A/N

Don't own the characters – they belong to Stephenie Meyer, but the story is mine. I'm using this to wiggle my way free of a horrendous writer's block I've suffered from for some time. Please be nice and let me know what you think!

Prologue

The time between the Full Moon & the New Moon is known as the Waning moon; meaning the moon is decreasing in size but gaining in inward strength. It is a time to go inward to receive wisdom & information & to let go of things, attitudes or people who no longer contribute to your life or are detrimental to your goals.

As I looked at the ring staring at me from the jewelry box on the dresser, I had a hard time believing that it had been a little over a year since Jake died. His father, Billy had always warned him about the dangers of motorcycles. September thirteenth, my twenty-seventh birthday. Rushing home from the garage because he wanted to surprise me with tickets to see Iron & Wine in Olympia, he lost control rounding a corner too fast on the One-Ten. What a difference a year can make.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

For six months after the funeral, all I could do was eat, sleep and cry. Not necessarily in that order. I was a zombie, a basket-case. It was during one of my many overactive dreams of Jake coming home to me when I woke in a start, covered in sweat that I realized it. I had to get out of this town!

There was no way that I could stay in Forks any longer without Jake. The memories were too much. Charlie, my father, was nowhere near retiring as the Chief of Police and the thought of leaving him made me crazy, but not even that could make me stay. Besides, there are phones and e-mail and even video conferencing to get us through the miles.

When I told him that I was leaving, I knew he was hurt. The pain in the eyes that mirrored mine told me that much. But, I could also see the glimmer of understanding. I would never be able to shake the loss of my Fiancé as long as I stayed. Luckily, he knew that too.

What he had a difficult time dealing with was the fact that I was moving three quarters of the way across the country to my Grandparent's old place in Tennessee. To the old mansion house on the Elk River that had been in my mother, Renee's family for over a hundred years. Renee was their only child and she was having way too good a time in Jacksonville with her new husband Phil to take care of it. I loved that old place and all of the memories I had from going there as a child. It seemed only natural for me to go now.

I loaded everything that I could in the back of the truck and after a tearful goodbye to Charlie, I left it all behind. I'd sold the house that Jake and I called home and all of the furniture with it. I didn't need it where I was going and it would only be a painful reminder. It was imperative that I sever all ties. It was the only way that I would make it through with my sanity in tact.

I climbed in the cab and shut the door of the truck and with a wave out the window to my dad I started the first of 2800 miles to my new home and my new life.