Author's Note: So my friends, it was a productive writing weekend. I got not just one but TWO chapters done, so there will be another update later this week :) A big thanks to my beta A Good Witch for getting these back to me the same day I sent them to her! Hope you enjoy and thanks again for all of the loves and reviews!

Chapter 6

I'm the woman who helped her ex find a dining room table when he had to get a new place, so of course I went for the cookies. I baked a dozen chocolate chip cookies just in case he had a nut allergy or something. I left the kids at home just in case my trip went south and walked across the street to knock on the door. I knocked twice and waited for a bit, but he never answered.

Anticipating this possibility, I'd written a note to put with the cookies. It was a simple thank you for helping us message and we hoped he was feeling better. I really didn't know what else to say. I pulled it out of my back pocket and left both items on the porch and went back home.

I'm not sure when he got them off the porch, but by the time the kids and I left for work and school the next morning, they were no longer on his porch.

Over the next few months, I didn't even see Emmett come and go from his house, but my lawn did get mowed one more time before it all went dormant in early November. I respected his apparent wish not to encounter us and didn't do anything to thank him that time, but the arrival of Thanksgiving was something I couldn't ignore. Nobody should be alone on the holidays, especially someone as lost as Emmett. This time I brought pumpkin pie and a card inviting him over. Again, he didn't come.

A few days later, I finally approached Edward about moving forward with the divorce. Before his move to his new apartment, on some level or other, I was waiting and hoping he might somehow miraculously grow up and consider working things out again. I just wasn't ready to close that door forever. I also didn't want to divorce him while he was still living in such a precarious position. When his living arrangements went up in the air, it was that defining moment for me, and once he was finally settled into a lease somewhere more permanent, I decided it was time to address our next steps again.

I'd actually met with a divorce attorney about a year before when he first pulled a fast one with the tax money, pulling it all into a savings account he had opened at another bank without my name attached.

It was also around that time that he suddenly gave me a call while I was in the middle of the dollar store with "bad news." I thought he was going to tell me he was laid off from work or something. Instead, he told me he met somebody and wanted to give it a go and he'd promised me he would tell me first. Within the hour, he was facebook official with this freaky chick that looked like she stepped out of a goth convention. Basically, the anti-Bella. His poor family was so upset by it, especially his Mom, since neither of us had really told anyone that he'd told me in a text that he wanted a divorce. I didn't feel like it was up to me to update them. He was too ashamed to, so instead he flaunted it with facebook chick.

It didn't even last 24 hours before he broke it off and tried to sell me some story about how they'd chatted and then met for dinner and a movie as friends and then she facebook relationshipped him that night and he didn't want to hurt her feelings so he accepted. I pretended to buy his story just for the sake of peace, but I was 99% sure he'd slept with her and believed he had found a screw buddy and then, big surprise, she believed it was more. It didn't really matter because, at that point, I was done.

The lawyer was going to eat up every bit of my half of the tax money, but I just wanted it over. Instead, he begged me to wait and for us to negotiate it ourselves so it would be cheaper. I agreed, but typical Edward, never put forth any effort in actually negotiating anything. So, I had to set up the one meeting we had which barely dealt with anything we were facing, outline the things we would work through, and take us step by step through discussing each item and making notes, which I emailed to him so he could look at them more later. After that, I let things slide just because it was financially better for me to stay married. There were benefits like insurance coverage, no taxes on the support he was giving me since it was considered marital property not income and we were still able to file our taxes as married. There was also no looming expiration date on the spousal support that I relied very heavily on to make ends meet and keep us in our house. The excuses were probably pathetic and put major dents in my pride, but practicality was the order of the day and remained so until he was ensconced in his new apartment.

I gave him three months before I sent the kids to go stay with their Grandma and asked him if I could come over so I could bring up the subject. It was so typical of Edward to so shocked by my proclamation.

"What's the big rush, Bella? I mean, I don't have any reason to push for it. It's not like I'm getting married again or anything. Isn't it easier this way?"

I nodded. "In some ways, yes, but I can't stay in this limbo forever just because it's the safe option. I'm stuck, Edward. You may have no qualms about doing whatever you feel like, but I cannot move on with my life and look myself in the mirror. I'm only thirty-five. I'm plenty young enough to live a full and fruitful life. Maybe I'll find love again, maybe not, but as long as I stay in this situation, I know I never will, because my conscience would never allow it. I set you free to find yourself, and you found yourself away from us and our home. Now it's time to set myself free. I need to do this, for me, for my life, for my future. I'm giving you two months to meet up and negotiate what we can and you need to be the one to organize and spearhead it. If we haven't sorted it out by the first week of February, I'm going to hire a lawyer and present you with papers that you can hire your own lawyer to counter."

He frowned and shook his head as he reached out for me. "Bella, this feels wrong."

"NO," I shouted as I took a step back. "What feels wrong is being married to someone who doesn't love me enough to work out our problems and live under the same roof as me. What feels wrong is feeling like the lone adult in a marriage for ten years and doing everything on my own. What feels wrong is to hold onto something you threw away two and a half years ago. Have you heard that song on the radio "Say Something" with Christina Aguilera?"

He shook his head. "Well, it's about someone waiting for the person they love to speak up and reach out or they are giving up on them. You should listen to it sometime, because I feel like someone dug into my soul, yanked out the last five years of my life, and turned it into a song, Edward! I'm done!"

I'd done so well keeping it together up to that point, but then my voice started cracking as the tears began to leak out. "I just can't keep living life this way. I can't keep being there for you. It's not fair for you to have your cake and eat it too, while I maybe get a few crumbs…if that." My tears turned to sobs. "I'm tired, Edward. I. Just. Can't. Anymore."

Edward stood there, watching me cry with a lost look on his face.

"Bella…I don't want this."

"Well, Edward, I haven't wanted the last five years. We don't all get what we want."

We stood in awkward silence for a while. Finally, I shifted toward the door. "Well, that's pretty much all I wanted to talk to you about tonight. I need to go home and get some house cleaning done before the kids come back tomorrow. Um, let me know when and how you want to proceed with negotiations or whatever."

He followed me. "Bella, wait."

"I've been waiting, Edward. For two and a half years, I've been waiting. I think that's long enough, don't you?"

Without giving him a chance to say more, I opened the door and walked down the stairs to the main entry way. I closed the door quietly behind me so I wouldn't disturb his elderly neighbor and climbed into the van.

I wiped my eyes as I let it idle, feeling a mixture of sadness and relief to have finally started forward momentum again. Just before I pulled away, I glanced up at the window to see Edward staring down from his living room. I could tell he was crying. I think it was the first time he'd cried over me since the whole mess began. I'd held him lots of time while he cried over missing the kids and feeling guilty when one of them would say they wished he still lived with us. EJ was the master of bringing on the water works because he would tell him he remembered when he lived with us and it was the happiest time of his life. There had been many, many tears over the kids, but never once was that emotion about what he had done to me or how he had damaged his relationship with me. Unfortunately for him, it was too little too late.