Please don't hate me! I'm sorry I haven't updated in what's probably been literally months, I should have warned you. I'm getting married this weekend! Finally. I've been so tied up in my wedding, I haven't given anyone not in the wedding a second glance, so I apologize gravely for that. At the moment, I have free time (crazy, I know) and I wrote something up. You guys deserve better than that, but I'm typing on my soon-to-be-husband's laptop and I don't have my story setup, so I didn't want to be completely off on the story. It's a short chapter, but hopefully we'll be moving along soon after I'm married. I have no idea how long our honeymoon is, since Alex (my soon-to-be-husband) says it's a surprise and he's fixed the whole thing with my boss and everything. Stupid romantic nerdy fiancé. I promise I'll let you know how long when I find out.

Thank you x a million and sixteen for all the alerts and favorites. I did notice my email exploding with messages from . It's so cool to know people enjoy the things that go through my head.

Last of all, this chapter isn't too exciting, but it gives some background on Bella and Edward.

My dad is the police chief of Forks. He takes care of most of the 'crime' that goes on. When we moved here, the town was happy to take him on and he was happy to let them. I remember the day he told me and I ran into the living room where my mother was sitting in front of the window. She jumped when I said "Mom?" and when she turned around to look at me; it was as if she didn't know who I was. I guess even then she was thinking about leaving.

She didn't; not right then, but she did when I was six. Since then, it's been Charlie and me except for the few times he'd meet someone and we got to pretend we were a "family" for a few days. Charlie's never been good with women. I never cared to remember the names of most of them.

After them was Esme, whom Charlie met when I was eight on a business trip in Seattle over the summer. I remember the smile on Charlie's face when he came back. He looked twenty years younger. "Guess what, Bells?" he'd said, the excitement leaking into his words. I waited expectantly and he continued. "We're going to be a family again!"

For one crazy stupid second, I thought Mom had come back. That she'd decided she missed us, that she'd thought about Charlie and me, and wanted to be with us. But then Charlie said, "Her name is Esme and, Bella, you're going to love her." That was the end of that.

The relationship worked for three years. The first few weeks Edward and I avoided each other, only mumbling a little when forced to converse at the dinner table. But then one night Charlie said, "Bells, will you pass the rolls to Edward? He hasn't eaten one," and Edward said, "I said I didn't want any earlier," at the same time I said, "He already said he didn't want any." It seemed that after that we got along.

By the time Charlie and Esme's relationship got really bad, when the arguments were no longer about how Charlie stunted Esme's creative side or how Esme never cleaned up the messes she left behind after a painting, I knew that Edward's favorite book was the same as mine, Treasure Island; that he hated Sprite but loved 7-Up; and that his father had died in a car accident when he was five. He knew I would eat lasagna for every meal if I could, that I hated bees, and that my mother had left and hadn't written or anything.

We were friends. I still remember the look of utter interest when I was talking, as if it was important to catch everything I said. Not even Esme did that. Actually, not even Charlie did that. I remember how Edward cried the time we found a bird's nest in the backyard and the mother bird's body on the ground, mauled by a cat, and he tried to save the eggs. They never hatched. And when I wrecked my bike while riding lazy loops around the driveway, listening to Charlie and Esme having a tense 'discussion' through the open kitchen window, he helped me inside and got me a Band-Aid, and took the blame when Esme wanted to know who'd gotten the bike into the front garden.

We had our fights, of course. He took too much time on the computer and made sure to make fun of the 'crappy shows' I watched on TV. I made fun of his hair in turn—"It's like a girl's, all shiny and soft"—but I secretly wished my own was like it, glossy and smooth as a new penny. I never told him, of course. He teased me about my eyes being boring and brown and the color of things better left unmentioned. Still, after every fight, one of us apologized. Charlie and Esme never did that.

It was inevitable that Esme would leave. After those three years, we limped through Christmas and a disastrous Valentine's Day. It was exactly three months before Edward's birthday, a date I'd marked on our kitchen calendar in a blue gel pen with a smiley face, the day they left. Esme had packed up everything in boxes and Charlie called angrily from the sitting room that there'd better not be anything missing. From the look on Esme's face, Charlie might as well have hit her. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmingly protective of her, the closest thing to a mother I'd had since my own had left years ago. "Shut up, Charlie! Don't talk to her like that!" I screamed before I could stop myself. This was when I started calling him by his first name. My real dad never spoke to women in that way. I ran from the room, crying, and shut myself upstairs in my room. Soon after, Edward came knocking at the door.

After Edward left my room I counted how long it would be before the car would back up into the road and take off. Two minutes, four seconds. In the end, Esme had one thing in common with Renee. She couldn't leave fast enough either.

I haven't seen Edward since that day. I asked Charlie about him once, a month after I declared myself able to move on. He said, "Who?" and then, "Oh, yeah, Edward. He's fine, Bells. Perfectly fine." It wasn't news to me that grownups could lie, but the fact that Charlie could forget someone he claimed was family only a few months earlier made me feel horrible. Afraid. I didn't ask about Edward again.

