All That Matters, Chapter 2

Chapter 2
Family Matters

Cold, gentle hands shook me from my stupor.

“Isabella Swan,” a soft, soothing voice whispered.

“Bella,” I corrected automatically, staring at the textured linoleum flooring beneath my feet. “It’s Bella, that’s what Mom always called me, that’s what I’m going by, even though I used to hate it and Isabella probably sounds more elegant and…” I trailed off, realization dawning on me like the strike of lightning. Oh, God. No. No. No.

MOTHER.

I tried to scream, I tried to yell, I tried to curse. But all that would come out was a frightened, distressed whimper. “Mom.”

And, just like that, I fainted.


“Do you think she’ll be okay?”

“I think so, but she sure has been out for a while.”

“Maybe cold water…”

“Don’t want to put her in more of a shock. She might even go comatose.”

“I hope not…”

Oh, God. The voices. The noise. Overwhelming, embracing, consuming… Too much. It was just too much. I moaned with the pain.

Silence. Complete and utter silence. It was sudden. It was overpowering, painfully so. I forced those thoughts out of my head, trying to ignore the pain of silence. Silence was like death. Sudden, unwanted, sometimes unnoticed.

Putting a shaking hand to my forehead, I sat up wearily, pulling with me heavy bedcovers. I shook them off angrily. I wouldn’t let anything hold me down anymore…not anything.

I looked around. The room was white. The bedcovers were white. Several machines rolled up close to the wall were white. The door at the far side of the room was white. I looked at my hand. It, too, was white.

And suddenly, I felt powerless. It was irrational, I knew, to feel this way to the blankness. But white was death. White was nothingness. And that was what I felt. Nothingness. Loneliness. White was so uncaring. I should feel horrible, I should feel sad, I should feel lost. But instead…I felt nothing.

I sat up straight when I realized that I wasn’t alone in the room.

Leaning against the wall was a man dressed in –dare I say it- white. His blonde hair cascaded over to cover his ears, and his eyes were a light honey color. He must be the doctor…I thought. But once coherent words formed in my mind, I still had the task of getting them out of my mouth, which seemed to be frozen tightly shut. I knew it wasn’t. I knew that I just didn’t want to speak, didn’t want more words to be spoken that made me feel.

The doctor still stood, staring at me. Simply staring. Yet it felt like he was… reading me. Learning me. Trying to figure out what was going on inside my head.

He pushed himself off of the wall, taking a step towards me. I couldn’t help but think that he must have another job – as a star model, at the very least. He certainly deserved to be. He was beautiful, impossibly so. Looking at him made my head spin. Of course, that might also have something to do with the confusion whirling throughout my mind.

“Bella,” he said, and I will never forget how he said that. The sorrow, the regret, the open and blatant curiosity etched into a voice that was clearly supposed to show no emotion. It moved me. It made me wonder: Did this man care?

“Where…am…I?” My voice was raspy, my words unsure. The man smiled gently at me. Reassuring me. Immediately, I felt safe. Unnaturally safe…I shouldn’t have felt safe. But he made me feel so cared for…like he would never hurt me. And it was as if I didn’t have any choice in the matter but to believe his silent promise.

“You are in the Kindred Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. Yesterday, the school administration board sent someone to drop by your house – lack of recent attendance called their attention to you. They found you there, silently by your mother’s body. They brought you here. I am Carlisle Cullen, a doctor from Forks, Washington’s hospital. I was on convention down here in Phoenix, and was visiting Kindred before returning home to my work. I saw the ambulance. I saw….” He paused, contemplating. “Will this be too much for you?” he asked, and I knew the concern in his voice was genuine. I saw it reflected in his eyes.

Would it? What did he see? How bad did my mother’s….corpse…look? How bad did I look? I put those thoughts aside; it didn’t really matter. I just wanted the truth.

“Go on,” I whispered.

He hesitated, then continued. “I saw one stretcher being taken into the emergency wing of the hospital…and the other being taken to the morgue.”

It was too much. I snapped, the numbness within me breaking apart, bearing my weaknesses for the entire world to torment. Tears filled my eyes, pain replacing curiosity, sadness replacing indifference.

Horror filled the man’s strange, butterscotch eyes. “Miss…Bella…please, I didn’t mean to make you cry…I’m sorry, forgive me. Please?” He took my hand in his, the cold pressure decidedly welcome.

“No…I’m sorry,” I apologized through my tears, fighting the urge to completely break down. “Forgive me, Dr. Cullen. I should have been…prepared for…”

He cut in. “Let’s you and I forgive each other, shall we?” I nodded weakly. It seemed the best plan, the best way to find out what happened. He smiled tenderly, and stroked a lost strand of chocolate brown hair back behind my ear.

“You’ve only just woken up, I take it, as I have been checking on you consistently every… five minutes since you came in.” I tried to cut in, to say that he needn’t have done that, but he raised his other hand to my lips. “No, don’t protest. That’s the fact of the matter, Miss Swan.” He paused, looking uncomfortable, uncertain. “Ah…do you wish to talk about the, ah, future now…or later?”

