Anne lived in a white two story house on the very end of the most picturesque dirt road I have ever seen. It had blue shutters and a covered porch littered with cats. She had thought it odd that they all scattered as we walked closer to the house. I just laughed and followed her in the crystal French doors.

She was very kind, very selfless. I was right in thinking her a very grandmotherly figure. She had shown me the room I was to stay, offered to let me freshen up then offered hot cocoa in front of the fire. I agreed graciously and set at once to taking a shower.

I turned the water to my normal shower temperature, but recoiled as the hot water hit my skin. I'd have to get used to doing everything at lower temperatures. I felt brand new after I was done. Like a new person, I though a little bitterly. I toweled off, and as I was leaving the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I had to turn back and marvel.

It still didn't seem real. The flawless milky skin, the toned arms and stomach. The lips were large and red, and my cheeks were still flushed pink after the hunt this morning. I noticed my eyes for the first time since my hunt. They were a bizarre mix of the golden brown and the menacing red. It was strange to look at. I dressed in my cotton shorts and a t-shirt. The outfit was a little cool for this early in the spring, but Anne had been very good at not asking too many questions. I worried that was soon to change as I set down the wooden stairs to the living room.

The living room was packed with baubles from all over. An array of house plants hung in front of the lace curtained windows, and crocheted blankets appeared on every surface. Several mismatched chairs were circled around the room; two comfortable-looking seats were pulled in front of the fire. Anne occupied one. As I entered the room, she smiled and beckoned me into the mirrored seat.

A steaming mug of chocolate was waiting for me. I wasn't sure how exactly to go about drinking the cocoa. Edward (I inadvertently flinched thinking the name) had proven that vampires could eat human food. But from what Carlisle had told me, we had no working digestive system that could handle human food. On top of everything else, the cocoa smelled about as appealing as chalk.

I didn't want to seem rude, after all of her generosity. I took one long drink from the fragile looking glass and nearly blanched. Chalk. I tasted just like wet chalk to my altered taste buds.

I smiled at her and leaned back in the chair. It was a comfortable silence. I felt at ease. After being in the house for the little while I had, even the sweet smell had faded a little. My throat ached longingly, but it wasn't uncontrollable. Besides, I would be leaving in the morning.

"You have a beautiful house." I said quietly. I curled up in the chair and pulled a blanket on my lap. It was hard trying to remember the little human things that others would expect. I noticed I didn't blink enough. I also noticed that I would sit motionless, which made her seem a little wary. I threw one arm over the arm of the chair and turned a little to face her.

"Thank you. It was my wedding present from my husband, Michael."

I sniffed the air once. From what I could tell, there were no other humans in this house. One smell (besides the thousand cat scents) was in every room of this house. I looked at her a little puzzled. "You're married?"

She nodded and pulled her hand out from beneath the blanket on her lap. On her second finger was a beautiful gold and diamond ring. She held it closer for me to see. Even from across the small space though, I could make out every facet in the dazzling heart shaped diamond. "Married 25 years. I was twenty when I met Michael. He proposed when we had been dating only 6 months, although I would have said yes the day we met."

My chest seemed to freeze up a little. She was going to tell me a story. A love story at that. The little fragments at the hole on my chest festered a little, but I remained smiling and nodded for her to continue.

"Oh, he was the most handsome man I'd ever met; tall, strong. He had the thickest head of hair I'd ever seen!" She exclaimed, laughing a little. "The day we met, I felt like a piece of me had been found. The two of us fit together so completely, so fully…like coming home. We got along like an old married couple, already. I made him smile, and he made me laugh. We opened the inn together eight years later. The only time we argued was over what to call that darn inn" She laughed again. "He wanted to name it after me, The Anne Inn. I insisted on the Northern Woods Inn. In the end, we both settled on another name completely."

She stood and pulled a picture of the mantle. There in front of the white two story house we were currently in, stood a pretty young woman with curly hair wearing a light colored dress and a smile. Her arms were around a tall man with dark hair and a thin face. He was laughing a little in the picture, the light mood reflecting in his eyes. "He looks very kind." I said, holding the frame out for her to take, but she folded her hands in her lap and looked at the fire. I held the picture frame in my lap. Why was her happiness so hard for me to hear? Even now, holding the picture, it felt like a grim remembrance of what I had once had.

