Holy smokes! You guys have no idea how happy I am! The first chapter was received so well by all of you. I only asked for 10 REVIEWS and you gave me 35 REVIEWS! That's the most reviews I've received in ages. You guys even inspired me to write another chapter of this story.

Also, if you haven't read Landon's Summer Diary, PLEASE DO SO! There are a lot of things in it Landon's Summer Diary will point to many events that will happen in this story. DON'T MISS OUT!

So without further adieu, here is chapter two!

Chapter 2: Gone

"Are you gone, gone, gone? Tell me I'm wrong, wrong, wrong.
It's been so long, long, long. Are you gone?"

- Kina Grannis

Bella POV

As soon as I was out of sight, I transported myself back to our apartment space.

I stumbled into my room and collapsed on the floor. I slammed the door shut and finally let my sobs take over.

I knew he had moved on but I didn't think he was engaged.

And no matter how much I want him back, I just don't think I can find it in myself to break up his relationship. He's engaged for fuck's sake. This isn't just some girlfriend that he can leave. This is a girl who he's promised to take care of for life. Just like me, once upon a time.

I grabbed my suitcase and reached deep within it. As soon as I felt the cold chill of the metal, I pulled it out from underneath my clothes. I caressed the charm bracelet, the one that Landon had given me so long ago. I cradled it to me chest and cried for all of the new memories that we're no longer going to make.

I have to know.

I only hesitated for a quick second, but curiosity took over.

Rayne.

Her normal cheery voice rang up in my head. Bella! Hi!

Since when? I demanded from her.

I could hear the confusion in her voice. Since what?

How long has he been engaged?!

There was a sudden lull. I'm sure that wasn't the greeting she expected from me.

Rayne sounded resigned. They've been together for almost two years. They got engaged four months ago. I'm sorry, Bella.

Why didn't you ever tell me? I cried out to her.

Bella, she reminded, I tried. Don't you remember?

I paused from the chaos within me to try to remember.

"Bella, I need to tell you something," Rayne said.

"If it has to do with Landon, I don't want to hear it. I already told you about this, Rayne," I told her.

"But Bella – " she tried to say.

"No, Rayne. I don't have the right to keep tabs on him anymore. Just let it go."

"Okay, Bella. Okay."

I gasped for her. She did tried to tell me and I wouldn't hear any of it.

Oh God, Rayne, I sobbed.

Her name is Mara. Mara Travesty. She knows about you, you know, Rayne said.

Why are you telling me this?

Because I want you to know that even after everything, we, your family, still love you and care for you. There hasn't been a single day when we don't talk about you. We want Mara to know that she can never be you, Rayne thought to me.

Isn't that a bit cruel?

I could almost see Rayne shaking her head. Mara fixed Landon. I'll give her that and we'll always be grateful for her. And Landon does seem to love her…

More tears slid down my cheeks. I clutched at my chest and willed my heart to stay together. I could feel it slowly breaking into pieces.

I wanted to be angry with Landon for moving on, but I couldn't. I had no right to be. I'd be selfish to want him to be miserable without me. Besides, it was my entire fault. If I hadn't left, things wouldn't be this way.

But Bella, he still loves you too.

I chuckled humorlessly.

Don't tell me that. I don't want to… I don't want you to get my hopes up.

Okay, okay. But wait, how did you find out?

I didn't know whether I should tell her or not. As far as I knew, Landon was still living with the family. If that's the case, then that means that the family lives somewhere nearby.

Bella… Rayne warned.

Mandy and I are living in Port Angeles. We were walking downtown for some potential building spaces for our bridal shop. He didn't see me, but I saw Landon there, I finally admitted.

And his fiancée, I wanted to say, but I was just being bitter.

Rayne let out a squeal of excitement. You're here?!

Too loud, I complained.

Oh my gosh! I can't believe it. For thirty years no one knew where you would be and now you're just a drive away!

I figured you guys were living somewhere nearby.

We're here in Forks, she announced. Can I please visit you? Pretty pretty please?

