We Don't Break, We Bend.pdf

We Don't Break, We Bend, by LyricalKris

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5508413/1/

READ THIS FIRST. This story has very, very dark themes. At no point am I ever

trying to make light of the subjects you will find here. Among them, physical,

emotional and, later, sexual abuse. I have tried to deal with this story in as

realistic a way as I know possible. As a survivor of physical and emotional abuse,

some of these incidents are based on personal experience. The rest are based on

countless psychology books I've read, and personal stories I've heard through my

mother who was a psychologist and social worker for many years. I am not trying

to present a reality that this happens in all foster homes. I know it doesn't.

However, everything that takes place here has its basis in reality.

So again, you've been warned. Dark themes lie ahead. It was hard for me to

write, so I'm sure it could be very hard for you to read. PLEASE do both of us a

favor and leave now if this isn't what you want to read about. Believe me, I'll

understand.

Disclaimer: I don't own these beautiful characters, Stephenie Meyer does. I love

them. I really, really do.

Chapter 1 – Prologue: As Heaven is Wide

" If holy is as holy does

This house will burn straight down to hell

Take its conscience with it as it falls

Nothing said could change the fact

My trust was blind, you broke the pact

If god's my witness god must be blind"

- As Heaven is Wide, Garbage

James Whitlock was, on the outside, what appeared to be every woman's dream.

As a high school senior he was good looking, charming and very smart. He was a

quarterback on Houston High School's successful football team. He got good

grades. He volunteered at the local hospital at least once a week.

In his senior year he befriended and dated Maria Gatell. For a year she had been

the subject of much of the school's gossip. Originally from Arizona, all that was

really known about her was that her parents were dead and she lived with an

Uncle.

James hadn't been like the other kids who stared or made fun of her. He seemed

to genuinely care. He listened and she told all of her secrets. How her parents

had been drug users. How they'd fought all the time. How her father had killed

her mother one day, when Maria was at a friend's house, before turning the gun

on himself. How she'd come to live with her father's brother, who was negligent

at best and more than a little irritated at having a teenager in his life.

They dated all through senior year and they seemed like the ideal couple. During

their first year of college, Maria got pregnant and James married her. James was

from a wealthy family, so Maria dropped out to care for their son, Jasper James

Witlock, while James continued to go to school.

It seemed, to all, like a happy story, even if the couple in question was a little

young for parenthood and marriage. But if they had looked any closer, they

would have seen James for who he was, even then.

They would have seen that, when he held her, James often whispered to Maria

that he was the only one who would ever love her; who could ever love her. They

would have noticed that, when she tried to go out with other people a few times,

he would get angry and shun her until she begged and pleaded and promised that

he was the most important person to her.

The truth of the matter was that Maria was a troubled girl and James preyed on

her weaknesses, her fear of abandonment and of being unloved, until she was

compliant to his every whim. And compliant she was, until there was someone in

her life even more important than James, who she loved with everything she had.

As more and more of Maria's time was taken by baby Jasper, James grew more

and more impatient. The summer after his second year of college, when Jasper

was just 3 months old, James left for a "break" to visit his old friends in his

hometown of Forks, WA.

He didn't come back.

Maria was devastated. His words that no one would ever love her besides him

echoed in her mind day after day. The fear and loneliness almost drove her

under. Except that there was someone who meant more to her than James ever

could, meant more than her own life.

At first, Maria lived for Jasper.

Using the money James' parents provided for her silence, Maria went to school,

and then on to a fulfilling job. She sought counseling to deal with her grief. With

her counselor's help she started to understand the difference between love and

manipulation.

More than that, she began to remember the things James had told her about the

heavy-handed way he'd been raised, and his strict ideas on how a child should be

brought up. She was horrified at the life she easily could have doomed her son

to.

She started to realize she had dodged a bullet.

But when Jasper was 12 there was a car accident. The same accident that left

Jasper with scars littering his face, torso, arms and legs also killed Maria

Whitlock.

