Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

Author's note at the end.

Put the ball down slowly before you smash your toes, idiot. For once, I actually listened to my 'voice'. I slowly let my arm fall to my side, and I could feel the weight of the bowling ball pulling on my hand. But then I realized that my hand was being tugged on.

"Edward? Edward, can you hear me? Please say something, or at least blink if you can hear me. Damn it, don't make me slap you," I heard a distant voice but complied and blinked. Once I blinked, I was brought out of my state of shock and realized that the distant voice was Bella.

I looked down at Bella and saw that she looked worried. I shook my head slightly and looked around the bowling alley. Bella grabbed my chin and gently turned my head back to face her, "Edward, you need to tell me if you're okay. Please, I need to know what just happened to you. You completely froze on me, what the hell?"

I kept staring at her, trying to come up with words to let her know that I was fine, but if she wanted the answer to her question, we would have to go somewhere else.

"I'm fine, Bella. But if you want me to answer your question, we need to go somewhere else," I answered. Well, that wasn't so hard, now was it? Not now, please.

Bella nodded, let go of my chin and said, "Okay, well, let's exchange our shoes and go somewhere." I nodded, placed my hand on the small of her back, and we made our way to the shoe counter. Once we exchanged our shoes, I led Bella out of the building and to my car.

When we were both in, I turned on the car and started driving towards my neighborhood. Bella was the first to break the silence.

"Edward? I know you're not kidnapping me or anything but, can you at least tell me where we're going?" I turned my head to look at her and saw that she was looking back at me with curious eyes. I gave her a small smile, turned back to face the road, and answered, "We're heading towards my neighborhood. There's a small park near my apartment that I like to go to when I want to think. Is that okay?"

I could hear the smile in her voice when she said, "That's fine with me." We spent the rest of the ten minute ride in comfortable silence. When I saw the park, I pulled into the small parking lot and turned off the car. Bella and I got out of the car and I motioned her with my head to follow me. I led her over to the swings and sat down on one. When I saw she was still standing, I waved my hand at the swing next to mine and teased, "It's perfectly stable, you know. It won't break if you sit on it."

She gave me a mocking smile and sat on her swing. We sat there in silence for about ten minutes before Bella broke the silence by softly asking, "So, are you going to tell me why you froze on me at the bowling alley or are we just gonna sit here and remember the good ole days?" I turned my head to look at her and saw that she had a small, comforting smile on her face.

I gave her a weak smile and turned back to look straight ahead. I thought about her question, took a deep breath and replied, "I'll explain everything to you just let me collect my thoughts for a minute. Please?" She chuckled and said, "Edward, you don't have to ask my permission. I understand that this is something very personal, so don't worry about it."

I turned to her, rolled my eyes in a playful manner and chuckled. I stared straight ahead again and thought where I should start. How about at the beginning? That's normally a good place to start. Surprisingly enough, there was no sarcasm from my 'voice.' Yeah, don't get too comfortable with that.

I started talking, just letting the words flow from my mouth, "After I graduated high school, I went to NYU and declared my major in Criminal Justice. Once I graduated, I realized that I really wanted to be a cop. I wanted to help people and I figured, what better way to keep people safe than to become a cop? I enrolled in the police academy in New York and I become an official police officer when I was 21.

I was accepted into the NYPD right after I graduated from the academy and I had a partner to show me the ropes. His name was Jacob Black," I smiled a little, remembering how Jacob acted like a kid but was really ten years older than me.

"He was so much fun to be around but he was serious when he needed to be. I respected him like I respect my father. When I was 23, I had the choice to stay with a partner or go on patrol on my own. I decided to stay with Jacob as a partner and he was glad to still have me," I started getting a little chocked up because of what I was about to tell Bella.

I took a deep breath and kept going, "One night, we were on patrol and we got a call from dispatch asking if we could check out a house because there was a phone call from someone saying there neighbors were being too loud. So we headed over to the house, it was in a really nice neighborhood so we figured it was some teenagers having a party, but when we pulled up to the house, there were only two cars in front of the house. We walked up to the front door and Jacob knocked announcing who we were. We could hear arguing from the other side of the door and Jacob knocked again.