Rayne, I don't think that's such a great idea…

PLEASE?!

I flinched, but despite it all, I couldn't help the smile that made it's way upon my face. I missed Rayne a lot too.

Okay, I finally agreed. But I think I just need my space right now. I'll text you the address later.

I'll be waiting! Take care, Bella. I'll see you soon!

I could practically hear the excitement dripping from her voice.

I sighed and let the link between us drop. And once again, I was back on my own. I looked down and saw that I was still clutching the charm bracelet to my chest. I picked up one of the charms. It was a heart that had "B + L" on it. A tear fell right onto the heart.

"Bella," I heard Mandy breathe from behind me. "Oh geez, Bells." She fell onto the floor with me and hugged me to her.

"Did he… did he see you?" I hiccupped through my sobs. I felt her shake her head.

"No, I got out of there as soon as I could. Bella, if you want, we can move again, we can – "

Her words got lost on me as I remembered Rhia's words. I want you to promise me that you're going to stay there no matter what happens.

I shook my head. "No, Mandy. I need to do this. I can't keep running away."

We looked at each other for what seemed like a lifetime. Slowly, she nodded. "Okay," she whispered.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and continued to cry.

The next day, Mandy and I didn't speak another word about what happened the day before. I did tell her, though, that Rayne now knew where we were. As I watched her reaction, I knew that Ives was the first thing that popped into her mind. If the family was around, then it meant that Ives was too.

We called the number on the building space and signed the papers immediately. We just finished up meeting up with the man in charge. We shook hands and the place was ours.

For the past two days, we've busied ourselves into decorating our bridal shop. All of the furniture we've ordered has already come in. We painted the walls a pretty light peach color. It looked beautiful. The furniture was already in the places where we wanted them to be. The only thing we needed now was for the wedding dresses to start coming in.

We've decided to include several brands into our directory, but we also knew that we wanted our very own designs to be on sale.

"Bella, you realize we're going to need another person around here," Mandy had pointed out the other day. I agreed with her. And because of this, we've put up a We're Hiring sign on the door. Several applications have already been sent it, but we have yet to conduct any interviews.

It's now day three of our new space. Mandy and I were in the back room when we heard the jingle of bell on top of our front door.

I walked out only to see none other than Rayne. A huge smile plastered itself onto my face.

"So, I hear that you guys are hiring?" she smirked.

Mandy appeared from behind me and squeaked. "Rayne!"

Just like Mandy, a squeal escaped from my lips. I ran to Rayne and gave her a tight hug.

"Geez, guys, I feel the love." This time it was a deep baritone. A voice that could only belong to –

"Daniel!" I immediately leapt away from Rayne and gave him a huge hug. Daniel became my big brother ever since I met him. He's seriously like the sibling that I never had.

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. "I missed you, Little Sis."

I found it in myself to finally pull back. I grinned.

"How?" I asked Rayne. "I haven't even sent you the address yet."

"When a girl does her research, she can top even the CIA," she said with obvious pride in herself.

Daniel chuckled. "I think she means she looked at the yellow pages for the new bridal shop opening up in Port Angeles, and the two of you came up."

Rayne stuck her tongue out at him. "You take the fun out of everything."

"Oh!" Mandy gestured towards our new couches. "Sit, I'll make you guys some food."

"Thanks, Mandy," Rayne smiled at her.

As Mandy went to the back room, I got comfortable on the couches with Rayne and Daniel. I haven't felt so giddy in such a long time.

"How have you guys been?" I asked.

"How have you been?" Rayne asked instead, turning the question around.

"I'm a lot better than I was a couple of days ago," I admitted.

"I'm sorry that no one told you, Bella," Daniel apologized.

I waved off his apology. "It wasn't any of your jobs to keep me updated. I chose to leave. It's no one's fault but mine."

A quick silence passed between us, but it ended as soon as Mandy reappeared.

"So how's everyone?" she asked, placing the iced tea and sandwiches on the coffee table.

"They're all doing good," Rayne answered. "Actually, no one knows that you're here. Just the two of us."

