Thank you all for joining me on this journey. You have no idea how much it means to me.

Edward as Father of the Bride, huh? I'm kinda loving him in that role.

Flashing back a little to Chapter 8 of 'The Rec' for this one. Filling in the gaps from Bella's diary entry.

Read 'The Rec' first before this story.

You were the first

So was I

Made love and then you cried

Remember when

You always remember your first differently than the rest.

It doesn't matter if your first is still an active participant in your life or not.

Your first kiss, first love, first heartbreak. I have yet to find someone that hasn't had one of these at some point in his or her lifetime.

If you're lucky, you can look back on those moments in your life with a chuckle and shake of your head and carry on your merry way in amusement.

If you're like me, and somehow your first love came back to you to become your final and lasting love, add it to your growing list of blessings.

Bella came back to me during that cold February winter when The Rec had finally, officially, become mine.

It always was mine, and I finally had the papers to prove it.

I did it for myself; replacing and renovating and rebuilding The Rec was a dawning of my own self-worth. Every piece of rotted wood or rusted pipe I tore down was like tearing down a broken piece of myself, only to replace the tarnished structure with a stronger and more resilient material. It was an acceptance of my past, of my dark childhood, and a reclaiming of those ten long years when, like The Rec, I had closed myself off to the world. It was a testament of my own resilience; not everything was meant to wither away to nothing because of poor circumstances. It was possible to carry on, never forgetting the burdens of your past, but also being able to move forward at the same time.

My childhood was a part of me, and I had stopped dwelling on it once I had accepted that I couldn't change it. While it was a part of me, I didn't let it define me.

It still doesn't.

In fact, I made sure that each step I took was in the opposite direction my childhood had led me. Each step I took had a purpose. A reason.

I hold one of these reasons on my arm right now as we wait for our turn to walk down the aisle. We're the last to walk, her and I. Benjamin had escorted Bella a few minutes before, and I watched the two of them disappear down the aisle and welcomed the squeeze of emotion that tightened against my heart.

I wait for our cue to begin our procession towards the guests, our friends and family that we've cemented over the years, and I savor these final moments before I must loosen the grip I have on her hand and place hers into someone else's.

I've held her hand for the last twenty-five years. Her first steps, her first ride without training wheels, her first swing of the bat at her first little league game – I was there.

Because my own parents missed everything, I made sure I didn't miss a single thing.

I've loosened my figurative grip on her hand over the years, remaining as a shadow in the background as she fell and got back up time and time again.

Now it was someone else's turn to hold her hand for life's big moments.

I'm content to be her shadow; she can't go anywhere without it. I'll follow her every step. I gave her my word the second I held her in my arms when she was only minutes old.

Even her upcoming vows won't take that privilege from me.

Glancing at the sky one more time for any evidence of a change of plans from the sun, my eyes move from the sun down to the tips of the green trees hovering above us, and eventually stop to rest on an upstairs window. The curtains hang proudly against the glass, doing its job to protect the inside from any rays from the sky. Like a montage playing in my head, I stare at the window but see The Rec change over the course of its many years of existence in my mind.

"Almost our turn," she says, interrupting my train of thought and leaning into my shoulder with a shaky exhale.

"Almost."

I turn to kiss her forehead, careful not to move a hair out of place on her head or beneath her veil, and my eyes drift up to The Rec again. Wordlessly, I speak my gratitude towards the large log cabin, knowing that I owe this building everything. My life.

When my lips are placed upon my daughter's forehead, I look up at The Rec again and watch it change shape through memories so alive I can still feel the ache in my bones from each addition and renovation.

Like a movie reel on a continuous loop in my head, I watch the transformation behind my eyes. What starts as a log cabin in the woods with a small, brown-haired girl and a copper-haired boy, sitting in a large and overwhelming tree towards the back of the property, eventually morphs into dark windows and locked doors, empty space within four walls, and visible eviction notices plastered anywhere they can stick. The vision morphs again into construction tools, naked beams and exposed wood, flickering lights and gloves on frozen hands due to the heating system being nonexistent.

It flashes again to laughing faces and smeared paint on skin, to a painted heart of twigs and tree branches sitting on a hopeful mantle. Next is an accepted proposal in a tree, an exchange of rings and a promise of forever.

The memories flash faster now, echoes of laughter and cries and whispers in the dark. It's an influx of neighborhood kids, an abundance of laughter coming from every direction. It's suddenly emptying out an upstairs office for more age appropriate toys and furniture. It's two faint lines appearing in a world of unease. It's the pitter patter of tiny feet against hard wood floors. It's the dismantling of even more walls and the much-needed expansion when we realize that little people require so much stuff.

