Yeah, I know.

:insert apology here:

I am to incredibly sorry for the way that my negligence has caused you distress. I'm still here. I promise. Just some shit has been going on in my RL. And well RL tends to take precedence.

In the last three months, -le jen- has acquired:

A boyfriend

Another scholarship,

A new apartment,

A new job,

Spaceballs the movie

And now a cold

Also, someone NOMINATED me for an INDIE! :-D

INCREDIBLE. Really, I'm shocked because this isn't in the completed stages. Ya'll are amazing.

Fer cereals.

*Hopefully* this won't take as long for the next one. . . I'm almost done with the next chapter.

Now, I bow out. Enjoy.

EPOV

When I stepped into the hospital this morning, I had a spring in my step and a tune on my tongue. As I passed the nurse's station on the third floor, I smiled at them.

I bet they thought I was on uppers or something.

When I'd first started dating Bella, I'd always been so unsure of everything. She'd infuriated, challenged, aggravated me and I'd been a complete mess. I'd absolutely loved it.

And now, I got to relive that feeling.

I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts this morning and ordered my favorite combo; medium coffee and a blueberry cruller. It's like a cross between a blueberry muffin and donut. Plus, Dunkin' Donuts has the best coffee that is put in mass production. Fuck Starbucks.

Breakfast in hand; I walked into Bella's room. Her intoxicating scent still present, just a little subdued, but she was just as lovely as that fated day I'd met her.

I rearranged the furniture and placed myself beside her bed, with the table in front of me, ready to chow down and talk about the happiest part of my life.

I grinned because I knew that I wouldn't need the photo album for the first memory. But I loved looking at this photo to remind me how Lady Luck gave me a hand of pocket aces that day.

I knew this picture like I knew the freckles on my arm.

This photo showed my car; brand new Volvo, and me with the keys in hand, grinning like a fool. This was the photo that was taken at the dealership. They had a wall of pictures of new car owners that they posted after every sale.

It was my first vehicle. The first one that I had bought, without my father's or anyone else's help.

I drove the car over to my father's office to show him my purchase when I first met her.

I was stopped at the corner of Wilshire and Main, humming jovially along with the radio and reveling in the "new car smell" that was all around me, when I felt my car jerk forward slightly.

Immediately outraged, I looked in the rear-view mirror to see who ran into my brand–fucking- new car.

Reflected back to me, was a giant grey-primered 1980s Buick, with the driver bowing their head to rest on the steering wheel.

I swung my door open forcefully wanting to see the damage that this asshole just caused, when I saw that she must have noticed that she had hit me and was frantically waving her hands, tear tracks embossed on her cheeks.

The driver put the car in park, apparently not being stopped all the way, because the nose of the car jerked down and back up again.

She flung the door open and tried to get out of the car, but bumped her head on the door jam, and then slammed her hip against the door when she was trying to bypass it to get around to the front of the car.

Trying to keep my chuckles at bay, I concentrated hard on keeping a straight face.

"OH! I'm SO sorry, sir. GAH. Are you okay?" She wailed and her tears began to flow again, effectively stopping her from speaking.

"Yes, I'm fine, just a little aggravated. I just drove this off the lot." I chuckled.

Her eyes grew to the size of small saucers and began apologizing again.

"GOSH! I'm so sorry, I such an idiot. Is there any damage? I can pay you for it." She started back toward the car, "Lemme get a pen and paper and I'll give you my contact information."

She raced back to the car and returned with a giant, printed cloth bag. It looked like a carry on bag for a mother with three children.

She pulled out her wallet, pen and a yellow-paged legal pad. She wrote down her information and handed the legal pad to me with a shaking hand.

I looked up at her for the first time and realized that she was on the verge of a meltdown. Eyes brimming with more tears, saturated red cheeks, a sorrowful pull of her lips downward and shoulders hunched.

"I'm so sorry again. I just looked down to change the CD. I didn't know that I was--" she started.

"It's okay; I was just a little startled." I confessed. She still had her hand poised with the pad stretched out across the distance between us.

I gingerly took the pad out of her hand and began writing down my information. I glanced up at her script, and noticed everything was written in caps, and the '4' in her address was straddling the two lines on the paper.

