AN: Hello all! I haven't written a fanfic in quite a few years, so I hope that this works out this time. I got this story idea after waking up from a nap on a plane over somewhere in Colorado. I hope you all enjoy this, and please review with any constructive criticism or just what you thought about this piece :)

I, sadly, don't own any of the characters.

The dreams felt too real. She awoke every night to a scream- her scream- as she seemed to be remembering instances with Edward; her ex-boyfriend who happened to be a vampire with super strength and had a penchant for her blood. The dreams started small: little spats they had before he dazzled her to agree with him. Her mind may have been silent, but her senses were not. He was right: everything about him, his scent, his looks, his voice, attracted prey. Soon the dreams got scarier, her nicking herself on hikes in the woods with him, his eyes darkening to coals as he growled and licked the blood clean. She had always wondered why they went on so many hikes when she was so goddamn clumsy. He protested at everything else how fragile she was.

One of the most recent dreams, though she realized it was actually memories resurfacing, was awful: Edward dazzling her and coming at her with a needle to take some blood from her. She had tried to resist the dazzling and he had to hold her down to do so. She already bruised easily, being fair skinned, but superhuman strength bruises were something else entirely.

It had been three weeks since he and his family left her and she was slowly coming out of the fog he had her in to notice that she still had some bruises from him. They were light, but for them to be light now meant they had to be awful before. It showed her that resisting his dazzling was real.

She worried her lip for a couple minutes trying to bring her heart rate down before swinging out of bed. She wondered what would happen to her now. She had thought she loved him. Loved him with the entirety of her being, but it seemed that he had just been dazzling her into that. He was just using her for her blood.

She thought back to when she began resisting the dazzling, pacing back and forth her tiny bedroom, and came up with an answer: Phoenix. She had been away from him for a couple days and then got bitten by James. Edward stopped her change, for her blood to still be his most likely, but she came out of it with a scar and a stronger resistance to dazzling. Looking back it took more focus from him and a longer time to get her to do as he wished. Bella pondered if there was still venom in her- in her scar.

This brought on a new worry in her. What if she was slowly changing? What would happen to her if she was? She touched the cold scar on her wrist and the area around it. Only the scar seemed cold, the skin around it just slightly cooler. From proximity, maybe? Or, perhaps— Bella's phone from her bedside chirped.

Reaching over to grab it she saw a message from her dad about her cousin Jeremy coming to stay with them. She hadn't seen Jer since his parent's funeral a year ago. It had been before she decided to move in with Charlie. It was actually part of the reason she decided to do so. She didn't want something to happen to Charlie on duty and have not really spent time or known him.

"And look at me now," she muttered under her breath. "I've barely spent time with him."

She texted Charlie back, asking when Jeremy would be coming to visit, then set her phone back down. Stepping towards her mirror she took a look at herself. Deathly pale skin, dull brown eyes, and hollow cheeks from how thin she was; made worse since she hasn't been taking care of herself these past few weeks. She looked dead. She didn't look like herself. She didn't know who she even was anymore.

Before she became so wrapped up and dazzled by the Cullen's she had been independent, taking care of her mother and their home, but still enjoying life. She never asked for or needed the approval of others. That had changed so quickly and she didn't like what she was seeing. Bella wanted to be herself again.

"I need to eat something..." Bella mumbled and turned to go down stairs. She couldn't eat anything heavy, or too much of anything, seeing as how she hadn't eaten a full meal in almost a month. After catching herself from falling on the second to last stair, she made her way to the kitchen cabinets.

Pulling out a couple slices of bread and a packet of some herbal tea she set to making some toast. Filling up the electric kettle with water she noticed how quiet it was in the house. It was strange. The only time she had been in a quiet house was when she was up reading when she shouldn't be, and when her mom was at a boyfriend's house for the night. Any other time there was always music or something filling up the house with noise.

The kettle clicked and the toaster popped up, pulling Bella out of her thoughts for a moment. Bella put some peanut butter on the toast before pouring the hot water into a green mug. She heard the front door open and the sound of boots coming to the kitchen. Charlie stepped into view and seemed shocked to see her in up and about to eat.

"Bells! You're up . . . and eating. Great!" Charlie's eyes were wide with shock and relief. Bella felt a crushing wave of guilt. She made him worry so much.

"Yeah, dad, I am." She quietly responded, "Sorry for worrying you like that."

"Hell, Bella, I was gonna call Renee and Phil soon." He cleared his throat after a tense moment of silence. "I'm just glad you're up and at 'em, Kid."

"So am I, dad. Uh, so, when is Jer coming?" Bella picked up her toast for a bite.

Charlie chuckled, "I'm going to the airport in Port Angeles to get him in just a moment. Got a text from the kid last night before I went to sleep and then one at work early this morning telling me he was stopped in Chicago for a bit."