Throughout all the stages of The Rec, the people remained the same even if the background behind them changed throughout the years. Inside The Rec, walls that I tore down and reconstructed before Bella came back were torn down again, this time with Bella's help. They were torn down to make room for more. More activities, more people, more love, more us.

We built up. We built out. We dug into the earth and planted more around us.

Throughout it all, one thing remains untouched. Unchanged.

That single, solitary window.

There's a draft in that room every winter but we'll never replace it.

How could we?

I stare at the window, letting the significance of that window take me all the way back to high school.

"Where'd everyone go?"

Bella's voice had woken me up from a deep sleep, her tiny hands shoving me further back into consciousness. She sat up in my arms from our spot on the couch, straining her head to get a better look around her. Without looking around like she was, I already knew that everyone else had gone home for the night, including Carlisle and Felix. They must have seen me on the couch, Bella wrapped up so completely in my arms that they must have missed her.

Now that Alice and Jasper were hooking up, they often ditched us all without a word any chance they got.

"I guess they left," I replied with a yawn. I still made no move to change positions.

"And they couldn't bother to wake us up?" Bella asked, reaching for her phone to see if anyone was looking for her.

"Maybe they did, I don't know." I attempted to sit up but yawned again instead, the beauty of sleep getting the better of me. "I was out."

"Yeah, I was pretty much dead to the world." She joked, running a hand through her hair and sending a sleepy smile over in my direction.

"Speaking of dead," I said, slowly lifting my arm before attempting to stretch it back to life, "my arm is pretty useless."

It wasn't the first time my arm had fallen asleep on Bella's account.

"You could have moved me," she reminded me, sliding back over against me with a playful shove.

Move her? Now that I finally had her, I never wanted to let her go.

"Never," I respond, bringing my lips down to hers now that she was near me again. I always took advantage of an opportunity to kiss Bella whenever I had the chance, and even though it wasn't our first kiss, I still worshipped her lips on mine every time.

Bella's parents were smart when they decided to work opposite shifts once we had officially started dating. We were rarely fully alone with each other, and even though I snuck into her bedroom at night when the rest of the house was asleep, we were always so focused on being careful not to get caught. With an empty place and her lips on mine, I wasn't going to stop until she made me. Instead, I pulled her onto my lap, her lips sliding against my own with familiar ease and escalating desire.

At a sudden flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, we separated in a frustrated huff of air. I watched her slide off my lap and walk over towards the front door to get a better look at the storm from the large windows next to it. Shaking her head, she turned to look at me. "I'm not driving home in this."

I nodded my head in agreement and headed over towards her to see it for myself. "I'll drive you home later once it passes."

Bella showed me her gratitude with a hug, her arms wrapping around my waist like a favorite blanket. Her eyes were an invitation for more, and never able to stop myself, I indulged in Bella Swan once again. Her lips were a song that needed to be played; her body was a flower I needed to press for preservation.

I held her against me, her mouth and tongue doing things to make me pull her by her hips closer to my own, until another boom of thunder split us once more.

"We should probably look for some candles or flashlights or something just in case we lose power," she whispered against my mouth, her words making her lips dance across mine softly in the foyer of The Rec. My hands still holding her hips in place against me, I nodded when I saw the lights begin to flicker sporadically around us.

One more dip into my self-indulgence, I leaned down to capture her lips with my own again before it was too late, and we really did lose power.

"I know where some are. Stay here," I had said to her, heading for the supply closet upstairs. Bella nodded, pulling her phone out of her back pocket to most likely let her parents know that she would be staying here at The Rec until the storm died. If I knew her as well as I thought I did, she would probably be texting Alice and Rose to make sure they also knew to pretend to be here with us in case her parents ever asked.

How she lied to her Chief of Police father, I'd never know.

I hustled up the stairs quickly, knowing the history of losing power at The Rec during bad storms. We had approximately three minutes befo –

And lights out.

"Bella? You okay?" I shouted down to her, hearing her audible yelp at the sudden darkness around us. I peered over the door of the closet and saw a tiny light looming closer to me followed by quick footsteps. I smiled – it was Bella on the stairs with the light of her cell phone guiding her way.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Do you have the flashlights?" She asked.

"Yeah, I have them. I'm just replacing the batteries."

"Okay, I'm coming up."

"You're already here," I corrected her, laughing at how quickly she had found me in the dark. Reaching for her hand, I held her phone out towards the closet so I could see what I was doing. "Hold this like this for me?"

Nodding, she silently held the phone so I could see inside the closet, replacing the old batteries inside the flashlights with brand new ones. I reached inside the Emergency bag again, tossing various items to the side until I found a handful of tiny tealight candles that Alice insisted we use for holiday decorations or some shit.

Working at The Rec came in handy in times like these when you needed to know where Felix hid important things around the place. More importantly, I was glad that I decided to throw some of those little candles in the Emergency bag as well. You never know when they could come in handy in an emergency.