I found out what happened though. Esme moved out of the state. I read the letter she'd sent Charlie that he wouldn't let me read but was dumb enough to throw away without shredding. Though she didn't say where she was and I didn't have the envelope, she said she lived in a place where it was "sunny and the atmosphere was bright for her career." Washington isn't sunny.

OOOO

"Bella." My eyes snapped open at the sound of my name dripping like syrup over his lips.

"Edward?" I squinted in the dark at his moonlit form, at the piercing brightness of his eyes even in almost no light. I leaned over and flipped on my lamp but when I turned back he wasn't in front of my bed. I looked around wildly. He wasn't even in my room. Oh God, I was going insane; hearing voices-one voice, to be precise-and hallucinating about gorgeous men-again, one man-had to classify as crazy. I needed to stop thinking about him. I groaned and glanced at the alarm clock. Only midnight? After another groan I turned off the lamp and tried to burrow back to sleep, tried to forget about my possible insanity. For the last week, Edward drove me to school, though I didn't trust myself to be responsible in a car with Edward. After that Friday night, my feelings for him had only intensified. He, however, acted like nothing had happened. If it weren't for the softer smirks he gave me and the decreasing amount of sarcastic comments over the last few days, I might have believed I'd dreamed the night in the meadow.

He drove me home after school every day too, but he never spoke about what happened and I was too afraid to start. Then Friday, yesterday, I decided I'd at least say something.

"So what kind of music do you listen to?" Oh God, Bella, that's what you can come up with?

Edward seemed to be thinking the same thing because he laughed and if I had a serious staring problem before, it was worse now. When he laughed his whole face lit up and when he looked over at me again his grin was relaxed, sunny, and his bright green eyes were sparkling.

For the rest of the ride we talked about music. "I belonged to a garage band for a while back in California."

I turned to him, surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah. Not a good band, though."

"Not all garage bands are," I agreed, "What instrument did you play?"

"Triangle."

His face remained serious but I giggled anyway. "Triangle?"

The seriousness took on a mock hurt expression. "It was an experimental band."

"Sure, sure." I turned in my seat to face him and tilted my head a little to the side, studying him. "Let me guess: you played keyboards."

He looked at me for a moment and flashed me an amused grin. "How'd you guess?"

"Remembering that at Christmas you wouldn't stop playing that cheap keyboard you got. I still can't listen to anyone play Chopsticks."

"Oh, c'mon. We all know you envy my super awesome natural talent."

"Yeah, it takes an absolute prodigy to mess up a song with four notes in it."

He sighed, his eyes distant, as if looking at something very far away. "I really loved that thing, but Mom threw it away after we left. Said it reminded her too much of—" He fell silent. We both did. We both knew how that sentence was going to end. Charlie had bought Edward the keyboard and it reminded Esme of him.

"So what happened to the band?" I cleared my throat in a hurry to change the direction of the subject.

"Split up."

"Why?"

"Because I moved here," he said.

"Oh," I say. "Sorry." I wanted to ask where he's been, about Esme's letter long ago, how he ended up there and then back here, but I could tell mentioning anything related to Charlie wasn't a good idea.

He shrugged. "It's fine. With the internship and school, I don't have time for it anyway."

"Oh." We turned onto my street. I didn't want our conversation to end like this. I didn't want it to end. "So, internship?" I tried to think of the limited jobs he could intern in Forks. I worked at the outdoors equipment store; there were other stores, small shops, cafes, and the grocery store, but I hadn't seen him at any and couldn't imagine he had to or would want to intern at any.

I looked at him and he smiled. I've got an internship with someone at the hospital, Dr. Carlisle.

"Oh, yeah, he's a pretty nice guy." I blushed unwillingly, remembering the multiple times I'd paid him a visit during my clumsier days. I was surprised I hadn't been there for a while. I guess Mike keeps me in line, for the most part. Mike. "Umm, well, I should go. My dad is probably gonna be here soon and he's cranky if dinner's not there," I laughed forcibly.

Suddenly everything, being in the car, the conversation we'd been having, felt awkward. Edward ran his hand through the mess of bronze hair and turned away from me. "Uh, yeah, sure. I'll see you."

I did feel a little hurt that he wouldn't look at me. Without thinking, my hand found its way to his on the steering wheel. "I'll see you in Bio tomorrow." He gave me a sideways glance and finally cracked a smile, turning his hand over so our fingers locked. His hand squeezed mine briefly and then he leaned over.

My heart went into overdrive, though in the back of my mind I knew it shouldn't have. Is he going to kiss me? Oh god, I hope so. No, stop it, Bella!

Luckily, and much to my disappointment, he leaned past me and smirked. "Who's on your porch?"

What?

I shoved his face back playfully, earning a muffled "Ow!" "Oh. It's Angela. I wonder what she's doing here?"

"Go find out. See ya."

I laughed and opened the car door. "See ya."

Reviews would be as delicious as your name falling from Edward's lips. C'mon, we all know how delicious that would be.

Love,

PianoAddict246

or

Emily Grace