I looked at her and noticed that she had her left arm wrapped around her torso while her right arm rested upon it, and she was gnawing on her thumbnail. She stared blankly at the bumper of my car with a pensive vertical wrinkle in her brow.

I tore the page in half and handed her back the legal pad and my information, told her that it doesn't look bad, and she shouldn't worry so much.

I walked back to my poor Volvo, turned to wave at the bothered brunette, got inside, patted the dashboard and told Shelia—yes, in the 45 minutes I had her, I already named her Shelia—"she didn't mean it."

Then, I drove off.

I was such an idiot for not asking her to grab a cup of coffee or tea or something, just to calm her down. I mean anyone could have seen that she was visibly upset. Maybe then it wouldn't have taken six months and a broken toe to finally see her again.

I had just gotten an internship with the Oak Falls courthouse, and I was busy doing all the "bitchwork" around the office. Copying these files, collating those presentations for a meeting in ten minutes, etc. Well on this particular day I was moving office furniture, more specifically, Harry's cherry-stained oak wood desk that weighs approximately ten full-grown elephants.

Harry was changing offices, from the fifth floor to the third because a window office had just opened up. And he was afraid of heights, so I'm blindly steering this behemoth desk, precariously positioned on a dolly toward the elevator.

Once I had passed most of my obstacles, including cubbies and cloth covered partitions, I pressed the down button, and waited for the doors to open. I began to maneuver into the small steel contraption that could possibly cause me and the red oak desk to plummet to our subsequent deaths. After much wiggling, I was able to get myself, the desk and the dolly into the elevator. I pressed the '3' button and moved to stand the dolly up.

Then I heard a yelp. A feminine yelp.

"OWWWWWW!" she cried. I craned my neck around to see who it was and what was wrong, but I couldn't see her.

"What is it? Are you alright?" I asked in a hurried tone.

"It's my foot! GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!!!!" She yelled.

I immediately reacted and hoisted the desk up onto the dolly so she could move her, now, crushed foot. I scooted my way around the side and again asked her if she was alright, right as the elevator dinged for my floor.

"Shit. This is my floor will you get off here so I can look at it? Then if we need to, I can take you to the hospital." I miraculously kept both her and myself safe while I pulled the desk out of the elevator. I propped the toe-smashing desk against the wall, and turned to take care of the ailing woman.

I bent down to remover her shoe, to see how badly she was hurt.

"It's no use, I know it's broken. I know a broken bone when I feel one." I looked up to see a petite face shielded with hair, and covered with an apprehensive look. She seemed so familiar.

"I'm so sorry, we can take the elevator down to the garage, and I'll drive you to the hospital. It won't take long, I have connections there." I added with an apologetic smile and she seemed to relax a little bit.

"I'll go to the hospital later; I HAVE to turn in these forms by noon, because I was planning to buy the house on Maple."

"If you give them to me, I can get them through the process faster. Sue and I have an . . . understanding. I'll drop them off to the right person when we get back from the hospital." I gave her my most non-creepy smile which basically came off commonly known as a smirk.

What she didn't know was that Sue was the woman that taught me all about my skills. It was a total Mrs. Robinson relationship and I thank God every day for it.

"Uh . . . okay." She conceded.

Finally.

I convinced her to let me carry her down to my car, and I drove like a bat out of hell to get her to the hospital. I knew where I needed to go to get my dad, so I sent him a quick page telling him that I had an emergency.

Usually that gets his attention. I just hope that he's not stuck in some reconstruction surgery that's going to take up the next three hour block of his schedule.

I glanced over at Bella and concluded that I had never seen someone grasp the "oh shit" bar as hard as she was doing at that moment.

Two hours later, she was placed in a boot and we were walking, well more like hobbling, out of the ER. She was grumbling because I had paid for her visit and hadn't left her alone since we got there.

"I could have paid for my own visit, Edward. I'm not a child. I can take care of myself. I've been doing it long enough. And I still owe you for your car. So basically, NOW, I owe you more. UGH!"

My car?

"What about my car?" I was trying to figure out if she put footprints on the mats or stuck gum to the bottom of the seat or ripped off my 'oh shit' bar.

Bella ducked her head sheepishly and pretended to look at a map of the hospital and replied "um . . . well when I first moved here I was trying to sort through some things in my head . . . and I kind of ranintothebackofyourcar."

