H stands for Stephanie Holds the rights to everything...

Mood Music: “Because of You” Kelly Clarkson

Summary: When tragedy strikes Maisy Black and her twin Tony are forced to go and live with their enstranged father. But as both of them uncover secrets from their mother's past and reveal their father's lies, the future becomes shadowy. What if they find out something that changes everything? Perhapes even Maisy and Tony themselves.

Ell-oh-vee-ee

Sarahj259

Maisy Black wrapped her arms tightly around herself and forced back the tears, her twin brother Tony needed her to be strong for him. The police cruiser pulled to a stop in front of a two story white house.

Maisy’s Grandpa turned in the front seat to look back at Maisy and Tony. Maisy was shaking Tony awake, telling him that they were there.

“Your father and I decided that you would stay here for a couple weeks while he gets your rooms down in La Push ready. He should be here later today to see you guys.”

Grandpa opened the door for them to get out of the back seat, and then went around and got their bags out of the trunk. The rest of their stuff had been FedEx-ed in boxes and was waiting for them inside.

Tony and Maisy had visited their Grandpa before, he had added another twin bed to her mother’s old bedroom, and so they shared a room. But that had been back when they were kids and it had only been for a week or so.

Maisy was sixteen now and unsure how she felt about sharing a room with her brother, even if he was her twin. She carried her own duffel bag in one hand and Tony’s in the other up to the room. Tony himself drifted behind her.

After convincing Grandpa that everything was fine, she closed the door and got Tony to sit down on his bed.

“Tony, are you ok?” She asked softly.

Tony just nodded, he was close to catatonic.

It was funny how he had taken his mother’s death, no one would have thought. Even Maisy herself was a little surprised. Tony had always been independent, someone who rebelled without even meaning to.

It seemed like Tony was always fueled with anger. Anger at their father who they hadn’t seen since they were twelve years old, anger at their mother who just too broken to give her all to her children.

He had never seen how fragile their mother was, how sad she had always been. He had never seen the pain that constantly in their mother’s eyes, and even though he must have her screams in the night, he chose not to think about them.

Maisy had always been the buffer between them, reconciling two very different people. She had been close to her mother. Now all she wanted to do is fall down and scream until someone somewhere gave her mother back.

But Tony needed her, Tony always needed her. He would only respond to her, and so she couldn’t fall apart. In away just as she was helping Tony, Tony was helping her, he was keeping from falling apart and never coming back together again.

Tony kicked off his shoes and slid under the covers of his bed. Maisy pretended not see the tears streaking down his face.

That was what she hated about Tony, he was so selfish. All the time selfish. When they were children, Maisy hardly ever got the chance to Maisy Black, no, she was always Tony’s twin sister.

But she couldn’t even hate Tony for that, because he did care, he always looked out for her. When it was his fault that she was quiet and reserved, he still spoke up for her. When she got overlooked by the popular crowd because Tony was such a dynamic personality, he still refused to go anywhere or hang out with people who didn’t like his sister.

He called her his little sister, or little sis, even though she was only five minutes younger them him. Sometimes she wanted to just scream at him to shut up, to never call her that again, to tell him that she had a name. She wasn’t little sis, she was Maisy, call her by her damn name.

But that was only sometimes, most of the time Maisy was content to just drift behind Tony, she had friends, they were his friends too, but still. It was just how it had always been. Tony was the outgoing, loud, rash, and friendly twin. Maisy was the shy, kind, quiet, and thoughtful twin.

Quietly, so as not to disturb Tony, in case he might actually be sleeping, Maisy opened her duffel bag and took out her hairbrush and a pair of scissors she had bought at a arts and crafts store in Port Angelus, then she searched through Tony’s bag for a comb. She moved the chair from in front of the small vanity table and laid a quilt from her bed on the wooden floor in front of the table, then put the chair back.

She carefully brushed through her long thick black hair, using careful even strokes. She, like Tony, had her father’s dusky skin, only a few shades lighter, and his dark thick hair hung to her waist, but she had her mother’s deep brown eyes.

After she had removed all tangles, she pulled the comb through til she reached just below her shoulders, she picked up the scissors and made the first cut. Her long hair reminded her too much of her mother. Every time she looked in the mirror she saw a different version of her mother staring back. It was almost too much to take.

