Hello! Sorry for the delay. You can read more in my AN at the end of the chapter. Heads up: I promise you: HEA. NO CHEATING.

Also, just like Part 1, we'll be starting Part 2 in the present and then backtracking to lead up to the event that starts the chapter. I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated (I know, real life can really suck sometimes).

On with the show.

Part 2

Ten Years Later

"This is not how I pictured this day going," Edward says as he slowly pulls into my driveway and brings his car to a stop.

I am frozen, unable to answer him as the shock at what my eyes are seeing has taken over all functions of my body.

"What is he doing here?" I hear myself whisper after what seems like an eternity of silence. My voice is weak with uncertainty and guilt, and I shake my head in horror and disbelief as my biggest nightmare readies itself to take center stage on my parent's front lawn. I drop my eyes to my lap, squeezing them tightly in hopes that everything and everyone, namely the man on the porch steps, would disappear.

"Edward, I am so sorry. I had no idea -"

"You don't have to apologize, Bella." His voice is as low as I feel, so different than how it sounded moments before we turned onto my street and into my driveway.

"Yes. I do." I can't look up at him. I know the tears will start the minute I do. I keep my eyes closed but the tears come anyway. Two big drops slide out of my eyes and down my cheek before I can stop them. I wipe them away quickly. I whisper, "I don't know what to do."

"I think he does." I can hear the disdain seeping out of his words, and I look up and see him staring at Tyler. He is still sitting on the steps but Edward is right. The look on Tyler's face says it all. Without words, Edward and I both know why Tyler has left New York and is sitting on my parent's porch in Forks.

"I have to talk to him." I try to gather the courage for the shit show that is about to happen. I have no idea what I plan on saying, and I already know that whatever words I do manage to say will not help the current situation at hand.

I'm staring out the window imagining the different scenarios in my head when Edward breaks the silence in the car.

"Do you love him?" Gone is the whispered gentleness of his words from last night and this morning, and it is replaced with blunt and gruff tones that break my heart into pieces all over again. His childhood shield is back in place and I hate it. All of it. The shield, the wedding, the ex-fiancé that decides now is a great time to show up unannounced.

"It's complicated." I tuck my hair behind my ear and keep my eyes focused on my lap, knowing that my words aren't going to be good enough for Edward right now.

"It's only as complicated as you let it be."

"It's not that simple."

He runs his hands through his hair in frustration and then his hands land on the steering wheel roughly, causing me to jump at the sound as it slices through the air. "Not that simple? Since when have you let anything in your life become complicated, huh?"

This is the first time since we arrived at my house that he has looked at me, and I wish to God that he didn't. Whatever resolve I'm clinging to is reduced to shambles when I look in his eyes and see the years we were together as kids, the years we spent apart as adults, and the night we spent together last night. They all blur together on a relentless continuum in my mind.

He wants to talk complications? Now I'm angry.

I want to shove him and tell him that the only complication that I've ever had in my life was him.

I want to tell him that he is the only part of my life that is messy and chaotic and out of control.

I want him to know how much he drives me crazy.

I want to tell him how he is the one thing that has been missing from my life for the past ten years.

I want to - no – I need to tell him that this situation with Tyler has been complicated since the day we started dating two years ago, to when he proposed to me last month, to when I panicked and left him a week later, my finger still tingling from the ring that sat upon it for six days too long.

I want to tell Edward that all my relationships have been complicated since we broke up when we were stupid teenagers, and not because they weren't great guys or because they didn't treat me well.

They were complicated because they weren't him.

My heart knew that, and held onto it for ten long years, while I was hoping against hope that maybe I would wake up one morning and not wonder where he was or who he was with or if he had finally found where he belonged.

But I look at him now in the car, and I don't tell him any of it. I can't yet. Edward being back in my life is still too new. Too raw. Too overwhelming, but I guess I should expect it by now.

Anything involving Edward in my life is all-consuming. I don't know how to be around Edward and not feel everything, all the emotion the world has to offer, without it blinding me and leaving me powerless to stop it or even control it.

I just fall. Head first. Every time.

It is déjà vu. The night The Rec closed and he sent me off to college with a hole in my chest where my broken heart should have been.

"You don't get to pick and choose when you want me around. You were the one who gave up on us."

I can't hold back the anger that has remained dormant since I was seventeen. I point a finger towards Tyler who is staring at Edward and me in the car, waiting for one of us to make a move. "Do you know why he's here? He's here because he's not giving up."

Edward shakes his head hard. "I never gave up on you. I gave up on me holding you back from a better life."

"A better life?" I ask him incredulously.

"I had nothing back then, Bella. Absolutely nothing besides the clothes on my back. You had scholarships left and right, a family that supported you, a house to come home to. I had nothing to offer you. I thought by stepping back and letting you do all the things you were meant to do that you would eventually realize that us not being together was better for you."