"Every morning he would out down the lane for walk, and every day he would return with a white lily and put it in a vase on the table for me. So when I came down, I instantly knew he was thinking of me. Even after the first 20 years, everyday was like the first day we met. He loved me so completely, and I him."

If they were so in love, where was he now? If he truly and completely loved her, why wasn't he here at the fire, telling stories about her as a young bride?

"The day he came home from his walk without a lily, I knew something was wrong. He had walked straight back up to bed and laid there for the entire day. The next morning he was too sick to even get out of bed. The doctor came and went several times, but not even he could tell what was wrong. After weeks and weeks of tests at specialty clinics, I finally learned what was killing my husband: leukemia.

Medicine back then was so testy. Nothing developed to even help fight leukemia until 10 years after he was taken from me. The doctors recommended special diets, and supplements that could help, and in the end, they helped him last for 2 years. Each day, he'd get a little weaker, a little frailer. The only peace he seemed to have peace was at night, as the sun was setting. We'd sit out on the front porch and watch the clouds explode in color until it was nothing but a dark starry sky."

Small tears fell down her wrinkled cheeks as she stared past the fire. I turned my head away. It seemed so private, why would she be telling me this?

"He died in bed in my arms. He held my hand until his very last breath. I still remember it, like he was falling asleep. He just breathed out…and he was gone.

For months I couldn't do anything. The inn closed down, the house went to shambles. The only thing I did each day was dress in one of his shirts and walk down the lane and back. I'd sit and stare. The heart dies a slow death. It falls apart like petals from a flower, until there's nothing left."

The pain of her story was slowly ripping the hole in my chest apart. I was broken all over again. For so much pain for someone to go through, it didn't make sense for either of us to be there. We had loved and we had been loved, so where was the justice in having our hearts ripped from us. I clutched my arms around my chest, trying to contain all the pieces from bursting out.

"How did you survive?"

She looked at me and reached out to touch my cheek. Her sudden movement surprised me, but I remained motionless. Her soft hand was warm on my frozen skin.

"The same way you will - one awful day at a time. Sometimes, people that hurt so deeply run. They run away from their past, from the hurt. You can sit and stare, and wonder what you did wrong; what you did to deserve losing everything you loved most. Or you can pick yourself up and learn to live on day at a time for them. You can make your feet move, make your heart beat, because you do it for them. It gets easier, this living thing. The pain never goes away, but you learn to carry it differently, because in the end, that's what they'd want you to do: live."

We sat in silence for another hour, feeding off each other's company. I had been sent here by fate, I decided. Anne was the person I was supposed to meet to help me decide what I needed to do. As she stood up and folded the blanket, I stood as well. She smiled at me, and opened her arms as if expecting what I had wanted. I hugged her gently, but fully. Her sweet smell filled my nose, but instead of the scorching burn at the back of my throat, I felt comforted. Her hand smoothed down the hair on the back of my head and then she pulled away gently.

She smiled one last time and went upstairs to her room. I heard the creaking of her bed as she lay down, and soon her heartbeats were even and steady.

Anne had survived. It was possible to live through what I had been through. Edward didn't want me, but I wanted him. I wanted him to be happy and he wanted me to live. I could do that. I could live out the rest of eternity for him. I would keep my feet moving, my heart beating (figuratively) and know that this is what he would have wanted me to do.

I opened the front doors and walked out on the porch. I went down the steps and followed the lane. I walked the steps that Michael and Anne had walked. I saw the things they had seen. Each smell, strong and potent with my clear senses, meant something. The lane was long, so at the slow human pace I was at, it took me 30 minutes to get to the end of it. There, at the corner of the dirt road and the main street it turned off of was a large brown and twisted plant. In the very center of the dead plant stood a fresh lily; still closed. I plucked it at the base and held it carefully as to not bend it. My cool skin kept the flower fresh as I headed back to the house.

At the very center of her circular table sat a crystal vase. I filled it partially with water and placed the flower inside. By morning it had bloomed.

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A/N

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