Well, another chapter. Not as fast an update as the last few have been, but...it was still pretty quick, right?

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okay, go on and read the chapter.


Bella's POV

"Good morning." Someone said as I stirred, beginning to wake up. What? I opened my eyes, blinking in the light from my window. Oh, it was Edward. I'd forgotten he was here…he still had one arm wrapped around me, and reached up to push the hair out of my face with his other hand, smiling.

"Are you awake yet?" he asked, sounding a little amused. I shook my head as I yawned, closing my eyes again. He chuckled softly.

"We slept late, Bells. It's already 9:00, and I have a lesson at 10:00…I'm sorry." He said, really sounding like he didn't want to go. I sighed.

"Do you want to sleep in some more?" I thought about it for a minute. It sounded pretty good, but…not good enough. I shook my head, and opened my eyes again. I bit my lip. This not talking thing was getting pretty annoying. I acted like I was writing something in the air.

"Oh!" Edward said, rolling out of bed and standing up fluidly. I would've just fallen on my butt. He walked over to the bar and picked up the notebook and pencil lying there as I sat up, sitting criss-cross. He handed them both to me and sat back down on the bed again, watching me. I blushed a tiny bit and began writing.

"Could I come with you and just hang out at your place until I have to go to work, please? I won't interrupt your lessons or anything, I promise." I handed it to him and waited while he read it. He smiled as he did.

"Yeah, sure, that's great. Go ahead and change, and we'll go." He said, putting the notebook down and getting out of bed again. His hair was sticking out in all directions, even messier than it usually was. I smiled, and nodded, attempting to slide out of the bed, but, I ended up tumbling to the floor with a thud. Edward laughed before he held out his hand to help me up. I stuck my tongue out at him as I dusted off my backside, then opened my dresser and pulled out another pair of jeans, but instead of a shirt, a long sleeved, navy blue dress. I skipped into the bathroom and changed, also brushing my teeth, washing my face, and brushing my hair, and actually left it down for once. Alice would've been proud of me. To tell the truth, I would've like to sleep some more. The day before had been extremely tiring, but I didn't really want to have to walk to work from the apartment without Edward. I was a little scared, but I wasn't going to tell him that. I came out of the bathroom to find Edward flipping through the limited selection of channels on the TV, his shoes already on. I sat down on my bed, pulled on a pair of socks, then my fur-lined boots. I was about to stand up, then I decided to tuck my jeans into the boots.

Alice would definitely have been proud of me, even if I didn't look all that great. Hey, I was making an effort, that should count for something. I stood up and cleared my throat to let Edward know I was ready. He looked up and smiled, standing up.

"Beautiful." Was all he said, kissing me on the forehead.


I spent my morning reading in Edward's bed room, lying on his bed and listening to him giving his lessons. I could tell when he was playing, and when the student was playing, even though the boy was pretty good. At around 11:00 I heard the front door shut and a minute later, foot steps on the stairs. I looked up from my book, one about Catherine Medici, as Edward sat down beside me.

"Do you want to stay here and order pizza for lunch, or go somewhere?" he asked, his voice shattering the silence like bells, in a good way. I memorized the page number and closed the book before answering.

"Pizza!" I told him with my hands, smiling. Pizza sounded good. Edward laughed, probably because I was acting like I was twelve.

"Okay. What kind?" his eyes were twinkling in an amused way as he spoke. I thought for a minute, then told him,

"Cheese." His sign language vocabulary was big enough that he knew most of the basic food signs, simplifying my life quite a bit. He kept smiling.

"Sounds good, but my half is going to be pepperoni." I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Can I borrow your phone to order it?" he asked. I froze. Crap. I hadn't told him about that yet.

"No." I told him before reaching for my notebook that was sitting on his nightstand and writing while he watched me with a confused look.

"Um…my phone kind of had a fight with your wall yesterday…and the wall won." I wrote, handing it to him with a sheepish look on my own face. He read it, then looked at me with a mixture of horror, amusement, and confusion in his eyes.

"Huh?" he asked, the confusion winning. I sighed and blushed, taking the notebook back.

"I was mad after you left…so I threw it…and it broke." I wrote, then handing it back to him, wondering what his reaction would be. The possibilities that I could think of were-

A. He would roar with laughter (he always reminded me a bit of a lion when he did that) and tell me that I shouldn't have done that, since I now had no phone.

B. He would be shocked, tell me that it wasn't really the poor phone's fault and that I shouldn't have taken it out on it.

C. He would be slightly amused at my anger, amazed that I could throw the phone hard enough to actually break it, ecstatic that this gave him the perfect excuse to buy me a new expensive phone, and appalled that I had walked home last night without a working phone.

