A/N: Your eyes do not deceive you. This is an honest to goodness update and you can thank Aleeab4u for that. We've struck up a deal. If she works on her story Thorough I'll update Resurrection. So if you want more of Resurrection go bug her.

If you're a long time reader of mine thank you for sticking with me. If you're a new reader, um, hi. I'm kind of crazy but I like to think I'm worth it.

I have to warn you guys that I'm not yet out of my slump. Hence this is a short chapter and the POVs are a little all over the place. Please forgive me.

And remember, reviews are love and we all need love.

As always, very special thanks to Aleea. Not only for getting me to update but for being my beta and always having faith in me.

BPOV

I slept more soundly that night knowing that Jacob was alive and that I was saved from having to tell him what Edward was. It was a selfish thought. I should have been brave enough to confront him but I wasn't. I'd had too much stress in my life already and I knew there was more to come. Like the two conversations I still needed to have with Edward.

"Morning, sleepy head," he said while smiling. He was leaning up on one elbow watching me. I kind of hated when he did that. I was quite sure my hair was a rat's nest and that there'd be pillow lines on my face and I didn't even want to think about the sleep in my eyes. He brushed a stray lock of hair from my face.

"Morning, sleepless in Forks," I replied. He chuckled.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Time for you to get up." His expression changed from one of mirth to one of sadness. Getting up meant that our time together was about to come to an end since I needed to go to school and he would have to go back to skulking around, or whatever it was he did when we were apart.

"Is there any time?" I asked while lifting my head to look at the alarm clock.

"Time for what?" he asked, mischievously.

"We still have things to talk about," I said. I stared at the bright red digits on the clock trying to calculate how much time I could spare. I hadn't showered last night because we'd become rather…distracted. If I didn't condition my hair and grabbed a pop tart to go, I might be able to shave ten minutes off my morning routine.

"Okay, I'll ask the easy thing," I said while propping myself up.

"Alright," he replied warily.

"When you left, I noticed some things missing." I paused and then continued. "The pictures of us, little presents you'd given me, that sort of thing." I looked at him pointedly while my fingers picked nervously at a loose thread on my quilt.

"I know you must have taken them, but why? I could never quite figure that part out. On my worst days I assumed you did it to be cruel, but now that you're back I don't believe that."

He sighed and took one of my hands in his.

"I did so much damage, didn't I?" He said it in barely a whisper. He kissed the back of my hand tenderly.

"I'd like to show you something," he said while getting up from the bed. He beckoned me to follow him. At the foot of the bed he stooped down, resting on the balls of his feet with his knees bent. He looked at the floor almost wistfully and I briefly wondered if our time apart had made him crack a bit himself. To the best of my knowledge, my floor shouldn't have held any particular sadness for him.

"Here," he said while taking my hand again and urging me down to join him. I knelt on the cool, wood floor and waited for whatever was going to come next.

He got down on his knees and began to pry at the floor boards with his fingernails. They came up easily, like sheaths of paper, and I was awed at his strength. It had been so long since I'd seen this side of him, the side that was capable of great damage with just the flick of a finger, that I'd forgotten how true his words were when he said he was dangerous.

I was distracted from my thoughts when he moved the boards aside revealing a wooden box hidden within. My heartbeat picked up because I knew what would be in there. My things. Our things. The physical remnants of our old relationship. I was no longer sure that I wanted to see them.

He lifted the box out and ran his fingers lovingly over the top. There were words engraved in elegant script across the lid.

Be Safe

I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes and I took a deep breath.

He made to remove the lid, but I quickly laid my hand over his.

"Don't," I said, almost a little too sharply. I tried to divert his attention. "Why did you do this?" I asked.

"I wanted a clean break, but I also wanted to leave a piece of myself here with you. I thought it might be painful for you to see these things. I thought maybe one day you'd forget all about me, especially if there was no longer any physical proof."

"I could never forget you," I whispered.

He tried again to lift the lid and again I stopped him. "Not now. I need to get ready or I'm going to be late."

"I wish I could give you a ride to school." He gave a halfhearted smile.

"Yes, well, that's another thing we'll need to talk about in the very near future."

Simultaneously Edward's face lit up and the phone in his pocket began to vibrate.

"I don't even want to know," I said as I stood and headed for the bathroom.

What I didn't tell him about the box was that I didn't think I could look inside. Ever. I knew it would be too painful to look back on that past representation of ourselves and all the things I'd lost. I couldn't do it. I had half a mind to burn the damn thing but I knew that would probably break his heart. I'd have to think of something though. He was right about needing a clean break. That's exactly what we needed. A clean break from a past that was no longer possible.

EPOV

While Bella rushed through her shower I pulled out my phone to see who had called, though I suspected I knew who. There was a text message from Alice.

YES! YES! YES!

That was all it said but that was plenty. I knew Bella was going to ask about my family coming back and I was thrilled. All I wanted was for us to return to some semblance of normalcy. I wanted to spend every second with her that I could. I wanted to walk the school hallways hand in hand with her. I wanted her to spend the weekends at my house. I wanted to take her to our meadow.

I sat on the floor and ran my thumb over the box lid. Be Safe. Words I left with her so long ago. Words said in place of the ones I had longed to say but it had been too soon and it was too selfish of me. I lifted the lid and stared at the contents. Photos, a CD, tickets. They were all in there. Along with the lemonade bottle cap I'd swiped all those months ago. Things had changed so much since then and not for the better. I wondered if we could get back to the place inside this box and then wondered if we should.