I shake my head and hold my hands up in surrender, begging him to stop. It takes me a minute to get my thoughts together as every emotion filters throughout my body. "I would have chosen you, Edward. You know I would have."

"And that was the problem. We were seventeen years old. Kids. I couldn't let you choose me over all of the other amazing things you had worked so hard for. You would grow up to resent me."

We say nothing for a few minutes. We say nothing because there is too much to say. When I see Tyler stand up from his spot on the porch and begin to make his way over towards us, I look at Edward for the last time.

"You're right. We were kids then. And you gave me exactly what you wanted me to have. You gave me a chance to grow up."

Without another word, I open the car door and slam it behind me, not caring for anything else Edward has to say.

One look at Tyler and I know that whatever fight I have left in me is gone.

And it's not fair to him.

I've been completely awful to him and he doesn't even know why, although judging by the look on his face, he has a pretty good idea as to why I never could have married him.

"Tyler, please just –"

I don't get to finish my sentence before the car door behind me slams. I turn towards the sound and Edward is standing in front of the car, clearly uncomfortable as his eyes never leave the ground and his hands are jammed into the front pockets of his jeans.

"The last time I let you leave my car I ended up losing you for ten years. I'm not letting you go again, Bella."

If he had said those words ten years ago after I walked out of his car the first time, none of this would have happened.

I wouldn't have broken Tyler's heart.

I wouldn't have lost all that money to a therapist.

My brain is too defensive and my body is too exhausted to think of the past ten years.

What I can do is rewind my life to fourteen weeks prior to today, from this exact moment between Edward, Tyler, and most likely my father peering through the living room curtains.

Back to fourteen weeks earlier when my life looked nothing like it currently does.

- - - tr - - -

Fourteen Weeks Earlier

It was just a piece of paper.

It was hanging by a magnet on the refrigerator in my kitchen.

I walked by it every morning as I got ready for work and every night while I made dinner.

It was partially covered by other pieces of paper, unimportant things but it did not need to be fully visible for me to remember what it looked like and what it said. It was simple and elegant and beautifully designed, yet it caused the hair on the back of my neck to rise and my heart to squeeze tightly in my chest.

I liked to think that I maintained a firm grip on all things in my life that I could control. I was the Queen of my comfort zone and nothing was more, well, comforting than that. I preferred things that way; control was what kept my sanity within my grasps and the smile on my face.

It was only when I looked at a calendar or when I walked by that little piece of paper did I begin to feel my sense of control start to slip and before I knew it, I was feeling a knot in my stomach that could only be healed by wine and the company of friends.

It bothered me that it was only temporary.

As the days ticked by and the red circle on my calendar loomed closer, I knew that no amount of wine or companionship could make it disappear like I would have liked it to. Instead, I had to convince myself that it was just one slip of paper, one tiny speck in the big picture of the life I had paved for myself.

I tried to remember that and repeated it to myself over and over as I hopped off the train and entered the bustle of the Monday morning mayhem of New York City. It was November, and in typical November fashion, the air was growing cooler and the days grew darker earlier. Even though Thanksgiving was only a week away, the cheer of the holiday season was seeping its' way into the stores, the people, and the atmosphere everywhere. It was almost impossible not to be swept away in the joy of the season, and the smile on my face was genuine when I walked through the glass doors of my office building to see that our Christmas tree had made its first appearance of the year.

I stopped in front of it and snapped a quick picture to send to my mom before heading over to the crowd forming near the elevators. I worked on the twenty seventh floor in a nice sized cubicle surrounded by a great group of colleagues that I had the pleasure of working with for the past six years for one of Manhattan's finest luxury hotels. The luxury, however, stopped long before my floor filled with accountants like myself, and instead, I lost myself in the monotony and familiarity of numbers. Numbers were infinite and the equations I dealt with everyday had solutions, which in turn satisfied my daily need for absolute truth.

When the elevator door opened, I exited and barely made it past the coffee station before Tia, my next door cube-mate, pulled me by the sleeve of my jacket.

"Have you heard?" She whispered, taking a look around before catching my eye. I shook my head and entered my cube, leaning down to turn my computer on.

"Heard what?"

I don't know if she heard me over her own anxiety as I unraveled my scarf from around my neck. My mom made it for me a few weeks ago and I was still surprised that I actually enjoyed wearing a creation of Mom's latest hobby: knitting.

"You didn't get a letter?" Her short black hair bobbed back and forth from one side of her head to the other as she glanced over her shoulders to see if anyone was listening.

"In my mailbox?" I pointed in the general direction of where our mail was delivered, and her head and her hair shook back and forth again in disagreement.

"No, your home address. We all got one." She lowered her voice at her last words and I stopped to think for a moment before shaking my head and shrugging my shoulders.