I thought that C was the most likely of the three, and I was right. When he was done chewing me out for walking home without a working phone last night he said,

"Well, I guess we get to go phone shopping." He said, grinning and practically bouncing on the bed out of his excitement of the excuse to buy me something.

"No." my left hand said as I glared at him. He sighed, his face falling. I felt a tiny bit guilty…okay, a lot guilty, but I wasn't just going to let him buy me a new phone. I could do it myself.

"I'm going to get my phone and order the pizza. Then, we're going to continue this discussion." He said, standing up. I sighed. I had a feeling he was going to win this one. I went back to my reading. A few minutes later, I felt someone smoothing out my hair, and then kiss the top of my head. I jumped, even though I knew that it was Edward. He laughed softly.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." I rolled my eyes without looking up.

"You're not just going to let this go, are you?" he asked with a sigh, once again sitting down next to me. I shook my head and finally looked up.

Edward, I can get myself a new phone. I don't care, so please, please don't worry about it!" I wrote in the note book, all but throwing it at him. He raised an eyebrow as he read it, making me suspicious.

"Fine." Yeah, he was up to something.

I knocked on the door to Edward's office/lesson room at 1:45, pulling on my jacket. Both he and the five year old girl he was teaching looked up at me.

"I'm going to go now…see you later?" I traced the words with my hands, feeling like I was being rather rude, since the little girl couldn't understand me. Edward nodded, smiling.

"Yeah. I'll get done around 7:00, then I have to go and drop something of Alice's off for her, then I'll get dinner, so I'll be kind of late. What do you want me to pick up?"

"Chinese."

"Okay. Be careful. Love you." He crossed the room in a few long strides and kissed my cheek, ignoring the giggles of little girl at the piano. I smiled and left them to their lessons.


The bells on the shop door tinkled and the sounds of New York City came in through the open door.

"Isabella!" a familiar voice said cheerfully, in a perfect Italian accent. I smiled and grabbed my marker board.

"Mr. Frank!" I wrote, holding it up for him to see. He hadn't been around for quite a while, I was glad to see him. But, something was wrong. I could see it in his eyes. Even though he was smiling, his eyes showed me that he was devastated on the inside.

"Oh…what's the matter?" I wrote, hoping against hope that it wasn't what I thought it was.

He sighed, all traces of fake happiness fading from his face.

"Oh, Bella. Delia is gone." He said, his voice heavy with the loss. I set down my voice, the board and marker, and walked around the counter. I hugged him tightly, feeling my tears spill over. It was at times like these when I was a little grateful that I didn't speak, because I wasn't expected to say anything comforting. I felt his body start to shake with sobs, and before I knew it, he was crying. I could feel my own heart break over his misery. I couldn't imagine it…Mr. Frank had told me their story. They had been married when he was nineteen and she was eighteen. They had been together so long, and now they had been torn apart.

And what was more, I knew that this was a goodbye visit. Mr. Frank didn't plan to out live Delia by much. I didn't expect him to run a knife through his heart, or jump out of fifth story window, or any dramatic suicide. But I could feel it. His will to live was draining out of him, even now. He wouldn't last much longer without her.

I was going to lose him, the man who had been the grandfather I'd never had for a few short months, very, very soon.

"I miss her Isabella. I miss her…so much." The old man sobbed. I cried with him, for his loss, because there was nothing that I could do for him, and because he was leaving me.

"I…I wanted you to have this, Isabella." He was the only person I allowed to call me Isabella. It sounded like it was right when he said it. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a fat book, then held it out to me. I took it, carefully.

"Don't open it until I'm gone." He said, pulling me into his arms and hugging me tightly for another long minute before he turned and without another word, walked back out into the streets of the city, where he didn't have anyone who cared the least bit about him.

I looked down at the book in my hands. It looked like a journal. I wiped my eyes, trying to stop new tears from coming, and walked back around to the other side of the counter, sitting down on my stool and opening it. It was handwriting, in Mr. Frank's neat, simple printing.

"My Dear Isabella,

Enclosed in this little book, is a brief story of my life, and Delia's, and several pictures of both of ours.

I love you like one of my own children.

Don't feel like you weren't enough to keep me here. No, it wasn't you. I never planned to live long without Delia, and she felt the same. We've just been together too long to be separated.

We're not really gone. Our memory lives on, in your heart, in this book, in our biological family.

Don't feel sad for me, but it's okay to cry. There's no harm in a few tears. Just remember that this is what I want, and that I'm always happier when I'm with her.

Love,

Frank Lababera

I shut the book as the bells tinkled again, another customer. I wanted to read the book alone. It was just to special to share right away.

This was going to be a long, long day.


Okay, seriously, I cried while I wrote that. It was just so sad....*sniff* I'm going to miss Mr. Frank.

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