Soooo… here's chapter eighteen for you all. But firstly, I'd like to thank a few people for this… one, my bestest frand Thorfaxic. She helped me tons with this chapter, and I don't believe that it would have turned out the way it did if it weren't for her :P Secondly, my reviewers, as per usual. You guys are awesome and are one of the main driving forces behind the continuation of this fanfic. THANKEE! And lastly, I'm thanking Black Veil Brides. Cause their amazing music totally helped motivate this chapter for some reason. I don't know why. They're just awesome like that. xD

So… enjoy! And as always, please leave a review, cause it always put a smile on my face when I get feedback ;D

Esme Platt

Four Years Later…

June 29th. The infamous date that I had developed a grudge against had, once again, paid its annual visit as the bitter 'anniversary' of his departure.

This date had haunted me four times. Each year that passed had painstakingly drilled the everlasting, dreadful thought into my mind that he had forgotten. Forgotten his former life, the promises, the relationships; forgotten me. A day never passed without thoughts of what was before. I awoke each morning with a dubious amount of hope that it would finally be the day of his return, and bed myself each night with a sense of failed expectation that was almost tangible in the air.

There was nothing left for me to hang on to.

The devil had struck again. It seemed as though each time I was able to grasp onto something – or in this case, someone – it was almost immediately dissipated like snowflakes in an ocean.

Over the course of the past four years, what was brought to my attention is the fact that life simply goes on.

He left. That was the bottom line. He left after faithfully promising that he would return. 'People change, Carlisle. Anything is possible, you know that.' Not only did he leave, he changed. He must have decided that something or someone in his new environment was simply better. He changed, just like the rest of us.

In all honesty, I couldn't disagree more.

Carlisle Cullen does not change in any such way.

I could always sense it about him; I could see it in his eyes. That man, so it seemed, had been through Hell and back. Each obstacle that was thrown in his path was demolished. When life gave him lemons, so to speak, he didn't 'make lemonade'; he threw them straight back to where they came from.

Something as petty as moving out of state would not have the power to alter that.

No, Carlisle did not change. The only option that I was left with was that he had merely forgotten. He had moved on, realizing that his relationship with me was just another chapter of his life that had come to an unfortunate, cliffhanger ending.

As for myself, said chapter had never come to a close. It dragged itself onward at an agonizingly slow pace, and just when it seemed as if I could move on, my train of thought halted in the station and landed me right back where I started.

Alone.

Four years had passed by. I'd managed to graduate high school and begin college (thanks to a bank loan, unfortunately enough, I couldn't land myself a scholarship), all the while caring for my now fourteen year old sister. I had a rather busy life, to say the least, but no matter how many times I denied it, I was incomplete.

It was probably due to my own pathetic insecurities that I had attempted to move past my feelings for Carlisle and find another significant other. I'd let the idea that consuming myself with another would make those emotions disappear. Sure, that worked for the first few months. I was successful in hiding my true emotions behind a resigned mask, and my 'boyfriend' had done quite well in distracting me. For the longest time, I'd believed that I'd finally moved on, that I'd finally been able to get past Carlisle; that is, until the date of June 29th decided to pop up on the calendar and the past took a swing by the place that it had used to dwell before I attempted to hide it away.

"Zoning, are we?" I jumped at the sudden voice, startled. I turned around from my place on the sofa to find Jason standing in the entry of the living room, wearing a small smirk on his face. "I hadn't heard from you today, so I decided to take a trip down here. You okay?" I'd nearly forgotten in the midst of my swirling thoughts that I'd given him a house key. Jason had a tendency to pop in whenever he so pleased, which is what a boyfriend should do, but often times he would 'forget' to notify me of his appearance. Until, of course, he scared the living hell out of me by suddenly appearing in the doorway behind my back.

"Um, yeah," I replied, struggling to force my voice into sounding relatively normal in spite of the circumstances. "Just zoning. Can I help you with something?"

Jason jokingly rolled his eyes, walking across the room to approach my place on the sofa. "Why do always ask if I need help with something? I just felt like popping in for a visit. Maybe we can go somewhere later if you want to. I don't always have to have a specific reason for coming by, do I?" He slid his arm around my waist, subtly pulling me away from the edge of the couch and closer to his side. His touch never failed to, even for only a second, make me slightly uncomfortable. To put it lightly, Jason was a bit… grabby. He always insisted on putting on a Public Display of Affection for anyone around to see, whether we were alone or in a crowded room. It was something that I would probably never get used to, at least with him.

I paused for a moment before I responded to his offer, "Sure. Why don't we go somewhere, it's a nice day out." I put on a sham of being interested in what was outdoors, glancing out the window at the cloudless blue sky. Hopefully going out for a little while will clear my head.

"Sure. Where do you want to go?"

"Doesn't matter to me. I guess we could just go for a walk or something." Jason nodded and proceeded to stand up, pulling me along with him. I grabbed a light sweatshirt on our way out the door, slipping it on as I followed Jason down the street and into town. For the most part, we walked in complete silence until we reached the main intersection, each of us looking around for a place that held any remote source of interest.

"Bookstore?" I suggested, catching sight of the local Barnes & Noble located at the end of the street. Jason nodded in approval, beginning to walk towards our destination. I shoved my hands into my pockets, noticing how he reached for one as we began walking again. He seemed slightly hurt by the action, but in truth, today was not the day that I wished to deal with his constant PDA antics.

The sound of the doorbell jingling greeted our ears as we entered the rather large store. We both just stood there for a moment, contemplating where to start in the excessive racks of books that sat before us.