"Maybe I did, I don't know. I haven't been home all weekend to check my mail, actually."

She remembered. "That's right. Boston. I forgot." Tia reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded white piece of paper and handed it to me. "Look."

I eyed her suspiciously, wondering what the letter said and who it could be from. Judging by the hidden glances and the whispered hushes I heard in all of the four minutes that I had been in the office, it was safe to assume that whatever job security I thought I had was now slim.

I was right.

Tia wasn't being laid off. Yet.

The note stated she has a meeting in four days, on Friday, to discuss her eligibility of retaining her job or being let go to pursue other career opportunities. If I were to go off the looks on Peter, Charlotte, and James' faces, I would think that they had received letters similar to Tia.

"I guess the rumors were true after all." A different knot formed deep in my stomach, and the deep breaths I took did nothing to make me feel better about the situation.

"What are we gonna do?"

I took a moment to think of the pile of mail on the server in my kitchen. We had gotten in from Boston too late last night for me to even think, let alone open three days' worth of mail. Instead I had just left it there to sort out that night after work, but now I had no desire to confront it. I didn't need the actual proof to know that I, too, had received the same letter as almost everyone on this floor. I peered over the side of my cubicle to see more somber faces, and I knew I was not one of the lucky ones.

We had heard it for years; the same rumor dressed in different clothes. We had seen people come and go. We had witnessed promotions and demotions and restructuring. This was the first time we had seen a letter.

I almost wanted to call home and have Tyler check the pile for me, but I stopped myself before I reached for my phone. News like this was not something I wanted to confirm over the phone. I wanted the proof in my hand.

"First, we're not going to panic. That's for sure." I said in an attempt to calm both of us down.

Liar.

On the inside, I was a mess. My heart was beating fast and my head was foggy.

One of the reasons why I declared accounting and finance as my major areas of study in my second semester at NYU was because of the reliability, the predictability that numbers held. There were no second opinions, no ulterior motives.

Numbers don't lie.

Numbers don't lie, but they can still betray you.

That was exactly what I felt as I held my own letter in my hands later that night.

In four days, at 2:10 in the afternoon, I was to head to the executive suites on a floor way above mine to determine my fate. To determine if the blood, sweat, and tears that I had put into my job even mattered anymore, or if they ever mattered at all. I would find out if Isabella Swan was ever a person to them, or a number.

I already knew the answer.

I texted Tia to tell her that I would be joining her in the unemployment line as of Friday.

I put off telling my parents for now. I definitely didn't have the strength for that tonight. Convincing my mom not to get on the latest flight to New York required way more fight than I had in me at the moment.

I just wanted to curl up inside myself and be alone, and that was exactly what I planned on doing until I absolutely had to move.

When I graduated college at twenty one years old, I originally applied for the job because of the perks of working for a hotel. Discounts galore. And working in Manhattan? It was a dream come true for a small town girl turning into a city woman. Everything was so different than back home, and I fell in love with it instantly. There were so many people around that I was able to blend into the tapestry without a blip. I was able to grow up, to make mistakes, to succeed, and to thrive with an audience so large that it was so easy to go unnoticed.

It was one of the many things I loved about the city.

I didn't expect to fall in love with my job but I did, and I did fast. I guess that's how I always do things, though. I don't know how to enjoy something without immersing myself within it. I should have seen it coming, though. I should have known that there was safety in numbers, but not necessarily the job.

I could be an accountant anywhere; the logical side in me warred with the other illogical side. I wasn't bothered really at the fact that I would be unemployed; I was mostly upset that it was another thing I loved saying goodbye.

I never was good with goodbyes.

I was on the last glass of a bottle of wine when I heard the sound of the keys in the door to the apartment, and I didn't bother to move from my place on the couch. After taking three bites of my lunch, skipping dinner, and downing a whole bottle of wine, I also thought it would be safer on both my physical body and my pride if I stayed on the couch for those reasons, too.

"Bella?" I heard Tyler's voice call from the doorway, knowing he was expecting to hear the television or music blaring from the speakers in the kitchen while I cooked.

The only sound greeting him in return was silence and the clink of my wine glass as I tried to place it back onto the coffee table gracefully. I overestimated myself.

"You in the living room?"

I grunted a response and nestled myself deeper within the large couch pillow.

"What are you doing in here?"

I groaned and reached into my pocket, fumbling as I tried to hand him the folded white piece of paper the same way that Tia had handed it to me hours earlier at work.

"What's this?" Tyler asked before his eyebrows shot up as he read the words on the paper.

"Judgment day. Four days."

He stared at me for a moment before taking a deep breath and handing it back to me. I tried to fold it nicely and place it back but it sounded like I crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it back into my pocket.

There was a high probability that it was ruined.

"I'm sorry, babe. What can I do?"