I hate it when women speak that fa—OH. That's where I know her from. She tapped my car a couple months back. I didn't have any damage, it was barely a scratch.

"I didn't have any damage to my car Bella. I can show you if you want. Now, I would like to be nice and buy you lunch. I'm starving and I know that you must be. So, would you like something to eat?"

These last couple hours have been fun, granted that I was in a hospital. We joked, had small talk, described what the hospital coffee tasted like, and I watched her with my father and was surprised when she spoke in normal medical terminology.

I guess Bella had had a lot of experience in the hospital.

When Dad came back and put her in the boot, I thought that she was going to strangle him with her bare hands. I mean, I knew that women could have a stubborn streak, but I think that Bella's ran as deep as the Pacific.

But nonetheless, I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know if she liked burgers, and if so how she liked them. I had no clue if she was a vegetarian. The few things that I did know were that she's from Canada, her mother still lives there. She speaks French, and when she's irritated, she huffs and crosses her arms and the vein on her temple pulsates.

And after much coaxing, I was able to take her to the Knife and Fork diner across the street.

I watched her every move. When she took her jacket off, she was wearing a royal blue cardigan with a light pink undershirt and jeans. When she sat down, she tried to cross her left ankle over her right, but failed. But decided to sit facing the window to her left. I sat down and watched her pick up her napkin, clean the silver and then gently place the napkin in her lap.

I felt kind of like I was dining with Emily Post.

She picked up her menu and started looking at the choices.

"Is the chicken fresh?" she asked me.

"I doubt it. I mean, I don't think this place really gets normal chicken shipments everyday."I chuckled.

"True, it does look a little dingy." She smirked back."So what do you suggest? I assume it's best to go with the burger and fries?"

"Yup," I confirmed with a pop of my lips, "it's the best burger you'll have in the northwest. Trust me, I've done my homework."

"Yes, and it must have been so incredibly tedious for you. Such a daunting task." She teased.

Right then Claire, the soon-to-be valedictorian of the senior class, came over to take our order. Enrolled in the local high school, she was nominated for the Cullen scholarship: one that my father, Carlisle, had founded for the student with the highest GPA to receive. It was a $2500 scholarship to assist the graduate with college tuition and books. She and I had struck up a friendship over the last couple of months when I would help her with her homework. She hated math.

Claire was petite, with long, brown hair, and beautiful brown eyes. She usually wore a pendant of a wolf dangling from her necklace. I asked her once what the wolf was about and she replied with a slight blush that "wolves are always better."

"Hey, Edward." She turned to Bella and introduced herself.

"So what can I getcha?" She was poised and ready with her pen and pad in hand.

I turned to Bella and motioned for her to go ahead. "Ladies first."

"I'll take your Dish and Spoon burger please, with no tomato. And a Dr. Pepper." Claire hummed her agreement and looked expectantly at me.

"The usual." I flashed Claire a smile and watched her as she picked up the menus in one fell swoop and yelled her order to Kevin in the back.

Over the course of our wait, I quizzed Bella about why she was here in Oak Falls, and what had originally brought her to such a small place.

"Well, I was looking for a place to start over, and Oak Falls just felt right. Aside from the whole I- ran- into- your- car thing."

"That's about the mentality here. We're like southern hospitality meets northwest fishing town. And I told you, forget about my car."

"Fine." She huffed, crossed her arms and wrapped her lips around the straw to take a drink.

From that day forward, I was a goner.

After that lunch, I wasted no time in getting to know Bella more. I used the guise of checking up on the house papers, to make sure she didn't need anything, and I was able to secure two more lunch dates with her before I got the balls to ask her out, legitimately.

Our first date, I thought that I was going to pee my pants the whole night. When I picked Bella up my stomach was in knots.

I already knew her address like the quadratic formula. I didn't need to look at the MapQuest printout. My heart was pounding like a gorilla on its chest. I was just so damn nervous.

Two weeks of innocent lunches and here I was picking up an incredible woman with an amazing sense of humor, and stubbornness that would rival a mule's.

I was completely falling for her.

Bella was the first woman in years that could meet me, challenge for challenge, rhetoric for rhetoric, wit for wit, and she spoke French.