"Why didn't you tell them?" I asked curiously.

"Well you guys just barely settled in, we didn't want everyone to be visiting you all at the same time," Daniel said.

Rayne agreed. "Yeah, we didn't want to overwhelm you."

I gave them a thankful smile. "Thanks, guys."

"Also, Landon still doesn't know you're here," Daniel added.

At the mention of Landon, I slightly stiffened. I closed my eyes and let the tension roll back my shoulders. I nodded. "I think it's for the best. I wouldn't want to ruin the life he's made for himself."

"But you do realize that he's going to find out at some point," Rayne pointed out.

"Like you said, Bella, you can't keep running away forever," Mandy piped in.

I shrugged, but knew that they were right. "I'll cross that bridge when I get there," I said.

"So when did you guys move to Forks?" Mandy asked.

"We moved back here almost two and a half years ago. Rhia started off as a freshman in high school and Marc was a sophomore," Rayne answered.

"How are they as teenagers?" I asked. I really did miss those two brats.

"You'll see," Daniel chuckled. "We wouldn't want to tell you everything about everyone. I think they're going to want to tell you themselves."

I huffed impatiently, but I understood what he meant. Every day, they all told me how much they wanted to tell me face-to-face how their lives have been. I don't want to take that away from them.

"Okay then, what about the two of you? How have you been?" I inquired instead.

Daniel and Rayne linked their fingers together. "Well, we're still as strong as ever," Rayne said with a smile.

"Thankfully," Daniel added. Rayne glared at him. He responded with a kiss on her cheek. "You love me."

She softened and grinned.

"Not married yet?" Mandy queried.

At this, I saw Daniel's eyes cloud just the slightest bit.

I decided to indulge Mandy's question. "Yeah, it's been eighty years, guys. What are you waiting for? You want to wait for the century mark?" I joked.

Rayne laughed easily. "I'm fine where I am." She looked up at Daniel who seemed like her half agreed and half disagreed with her statement.

"Yeah," he replied, but I could tell there was more to it than he let on. Well, whatever it is, I'll just leave it to him. I decided to drop it.

"Oh, shoot!" Rayne suddenly exclaimed, looking at her watch. "It's almost five. I told Landon that we were going to meet up with him and…" Her eyes widened. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to – "

"Rayne, calm down, it's okay," I assured her, "Really."

At this, we all stood up from the couches. Rayne and Daniel gave me one last hug.

"We just don't want Landon to be suspicious, you know?" Rayne explained.

"You don't have to explain anything to me. I understand, Rayne." And I really did. I wasn't just saying it to make her feel better.

"We'll see you again, Little Sis. Maybe next time we'll have the whole family with us," Daniel said, smiling.

Mandy said her goodbyes to them as well, and soon enough, they were out of sight.

She looked over to me with a concerned look. "You sure you're okay?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yeah."

I turned away so that she wouldn't see the tears building up in my eyes.

The next day, Mandy and I were back in the shop. We've been spending most of our time there, so it really wasn't much of a surprise. We were lounging on the couches, flipping through some bridal magazines.

Much like it had yesterday, the bell jingled once again, announcing the arrival of a customer.

"Good morning, sunshines!"

Both Mandy and I groaned. Mandy fell back against the couch and threw the magazine at the intruder.

"Go away!"

Ohhhh, who could it possibly be? Ya'll should REVIEW and let me know who you think it is. Hint: this someone has said that very line before in If You're a Bird, I'm a Bird :)

Because you guys blew me away with all of your REVIEWS, I thought that I'd return the sentiment and give you a sneak peak of the next chapter. Here it is:

"I indulged their relationship, Bella. You know, I thought she was good for him. She was fixing him in a way that none of us could. But… I didn't expect him to propose to her," she started rambling.

Now, I've got a challenge for you guys, and it's going to be really tough.

To get the next chapter of this story, you guys will have to beat 35 REVIEWS. Ya'll did so great in the last chapter. I believe in you! You can do this!

So, what'cha waiting for? REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!