My childhood was a blur of cities, each gradually larger than the next. Looking back now, I realize that it made it easier for a person with my situation to feel hidden – to completely disappear. One small girl in a city of over one and half million people seemed like good odds. I could exist and go unnoticed…at least that's what I hoped.

Phoenix was the last city I lived in with Renee, my mom. Out of the countless other cities, I'm glad Phoenix was the city I would best remember her in. I loved the heat, and the shape of the land. I loved how free we felt, and the pressure that no longer lay on Renee's shoulders – the need to constantly be at my side; to protect me. My school held over 500 other students in my year alone, and by keeping my head down and mouth shut I knew I could manage to get through my high school experience safely. No one would ever know about my condition.

When Renee got sick, everything changed. Months of hospitals, pills, chemotherapy, radiation, and none of it did any good.

I remember the doctor standing outside her room, his old wrinkled hand on my shoulder and a look of professional sympathy upon his withered face.

"I'm sorry, Bella, there's nothing left that we can do. All we can do now is make her comfortable with the time she has left."

He left me standing in the middle of the hall, my whole world crashing around me. My arms folded automatically across my chest, holding in the hurt and the scream that tried to bubble from my lips. I must have stayed in that one spot for 10 minutes as my mind tried to wrap around the fact that my mother was going to die. The moment took on a dream like quality; my head felt light and airy, and I was suddenly dizzy. I wondered for a second if I was going to faint. I stepped into Renee's room and stood by her bed, listening intently to the beeping from the monitors.

At that moment, the beeping from the heart monitor was the most significant sound in the world. It sickened me. It was the taunting noise that told me she was still here, still alive, but for how long? Would the next beep be the last? The next one?

Renee's face was a sickly shade of white, slightly bloated from the medication and her breathing was too shallow. Her eyes slid open so slowly I wasn't sure she was truly awake. She lifted her frail hand slowly and reached for me. I took it and sat down, trying my best to not trip on the countless tubes and wires hanging around her hospital bed. We sat for how long, I don't know, just smiling at eachother. I stared at her face, absorbing last little detail.

This wasn't her, not this small, frail woman lying in a bed of tubes. I pictured her as she used to be: long brown, curly hair, pink cheeks and large brown eyes – my eyes. Laughing, joking, running, dancing. That was Renee.

"Do you remember," I whispered, pushing what was left of her fine thin behind her ear. "That time we went to the zoo, and they were having free rides on the elephant, and I was so frightened to go on that I started screaming? I scared the elephant so bad that he got away from the handler and trampled the hot dog stand."

She let out a breathy sigh and smiled wide. She nodded, lifting her hand to my cheek, rubbing away the tears I hadn't known I'd shed.

"And that time when went to see that scary movie with that bald actor in it. The first time a ghost came on screen, we both ran out of the theatre, trailing the M&M's and the Twizzlers we had snuck into the theatre in our purses."

She let out the same breathy laugh, never taking her eyes off of mine. She was staring so hard, like she was trying to memorize each line of my face.

"Bella," she whispered. She tried her best to get the breath to speak, but even her quiet voice was splintered by wheezing gasps of breath. "Never tell anyone about the curse, Bella," she stopped to take a large gasp of breath, but her eyes had the same knowing determination in them when she had first explained the damning curse that had been placed on me. "Someone could use it against you….to control you. Don't tell anyone, not even your father."

I would obey. Not that I had a choice. I was cursed with an unending obedience; powerless to any order given to me. I'm not sure how it had happened, or if I had actually been born like this, I just knew it was a constant danger to my life, I was at the mercy of anyone I encountered.

I lay down next to my mother on the cramped hospital bed, still holding her frail hand. Her head fell slightly onto my shoulder, her thin hair covering one side of her face. I rested my cheek gently on the crown of her head, reclining onto the uncomfortable mattress. Her breaths soon slowed and she fell asleep. The past few sleepless nights seem to come crashing down all at once, until I could no longer keep my eyes open.

My psyche must have been too tired to form the brilliant nightmares I had become accustomed to. My mind floundered in almost complete darkness, until a short dream played out almost like a last minute thought. Through binocular like vision, I saw my mother running away from me through a field of purple freesia – her arms and legs tan like they used to be, her hair thick and curly. She turned and waved, laughing at the purely blissful moment, like a joke I couldn't quite understand. The binocular vision pushed her farther and farther towards the horizon until the blackness swallowed me up again.

I woke the next morning to the quiet cry from the heart monitor as it let out one endless wail. My mothers hand lay limp in my own as I screamed.

biNotes/b

EDITED DECEMBER 2011

I usually don't write disclaimers at the beginning of my stories – this is a FAN FICTION site; none of us own any characters. If we did it would not be a FAN FICTION, and therefore it would not even be posted on this site. But since I know I'm going to like this story and I would be very upset for it to be taken down for something as insignificant as not including a disclaimer to my story, I am going to add one here and now:

No, I do not own Twilight.

And no, I do not own Bella Enchanted.