Another round of thunder had her reaching for my hand in the not-so-darkness anymore thanks to the working flashlights. With a squeeze of my hand, I pulled her towards me and headed down the hall.

"Come with me."

She followed me all those years ago; luckily for me she still follows me now.

Gripping my hand in the dark, she followed me into the spare room I used when I needed a place to crash. Locked when Felix, Carlisle or Esme weren't around, our group of six had found ways to keep it open; now they unlocked it for me at night when I didn't feel like going to a foster home or group home, wherever I was placed at the time.

Using some matches I had grabbed from the Emergency bag down the hall, we spent the next couple of minutes placing the tealight candles around the room, lighting them with the matches until the room glowed in soft amber. We turned off our flashlights and placed them on the floor next to the window. Once we were sitting on the bed with our backs against the wall, I pulled her to me again and pointed towards the window directly across from us.

The room was tiny and rectangular shaped, simple in the way it only held the bed we were sitting on and a misplaced card table in the corner. It used to have a television and DVD/VCR player but after word got out that we had watched some questionable material on it over the years, Felix had it removed despite our protests.

I motioned with my chin from our spot on the bed towards the window. "I like to look out this window when it storms."

It was just a regular window; it wasn't a portal to a different or better world. It was just a window overlooking the open back fields of The Rec. With every flash of lightning, we saw the trees sway in protest, the rain pounding torrents of cold water on the world below. The wind howled and the moon hid behind the dark clouds against the black, starless night sky. The candles we lit helped light the room around us.

Bella shifted against me, so she was lying down on the bed, pulling me down so I was next to her, propped up on my elbow. My other arm wrapped around her waist, hugging her close to me in the glow of the room. Even though it was just a bed, it was the closest object I had to anything permanent. It wasn't even my own. I didn't have much besides this bed and the girl lying on it next to me, and even without any power on around us, I felt like I had it all.

"Doesn't it scare you? To see everything out there?" Bella asked, pointing towards the window when another lightning bolt showed us the angry world outside of this room and The Rec.

I shook my head, the movement making her turn her eyes from the window to look at me. "It's even scarier when you can't see anything at all."

For someone like me, not knowing, not seeing, was the scariest part of it all. The lack of structure. The non-application of a routine. The stability in my life I was craving but never lasted long enough to ever become permanent. I liked, no, needed, to see what was in front of me.

She had been in front of me since the fifth grade.

Now, for the first time, she was all around me. No parents down the hall, no counselors or friends or distractions here at The Rec to interrupt us.

We didn't plan it. What had started as a normal night at The Rec had turned into something much more.

It almost didn't happen at all.

Despite my wanting to make it work, my fear of hurting her almost stopped me too many times to continue.

"Since when did you start carrying condoms in your wallet?" She had asked with a smirk, her dark hair spread against the pillow. I smiled, never thinking I would hear laughter coming from my bed; I didn't know what I had done in my shitty life to deserve to hear such a comforting sound. She giggled in the orange glow from the candles around us until I made my way back up her body again, her fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of my neck. I trapped her eyes with mine, staying completely still against her with the exception of my fingers wrapping her hair around them.

"Since the day I made you mine," I answered her, leaning down and stealing another kiss from her. I thought I would never stop.

Jacob Black may have been the first boy she had kissed, but I was going to be her last.

I wanted to experience the rest of our firsts together. Starting with tonight.

"Are you sure?" I asked a few minutes later, wanting to go forward but ready to respect her decision not to.

"Yes," Bella reassured me, "Just stop when I need you to."

"Of course."

And I did. I held her until she was ready for me to move again. I held her hands. Her body. Her face. Her heart.

It was over all too quickly – way too quickly if you ask Bella. Just do me a favor and not ask her, all right? It may not be one of my proudest moments, but it is one of my favorites.

"Are you okay?"

It was hours later and still no one had bothered us. It was just us, like it was always meant to be, stepping over from the adolescent world into adulthood where actions could possibly mean consequences nine months down the road.

At the moment, I didn't care. I was untouchable. So deliriously happy; a boy like me didn't know how to reign it in. So, I didn't try.

Bella looked over at me lazily, a flicker of a tear in her eye and a content look on her face. "I'm perfect. Look."

Too tired to move, she raised her chin in the direction of the window. The power still out, the candles still burning, the outside still darkened by the storm.

The only thing visible in the window was our own reflection, and despite the destruction going on outside just beyond our reach, I had never seen an image of such peace staring back at me.

I knew from that point on that others may see just a window, a perfect vantage point to see the mountain views and the tainted trees of whatever season was upon us, but I would see more than just glass and nature.

I would see my life, wrapped up in nothing but my arms and the sheets.

I would see everything I would ever need.

"Charlotte? Edward?"

