A/N - Welcome to my new fic! I've got quite a bit of this written already and will post every Tuesday at least, occasionally twice a week. The chapters will be shortish and I don't expect the whole thing to be overly long, because it was intended as a contest one-shot I didn't have time to complete, but those of you who have read my other stories will know I tend to go whichever way the story takes me, so you never know!

The prologue and chapter one will both go up today.

I hope you enjoy it :)

Come Undone

Prologue

"Your dad hates me."

She's right. We both know it; he doesn't make any effort to hide the fact.

"Shhh. That's a strong word to use, baby." My mother's words slip automatically from my lips as I pull Bella onto my lap, feeling my heart dip as I take in the melancholy look on her sweet face. However much my father despises her, it's not nearly as much as I despise him for making my girl so sad.

Twirling her chocolate-brown hair around my finger, I tug gently on it to pull her closer and kiss her. If love could kiss sadness away, she'd be the happiest girl in the whole county about now.

She pulls away and her head drops down.

"I don't even know what I did, Edward."

"You didn't do anything, I swear." And she didn't. She's always been on her best behavior around him; desperate to make a good impression so he doesn't see her like everyone else always has.

How to explain to her? It's not you, it's him? It took me long enough to figure out what his problem was, it bugs me that she even knows he has one.

"He looks at me as though I murdered a member of his family or something." She shivers as her words infiltrate my heart, chilling my blood until it's icy cold in my veins.

Her touch thaws the ice and yanks me back from the nightmare I slipped back toward, as she grabs a hold of my hand. "I'm sorry. Was it something I said?"

"No. I'm fine, really."

I force a smile for her, not because I'm happy, but because she once told me she could live off my smiles alone.

I know everything about Isabella Marie Swan - the girl is an open book - but what she knows about me could be scrawled on a flyleaf, large and untidy, and still have blank space below it. I flip back and forth between happiness at her lack of awareness, and being riddled with guilt that she's so much in the dark. I think she knows I'm like an iceberg - ninety per cent hidden beneath the surface - but she never pushes me. Never questions.

I guess I know it's because she's afraid to ask.