A/N: Id highly fucking recommend listening to Message From Your Heart by Kina Grannis during this chapter. I did, and it fits pretty fucking perfectly. You can find it at youtube dot com /user/ kinagrannis if you wanted it easily. :)

I let my eyebrows shoot up high into my forehead as I flicked through the channels once more: how bored did you have to be to watch the fucking Power Rangers? I mean, that show was badass… back when it was cool. Now all the different fucking versions they came out with were enough to make your head spin; go back to the original fucking Power Rangers and stay there.

Pink and Green were always meant to be together, anyway, and where the fuck did they go with that? Nowhere.

I rolled my eyes as Power Rangers: Jungle Fury was announced next on the docket, and threw the remote on the couch beside me, running my hand over my forehead. I pulled my long brown hair into both of my hands and tied the hair band from around my wrist along the bunch of hair I had created. The sun was out for once, and I was fucking glad for it: summer in Forks, Washington usually meant dreary weather with the occasional chance of sun. I looked down at my outfit and grimaced slightly, hating that I was too lazy at that moment to go get up and change into something that didn't make me feel like I was wrapped in motherfucking Salmon skin.

There was never a fucking restaurant in the original Power Rangers. What the fuck?

I furrowed my eyebrows and narrowed my eyes as I watched some lame guy with a mushroom head and a buggish-looking thing that talked like a chick with mono fighting like a couple of pussies. Oh, and next up was some blonde bitch dancing to lame music like a fucking mongoloid, Jock McGee cheering her on.

This was pissing me off. I sat forward abruptly after running my hands down my face and slapped them, palms outstretched, onto the thick denim of my jeans. I got up then, reluctantly climbing the stairs and making my way up them. In passing toward my room, I overheard my mother talking to someone on the phone.

"He what? Again? Get him to come in: this has got to stop. He can't keep living his life this way! It's unethical, Phil…"

Oh, she was talking to Phil! Officer Dwyer, the big man on campus. He was the newcomer to the police station, just in from Phoenix, Arizona, and his tan and brush-it-off attitude had gotten Char- I mean… my dad, on the edge of his seat, pussy-footing around the issues like he was stepping on hot fucking coals or some shit like that. Did I really care about the petty issues at Forks teeny-tiny toddler-minded headquarters? No, I really didn't. I was more concerned about… well, lets just say I was concerned about things that were much more important than my father being threatened by a man much younger than him.

I plastered my trade-mark smirk onto my face and breezed coolly past her door. Her speech momentarily stopped before starting full-force once more, but I didn't pay attention as I shut the door on her muffled conversation. I had noticed, over the past few months Phil Dwyer had graced our tiny town with his sun-kissed accent and care-free stature about him, my mother had been dropping lunch off at the station more often, the phone was occupied by her voice blabbering fucking constantly – and with one look at the call display, it was revealed to be the one and only fucking Phil.

I rummaged through my drawers and closet in search for sun-appropriate attire, and finally settled on a pair of denim shorts, a blue tank top and a white hoodie. Simplicity was key: no need to draw attention to myself, and the multitude of people wearing shorts today would make me exposing my unnaturally pale skin tone in a pair of shorts the norm.

Once I was more comfortable, securing my bracelet onto my wrist – did I ever leave home without it? No fucking way in hell – and turned around just as I heard the door creak open. (Call it reflex or force of habit, but a scowl painted my face immediately, and seeing my mother there with the phone in her hand only intensified it.)

"Bella?" she asked, even after seeing me already standing there.

I looked away: eye contact was the fucking limit. I refused it at all costs. "Yeah?" I responded softly, playing with the small wooden charm and gingerly fingering it.

"Could you come to work with me? I've got a patient I need to see – I'm sorry, I know I promised you that we would be going to Port Angeles today, but I just can't. I'm so, so sorry…" And the apologies just kept rolling in, even after I had walked by her with my head down and my eyes focused on my feet. I rolled the smirk back onto my face and turned around right at the top of the stairs, my right hand poised still on the banister.

"It's fine. Ill just sit around and wait for you to fucking shrink some fuck-up that can get the same help for free from Oprah, weekdays at 5. Got it," I winked, trotting carefully down the stairs, hearing very clearly the sigh that my mother expelled from behind me.

Renee Swan was never one for confrontation, and she wasn't about to start now.

…

I had never really paid any mind to how Renee's voice changed whilst talking to Phil, but sitting in that annoyingly leather chair in my mothers office as she blabbed about something to Officer Dwyer gave my free will to mentally access just how fucking sickeningly sweet her voice got. I mean, she might as well be having phone sex with the guy right in front of me: her speech said it all – I haven't been fucked in years, please save me from martyr hell and fuck my brains out.

