Chapter One

Edward P.O.V

"I hate you!" Emmett screamed, slamming his bedroom door shut. The sound vibrated through my ears and made me flinch, from his words and the horrible sound. His cries echoed through the house, making me sigh in guilt. I stood up and walked into my small kitchen that was in a mess, covered in pizza boxes and beer cans.

I wasn't giving my brother the right life, him growing up with his older brother who couldn't cook and ate take-out every night and drank beer was not right. But neither was that our parents died right either. Emmett was only fourteen, ready to start high school when summer was over and he had already been through so much. He had lost both his parents in one night.

It had been a year since their death and we both still weren't right. I missed my mom and dad, though not as much as Emmett. He cried every night and still didn't speak much but in the first couple of months after their death, he had been much worse. He didn't speak and he didn't eat, he was just a dead soul in a kid's body.

Today was the anniversary of our parent's death.

I remembered the night they died clearly. I had just graduated from college with my medical degree, ever since I was younger I had wanted to be a doctor just like my dad was and since they had helped me a lot during college, including buying me an apartment and paying for my education, I offered to look after Emmett so they could go out for dinner for the night.

They left at six that night and I put Emmett to bed at ten, since it was the weekend I let him stay up late. We had watched movies and Emmett had crashed out on the couch after eating too much chips and candy. I took him up to bed and waited for hours for my parents to come home but they never did.

I got the call at four in the morning, it was the police telling me that my parent's had been in a head on collision with a drunk driver. My dad died in the car, though my mom was still on life support. I had dragged Emmett out of his bed in the early hours of the morning, we both went to the hospital to see our mom, though she wasn't awake. She had been in a coma.

Our mom died that morning. The week after I signed legal documents to look after Emmett, I remember wishing that there could have been someone else to look after him, I mean I was only twenty-five, I wasn't financially and emotionally strong enough to care for my younger brother. But there wasn't anyone else to look after him, our grandparents died when I was younger, our dad had one sister but she lived all the way in England. I wasn't going to let Emmett move away.

"Edward?" Emmett asked, entering the kitchen. I jumped a little after being in my world, I hadn't even realized he had come out his room. His eyes were still damp from crying, his cheeks were red from where he had rubbed them and he still had the occasional tear roll down his face. It broke my heart at seeing how upset he was.

"Yes?" I asked back, clearing some of the pizza boxes and beer cans away.

"I'm sorry."

I turned to look at him and smiled slightly. Our argument had been stupid, I had asked him if we could sell our parent's house and move into somewhere smaller and he hadn't been very happy with my question. I explained that although we had inherited money from our parent's jobs, I wanted to keep that for when he went to college, so we needed the money from our parent's house to get something smaller for us both.

"It's fine. I'm sorry too," I apologized.

Emmett walked further into the kitchen and began to help me clean up. I washed the dirty plates and cups, while he dried them and put the away. When we were finished we went into the living room to watch some cartoons. We were watching his favorite show when I noticed he wasn't laughing like usual, he looked upset.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I think you should sell their house," he told me.

"What?"

"It has too many memories, I want to move."

"Kid, are you sure?" I whispered. He nodded and I moved off the couch to hug him, he cried silently into my shoulder and embarrassingly enough, I did too. Emmett was a strong boy, sometimes I even wondered how he looked like was doing better than me. I was a mess and he looked to be doing okay, he kept up his appearances.

"Do you want to go out for dinner?" I asked him once we were okay. He nodded happily and we left my apartment and went to my Volvo car. I drove to the local Italian restaurant that me and my best friend, Jasper always went to during college to get drunk. The waitress there assigned us to a table but we didn't reach it as I noticed Jasper sitting in one of the tables.

"Jasper?" I called, getting his attention. He stood up and man hugged me, asking me how I was. It was funny since Jasper and I had been best friend's since we were eight and we had only just saw each other last week but it still felt like forever. "Dude, what are you doing here?" I asked him.

"I'm here with Alice and her best friend," he explained, drawing my attention to his fiancé who was sitting at the table too, along with probably one of the most stunning girls I had ever saw in my life. Alice's best friend was gorgeous, with long chestnut colored hair and pale skin, she was thin but curvy from what I could tell since she was sitting down and her eyes were very big and dark, but I couldn't tell since she was quite far away.

"Edward, how are you?" Alice asked me as she hugged me.

"I'm good," I answered, while I stared at her friend. I got nervous from just looking at her, she was honestly just so attractive and definitely my type. Alice spoke to me, making basic conversation, while Jasper was speaking to Emmett, making some lame joke about monkeys. Emmett and Jasper had a great relationship, Jasper even thought of him as his own brother.

"Edward, why don't you join us for dinner?" Alice asked me, making me hesitate.

"I don't want to intrude," I insisted, glancing over at Alice's friend.

"You won't be dude, please?" Jasper asked.

I agreed to have dinner with them and the waitress gave us all a bigger table and with my luck, I got sat right across from Alice's friend. She smiled at me and I struggled to smile back as I couldn't tear my eyes away from her. I could now tell what color her eyes were, a very dark brown that reminded me of chocolate. They were beautiful.

"I'm Bella," Alice's friend said, holding out her hand as she introduced herself. I recognized the same instantly, Bella was Alice's best friend from college and her made of honor at her wedding. Alice's friend was the Bella that I had heard so much about from Jasper. It meant that I would be walking up the aisle with her, since I was Jasper's best man. Oh god. Bella's hand dropped as she awkwardly looked away after I didn't introduce myself. Shit!

"I'm sorry," I apologized, holding out my hand, which was kind of sweaty. "I'm Edward. I was just trying to figure out how I recognized your name," I explained. Bella smiled and placed her cold hand in mine, squeezing it very lightly as she shook it. She grinned at me and nodded in understanding, while Emmett, Jasper and Alice just stared at us. I dropped my hand and turned to them.

"So what are we ordering?" I asked, trying to distract them. It worked, Jasper and Emmett ordered pizza, while Bella ordered mushroom ravioli and Alice and I ordered spaghetti. I drank a beer along with Jasper as Bella and Alice drank some wine and Emmett some soda, of course. We talked as we ate, Jasper and Alice explained that our dress fittings were soon for their wedding, which was only four months away.

It was crazy, I could still remember the day Jasper met Alice in college.

"So Emmett, how old are you?" Bella asked him.

"I'm fourteen," he answered.

"You'll be starting high school after summer?" She asked and he nodded.

"Which one are you going to?"

"Cleveland," Emmett said. Bella laughed silently, confusing me. What was amusing her?

"Bella teaches English there," Alice explained.

After that the conversation was basic, I spoke to Jasper about his work. Jasper was a shrink, though he only really worked with married couples in trouble. He spoke to Emmett often for me, since he was in a troubled place and since Emmett knew him, I assumed it was comfortable. He really helped him a lot in the first couple of months after our parents died.

"What do you think of Bella?" Jasper asked me when the girls went to the bathroom.

"She's nice," I shrugged, looking down. Jasper noticed me blush and started to laugh loudly.

"Dude, I noticed things between you two," he accused.

"Well, yeah! You could have told me Alice's made of honor was extremely hot," I sighed.

"And single," Jasper cut in, shocking me. I assumed she would have a boyfriend, surely someone that hot would have to have a boyfriend. Jasper told me that she didn't live far, she still lived in an apartment with one of Alice's other friends Angela. The only thing I cared about was the fact that she was single but inside I knew nothing would happen, she was just far too out my league.

But damn, I wished she wasn't.