Any woman that could speak another language was like three bonus points. Across the board.

So here I sit, completely chicken shit, watching and wasting the time that I could have with Bella being a pansy. Hiding in my car.

I replayed Emmett's favorite tag line in my head for the seventy-fifth time this hour.

"Edward, stop being a douche and grow a pair."

So with that last bit of advice, I got out of my car and walked the fifty-six steps to the girl of my dreams.

When I reached up to knock on her door, I realized that my hand was shaking. I can't believe that I'm this nervous. And then I heard him again.

"Edward, stop being a douche and grow a pair." Gah, make that seventy-six times.

So, with one last flick of my wrist, I rapped three times and anxiously waited for Bella to answer her door.

She wrenched the door open forty-three seconds later, and took my breath away— even while trying to put on her left shoe.

Dressed in a pale pink, flow-y dress with a small floral print on it, she radiated beauty. Taking a deep breath, I smiled at her, and asked if she was all set to go.

"Yeah, just let me get my bag. You can come in and wait." As she pulled the door further open.

I walked into a modest 650 square foot one bedroom apartment. It had worn wooden floors, with white cabinets that the corner paint had also worn off. This looked like my last college apartment before I came back home for this internship.

Her furniture was second hand, as if it had been there for years. The couch was a dingy yellow flowered print that looked as if it came from the set of "That 70s Show."

Bella came around the corner effectively ceasing any and all exploration of anything except her. The heels that she had put on made her legs longer and leaner, and her walk had more of a swagger to it.

Again, sexy.

"I'm ready." She announced.

"Alright, let's get going." I walked to the door and held it open for her but when she was about to pass me, I lightly grasped her elbow and bent to whisper in her ear.

"You look marvelous."

She blushed and mumbled a thank you as I shut the door behind me. Bella locked the door and I held my arm out to her.

We got to my Volvo, and I again, opened her door for her, but before she was able to sit down she noticed the one daisy I sat on her seat for her.

"Edward, this is beautiful. Where did you find daisies here? They are out of season." She questioned.

"I know a few people." I replied with smirk. I didn't want to tell her that I snaked the flower for her from my mother's greenhouse. That would be cheating.

I took her one town over to Saddlebrook, to the best French restaurant within 50 miles.

'L'Aigre Doux' had the best food around. The place was basically the only spot that you could take a date to impress.

Once seated, we ordered our dishes, well, Bella ordered our dishes in her French tongue which nonetheless made me twitch thinking what else she could say.

Our five courses were served, eaten, and we were sipping on our last glass of wine when I heard live violin music being played.

"Bella," I hesitated, and looked at her through my eyelashes, "would you like to dance?"

Bella blushed, something she frequently does, but I wouldn't ever tire of the rosy tint to her cheeks.

"I would love to; however, I'm not really all that great at it."

"Don't worry; I won't let you fall." I raised myself up, and offered my hand to the magnificent creature sitting and looking at me with wide-innocent eyes.

"Uh…Okay." She conceded.

As cliché as it was, the strings were playing "La Vie en Rose." I hummed the notes to Bella as I had her wrapped around me. Her hand on my shoulder burned fire into my skin, her small petite hand wrapped in mine made me realize exactly how fragile she was.

My cheek rested against her temple, I was able to take in her scent: a mixture of lilac, sunshine, and a hint of berry. I also felt every single one of her curves, slight as some may be, but still absolutely perfect.

After the dance she asked me for another.

"Always," I replied.

The next three weeks I saw Bella as much as possible. We went on a total of six dates. Each to do something different. We went to the park and had a picnic; I made the food for it. I took her to the museum in Seattle to see the newest Rousseau exhibit. Bella and I took a hike through the mountains. I took her horseback riding. However, that one night we decided to stay in at her house and watch a movie.

Battling the normal butterflies that usually accompany me whenever I spoke to Bella, I knocked on her door.

Tonight was the most personal date that we've had. Tonight we'd be in her house, on her sad furniture, with the lights off, watching some movie that I really won't pay any attention to.

I'd been in her presence for almost 48 continuous hours, and it'd been torture. Bella was completely unaware that with every blush, I imagined what she looks like post-coital. Every time she touched her necklace, I imagined what her neck tasted like. Every touch, all of them innocent, made me want to touch and feel if every part of her was as soft as the back of her hand.

