A/N: Sorry for the delay… Hope you enjoy the chapter! Just a heads up its dialog heavy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ten minutes of silence. Silence I couldn't stand. I had so many questions.

Of course, I have no clue what the hell is going on. Nobody seems to think it important to tell me anything, giving me vague explanations to my questions; making me frustrated and bitter. What the hell was going on around here? Couldn't someone just explain what they mean instead of making me confused and guessing at everything?

"Explain it to me." I said quietly, unsure if he could hear me whisper the words.

His body went ridged and he let out a long breath. Slowly, he moved his head so that he was looking at me.

"You asked your mom?" He asked

"I tried; she avoids it at all costs." I bit my lip, hoping that didn't piss him off anymore than he already was, "Just tell me Edward." I was starting to get annoyed.

"Why do you think your parents got divorced?"

His question caught me off guard. I had been told one thing but now I was starting to question the truth to it. Dad told me they just grew apart and he felt it would be best if I was raised in a small town with less crime. I never asked Renee, I just figured she'd say something to that extent. Now, now I wasn't so sure that what I was told came even close to the truth.

"It doesn't matter what I've been told. It must have been a lie." I sighed looking down at my comforter, I picked at a loose string.

"They had an affair, my dad and your mom; broke up both our families. Your dad took you and left. What, we were like five?" He ran his hand through his hair.

"I guess…" I trailed off; it was so long ago I wasn't sure what I remembered. I just remember being told I moved back to Forks around that time.

"Well they didn't stop their affair and my father's dead because of your mom." He hissed out fisting my blanket. I still wasn't getting how my mom had anything to do with his dad dying.

"I…I'm confused." I stated as I looked back up at him, his eyes were closed and he looked like he was in pain.

He took a few deep breaths and slowly opened his eyes, tears were threatening to spill over which caused my eyes to well up with unshed tears. In that moment I hated my mother.

"I guess they didn't stop seeing each other and that led to my parents divorcing. My mom wanted to work things out, she loved him but he couldn't stay away from Renee. I remember he and Renee having some sort of on again off again relationship, most the time it was off again, I remembered those times because my dad would be so down and so depressed and it upset me so much. When it was his weekend to have me he wasn't himself when she wasn't there, when she was there he was his old self again and I had my father back." He took another deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, "He was happy, that's how I knew they were back together. That's why I couldn't understand why he was late for my birthday party…" His words broke with a loud sob and my tears ran down my already wet cheeks.

"Edward…" I couldn't get anything out, what could I say? I'm sorry your dad is dead? That's just obvious and stupid to even say out loud, it shouldn't need to be said.

I reached out for his hand but he flinched away from me. "They called in the middle of my party… he… he had been in a car accident."

My heart stopped and I felt dizzy. I remember getting the same phone call nine years ago; Renee had been in a car accident and was in critical condition. I don't know how I would feel if she hadn't made it, I was upset from her just being hurt. Here Edward had lost his father and he blamed my mother for his loss, which I couldn't figure out. She was in the car with his father as well, why would it be her fault that he had died? Did he blame her because had they not had their affair his father would have been at home at the time?

I just lay with Edward for a while, letting his words run through my mind, trying to make sense of everything. Nothing was adding up right, pieces were still missing and I was determined to find them. After a while of silence I looked back to Edward, but his eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling steadily. He was asleep, probably exhausted from the day and the emotional turmoil of this evening. Leaving the bed carefully, I walked down the stairs to the couch in the living room. I couldn't sleep yet, too much was running through my head.

My mother had a lot to tell me, this couldn't wait until one day she decided to confess her sins to me. If she didn't want to talk to me about this I would go to Charlie or Esme, someone who knew more. What caused the car accident? Was there something that happened that everyone else knew but me? Did Renee have something to do with it or did Edward just hate her because of the marriage she broke up? Sliding off my bed I took one last look at Edward and made my way towards the front room. We were talking about this as soon as she got back from her date with Phil. Was he a married man as well? Is that what she did? Did she date and break up marriages, or was that a onetime thing?