"Hm," Jason murmured, his eyes wheeling around in search of something of interest, "I guess I'll go look through the music, see if they have anything new."

I nodded, setting my gaze in the opposite direction, "Sure. I'll go look at the, um… mystery novels." I could sense his eyes on my back as I proceeded to make my way towards the 'Mystery &Thriller' sign that hung from the ceiling, but didn't bother to glance back in his direction. I simply continued on my way, glad to be in a relatively quiet environment where I could sit and stare blankly at a book, pretending to read without getting questioned of why exactly I had been sitting nearly motionless in a chair for at least an hour or two. Luckily, the section was completely devoid of any other customers when I reached it, grabbing a random book off the shelf without even noticing the title or reading the description. Keeping a short sigh to myself, I sat down in one of the armchairs and opened up to the first page, attempting to concentrate on the words that lined the page. From what I gathered on the first few chapters, it was some sort of mystery murder tale, as many books of that genre were. I quickly lost interest in the clichéd plot line, but kept the book open in my lap anyways, occasionally flipping the pages every few minutes or so to appear as if I were actually enthralled in reading it. Over the course of the hour or so I had been pretending to read, I had slouched down in the armchair in a particularly uncomfortable position. Just as I started to adjust myself and flip another page, I felt a light tap on my right shoulder. Making the assumption that it was Jason returning from his hunt for music, I shut the book and started to stand up from my seat.

"Esme?" I froze in my seat upon hearing the soft voice. My fingers tightened around the novel in my hand as I slowly looked up to my right at the man standing beside me.

It wasn't Jason.

My jaw must have dropped to the floor at the sight before me, because I could hear the shaky breath being taken in through my mouth as I stared in disbelief. His golden blonde hair was slicked back, no longer the shaggy mess that I remembered hanging in his eyes. He'd grown immensely since the time I'd last seen him; he had to be around six feet or over. His body had definitely filled out, shown by the toned arms that stood out from under the sleeves of his navy blue button-up shirt; he was no longer the gangly teenager that I had grown to know and love. He was a fully grown man, except for the innocent look he still held in his eyes when he examined my incredulous expression.

"Carlisle." My voice sounded false to my ears as I pulled myself into a standing position, dropping the book I had been holding onto the middle of the chair. "Carlisle Cullen."

A small smile played at the corners of his mouth as he blushed lightly and kneaded his hands behind his back, "That's me."

I blinked a few times, thinking that somehow he was only a figment of my imagination and that he would disappear if I closed my eyes for a split second. Obviously, he didn't, and I stood there dumbfounded for a few minutes of silence. I felt the sudden urge to throw my arms around him, to bury my face into his chest and inhale the scent that I knew so well, but instead I simply stood there, like a statue in a museum.

"Where the hell have you been?" I questioned softly, finally breaking the silence. He didn't seem taken aback by my question, surprisingly enough, as he let his gaze drop to the carpet for a second.

"I know it's been a longer time than we expected," he began, occasionally glancing up at my face, "But, I… I know that you're probably unbelievably pissed at me right now, but I want to apologize."

"You want to apologize?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow, "You were gone for four years, never made any contact with me at all after two of those, and you think that a simple 'I'm sorry' is going to change that?"

"No. No, I don't think that." He stifled a short sigh, clearly at a loss of words on how to explain himself. "I know that it's been a long time, Esme. Honestly, I wasn't planning on this happening. I was going to come back as soon as I turned eighteen and could travel freely, I swear to you that I was. But then I got a college scholarship and started going to med school and… time just… got away from me. Now I know that's not an excuse for anything, because I can only imagine what you thought I was doing when I suddenly didn't come back, but I… I didn't forget about you, if that's what you thought."

"Time got away from you, huh?" I responded coldly, leaning against the wall, "Two years is a pretty long time to 'get away from you', Carlisle. Out of two years, you didn't have five extra minutes to call me and explain a few things? You never thought to do that?"

"I did think to do that. I was going to call you. I just thought that maybe after all that time that you'd… moved on."

My lower lip was trapped between my teeth as I gulped down the tight knot in my throat, debating on what to say next. He thought that I was the one that had moved on? He chose to lose contact with me because he was ashamed of himself and thought that I had forgotten, that I didn't want him anymore?

That's the Carlisle I knew. That's the one that I couldn't possibly stay angry at, no matter what his actions.

Taking one step closer to him, I proceeded to do what I had previously decided against. I let out a shaky breath as I wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my head in his defined chest as I smothered a small sob.

"I never moved on," I breathed, tightening my grip on him as he did the same, gently wrapping his arms around my much smaller form. We merely stood there in the middle of a public bookstore, embracing for what felt like hours without words.

"Am I forgiven?" Carlisle asked softly, his head resting on top of mine. I pulled back from him a few inches to look him in the eye, a faint smile appearing on my lips.

"Yes."

He returned my smile as he pulled me back into the embrace once more. "So I take it that we're, well… back together now?"

My eyes widened at his inquiry, just realizing one small detail that I had stupidly forgotten to mention. "Um… there's a tiny complication with that."

"This complication being?"

As if on cue, a person rounded the corner of a far bookshelf, stopping in his tracks as he laid eyes on me within the arms of another. He glanced from me to Carlisle and back, his gaze returned by Carlisle a few seconds later. Jason took a few steps closer, folding his arms over his chest as he stared at the two people before him.

"Esme," he began slowly, "who is this?"