a pile of my old drawings on a shelf. I took them down and smiled to see my old artwork, a dog, a rainbow, and my dream house with a white fence and a red door, nothing like this house. The last things I unpacked were two photographs of me with my mom and I put them carefully in pride of place on my bedside locker before joining my dad in the kitchen.

It didn't take long to learn the rules of the house, they were more or less the same ones I had learned to follow when I used to visit. This time though I was never going home to my mom again, this was my home now. While the rules had seemed easy to follow for a holiday I had the feeling they wouldn't be so easy to follow every day for the next six or eight years until I was old enough to start out on my own and I was right. In fact, my dad added to them almost daily at first and after the first few slip ups, I made sure to memorize all of them.

Had I lived an unusually easy life with my mom? I couldn't remember her ever making up a list of rules, there was no need. There were so few that they were easy to remember, in fact, they were just common sense. Keep your room tidy, help with the chores, no late nights during the week, no skipping homework. Now the rules were legion but they amounted to one main thing, everything I did had to be approved by my dad.

I hadn't slipped up in a long while, not after being grounded for a week when I forgot and left the laundry in the dryer which meant that I had to iron his shirt before he could leave for work making him ten minutes late. Not only was I grounded but Charlie made me scrub the cooker which didn't look as if it had been cleaned in years.

Time ticked by so slowly here and birthdays were just another day as far as my dad was concerned although I did usually get a card and a present, always a book and never one I asked for. I got into a routine that kept me largely out of trouble but as I grew I found myself under his watchful eye more and more.

When I got a B for a history paper at school he was livid,

"You concentrate on your work young lady, never mind about other things, how dare you disgrace me."

There was a school picnic the following weekend and Mike Newton had asked me if I'd like to go with him. I was flattered, I liked him, but then dad changed his mind and refused to let me go. When I dared to ask him why he just shot me one of his "You dare to question me?" looks.

I was still hopeful he might change his mind but when I got home from school on Friday evening I found all my clothes gone, my closet was all but empty. All that was left were the sweats I wore in bed and pinned to the inside of the closet door was a note from my dad.

"Don't you ever argue with me again young lady."

Needless to say, I missed the picnic and the one sunny day of the year and found out later that my dad had told Mike Newton's dad that he suspected Mike of being "inappropriately" interested in me. I was mortified but luckily Mr Newton laughed it off although not in front of my dad thank goodness.

Unfortunately, as a result of his accusation, I found Mike and most of the other boys at school kept their distance. School became a much less happy place for me but who wanted trouble with the Chief of Police?