Nobody answered and he was about to knock one more time when we heard a woman scream. We pulled out our guns and Jake had me kick down the door. When we got in the house, the arguing and screaming stopped but we could hear someone crying. Jake motioned for me to go ahead of him and see how many people were there. I walked ahead of him and towards the end of the hall towards the crying. From behind me I could hear Jake requesting backup and giving our location. There was a bedroom door that was open and the light was on so I kind of peeked in and I could see a blond man standing over another guy with a gun in his hand. The guy he was standing over was on the floor holding a woman and it didn't look like she was moving.

I turned around to walk back towards Jake to tell him what I saw, but when I saw him, there was someone holding a knife to his throat and Jake had his hands raised but no gun," I stopped talking for a minute because of the lump in my throat. I blinked my tears back and started to talk again.

"I was about to tell the guy to drop the knife, but before I could he swiped the knife across Jake's throat and I fired my gun before I could react to anything else. I got a clean shot to the guy's forehead, but unfortunately, the sound of my gun going off caused the blond guy in the bedroom to come running out to see what was going on. When I turned around, it all felt like slow motion. I saw him raise his gun and point it at me so I raised mine. He managed to get a shot first and I thought he missed. I shot off a round and got him in one kneecap so he fell. I walked over to him and kicked his gun away from him.

Once I made sure he wasn't getting up, I ran over to Jake and tried to stop the bleeding. He managed to croak out, 'Make sure you tell my wife I love her. I'm proud of you, Ed.' That was the last thing he said to me. The backup that was requested finally showed up and they took the suspect into custody. Jake was put in a body bag, as was the female in the bedroom. Turns out it was a robbery gone wrong and when the couple came home they were attacked and the blond guy shot the wife.

I was taken to the hospital because I did get shot and I felt the pain once the adrenaline wore off. I gave my statement and all that jazz at the hospital and didn't say anything after that. Jake's wife, Vanessa, or Nessie as she was referred to, was told that her husband had been shot and killed on duty.

The day of Jake's funeral, Nessie asked me if I would sit with her and her daughter at the cemetery. I had yet to speak to anyone since that night and when everything was over, Nessie and I stayed behind. She turned to me and said, 'You know, he always talked about you like he was talking about his son. He was so proud of you and everything you did. I'm really glad he had you in those last moments, Edward. Thank you.' That was all it took to break me. I sobbed on Nessie's shoulder for what felt like a long time. Once I stopped, I turned to her and told her what Jake said to me right before he passed.

I resigned from the NYPD and came back here to Chicago. I still keep in touch with Nessie and her daughter Jasmine. I always send Jasmine a Christmas gift and I always get a handwritten letter as thanks. My parents knew everything that happened so they welcomed me back and comforted me as best they could. Jasper offered me a job at his shop and here I am now. On a date with a beautiful woman and telling her something that only my family and close friends know."

I turned to look at Bella and saw tears in her eyes. She sniffled a little and stood up off her swing. She walked over to me, squatted down in front of me and said, "I'm so sorry, Edward," and she leaned forward and hugged me. This is what needed that night, though I'm sure I would have rejected it.

This feels nice. Don't ruin this for me, please. I was just going to say you were right. About what? I think God kind of likes you.

Author's note: Sorry for the wait, guys. School has been kicking my ass and I needed to type this up but had no time. Shout out to my best friend Rey because her birthday was Tuesday (11/10), my cousin Nina whose birthday was Wednesday (11/11), and my cousin Damien who turned 16 on Tuesday (11/17). Congrats, all.

Thank you to those who reviewed and added me to their favorites/alerts. It means a lot that you guys like my little story.

As far as updating goes, I don't have a set schedule, but I'm shooting for once a week. Again, school is starting to wind down and teachers are starting to schedule more tests, so I ask that you please be patient with me.

One quick note, I have no idea if NYU has Criminal Justice as a major, but this is FanFiction for a reason, so forgive me if I'm wrong with my information.

Thank you, and please don't forget to review! [=