Maisy figured she wouldn’t look so much like her mother if she had a different haircut, but Gran and Grandad Phil wouldn’t let her, saying she would regret it. Maisy heard Gran tell Grandpa not to let Maisy get her hair cut.

So Maisy decided to cut her own hair.

A hour and a half later, Maisy’s long black hair was cropped roughly to her chin, she ran her fingers through it. It was a bit rough, but it just gave her an edgy sort of look. She didn’t look like her mother.

Tony was watching from where he lay on the bed, his face blank, he hadn’t said anything yet.

“What do you think?” She asked him, turning around and using a hand mirror to check the back, it was decent.

“I like it. Doesn’t look anything like Mom.” Another reason Maisy loved her twin, he understood her reasons completely.

“I know.” Maisy said, her throat tight.

She gave Tony back his comb, and then gathered up the hair, it wasn’t too hard, she had cut it in clumps. She threw them away and brushed off the blanket into the garbage can, then laid it back on the bed.

Tony suddenly spoke.

“I just miss her so much Maisy, so damn much. It hurts so badly.” He was fighting back the tears that where slowly starting to trickle down his face.

Maisy found herself collapsing to the floor, shaking with silent sobs that she had suppressed until now. Her mother had died three days ago, she hadn’t really cried since she first found out.

She was shaking so badly she could barely breathe, her fist shoved in her mouth to keep herself from screaming. The tears flooded down her face. She felt Tony sit down beside her, his arm come around her shoulders, his whispered words of comfort, but she couldn’t do anything but cry.

It seemed like, until this moment, it hadn’t been real. It had just been a sick joke. Now she hurt everywhere it seemed. She was in Forks Washington, for her mother’s funeral, and every tear she cried seemed to drive that point home.

Oh god, why did it have to hurt so bad. She wished she could just curl up and die, it hurt so bad.

After awhile the sobs stopped, the pain didn’t, Maisy wasn’t sure if you ever lost that kind of pain. But the tears slowed and she wiped the last them away.

“I just, I just keep expecting her to come back through the door and say ‘just kidding, it was all just a horrible mistake.’ but she doesn’t.” She said softly to Tony.

He nodded, letting her get it all out.

“I keep going over and over in my head the last few moments I had with her, I tell her I loved her, I just left for school, just like every other day. I couldn’t—I couldn’t—I didn’t know that—”

“There’s no way you could’ve known sis. No one could’ve known.”

“Why did this happen? Why Tony?”

“I don’t know.”

They didn’t say anything for awhile, each wrapped up in memories.

After a while Maisy heard Grandpa’s footsteps on the stairs. She and Tony stood up, Maisy used the quilt to wipe her face. Grandpa looked so old, not 60 but more like 90.

“Jacob’s here to see you guys.”

Something had changed in Tony, he was no longer catatonic, but bitterly angry. Maisy could see something close to hatred on his face.

“Nice of him to show up, but we don’t want to see him.”

Maisy kind of did want to see her father, but Tony was the only real thing she had right now, so if he didn’t want to see him, then she would stay up here in the room.

Grandpa suddenly noticed Maisy’s hair, he opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He looked at the two of them for a few seconds and then sighed sadly.

“Ok, I’ll tell him.” He said softly before closing the door again.

They heard his footsteps going back down the stairs.

Maisy sat down in the old rocking chair by the window while Tony laid back down on his bed.

A few minutes later they heard steps on the stairs again.

Jacob knocked before opening the door. He looked at them from the doorway.

Maisy had always seen her dad as the biggest guy in the world, even though he had left her mother when she was six, she still held onto a idyllic picture of him. The short visitations that had lasted until she twelve had only enhanced this view of him.

But now as she looked at them she could only summon up disappointment and a small amount of blame. If he hadn’t left so long ago, maybe her mother would still be alive and well. If he hadn’t left, her mother wouldn’t have acted so sad all the time. A part of her insisted it was all his fault.

“May, Andy, how are you guys doing?” He asked kindly.

He had this aversion to saying their names. He didn’t like them for some reason. He insisted that Tony’s real name was Andrew Erik Black, instead of Anthony Edwin Black, and that Maisy’s name was May Catherine Black, instead of Maison Callene Black.

