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Previously:

I had stopped listening at "no". That was it. That was the end of my life's dream, the one and only thing I had ever truly wanted.

Chapter 5
BPOV

Without the future of a family, my marriage quickly started to crumble. It was the basis for everything we had done, everything we had been up until now, and we just didn't know how to act around each other with that essential piece missing. Jake and I barely spoke at first, and even after a couple of weeks when we started spending more time with each other, we hardly ever touched. Too-brief kisses and holding hands were about as much as we could manage; there were no comforting embraces or gentle brushing of skin.

In my heart I knew that he didn't blame me for my infertility, but I did, and it was somehow always there in the back of my mind. The doctor had mentioned that there were other options available, complicated medical treatments or adoption, but none of those really seemed right for us. We were still friends – as we had always managed to be – but it felt to me as though we could never go back to being lovers. The strain of the last three years couldn't just be smoothed over, even if we miraculously ended up with a successful pregnancy. And just before my twenty-second birthday, Jacob seemed to have decided the same, and we mutually agreed to throw in the towel. We had had a secure, safe relationship, but there was little to no passion left (if there ever really had been), and it just wasn't enough to keep us together.

It was an amicable parting – no crazy lawyers, no signed and sealed settlement – but somehow I just knew that we would probably never see each other again.

I couldn't handle staying in Forks after … everything. Charlie tried to get me to live with him, at least for a little while, but I needed to get away from all of the painful memories. It was too fresh in my mind, too real to stay in that small town where everybody I passed on the street just knew. It was even more difficult because all of my friends were Jake's friends; since we had started dating even before I began going to school in Forks, I hadn't really taken the time to get to know the kids at my school, and mostly just hung around with Jacob on the reservation.

I wanted a fresh start – though I did want to stay close to my dad, too – so I ended up moving to Seattle.

Charlie took time off from the station and helped me get settled into a small apartment. He was truly a godsend; I don't know how I would have survived without him there. I was a veritable mess – when I wasn't crying hysterically, I would completely zone out from the world around me, practically a zombie. For weeks at a time I would barely eat or sleep, and then suddenly I'd be gorging on chocolate and ice cream and spending most of my time unconscious, burrowed in bed.

At some point, maybe about four months in, I guess my dad just couldn't take it any more. He finally pulled the father card and forced me to go to therapy. I really didn't see what sitting around talking to strangers about my situation would do to help, but I caved and agreed to go, especially seeing how much stress this was putting on him.

It was quite strange how they set up the sessions – a small group of us would sit in a circle and just … talk, about anything and everything. Why we were there, if it was because of something we did or something done to us, how we were feeling, how we wanted to feel. Everyone there had a different story, and a different perspective to offer.

I didn't participate much at first, just seeing it as another place to zone out. But ever so slowly, I felt myself being lured back out of my shell. The one who had the most significant impact was a petite girl about my age, who I was starting to see as a true friend.

Alice was a self-proclaimed shopaholic, whose parents had eventually figured out that sending her to therapy was actually cheaper than funding her clothes addiction. She was always dressed quite fashionably, and had a lot to say about my standard uniform of comfy yoga pants, hoodies and sneakers. Luckily, so far I had been able to avoid going shopping with her, although she tried every time she saw me.

Alice was always full of energy and would bounce in her seat whenever she got excited about something – which was pretty much all the time. I usually just gave her a small indulgent smile, but one day, she was just so hyper and crazy that I actually laughed out loud at her antics. I'm not sure which one of us was more stunned to hear me laugh, as even I couldn't really remember the last time it had happened. Probably before that fateful doctor's visit.

"Oh, my god!" Alice's eyes grew wide as she flew at me, wrapping her tiny arms around me in an amazingly tight hug. "You laughed. You laughed! Bella, I love it! Do it again!"

Perhaps in response to her ridiculous encouragement, I suddenly found that I couldn't stop laughing. At all. My giggles set Alice off as well, and eventually we found ourselves collapsed on the floor, both breathing heavily and trying to stop smiling stupidly at each other.

I reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing tightly for a second. "Thanks, Alice. I think I really needed that."

She cocked one perfectly trimmed eyebrow at me. "No shit."

We had to struggle to contain ourselves again, the corners of our mouths twitching in protest. Alice stood up first and helped pull me up with her.

"Bella, will you pleeease go shopping with me tomorrow?" she begged. She even threw in the puppy dog eyes and fake pout, which I would have bet was effective enough to charm candy from a child.

I sighed dramatically. "Fine, but just this once, and there will be rules!"

"I can live with that. Rules are meant to be broken, don't you know?" And with that she skipped away.

That night, I cooked myself a full healthy dinner, and avoided over-indulging on sugar. I called my dad and told him I loved him, and that I was sorry. He just laughed and accepted, and said he should probably also apologize for the day he had sprayed me with the cold outdoor water hose in the hope that it might wake me from my zombie state.

I went to bed feeling the most optimistic I could remember being in a very long time. I vowed that the next morning, I would make plans to get back out into the world, on my own two feet.