Having never gotten around to divorcing her husband officially, custody of Jasper

Whitlock automatically went to his father. This was how James ended up with a

scarred and traumatized child in his care.

Right away, Jasper's soft-spoken attitude and demeanor irritated James. The boy

was too quiet, lacking the confidence James felt men should carry themselves

with. He had been raised to be respectful and so for a little while, James had no

reason to raise a hand to the boy. But there was a volatile storm that was

brewing between them. Jasper was a very observant child, and he knew there

was something off about his father.; something that made him nervous and

jumpy. It was only a matter of time before James snapped.

When it happened, Jasper stayed home from school for a week while the bruising

went down.

Whenever James would beat his son, he told him how his mother had raised him

wrong; that there was something missing from his character having been raised

by a woman. He told the boy that he needed to toughen up and be a man. Minds

are not as sturdy as bodies. Little by little, Jasper's mind started to believe his

father's vicious words. Without anyone to turn to, Jasper might have eventually

been lost.

His salvation came at another's expense.

James worked at the hospital as one of the orderlies; just another in a long list of

deceptions that made anyone on the outside believe he was a fine, upstanding

citizen. He was working, one evening, when then 13 year old Edward Masen was

brought in needing stitches. He'd been in a fist fight with one of the other boys in

his foster home. James learned that night that young Edward had been in and out

of four different foster homes in the last year between Forks and Port Angeles.

The boy's social worker, looking frustrated and harried, confided in James that

the trouble was that there were not enough foster homes in the area, and the

group homes only seemed to get Edward into more trouble.

Peeking in at the teenager, James thought he just needed to be taken down a

peg or two. The boy held himself with an arrogance that told James he didn't

know the meaning of respect for his elders.

A plan began to formulate in James' head. A lifetime of spending as he pleased

had, by that time, sapped his considerable funds. He now worked because he

needed to, and he was always looking for a way to supplement his income. It was

one of the reasons he had agreed to take his son in - the boy had inherited all of

his mother's money.

Jasper had also told him of his mother's profession. Maria had been a social

worker, finding peace in helping children as troubled as she had once been. He

knew that one could make a decent amount of money opening their home to a

foster child. He spoke to Edward's social worker about becoming a foster parent,

and then he went home and told his son to help him get the house in order.

At first, Jasper refused. The idea of someone else sharing his life was sickening to

the boy, even at 14. Worse, it felt like a perversion of his mother's memory. His

mother had worked so tirelessly to do her part in helping kids get placed with the

right family. Jasper knew that his family was not the right family for Edward

Masen. It wasn't the right family for anyone.

In the end, though, what could he do besides sit quietly as the social workers

inspected the house? He knew what his father looked like on the outside. He was

charming, hardworking and kind. He told the story that his wife had left him and

had never told him that she was pregnant. He told everyone how happy he was

to have his son. He answered all of their questions just the right way. He had

been fortunate to get his son back. He wanted to help other troubled children. He

told them how Jasper's mother had pretty much let him run wild, but with James'

patience and the right amount of discipline, Jasper had become the polite, well-

behaved fourteen year old they'd met that day.

Edward moved into the house only a couple of weeks later. Angry at the world,

he told Jasper to fuck-off almost immediately, denying Jaspers attempts to

befriend him. It didn't take him long to get in James' face - something James'

swore to make him regret. James always followed through on his promises.

He was careful not to leave any bruises on the boy's body where the visiting

social worker might see.

Jasper tried to encourage Edward not to antagonize James, but Edward was a

stubborn boy. The altercations between James and him grew more violent until,

two months after Edward had come to live with them, James dislocated his

shoulder as he threw the boy to the ground.

Afterward, when Edward stumbled into the room they shared, he slumped against

the wall, clutching his injured arm. Jasper said very little as he helped the

younger boy pop his arm back into his socket. Edward had muffled his scream of

agony against Jasper's shoulder, knowing if James heard they might both get in

trouble. Shaking and crying, Edward had finally let Jasper in.