“Now, please. I know that otherwise I’d just be…putting off the inevitable, as it were.” I managed a weak smile.

He was taken aback, that much was evident, but he recovered quickly. “All right …Miss Swan. Bella. Our records say that you have no living relatives. Is that true? Do you know of anyone who may not be on file?”

I grimaced. “No. Both my parents were only children, and their parents have already passed away, and of course my parents…” I trailed off, looking away. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I couldn’t bear to see the pity that I knew must be etched on his features, sunken far into his depthless golden eyes.

“Ah. And, do you know of anyone who might be willing to take you in? A close friend, perhaps? A friend of the family?”

I snorted. “Friends? Like those characters in books who are ‘always there’ for the main character, listening to their problems and such? They do stuff together and go places and see things and give each other makeovers and talk about boys and all that jazz?”

Slowly, Carlisle Cullen nodded. “I suppose, that’s one definition…”

“Then, no. I don’t have any friends. I go to school a couple days a week, work a job at the corner store, the library, and babysitting some of the teacher’s kids. Wait, do teachers count as friends? Because I have a pretty close relationship with the English teacher – that is, I would, if she didn’t hate me for missing school all the time. No? That doesn’t count? Well, why the heck would I have friends, huh? I wear cheap, used clothes on discount from the aforementioned corner store, and I am always reading. I am plain and skinny and have no appeal whatsoever to the opposite sex, nor have any sort of experience in making friendly acquaintance with either sex. So, no. I don’t have friends.” I tried to laugh, but it came out more as a sob.

And then he was sitting beside me on the bed. He wrapped his long arms around me and placed my head so that it leaned on the starched white lapel of his doctor’s coat. His hand, so different from my mother’s, so different from my father’s, stroked my hair, wiping it away from my face. It rested softly against my cheek.

“Bella,” he said after several moment of silence, save for my pathetic sobbing into his shirt. “Do you want to go into foster care?”

His question took me by surprise. Of course I didn’t… “Well, don’t I have to? I mean, where else could I go? I have no one…” I mumbled, the last bit so quietly I would have thought it incoherent.

He turned my face so that I looked straight at him. I found that I could not look away; his golden eyes were enthralling. “You do not have no one. You can come live with my family and me. My wife, Esme, would love for you to live with us. You deserve a family, Bella. You deserve it, if no one else does.”

I couldn’t believe it. He did care. He was wasting his time checking on me… making sure that I was still asleep. And now he was talking with me, comforting me. He was offering me a home. So very like a father…

Before I could stop myself, I asked, on utter impulse, “Do you have any children?”

He chuckled, and I could feel him shake with ill concealed humor at my expense. “Yes, five. They were in here earlier, you know. When you were brought in. Very concerned about you. All of them are teenagers – our youngest is seventeen.”

My mouth dropped open; I couldn’t help it. FIVE teenagers? In the SAME house? “How old are you, Dr. Cullen?” I questioned, rather impolitely. I immediately regretted my words, trying to take them back. “Er, I mean no offense, sir, it’s just…five? Teenagers?”

And then he was laughing again. “Oh, Bella! It’s just – snicker snicker – the look on your...snicker….face! I’ll never…forget it!” He took a deep, calming breath, while I just stared at him, dumbfounded, confused. I pulled back from my previous position, leaning on his stone-like chest, and quirked my eyebrow. Yet I couldn’t keep the obvious question out of my eyes.

“They’re adopted.”

Oh.

That would explain it.

Doctor Carlisle Cullen looked to be in his early to mid-twenties, so to have a seventeen-year-old child…I shuddered. He’d have been between five and eight years old when…stop. Stop there. That’s disgusting.

He looked at me, grinning. Like he knew exactly what I was thinking. “And I’m not that young,” he continued. “I’m actually twenty-nine, only a few years out of med school.” He raised a thin blonde eyebrow at me appraisingly, as if gauging my reaction to his unnerving confession.

I studied him, wide-eyed, shocked. This man, this appallingly handsome man - what with his light gold eyes, his clearly muscular chest and arms, angular face, perfect features, shining blonde hair, long, delicate fingers, and – the most disconcerting of them all his features – the knowing, playful, guarded look that made me feel so comfortable around him - could not be nearing his thirties! It was simply impossible…

Suddenly, he looked at his watch, interrupting my apparent ogling. “Well, I ought to be going. I have an appointment. I’ll leave you to think on your decision, okay? No pressure, Bella. Don’t worry. No pressure.” His voice was meant to be calming, soothing, but they had the exact opposite effect. I was missing something. What was I missing?

Wait. Something caught my attention. Did he…did he really? Dr. Cullen walked out of the door; I saw the corner of his coat disappear down the hallway. My wife, Esme, would love for you to live with us. You deserve a family, Bella. You deserve it, if no one else does. You deserve it…if no one…you deserve it…you deserve…it…’
“Wait! Dr. Cullen, wait!” I called out, stumbling out of the bed. My head spun, and I slumped to the floor.

Or, I would have, if a pair of pale white arms hadn’t appeared out of the middle of nowhere and shot out to grab me.