I woke up to my mom shutting the front door and sprung to my feet. I wasn't sure how to start this, what should I say first? What should I ask first? Should I just demand she talk to me about Edward and his family?

"Bella! What are you doing up?" She was shocked to see me standing in the dimly lit room. "Why is Edwards's car parked outside?" She asked looking around the empty room. He must still be sleeping from his break down.

"Never mind that… we need to talk." I crossed my arms over my chest trying to show her I meant business.

Her eyes went wide and she threw her hand over her mouth. What was so shocking about us talking? With shaking hands she pointed at me and then at my bedroom, incoherent mumblings were falling off her lips. My eyes widened at the words falling from her lips. "Pregnant, sex, Edward" She thinks I'm screwing Edward Masen!

"Mom! I'm not sleeping with him. He is barely even a friend… gosh!" Mortified I sat down on the couch, waiting for her to get a grip on reality.

She sat her purse on the coffee table and sat on the opposite side of the couch, looking at me to explain what was going on. How do I start, what do I start with?

I took a deep breath and figured I'd start from the beginning, "How could you cheat on Dad?" I asked just above a whisper, she sucked in a harsh breath at my question.

"It's not what you think, baby…" She whispered moving closer to me on the couch

"Not what I think? You broke up two marriages, yours and the Masen's marriage. Not what I think? Then explain it to me, like I've asked you to do for the last few weeks!" I exclaimed, trying to get a better picture out of what Edward told me. I was sure if I just had a few more pieces the picture would finally form. How could she do that to Charlie, to Esme her best friend!

We sat in silence for who knows how long before she cleared her throat and moved to sit right next to me. "If you really want to know what happened I'll start from the beginning, is that what you want Bells?"

I nodded my head, ready for her to get on with it.

She cleared her throat, "Esme, Ed and I all grew up together, or as much as we could when we were all from a different class of people. Ed's family owned property all over the States, Esme's family were close to his owning businesses and stocks. You know how well off our family is so we don't have to talk about that." She took another shaky breath and continued, "The point is they both went off to an Ivy League school and I was stuck here in Phoenix at school here. I was lonely and had no friends, they were my only real friends and they went to the other side of the country to school.

"It was so hard on me, these were the people I loved more than anything and they left me. Not just for school, even during breaks they stayed over there. I fell into a sort of depression and it got worse going into year two of college when news was heard that Esme Platt and Edward Masen got married. And it got even worse, a month later news was heard that they were expecting. Of course, rumors spread through the gossip mill that they got married because she got pregnant. I just couldn't believe any of it, I tried to call them to find out what was going on, but they were always so busy." She sniffed and stood to go into the kitchen, probably to get some tissues.

I sat on the couch trying to figure out how this plays into her breaking up two marriages. She came back in a few minutes later with two glasses of water and a box of tissues.

Clearing her throat once again she continued, "So I felt ignored and lonely. It was the worst thing to feel for a 19 year old. I kept going to school hoping to just one day get out this funk, to one day find something that made me feel. It wasn't long after all the news of Esme and Ed that I met your father. He was the most handsome man I ever laid eyes on. I ran into him while getting lunch. He asked me to eat with him and I just couldn't say no. I thought to myself this is what I need, this handsome man wants to talk to me, he could make me feel happy, get me out of my funk." She took a sip of her water, reminding me of the glass in my hands, I did the same.

So my mother was depressed and then found Charlie, what could make her want to cheat on a man that made her happy? Make her want to break up her best friend's marriage?

"We started to date. He would tell me about how his dream was to someday move back to this little town called Forks. He said that as a small child he just loved it, that's where his parents were until they died in a plane crash on their anniversary. He wanted to be the Police Chief and raise a family there. That after he graduated in May he was going to intern for the summer in hopes that they would hire him. I just felt that heaviness come back at his words. I only had a few more months with this…this light before he left for Forks." She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue and grabbed my hands.

"We both love you very much and wouldn't change anything even if we could." She squeezed and I felt tears slide down my face. So I was what caused all of this, a mistake that changed their lives forever.

