A/N: I can't believe I've finished this chapter! I was so happy to see some people actually put this story on alert. Trust me, I'm just as hopeful for this story as you are! All identifiable characters belong to Stephenie Meyer, & no copyright infringement is intended! Some quotes from the UHMAYYZINNN' "Daughter of Smoke & Bone" novel by Laini Taylor are in here, & no copyright infringement is intended! Tell me what you think!

Forks Cemetery held an eerie entrance, replete with well-worn stones and a defined footpath leading to the resting place of so many who'd lived what Bella considered the worst tragedy imaginable: To have been born and died in Forks.

En route to Renee's house the past few days, she felt she couldn't recognize why she was headed back to the town that saw her blossom in the first half of her life. But in the utter solidarity of the first-class plane seat by the window, she had to face herself. Something which she hated more than the half-hearted attempts many geezers made to try and get her number. Or her body. In that plane seat, though, she told herself she was going back to check on Renee. After all, it'd been almost ten years since she'd last seen her, and over five years since she'd last had contact with her.

In all sincerity, it'd been the single age spot she'd found under her right eye during one of her daily, meticulous bodily inspections opposite the mirror behind Mark Young's bathroom door. She was nearing thirty; she supposed it would be another ten years before aging caught up to her. She'd been careful, eating like a supermodel, exercising as if she were an Olympian in training, applying sunscreen on every visible part of her body before she walked out into the cities' varying degrees of pollution and sun exposure. It seemed, though, that despite all her regimens and careful treatment of the body that kept her materially satisfied, her age, which she never divulged to the foolish, unsuspecting lovers she encountered, was indeed catching up to her. She'd irrationally held fast to the mantra instilled in her from the unlikeliest source—her freshman English Literature teacher at USC. He'd been the dreamy, absolutely sexy English teacher high school girls like Bella that adored the likes of Mr. Darcy, longed for. He'd been her first carnal sexual encounter, something that should have gotten her kicked out of the university for sure if his wife had told. Luckily for all parties involved, she kept her mouth shut, deciding a divorce would prove more of a hassle than never letting Mr. Roland forget his momentary fall into the willing arms of Isabella Swan.

To this day, Mr. Roland had been the best of lovers, shaming even those who showered her with gifts and baubles. The way he took her unreservedly and shamelessly on the classroom desk where he pondered the genius of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen wearing hints of a crooked smile on the lips she loved to caress when they fucked. It was just that, she later realized. Nothing but a good fuck. She wasn't one to complain though, after all, it was the mantra that he'd disclosed the last day she saw him so many years ago that led her to the lifestyle that supported her now.

"I don't know many rules to live by," he said. "But here's one. It's simple. Don't put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles—drug or tattoo—and… no inessential penises, either."

"Really, Pete? No inessential penises?" she asked in disbelief. He'd just ended it and she worried about what she'd do without the man who'd brought her to the brink of pleasure for so long now. Raising a hand to caress her hair, he insisted, "You have to understand. I'm married. You knew tha—"

"—the hell I knew! You said it was nothing serious, that she was just a girl, and that I wa—I am the only one." Unwilling to give in to the painful resignation she knew would come, she awaited his response.

He took a deep breath.

Slightly narrowed his eyes.

Sighed.

"But you were okay with being the other girl."

It would be such a long time before she got over Pete Roland's heartbreak. For so long, she hunched around, unwilling to accept the rejection, the tear-inducing refusal. Leaving Jake was minute in comparison to Pete's goodbye. Jake couldn't stand against Pete's rough fingertips and possessive hands. What she and Jake had done had been in the dark, with The Smashing Pumpkins silently playing to their child-like sex. It couldn't possibly compare. That is why Bella never considered returning to Jake's impossibly happy self, a happy self she, no doubt, broke real bad. She thought that Pete had finally filled that emptiness within. But not Pete, and especially not Jake, ever did the task. She thought, facing the mirror of her college dorm,

I deserve better than this.

I need better than this.

And thus, Isabella Swan became Isabella Dwyer and willingly gave herself to those worth her time. There were a select few of those, who loved her, were bewitched by her, mystified by the mystery she was. She never said where she came from, what she did, where she'd studied. No, she was there for the superficial. That's all that she could ever get from them, and what she convinced herself could satisfy the cavernous emptiness.

Then there was that silly shit Pete had dared to tell her right before he marched off.

"Inessential penises?" Bella repeated, delighted with his words despite her grief. "Is there any such thing as an essential one?"

"When an essential one comes along, you'll know," he replied.

An essential one?

It appeared that though he'd only known her for about a year, Pete Roland had been dead on in his observations. Isabella Swan lacked, craved a presence beside her, solid.

Fingertips light at the nape of her neck and a voice meeting hers in the dark. Someone who would wait with an umbrella to walk her home in the rain, and smile like sunshine when he saw her coming. Who would dance with her on a balcony, keep his promises and know her secrets, and make a tiny world wherever he was, with just her and his arms and his whisper and her trust.

And all those days of utter lonesomeness, even if she was surrounded by people on the outside, thanks to the man lying in the grave in front of her. She sighed as she sat atop his grave, disregarding all politeness in regards to a grave. He was dead and he'd left so many years before he'd done so. Who was he to demand respect? Besides, there was no one around to start off a chain of whispers in town about "that damned man Charlie's grave and his daughter—who hasn't been back in town at all for a few years, mind you—sitting on top of it, can you believe it?!" And even if they did start their whispering, which Bella had come to expect, she'd hold her head high and ignore absolutely all it. She'd grown too emotionally detached in the years she'd left Forks to allow anything to get to her.

It hurt Bella to see there were no flowers, not even wilted ones, atop Charlie's grave. By the looks of the dirty, grimy headstone, it appeared no one had bothered to visit lately, either. She felt silly talking to a grave, but found an odd comfort long forgotten, an odd comfort she hadn't felt since the late-night lovemaking with Pete or the easygoing conversations with Jake so many years past.

"I don't know where to go. Who to talk to."

The way her voice broke at the end wasn't lost on her and she shed a tear, hoping the hopes she held on to for so long as a happy child and later as a bitter teenager. Hoping that there'd been a father figure in her life, that Renee had found someone else regardless of Charlie's betrayal and departure. Because if there'd been someone there to guide her, to advise her on how a woman should be loved, cared for, cherished, she wouldn't have had the need to go out there and find it with other men.

The waterworks intensified with the self-recognition that a plan to stay satisfied through many other men could only work for so long and that that plan was inevitably reaching its limit.

There was absolutely no way anyone not within a five feet radius could recognize the agony in Isabella's posture and tears. Someone would have to have been right beside her to see the way that she hugged herself tight and the way she silently wept was for a life she never had—and never could.

But not a mile from where Isabella Swan rocked herself in a momentary flash of misery and hopelessness stood a vampire who was fighting a war within to soothe the beast and give in to the venom-inducing, best-thing-you-have-ever-tasted scent before him. A war that would decide the fate of the two creatures at Forks Cemetery that day.

A/N: Dun-dun-DUNNNN! Who's this mysterious vampire ? I think we can all take a guess! Well, lovelies, Spring Break's done with, and I may not update until next weekend since life always has this thing about getting in the way! No worries, though, I won't leave you hanging for too long.

Song Recommendation for Chapter 2: This time, it's

Hometown Glory by Adele.

'Cause Adele is the Queen and it happened to be playing while I was writing this:)

Don't forget to review & lemme know anything!

Till next time!