I pulled out the photos of us and grimaced at how serious they were. In my mind I had remembered them as happy joyful things but looking at them, I realized that wasn't the case. I was so somber in them. Thin tight smiles and sometimes outright despair, and then the last one…I was so cold and distant in the last one. I tossed them back inside as though they burned to the touch. Maybe Bella had been right not to look inside. Sometimes the past should stay in the past. We'd have to forge ahead and make new memories.

I heard the shower shut off and moments later she came in wrapped in nothing but a flimsy white towel. I couldn't stop staring. No matter that I'd already seen her in this towel. Now that I'd touched her, now that I'd had a taste of her passion, my body was automatically tuned to hers and I no longer wanted to fight my desires.

"You'll catch flies," she chided while heading to her closet.

I closed my mouth but didn't bother to stop staring.

"Out," she said, pointing at the door. "I need to get dressed."

I resisted the urge to try to convince her otherwise and instead placed the box back in its resting place and got up and went downstairs. A few minutes later she rushed by me and then came back from the kitchen with a strawberry pop tart in hand, one bite already taken out of it. I crinkled my nose.

"I know, I know," she said, "but I'm in a rush."

She grabbed her backpack and rushed for the door.

"Whoa, wait a minute," I said while grabbing her around the waist and pulling her to me.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" I asked playfully.

"I have to go," she whined. "And besides, don't you hate the smell of these things?" she asked while waving the pop tart around.

"Indeed, I do, but could you at least let me hold you for a moment?"

BPOV

I wanted to tell him no, that I was late already, and he'd held me all night, but his voice was so plaintive that I couldn't find it in me to deny him. I relaxed into his arms and wrapped my one free one around his waist. I heard him mumble something into my hair.

"I'll see you tonight?" he asked.

"Yes," I smiled and then pecked him on the lips.

"Gross." He chuckled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but I knew it was just for show and that really he was just trying to be silly and lighthearted.

I ran to my truck and for a moment wished that I had let Edward buy me a car because this beast was going to take forever to get me to school. I'd be lucky if they didn't call my Dad looking for me. The fact that I had left Edward in my house didn't faze me. I knew he could come and go as he pleased if he really wanted to, but it's not like he was going to steal anything. Apparently he was more likely to be burying things under the floors or for all I knew in the walls too. I shook my head. Every time I thought my life couldn't get any weirder it always did, though in the grand scale of things this was small time weird. More like creepy ex-boyfriend weird, but then I shuddered because I hated thinking of him that way.

Ex-boyfriend. It sounded wrong. Partly because I didn't like to think of him leaving me but partly because boyfriend just didn't seem to cut it. He'd always been so much more. In ways that were unhealthy, but also in ways that couldn't be explained. A deeper something buried inside of me that always came to life in his presence. For better or worse I was irrevocably tied to him and I prayed that eventually it would be for the better.

3rd person POV

Bella was jarred from her thoughts as a giant black blur dashed out in the road in front of her. It came dangerously close to her vehicle as it ran from one side of the road to the other and then disappeared into the trees.

"Holy crap!" she exclaimed to no one in particular. "What the hell was that?" By this point she'd slammed on the brakes and was trying to catch her breath but then realized she better get a move on. At any moment a logging truck could come barreling down the road and snuff her out of existence.

She released her foot from the brake and drove on cautiously, carefully looking at the surrounding woods, wondering what it could have been.

Edward smelled the wolf before he saw it. He was just leaving Bella's house, brazen enough to use the front door, sure that no one would see him. He was wrong. The giant, black creature stood mere yards from him, and he chided himself for being so complacent and not paying better attention to his surroundings.

What were you going to do, bloodsucker? Hide in her house until she returned and then kill her?

Edward bristled and tried to rein in his instinctive anger. He would never hurt Bella and even the suggestion that he would do such a thing was enough to inspire violent and potentially murderous thoughts.

"What do you want, wolf?' he asked, snidely.

You know what I want. I want you to leave and to never come back.

"I can't do that."

You can and you will.

Edward tried to back away to the woods behind Bella's house but the wolf matched him step for step.

"I mean you no harm, wolf, but I will fight if I have to."

You don't belong here.

"This is neutral ground. I've broken no laws. I've not been to your land nor do I intend to."

It doesn't matter. Can't you see what you've done?

Edward felt a flash of guilt. He knew the boys had changed because of him.

"I know. And I'm sorrier than you'll ever know."

If that's true then you'll leave. We'll go back to normal if you leave.

"I can't."

Can't or won't?

"Won't," said Edward, resolutely.

Then we have a problem.

"I suppose we do." He nodded.

Just then Edward heard the thoughts of someone approaching.

"Someone's coming," he said, and glanced down the long drive. It was the mailman.

The wolf looked over his shoulder and then back at Edward.

This isn't over, leech. We'll be seeing you.

"Is Jacob alright?"

You have some nerve asking that.

"Bella's worried. She misses him."

They both heard the crunch of gravel as the mailman got closer. The wolf took off first in one direction and Edward ran off in the opposite, but not before catching one last thought from the shape-shifter.

Well he doesn't miss her.

Edward winced and wondered if he'd ever cease to hurt the one the he loved most in the world.