"When I found out I was pregnant I just couldn't tell him, he had all these plans. He had already been in contact with the Forks Police Station, even though he still had five months remaining before graduation. I should've realized he had figured it out, but I was just too in my head all the time to see that he had noticed my changes. There are a lot of 'what if' scenarios that run through my head after all this time. If only I had told him to go to Forks, saying that I would follow-or something close to that." She took a deep breath and large gulp of water

"But I didn't. I went to class, came back to my apartment, and when we had time we would be together. It was an endless cycle. I was with him enough that I should've noticed he stopped talking to Forks and started to talk about getting a job here. But I didn't, I was too focused on trying to hide that I was pregnant to realize he knew. I was barely showing, it looked more like bloating then anything but he knew."

Tears were running down my face at this, I felt like even though I was just a little thing without a name that I somehow ruined their lives. She shifted on the couch to look at me more full on.

"It was the end of March when your father asked me if I thought he was stupid. Of course I didn't think he was anything close to stupid, and I told him this but he just kept getting angrier with each passing minute. He started screaming at me about how stupid I was for thinking I could hide being pregnant when I slept next to him almost every night. He said he could feel the baby moving when I was sleeping; that he figured it out over a month ago and wanted to know why I wouldn't tell him he was going to be a father." Renee laughed at something and dabbed some more at her eyes.

"I can't believe I was stupid enough to try to hide it from him, your father is, after all, a police officer. He probably figured it out before I did. But of course that's just me, I didn't want to tie him down. I should've told him right away and I should have known he would find out, I had felt you moving weeks before he blew up at me." She gave a small smile and squeezed my hands some more

"Mom…" I didn't know what to say, she was hiding the fact that she was pregnant so she wouldn't tie Charlie to us, so that he could go to Forks and do what he had always dreamed of doing.

"Your father kept going off about how we should've done it the right way and the next thing I know he's demanding that I get in my whitest dress I own and that we were going to the court house to get married. No child of his was going to be born out of wedlock. So we got married on March 27th, I was wearing a white summer dress with a red flower design running down the back and your father was in a suit and tie." She had a smile on her face at the memory of getting married.

"Having you was not a mistake, but getting married was, Bella." I shifted in my seat feeling awful that they got married all because she got pregnant with me. "We had only been dating for four months and it was fine at first, we may not have loved each other the way a married couple was supposed to, but we loved you. We had this entire first year with you, and it just kept us going. Until one day I couldn't take it anymore, I could tell your father wasn't happy, the light he once had was diming, this wasn't his dream.

"You were two when Esme came back with Edward while Ed was in Law School. Things between your father and I weren't so great so you and I spent all our time with Esme and Edward, he was just a few months older than you but you tortured him and beat him up. Esme had told me that things with her and Ed were not that great either, he drank all the time and sometimes he wouldn't come home from interning or from school. She just couldn't take it and moved back to be closer to family." She took a deep breath while I mulled over what she had said.

So they both got married and tried to stay married for the sake of their children. Even at the age of 17 I knew that was one of the stupidest things people did, you can't stay together just because you have a child.

"What happened? Why did dad take me? Why were you with Edward's dad in that car? Why aren't you friends with Esme anymore?" I asked trying to just figure it all out. How many more why's would pop up?

"What happened? Being unhappy happened. I wanted to go back to school, I dropped out to take care of you and your dad got a job offer from Forks. So when we finally got divorced we worked out a custody agreement, you were to come visit me every summer in Arizona and live with Charlie the rest of the year. His dream would almost be true.

"That crash just was… the biggest mistake of anyone's life… Ed had a drinking problem his and Esme's relationship couldn't handle that, in fact they got divorced before your father and I did." She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut.