Bella nodded and looked at her dad in his uniform, gun still at his hip. He was only 36 and it seemed like he was getting more gray hairs and worry lines. "I'm going to pick up some groceries for the house then. Don't want Jer to live off Diner food and pizza."

She felt bad that she hadn't been cooking for Charlie and that he reverted back to eating take away and at the Diner. It wasn't healthy. Charlie laughed though, sheepishly and gave her some money for the groceries. He told her to keep her phone on her since there was a couple missing and he didn't want anything to happen to her. She nodded as he grabbed a slice of leftover pizza from the fridge before leaving to pick up Jeremy.

Finishing up her toast and tea, Bella quickly went up to her room to change. After throwing on a tee-shirt and jeans she went back down to grab her coat and the keys to The Beast. She locked up the house, climbed into her car, and looked to the stereo that Emmett had installed. Edward had missed taking this away from her with everything else. Turning on the stereo for the first time, as she hadn't listened to music since they left, a voice came blaring out at her.

"Happy Birthday, Bella Bear! I made this mixtape for you. It's called Bad Bears, 'cuz, you know, we're the beary best of the family!" Bella laughed at Emmett's terrible pun. The voice on the CD quieted, "Rosie put a couple songs on here too, don't let her fool you, she totally likes you. The stereo was her idea. I wanted to get you a giant teddy bear—"

"Emmett get onto the music already, the human doesn't need all this blathering." Rosalie's cool voice was a bit distant in the recording. Bella smiled all the same when Emmett laughed, said he loved her, and the music began playing "Hells Bells" by AC/DC. When he had tried to teach her how to play video games they always had classic rock playing. Emmett said that it really set the mood of the game.

Pulling out of her driveway with misty eyes she wondered if the rest of the family knew what Edward had done. She knew Jasper wouldn't, they weren't allowed near each other after the Phoenix incident, so he wouldn't really know any difference in her behavior or anything. Emmett and Rosalie had been traveling for a little bit so she hadn't seen them in a couple months before her birthday. Carlisle was always busy at the hospital, and Esme visited sick children and ran an interior design business that kept her busy. That left Alice, her "best friend." Alice could see the future, so she probably saw Edward's decisions to dazzle her. Some friend . . .

Bella stopped at a light briefly before turning into the parking lot of the grocery store. She knew that they would need everything other than eggs, bacon, and sandwich fixings; the only things that Charlie seemed to really know how to make. The man really needed cooking classes like Renee once tried to do.

Bella went through the store quickly, the pitying glances from folks doing their own shopping spurring her onwards. She hated those looks. It's not her fault her ex was a legitimate drug. She grabbed some ice cream and other goodies for her and Jer. She figured they could both use it, since no one comes to Forks unless they really have to, or are just stopping for gas and camping supplies. Jer must have been in deep shit to come here, last she heard from Elena was that he was doing and dealing drugs. She just hoped that he had quit that since he'd be living with a cop.

A couple hours later, after she had put away the food in the house and began to make her grandmother's spicy chicken soup, the slow sprinkles of rain turned into a downpour. Looking out the window in the kitchen she wondered how long it would be until Charlie and Jeremy came home from the airport. The answer turned out to be not very long, as about ten minutes later she heard a car pull into the drive way.

After putting the soup on simmer she went to the front door and opened it. Bella leaned on the threshold, watching as her little cousin grabbed his suitcase out of the trunk of Charlie's cruiser. Her little cousin didn't seem so little anymore, she observed. He had put on some muscle, and seemed more mature than the last time they had seen each other.

"Bella! There's my favorite cousin!" He picked up the pace to get out of the rain. Bella moved slightly into the house to allow for him to set his things inside.

"Jer, I'm your only cousin." Jeremy laughed it off and gave Bella a hug.

"Of course," smiling, Jeremy looked towards the kitchen. His brows rose as he saw the pot and smelled what was coming out from it. "Grandma's soup, you seriously are making Grandma's soup?"

"It's a rainy October day and you just came to Forks from Mystic Falls, of course I'm making the soup. It'll be ready by dinner."

"Sweet."

Charlie came in and looked at the two teens, a smile on Bella's face— the first one in weeks. She noticed that he nodded to himself before speaking, "I've got to get back to work, but I'll be back in time for dinner, Bells. Remember, lock up and don't invite strangers."

Jeremy, who had never really heard Charlie's warning before, narrowed his eyes slightly in interest as to what Charlie might know about vampires. The 'don't invite strangers' had him curious. Bella, however, had heard the shtick a million times from him, so she responded with her usual, "Sure, sure, dad. Be safe."

Charlie gave Bella a kiss on the forehead and Jeremy a pat on the back.

"Always am, kiddo."