He told the older boy that his parents, Edward Sr. and Elizabeth, had been very

good parents, but had been arrested one night. As he had no other family,

Edward had been placed in foster care. He told Jasper that he had not believed it

when the social workers told him his parents were thieves. He had been so angry.

It was only three months after that that James had taken in another foster child

with a history - Isabella Swan, also 13. Bella's father had died in a shoot-out a

few months previous and her mother, having been in and out of the girl's life

since she was just a baby, could not be reached to claim her. She had been

kicked out of her first foster home after being accused of stealing a necklace from

her foster mother's daughter.

James had questioned her about the incident only days after her arrival, making

sure she knew that such things would not be tolerated in his house. Raised to be

honest above anything else, Bella told him that it was her necklace and Jane, her

foster mother's daughter, had stolen it from her. When Bella stole it back, Jane

had told her mother that Bella was the thief. James warned her not to lie,

gripping her chin tightly in his hand. Scared at the coldness in James' eyes and

frustrated that no one believed her despite the fact she was telling the truth,

Bella had insisted again that she was innocent.

Jasper and Edward could do nothing but listen helplessly, both of their stomachs

twisting with a sick anxiety. They had both seen, from the few days she had been

there, that Bella was more innocent and naive than either of them had been.

She'd been sheltered by her father who had been a cop. Jasper had been raised

to respect and cherish girls. It made him feel powerless and wrong to just let

James hurt her. On the other hand, Edward was positively livid. He was angrier

than Jasper could remember seeing him. He had known Bella for years. From the

moment she had walked through their door, he had wanted desperately to

protect her. The fact that he couldn't had him clenching his fists in rage as he sat

on his bed.

They heard, very clearly, when Bella let out a frightened shriek. There was the

muffled sound of James yelling and then a loud, steady smacking sound

punctuated by Bella's crying.

Jasper had to physically restrain Edward.

It was minutes later when the door to Bella's room opened and then slammed

shut. The boys only waited another minute before flying out their door and into

Bella's room. She was lying face down on her bed, sobbing inconsolably into her

pillow. Her pants had been shoved down to her knees and she was rubbing her

bared bottom with both hands, the skin there a bright, cherry red.

She'd been afraid of them at first, but then Jasper brought her her pajamas and

Edward rubbed her back comfortingly. In between hiccupping gasps she'd sworn

over and over to them that she didn't take the necklace. That it was hers. They'd

both shushed her, telling her they believed her. When she had cried herself out

she told them of the horrible things James had said as he'd spanked her.

He'd pulled her down over his knees, spanking her hard and fast, as she'd cried

that she was innocent. James demanded she tell the truth. Finally she confessed

to stealing the necklace, if only to make him stop. He'd kept on hitting her to

punish her for lying, repeating again how he would not tolerate dishonest little

thieves in his house.

Infinitely more painful than his hand smacking her ass were the things he'd said

about her mother and father. That her father would be ashamed of her, and her

mother was lucky to have rid herself of a lying daughter.

They'd both hugged her, and told her James was an asshole. They'd made her

giggle to get her mind off the stinging pain in her backside and the horrible

confusion in her mind.

As time passed, the trio grew closer, protecting each other when they could,

comforting each other when they couldn't, but always surviving together.

Still with me? The first real chapter is next.

Chapter 2 - Runaway Train

"Can you help me remember how to smile

Make it somehow all seem worthwhile

How on earth did I get so jaded

Life's mystery seems so faded "

-Runaway Train, Soul Asylum

Before Edward's life had been turned upside down, he had been fairly popular in

school. He'd always had a group of friends to run around with on the playground.

Shortly after his parents had been hauled off to jail, his best friend, Mike Newton,

had made the wrong statement about them. Edward had beaten him bloody,

earning a suspension and an expulsion from his first foster home. Little by little,

his friends stayed clear of him and his temper.

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