Jesus Christ. I rolled my eyes and kept my arms crossed tight against my chest. If I looked like a weepy, adolescent teenager I really didn't fucking care at that point; because overhearing your mother falling out of love with your father piece by piece - I thought at least - was enough to condone that.

"… Alright. I'll talk to you later, Phil." Renee just oozed sex appeal, didn't she? Not really, I was being completely fucking sarcastic there – but she tried, I could tell. Every time she would go to the station, one more item less of clothing would be removed, until finally, one day, she just showed up in a fucking mini skirt. I'm not even lying – I remember when she asked for it, too: and yes, it was from my closet. I was doing a clean-sweep after certain… incidents, and was throwing all the clothing that I didn't want in black plastic garbage bags. She had come by when I was in mid-stuff of a red mini skirt, and basically begged me to let her borrow it, just this once. Not like I needed any nudging, I was sick of all the fucking things that just reminded me of him, and giving the things that dredged up those old fucking memories was a welcome occurrence.

"Bella. You can leave now, if you'd like. I have a patient next, so you can… head down to Port Angeles by yourself," she smiled, sliding down from her perch on the top of her desk - her tone of voice indicated that she thought she was doing me some kind of fucking favor, but she didn't even know. Port Angeles was the last place I wanted to go alone, especially knowing that the possibility of him being there was exceptionally large. She started shuffling and fixing up papers, tidying her desk like she wished she were tidying up her life.

"Right, so… when you're done with my temporary services, you're just going to cast me off, huh? That sounds fucking familiar," I scoffed, getting up and making my way to the door. Before I could get there, though, Renee's slightly wrinkled hand reached out and grasped with a surprisingly cool, firm grip on my wrist. I turned around incredulously to look at her.

"What are you talking about, Bella?" she asked, using that fucking therapist tone of voice on me. It was soft, but with an edge, and I was sick hearing it fucking constantly.

"Would you stop fucking shrinking me? You know full fucking well what I mean, that's why you think you can get off with talking to me like I'm one of your fuck-ups you can sponge money off of. I'm not, I'm your daughter, Renee," I seethed, taking my wrist out of her grasp.

"Bella, you're being fucking ridiculous. Stop acting like a child," she barked, grasping my forearm in her hand and tugging a little bit. It actually fucking hurt and that pissed me off even further. I was at my limit, at my zenith – I was so fucking done.

"Jesus, would you shut the fuck up and take a fucking valium, already? You dole it out enough to your patients, I'm sure nobody will have a problem with it. "

My smirk was full-blown and in place, and the momentary thrill I got from seeing Renee so choked up about my very abrupt change in mood was quickly overshadowed by how much of a fake I felt doing this. Did I feel bad? No, not at all – it was the fact that I never usually did this if I didn't have to. When a situation was getting too serious, a little too close for comfort, Id stop it in its tracks fucking immediately, and in order to do that, I had to act like this.

"Isabella, I'll have you know that I have no idea why you're being like this, and the accusation of you thinking otherwise is absolutely ludicrous - "

"Stop!" I said, holding a hand up and closing my eyes momentarily. "Here, Ill lay this shit out for you – when Phil came along, the entire dynamic of your and Charl - … I mean, dads relationship changed. I saw it, he saw it, and we still see it. You fucking used him, threw him away when the next best thing came along, and subsequently used me, as well. You make me fucking sick with all of your fake, lying bullshit, and the acts you put up…"

I was a walking contradiction; I knew that – I was half talking about myself, half talking about Renee.

As I went on, I could see something change in my mother's face. Something that automatically switched this situation from being different from others because I was her daughter, to me being just another person Renee Swan had met. I was no longer Isabella Swan, her daughter: I was Bella, the girl who just pushed all the wrong buttons.

I knew immediately when she cut me off with a bang. Literally; her hand launched forward, her entire body being thrown with the force of it, and slapped me hard across the cheek. My left cheek throbbed, and my gasp of hurt and surprise was only slightly drowned out by the horrified sound coming from the door to the left of me. I snapped my head to the source of the sound, only to have my eyes held hostage by quite possibly the most beautiful fucking thing I had seen yet; his eyes, so fucking green that I almost felt the need to clutch my stomach from the force of them, widened, making his long, dark lashes and perfectly proportioned forehead stand out: a little crease forming between his eyebrows.

I froze, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Renee freeze as well. For a minute, we all just fucking stood there like we were super-glued to our spots: until, suddenly, that beautiful boy with the fucking green eyes stepped forward and walked across the room to me, grabbing my wrist and looking into my eyes.