Tyler was always like that. Always putting me first and finding ways to keep me happy and content. I was happy, for the most part, and I was always content in my world of black and white.

"Can you find me a job?" I asked, my voice muffled by the pillow I buried myself under. I hated asking this of him but Tyler was a lawyer and could find me a job tomorrow afternoon based off of his connections to practically everyone in New York City.

Like I said, I wasn't nervous about not finding a job.

"Absolutely. I'll start asking around tomorrow." His hands lifted the pillow up from my face and he stared at me for a moment before leaning down to kiss my forehead.

"Thanks." I reached my arms up and looped them around his waist, finding comfort in his embrace despite the way my drunken-self had linked us together.

"You want to get out of the house for a bit? The tree is up. Bigger than last year, I hear." He said a few minutes later. He maneuvered himself next to me and sat me in a more comfortable position. I shook my head against his chest and sighed in defeat. Normally the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Plaza would bring out all of my holiday cheer but tonight, I just couldn't muster it up.

"Hold me instead?"

"Sure thing."

- - - tr - - -

"And when do you find out if you're laid off or not?" Rose's voice trickled through the phone and into my ear late Thursday night as I devoured a carton of ice cream. Since tomorrow was D-Day, sleep was non-existent. Rose, Alice, and I were on the phone together, our weekly ritual that we had not broken since the day I moved to New York as a freshman at NYU. It was a tradition that all three of us loved and had never missed.

I sighed deeply into the phone and spooned another pile of ice cream onto my spoon.

"Tomorrow afternoon. Around two."

"Shit. That sucks, Bella. I'm sorry." Alice chimed in, and I could almost see the look on her face despite the miles between us on our opposite coasts.

"Are you looking for jobs yet or are you going to wait to hear what they say?" Rose asked.

"A little of both, I guess. I'm keeping my eyes open and Tyler mentioned to a few of his friends that I'm available if they're looking for an accountant. I just don't want to get ahead of myself before I meet with them tomorrow."

Always the optimist, Alice said hopefully, "You never know. Maybe they'll keep you."

Talk at the office over the last few days had only gotten worse. We were all anxious, no one knew the truth, and we were all fearful of the outcome. I shook my head and cradled the phone between my ear and shoulder. "I doubt it. There's been talk of layoffs for a while now and I think the time has come."

"And right before the holidays, too."

"Please, Alice, you know Bella already started her shopping months ago. I bet all your shopping is done, isn't it, Bella?"

I chucked because after over twenty years of friendship, I could not deny that they knew me better than anyone. "Not all of it, but yeah, most of it."

"I'm jealous. I've been so busy I haven't even thought about Christmas shopping." Alice said, and immediately I could tell which direction our conversation was heading. I thought of that little piece of paper on my refrigerator and suddenly my ice cream was making me nauseous. I went into the kitchen to put it back into the freezer before it all came back up again.

"You have a pretty solid excuse though, Alice. How is everything coming along?" Rose asked.

"Good! We've narrowed it down to the final two invitations to choose from."

" 'We'? Or you?"

"We! I told you Jasper is even more into this stuff than I am!"

"I can't picture it," Rose continued. I let Rose and Alice carry on the conversation, not trusting myself to keep the dread in my voice oblivious to my two favorite people in the whole world.

"Well you'll be able to picture it in a couple of weeks when it's hanging on your fridge!"

"Oh so now I can take down your Save the Date?"

Tyler had hung the letter about my impending layoff on the refrigerator but I knew that other piece of paper was still behind it. Mocking me. I stared at the letter and within a moment I could make out the date that shown through off of the other little piece of paper.

That was my cue to bail. After mentioning how late it was over on my end of the country, I told them I would call them the next day with news of my impending lay off. "You girls are crazy. I gotta go. Miss you."

I hung up the phone before they could say anything else, and I thought about the invitation that would soon hang next to the Save the Date on my refrigerator.

Don't get me wrong.

I was completely over the moon about Alice and Jasper getting married. I was honored to be given the privilege to stand next to my best friend and watch as she married her high school sweetheart. The man of her dreams.

It wasn't the wedding that kept me up at night.

It was the Best Man.

I looked at the calendar on my phone and in seventy nine days, I would be on the alter trying not to faint at the sight of Edward Cullen.

- - - tr - - -

I am so so sorry for the delay. My husband came home on a Friday in the first week of October and said that he was laid off. Real life has been so difficult that I could barely think, let alone get a chapter out to you all. So, I apologize. Forgive me. I'm hoping to get back to regular updates again now that things are starting to look up again.

Also, all my stories are HEA. No cheating will be involved. Just stick with me for the fourteen weeks leading up to the wedding and confrontation between Bella, Edward, and Tyler.

One more thing: If you're feeling in the holiday spirit, check out Christmas Magic, a Christmas story I wrote and completed this time last year.

Thank you all for sticking by!