I felt like some teen-age kid with some hidden monster waiting to be released.

Over the last three weeks, my poor hand and dick were almost rubbed raw. It really had been incredibly too long since I've had the company of a woman, and it was, literally, showing. As in it was beginning to look a little shriveled. And a shriveled up penis is never good.

And she decided to open the door on penis.

"Hey Edward." Bella was standing with one hand on the door, left foot on top of right, propped up next to a broom.

I watched her had slide down the handle of the broom stick.

Fuck. Why does she have to hold broom with her little hand wrapped snugly around the long, hard wood?

Not helping.

She tilted her head to the side and greeted me with her pleasant, innocent smile.

"Are you ok, Edward?"

Of course there is, I'm imagining your tiny hand wrapped around my cock.

I responded, "Nothing," and was invited into her house. She said she'd be a few minutes, and insisted that I make myself at home.

I waited and watched her flit around her miniscule apartment, while getting us popcorn and sodas. Well, I didn't watch her actions as much as I watched her hips shimmy as she walked around.

She appeared around the corner with two sodas, a bowl of popcorn, and a blanket thrown across her shoulder.

Didn't know how she did it, but she impressed me or surprised me every day.

Well, at least the last month or so.

After she put all the things taking up her hand down on the table, she saddled up to me and snuggled in, ready for our night of… just us.

Ugh. See torture. Sweet, sweet, tormenting bliss.

She told me that she wanted to watch one of her favorites, but if I didn't want to see it we could watch something else.

I decided to wait it out to see her taste in movies, and if it was absolutely horrible, I'd suggest something I know that all chicks like. 'The Notebook.'

Interestingly enough, it was a movie that I'd seen numerous times, my mother loved to have Mother-Son dates, and we would usually end up watching a movie, doing gardening work, cook, or something else that mothers loved to do. This movie was my mother's favorite.

City Of Angels.

I'll never understand. Why can't it be something cool, where I don't feel like I have a vagina when I watch it?

Like Casablanca. Bogey was awesome. I feel cooler because I am watching the Bogey.

But no, it's Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. The Neanderthal and the ugliest woman ever. Nicolas Cage was only good for 'National Treasure' and I curse the day that Meg Ryan came to this earth.

She gave women the idea that faking it was easy. Cunt.

About ten minutes into the movie, I realized that the way that her mouth formed around her hand when she took a bite of the popcorn, was incredibly erotic—sigh, I've been so deprived. I self-consciously moved so that my boner was hidden. Every time I felt that I was okay from being "caught" she would move her elbow, or lean a little bit further into me, causing me to move again.

This was the game we played for the whole film.

Focus on the film. Focus on the film. Focus on the film.

So Seth is an angel. He's watching over San Fran, Maggie is a heart surgeon. Seth falls for her; he must choose earthly love or celestial duty. Blah blah blah.

I watched Bella, not the movie. Toward the end of the movie, I was fascinated that Bella was openly crying with large, silent, crocodile tears streaming down her cheeks, attempting to conceal her sniffles. Still, it was somehow sexy.

When the part that Seth is asked about his choice to become human, I recite the line with him into Bella's hair. Because I finally got it.

"I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it."

With shining eyes, Bella looked at me, sniffed, and attacked me.

Her hands went into my hair—God, that felt good—and her mouth was on mine. Frenzied, frenetic, and demanding and fucking hot.

I loved what and how she was making me feel, but I know that this wasn't right. I didn't want our first kiss to be like that. She had to know exactly how I was feeling.

I felt every inch of her, pressed against me in absolute splendor, and every surface that our bodies were touching was literally on fire for this woman. I closed my eyes, and tried to clear my head of the copious amounts of lust flowing through me. I pulled away, and slightly pushed Bella a few inches back, and looked at her.

I came to the realization that: I, Edward Anthony Masen Cullen, was gazing at the woman that I've waited for and that I want to be with forever.

Always.

I gently cupped her reddened face, part from crying, part from the feverish kiss, and brought her closer to my awaiting lips.

Where she belonged.

Always.

Amaaazzeballs eh? How sweet was this? I love Edward Anthony Masen Cullen. He's so cute.

Now, what memories do ya want next???