Here goes my second chapter. I hope you find the references to the books, (some are more subtle than others). By the way you cannot imagine how happy I was with the reaction I got from the first chapter, I almost started crying when I saw that people had favourited it and reviewed it (yep, I'm pretty emotional). So here is the second, I hope I got the feelings right. Review please, and don't be afraid to criticize anything that is bad!

2. LEARNING TO BREATHE

While I drove, not knowing where I was going, I distracted myself by staring at the trees and nature around me. It sure was beautiful, a very nice place to rest in peace. However for some reason Uncle Jake was very upset at my mother for wanting to be 'scattered' here. When he found out about this wish I remember I saw him crying.

"After all this time Bella?" He asked her

"Please Jake, I know you understand." She pleaded looking at him with tired eyes. I heard them talking in hushed voices when I went to ask if either of them wanted any dinner. What stopped me from intruding was the sound of my uncle crying. Uncle Jake never cried, he was always strong, always someone to lean on. An unbreakable fortress to keep you safe.

"I don't understand, Bella. And near the house as well? Why would you want that? I thought you'd gotten over –" But before he could continue he turned around and looked at the half closed door which I had only just managed to hide behind. I walked away leaving them in private, Uncle Jake would know if I was still there, he had amazingly good hearing..

I remember wondering what was so wrong with being buried near the house, however soon I found out that it wasn't near grandad's house, it was actually pretty far, and her ashes were to be scattered in the river near the Olympic Range. As I drove I realized I was looking for that precise river. I desperately wanted to know what was wrong with the beautiful place I had heard about. But soon driving became too hard because as much as I was trying not to, I couldn't stop thinking about her. Breathing was becoming more and more difficult and I could feel myself tearing at the uneven and rushed seams I had tried so very hard to sew inside my chest. I clutched the steering wheel with one hand and I pull the other around my stomach trying to hold myself together. Soon my vision began to blur as tears filled my eyes and I pulled over onto a rough patch of grass knowing driving now would be too dangerous.

I only managed to walk a little way away from my car before I completely crumbled into a broken heap. This pain would take some getting used to, that was for sure.

I sobbed loudly, almost screaming from the pain, then at other times I cried silently, whimpering quietly wishing for someone to help me hold myself together. I tried to remember every little detail of our life, every laugh, every fight, every tear. It hurt me so much; each memory stabbed me harder than the last. I welcomed the pain, I was glad about the pain. I finally felt like I was getting what I deserved, for losing my mother, for letting the one person who ever understood me die.

Soon my tears stopped flowing and I was completely silent with only the occasional shaky inhale. I watched the sky slowly become darker as night began to descend upon me. When I eventually mustered the strength to stand up I saw that it was my favourite time of the day: twilight. We called it 'Blue Hour' in photography class. I had been obsessed with the way the sky looked at this time ever since I could remember.

"The sky is so pretty right now mommy." I said looking out the window of the car as we drove home from Uncle Jake's.

"It's twilight," she said with a weak voice "the end of another day, the return of the night." Her voice sounded far away, as if she wasn't speaking from the present, I turned to look at her and saw her eyes brimming with tears.

"Are you okay mommy?"

She quickly wiped away the tears that had escaped and looked at me with a weak smile.

"I'm fine, sweetie." She looked at the horizon smiling, more genuinely this time.

I gazed at the sky, new tears filling my eyes and the pain that had only just begun to subside filled my chest again and forced me to sit on the wet grass and clutch at my sides. Soon the pain began to subside again but I was still finding it hard to breathe normally. I put my palms to my face, enveloping my nose and mouth to restrict the air flow coming into my lungs. Iiiiiin. Ooooooout. Iiiiiin. Ooooooout. I recited to myself and felt my heart rate slow.

I thought back to the funeral. Her death was not a shock to most people, the onset of the disease and the prediction of her health only continuing to deplete gave people time to prepare. In that it wasn't a horrible, crying ceremony. People were quite and calm, dealing in their own ways, the worst of which had passed earlier, when she was still with us. I never thought there were a lot of people in her life, but today proved me wrong as I saw her father's house almost over-flowing with mourners. I was introduced to a few, and others I had met before. There was Jessica Newton, a lady who even in this emotional atmosphere found the time to gossip. She was married to Michael Newton who was absolutely devastated today. I saw Angela and Ben Cheney, a very nice and polite couple who I had met on a few rare occasions. Then there were all of Uncle Jake's friends from the Quileute Reservation at La Push, who I had met and had dinner with numerous times.

There were a lot of people who I wasn't introduced to, or faces I was only vaguely familiar with. There were some of mom's college friends, old work friends, new work friends, hospital friends. It seemed that a select few from everywhere she'd been had showed up and altogether they made a very large group of people who knew and loved her.

There was one face, however that stood out from the rest of the crowd, but only for a moment because when I turned back to look for it again I couldn't find it anywhere. The face was almost completely hidden behind a black laced veil hanging from a small black hat which covered her short, choppy, ink black hair. Underneath all the black, however, I saw an astonishingly pale face staring at the tomb stone. She wasn't crying, she was just standing there, detached from everyone and still as a statue. I wanted to find out who she was but when I tried looking for her she was no where to be seen.

By now I was breathing normally and my hands were at the bottom of my shirt; scrunching and wringing it. I stood up and began walking. As I did so I thought of what my mother had said to me during one of her last days.

"Don't you dare let the end of my life stop yours. You have to live on, begin a new chapter, get up onto your feet and start fresh with a clean slate."

I fought the tears back and sighed deeply. This was where this chapter had to end and my life without my best friend, my rock and my mother had to begin.