The voice of the wedding planner startles me from my reflective trip from the second story window that somehow remains intact. Through other storms, created by both nature and man, renovations and additions, it remains the same. "It's time."

Like a camera panning an object within frame, I let the window retreat from my view. I let the past remain behind Charlotte and me, secure within an aging window as it becomes smaller and smaller compared to what we are facing now in the present.

Bella and I celebrated many firsts together over the years, and today is no different. Cheers to another first - today Bella and I will watch our daughter walk down the aisle at her own wedding. I'll give her away to the man she deems worthy enough to become her husband – Peter's a nice guy and all, don't get me wrong, but if I'm being honest, I don't know if anyone will ever be good enough for Charlotte.

Charlotte and I are in the perfect spot on our property. There's a small bend in the property behind a small set of trees. We can see everyone but almost no one can see us. Everyone stands at the changing of the music, eagerly looking in our direction for us to begin to walk towards them. Even though I can feel the nervous energy coming from Charlotte next to me, I know she's ready. I know she can't wait to see him, Peter. I know she can't wait to begin this next chapter of her life.

Not me. I don't mind waiting. I can wait here all day.

See, this chapter, is a first for Bella and me, too. We have so much to look forward to in this upcoming part of our lives, but now we're old enough to know what we're leaving behind.

It's bittersweet.

I stand next to Charlotte and try to take all of her in before I have to let her go. When I look at her now, she's not twenty-five years old with brown waves of hair falling down her back just like her mother. She's not dressed in white with her face hidden behind a veil of lace. I look at her and she's four, trying to convince me to have a campout in the backyard in our tent in the winter with three feet of snow on the ground. She's six, smiling at me through a gap in her mouth where her two front teeth used to be. She's twelve, telling me that I can leave her alone when she's downstairs at The Rec because it isn't cool that her dad hangs around when she's with her friends because none of their dads hang around when she hangs out over their houses.

It took her a long time to realize that being physically present at The Rec was my job and not some maniacal plan to spy on my almost teenaged daughter.

Well, not always.

Charlotte turns to look at me and gives a tug on my arm that makes me see that this particular first really is happening. Now. It's her time to get married.

"I love you, Dad."

"Love you, baby."

After all the dance recitals, dances, and proms she's subjected me to over the years, I've become an expert on showing my affection but not ruining the look she's going for. I leave a ghostly kiss on her cheek to be sure not to smudge anything on her face; I've been trained.

Charlotte and I have practiced this walk since Peter slid a ring on her finger a year before. We practiced barefoot. In flats. In heels. We practiced with this aisle runner and without it. I know we'll be fine.

When we take our first steps and emerge into view from around our spot of dense trees, I give a quick glance at Peter to make sure the bastard is still on the alter like he's supposed to be.

He is. Smart man.

My eyes stop next at Benjamin. He's exactly where he needs to be as well.

And then my eyes land on Bella. Where they never leave.

It's a delicate balance, this heart of mine so full of love for the two most important women in my life. I hold one on one arm as we smile and make our way towards a new first for all of us.

The other I can't take my eyes off of.

She's in the first row, waiting for me to take my place next to her. She's watching me walk Charlotte down the aisle, her eyes pooling in silent tears as we speak a wordless conversation.

Hold on to her.

I won't let her go.

I've made it halfway down the aisle when I realize another first. This is the first time I'm watching Bella as I walk down the aisle. The last time I walked down an aisle, I was standing in Peter's place watching her come towards me. I was the one that stood there and watched her, waited for Bella to join me in a future together we fought so hard to find again.

I remember looking at Charlie then, grateful that she had a man like him in her life to walk her down the aisle to me. I imagine I look exactly the way he did when he placed Bella's hand in my own all those years ago. Happy. Sad. Proud. Relieved.

Six more steps.

I know. I've practiced this walk, remember?

Six more steps and I'm there. We've almost made it.

Two more steps.

One.

Peter takes a step towards us, his hands reaching to clasp my own first. I know what this touch means. It says thank you. I promise I'll do good by her. By you. You can let her go now.

I know I have to. I know I can do this. I almost convince myself that it will be easy. I give a genuine nod at Peter, a knowing and satisfied smile on my face that hopefully tells him that he's the sucker now.

I've perfected my Dad jokes over the years.

I stop and stare at Charlotte, the tears in my eyes making her pretty face a blur on this beautiful day, and I squeeze her hand one final time before placing it in Peter's waiting palm.

Except when I look down, it's not Charlotte's hand I'm seeing; it's Bella's. And it's not my hand who places it in a waiting palm; it's Charlie's. And it's not Peter's waiting palm.

It's mine.

-tr-

One more trip down the aisle.

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Up next in Chapter Three:

Remember when we vowed the vows

And walked the walk