"I spent a lot of time with Ed. He was always on and off the wagon all the time. Sometimes he'd go months sober but then he'd call and be upset about something. I'd go rushing over there to see that Edward was left sitting in front of the TV while Ed was nursing a hangover. He'd act like nothing was wrong that he just had a headache but I knew better, he was one of my best friends you can't hide things from like that from your best friend. So I'd make breakfast, take care of Edward while Ed would sober up. I did it for years until I told him I couldn't do it anymore. That if he didn't get real help, that he would lose his rights to his son, that it wasn't right for Edward to deal with a drunk for a father." She was crying harder now which only caused me to cry harder.

This is why Edward thought his dad and my mom were together, it's funny what a child sees and what is really going on around them.

"I remember that night like it was today. I was running late which was normal for me; I was almost out the door when Esme called. Ed hadn't showed up for Edwards's big birthday party and Edward was torn up about it. She asked if I could swing by Ed's place on my way over. So I did, and he was sitting in his car with a bottle of vodka… oh god… I remember ripping open the driver side door and screaming at him, asking him what the hell he was thinking spouting off statistics of drunk driving and deaths and he just sat there and cried about how he didn't want to let us all down again how he felt like a failure. He kept promising he hadn't even opened the bottle, it was the truth, and it was still sealed. I told him he had to pull it together that he had a birthday party to get too. I made him get in my car so I could drive us to Esme's." She blew her nose and moved so that she could get up.

"It's funny the crash, he was rambling about random things and today after much thought if he had gone to the doctor they would've diagnosed him with depression, but he was afraid to go in and get seen, didn't want something really to be wrong with him. We were hit on his side of the car by a drunk driver. All my spouting and yelling about how many people a year die from it, and we get T-boned by a drunk. I remember the airbags deploying, the feel of the glass raining down on us, the taste of blood, the smell of gas, oil. The sounds of metal crunching together, the dizziness of the car flipping over and over again until he came to a screeching stop on the side of a road…" She was crying so hard she couldn't finish and I grabber into a hug and just cried with her.

To go through that, to see your best friend die, how could I have thought she was cheating on Charlie, with Edward's father? I felt like shit, my mother went through so much and I accused her of breaking up two families.

"Mom, I'm so sorry!" I cried, she was rubbing my back and crying just as hard as before.

She slowly let go of me and stood up, "If he's staying over just keep your door open." She let out and I just rolled my eyes, I'm most definitely not having unprotected sex until I'm at least 30 years old. "I'm going to go to sleep, just let me know if you want to stay home and I'll call the school for you in the morning." She added grabbing her cell phone and heading up the stairs, I could faintly hear her on the phone "Es, its Renee…."

I wondered if that was the first time she'd called Esme in a while as I made my way to my room. My breath caught when I noticed that Edward was sitting on my bed looking at the door, I wondered how much he heard.

"I don't believe it." He stated moving to stand up.

"I don't think she'd lie, Edward." I crossed my arms over my chest.

"He wasn't a fucking drunk, Bella!" He exclaimed grabbing my arm, in an attempt to make me believe him.

"You were a child; you don't know what was real and what wasn't!" I shrugged my way away from him and went to my dresser to find something to sleep in, "I'm tired, it's almost three am, and I'm going to sleep." I added turning towards him, giving him a look that told him to leave.

He stormed out of my room and I changed before following him, I needed to make sure the house was locked up after he left. I stopped mid step seeing him sitting on the couch, head in hands, his shoulders were shaking and I knew he was crying. I locked the front door and turned out the lights, leaving us in blackness.

"I don't want to believe it, Bella…" he stopped talking when I sat next to him on the couch.

"Maybe you should talk about it with your mom?" I asked, the only way to know the real truth was to ask the people who lived through it.

"I guess…" He trailed off probably unsure if he should or shouldn't.

"Come on, I'm tired my mom said you could stay." I stood up and grabbed his hand.

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow but I couldn't stop from dreaming about a car crash I was just told about, how much Renee could remember from that night almost ten years ago.

A/N 2: I hope everyone liked this chapter. Sorry it took me almost a year to get it out to you. I'll try to be faster with the updates. That is if anyone still reads this.

Just to warn I don't have internet at home. So I have to write this, send it to my sister who then uploads it for me!