“Whoa there, Miss Swan.” He pulled me up, keeping his hands at my sides for an extra moment, making sure that I was stabilized. He sat me back down on the bed, the large metal springs beneath me screeching with complaint. “Now, why exactly were you yelling at me?”

I tilted my head down at the linoleum floor, my hair cascading to fall in front of my face. For that I was glad, as I could feel my cheeks burning brightly with embarrassment and shame. “I wasn’t yelling at you…merely for you,” I hastened to explain. “I’m sorry…”

Dr. Cullen smiled. “No need to be sorry, my dear.”

I smiled tentatively, not meeting his gaze, still staring at the floor. The movement felt strange on my face, a face which had been sculpted into a worried frown for so long…but, oddly enough, it felt good.

And then I remembered why I had called him back in the first place. “Oh! Dr. Cullen, did you…did you mean…what you said?”

I managed to look up from the floor, however extremely fascinating it may have been. When his eyes met mine, they were extremely curious, and – I thought – hopeful.

“What I said about what?”

I couldn’t bear it anymore. Couldn’t bear the shame of my hope, the horror at my forwardness. Of course he didn’t mean it – and now I was trying to force myself upon the hospitality of his family! “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…w-what I mean is, your family … I’m sorry, sir, I shouldn’t have asked-”

He cut me off, a smile gracing his flawless face. The effect was stunning. “Do you mean what I think you mean? Are you willing to come live with my family?”

I hesitated; surely he didn’t mean it…he couldn’t…not some poor orphan like me. But, his smile seemed genuine, his words in earnest – and if that wasn’t enough to sway me, I knew that his eyes were bright, excited, honest. So I answered as I felt.

“If you and your family are willing to have me, Sir.”

He frowned. “Carlisle.”

I tried again. “Dr. Cullen.”

“Carlisle.”

“Carlisle?”
He smiled. “I think we shall become very good friends, Bella Swan.” With a grand gesture he took my hand firmly in his and gave it a good, solid shake. “I think we shall, indeed.”


After he finished with his appointment at the hospital, Carlisle took me to my house to gather a few necessary belongings. On the way there, he called his wife – Esme – and throughout the conversation, I sat nervously, biting my lip. What if she says no? What if she gets mad at him for asking? When it’s really my fault…

He hung up the phone. “Bella…” he began slowly. I waited, filled with dread, tense. “Esme is ecstatic. I heard her tell Alice, one of our daughters, and shortly thereafter I heard Alice scream with excitement. Esme tells me that she is currently bouncing up and down, shouting with joy.”

I looked at him doubtfully. “I thought you said your youngest was seventeen?”
He was confused. “She is…” An awkward silence filled the air. “Alice is quite child-like sometimes, I’ll admit it. She puts her heart and soul into everything she does, and loves simply everything and everyone. Except Wal-Mart. She hates Wal-Mart. It’s her own personal Hell. Although I must warn you,” he said, his voice turning serious, his eyes boring into mine. “She is rather…fond…of clothing and makeovers. Do not be surprised if she tries to force you into one.” I gawked. Makeovers? He warns me about makeovers? Alice…I smiled. She sounds so nice…like a sister that I’ve always wanted. Carlisle continued, unaware of my sudden burst of confidence, of sheer happiness. “If she does, and you don’t feel like getting a makeover or jammed into revealing clothing, yell for one of the boys. They’ll come help you. Or Esme will.”

I pointed down the road onto which had become so familiar in my years of living along it. We pulled into my driveway.

“So, you’ve heard about Alice, and then there’s Edward, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, and of course Esme-” He cut himself off, staring at the windshield as if he saw a giant purple bug squashed on it.

His eyes grew wide with astonishment when he saw the place in which I had been living, even wider when he saw my ‘bedroom.’

When I began gathering up the sheets from my ‘bed’, he placed a staying hand on my shoulder. “Bella, what do you need those for?” he asked.

“Well, I thought that I should bring my sheets…just so I cause as little trouble as possible during my stay…”

“Bella, there are already sheets on your bed.” His voice was disapproving, as if he wanted me to do as little work as possible.

“I get a bed?!” Immediately, I blushed after my outburst. I don’t know what I was expecting – maybe for him to laugh, to say how silly I was. But he just looked at me, calculatingly. With, not pity, but sorrow in his depthless golden eyes.

“Bella. You get a bedroom.”


Before even I knew it, we had gathered everything I wanted to keep – my books, my few clothes, some reminders of my mother and father – and we had exited the house and locked it behind us. When the lock clicked, I felt a sense of future, of moving on. Of a new life ahead of me.

Just how new I wasn’t sure. At least, not until I had gotten off of the plane with Carlisle, sat in the passenger seat as he drove us up to Forks, gone down the three-mile stretch of driveway…and then I saw it: a huge white mansion in the midst of a large expanse of dark green property. Through the foliage around me I could see one thing – more trees. And more trees.

But trees were normal here in Forks, according to Carlisle. What wasn’t normal was the house – along with the many pairs of interested topaz eyes staring unblinkingly at me through a downstairs window.