If he didn’t like their names, then maybe he should have made more of an effort to have been there when they were born. He should have made more of an overall effort to be a dad.

“We said we didn’t want to see you.” Tony’s voice was frigid, the death glare he was giving Jacob was scary.

“Andy—” Jacob began, but Tony cut him off.

“My name is Anthony.”

“I named you And—”

“Anthony is the name on my birth certificate you ass, it’s the name my moth—mother gave me, so fuck you.”

“Alright, Anthony, but I just wanted to check on you guys, see if you’re alright.”

Maisy was surprised when she found herself speaking up.

“It’s not your job to check on us.”

“May—Maison I’m still your father.”

“Yea, well where the fuck were you then? Huh? I haven’t seen you since I was twelve years old, and before that it was three weeks a year since I was six. Some father. I hear you have three kids with ‘Penny’, would you ignore Penny’s kids? Would you? Tony’s right, fuck you.”

“You’re upset right now.”

“Damn straight she’s upset right now, our mother just died you bastard!”

“I’ll come back later.”

“Better yet, don’t come back at all.” Tony yelled after him.

Tony was so angry he stood up and started furiously pacing the room. His black eyes, so like their father’s, seemed like they were on fire. Maisy just sat in the rocking chair, rocking back and forth. She found herself wondering what her mother used the chair for.

Tony kicked the bed and then kicked at the floor. Suddenly the floor board he kicked sprang up, hitting him in the back.

“Shit.” He swore.

Maisy normally would have found this poetic justice funny, but now all she could smile wanly. A smile that didn’t reach her eyes, a smile that didn’t reach her hurting heart.

“Hey sis, there’s something under here.” Tony said excitedly.

She got up and went over to kneel on the other side of the loose floorboard. Tony carefully reached into the hole. He pulled out a couple photos he handed them to her, then reached back in and pulled out a CD and a yellowed envelope.

She flipped through the old photos. They were of her mother, when she was a teenager. She always said that she and Jacob were high school sweethearts. But the boy with Maisy’s mother in these pictures was not her father. He was tall, extremely good looking boy with red hair, and golden eyes.

The way her mother looked at this boy in these pictures, Maisy was sure that she had never looked at Maisy’s father that way. It was like this boy was her mother’s whole world. Her universe, and in most of the pictures the boy looked at her mother with the same expression. In a couple of them it seemed there was unexplained tension.

She looked on the back of them, most were labeled ‘Edward and Bella’, the boy’s name was Edward. But there was one, of just boy himself, his full name was printed out in her mother’s scribbling handwriting.

‘Edward Anthony Mason Cullen.’

Edward Anthony Mason Cullen.

Edward Anthony. Anthony Edwin.

Mason Cullen. Maison Callene.

“Look.” Tony shoved the envelope in her face.

The contents of the envelope was two airplane tickets for Jacksonville, Florida, outdate around 19 years ago. Maisy wondered what was in Jacksonville Florida.

“What are the pictures of?”

“Mom and a boy named Edward Anthony Mason Cullen.”

Tony’s eyes widened, he took the photo’s and flipped through them himself.

Maisy grabbed the CD, it was labeled ‘Bella’s Lullaby’, she walked over the old CD player on the desk next to the ancient computer. She popped in the CD, and pushed play.

The most beautiful piano music started playing. It was so wonderful it was painful, there was something familiar about it. Maisy found herself reminded of her mother. Odd, because the music was happy almost, clumsy and beautiful, you could feel the love pulsating from it, the emotions that it represented.

It was like her mother but not. Her mother was clumsy and beautiful, but she was never happy, even when she was happy she was sad. It had seemed to Maisy that her mother would never allow herself to feel any strong emotion. The song seemed to be of a different person almost, yet still her mother.

She pushed stop on the CD player before she completely fell apart. This was too much to handle.

Maisy took out the CD and put it back in its case, took the plane tickets and put them back in their envelope, took the pictures from Tony and put them, with the envelope and CD, back under the floorboard.

She did not need to learn about this new side of her mother now. Not now. She needed to keep her mother as she remembered her mother, she needed that image to be real, because if it wasn’t, if it wasn’t...

If she had never known her mother, then how could she really ever remember her mother.

Ell-oh-vee-ee

Sarahj259