A/N I'm so so sorry for not being able to reply to your reviews, but FF won't let me for some reason...

Thank you for taking an interest in this new story.

Chapter 1

Edward Pov

~January 25th, 2011~

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The ride back from the cemetery was quiet.

I was in the car with my mother and father while my two brothers and their other halves were taking their own separate cars. Dad glanced at me sideways, and I sighed heavily, turning my head to look out the window. It felt weird to be sitting in the passenger seat of my own car. I had insisted I could drive it myself, but Dad didn't even want to hear it. According to him, I was emotionally unstable, a very dangerous thing when combined with driving through Chicago's traffic.

Even though I was a bit irritated that he was treating me like a child, I knew he was right. He always was.

I had just lost my wife, the woman who I had practically lived with since my last day of college, ten years prior.

Over the last few months I had some time- not nearly enough- to cope with the fact that Tanya was soon going to die. Her doctor, my parents, her sister and even Tanya herself did their best to prepare me for what we all knew was coming next. The dreaded inevitable.

However, that didn't make it any easier. On the contrary.

The night my wife let out her last, staggered breath, I was so devastated, I couldn't even bring myself to get out of bed to call her parents. I lay next to her, angry tears spilling from my eyes, my trembling hand clutching her cold, stiff one in a vicious, desperate grip. I didn't want to let go. I couldn't.

Those last five agonizing hours of night I spent with her lifeless body until my mother found us, were the hardest of my life.

My head was resting on her silent chest, our hands still joined.

My tears had dried on my cheeks as my blank gaze remained trained on the engagement and wedding rings on her slim finger.

Time seemed to have stopped around us.

My mother's sharp gasp was what broke me out of the trance I had fallen in. From that moment on, everything happened in a blur. The next thing I knew, the house started filling with people and I was being pulled away from my wife's quiet form.

In a haze, I walked out of the master bedroom- our bedroom- and locked myself in the small half-bathroom on the third floor. I collapsed on the hard tile floor and cried until there were no more tears left.

We might have had our differences, especially in the past year and a half, but to me Tanya was still the woman who had showed me what love really was.

I had always been the kind of man who used perfectly valid excuses for pushing people away, for running in the other direction when it came to love and for keeping myself locked behind an emotional fortress that no one was allowed to penetrate.

When Tanya had appeared into my life, all of those excuses seemed to suddenly vanish into thin air. With a lot of determination and a stubbornness that topped even mine, she had managed to shatter the wall I'd build between me and my emotions. To me, a cocky, smart-ass, senior student in law school, this new, alien experience had been mind-blowing. She was the most beautiful, fierce, passionate, incredible woman I had ever met, and I fell for her instantly. I fell so hard that only six months into our relationship I asked her to move in with me.

The rest... well, the rest is history. We got engaged, moved into a larger house, we both began working our dream jobs and finally got married. All that was missing were the two point five kids. For some unknown reason to me, the Universe had not blessed us with children. For years we had tried every modern method possible, but to no avail.

Eventually Tanya became depressed, and that's when our problems began. We started fighting, she closed into herself, I became irascible, and the life we had build together during the years started to fall apart in front of our very own eyes. Then she became sick, and I was certain God must really hate me in order to punish me in such a cruel way. I had never felt like more of a pawn on the Divinity's chess table as I did then. Everything in my life was spinning out of control, and I had no decision or say in it.

We passed a Starbucks, one of Tanya's favorite places to be, and I had to close my eyes as a wave of nausea overcame me. I felt the bile rise in my throat, and the overwhelming urge to throw up shook my entire being. I covered my mouth with my hand and inhaled sharply, forcing myself to calm down.

"Are you okay, darling?" Mom asked in her saccharine sweet tone that only veiled her growing anxiety and worry. Her hand reached between the front two seats to rub my back gently.

I nodded stiffly and saw my father throw me a pained, saddened glance.

I was still trying very hard to process what had happened. Did Tanya actually die? Had she really left me on my own? None of it seemed real. It was like every fear I'd ever had morphed into some sadistic, terrifying nightmare inflicted upon me by the devil himself.

God... the devil... someone up there was clearly bent on ruining me.

How was I supposed to go on without her by my side?

She had left me completely and utterly alone; the emptiness now residing in my heart, my sole companion for the difficult journey ahead of me called life.

Without her I felt lost, and I wondered if I was ever going to find myself.

A/N Next, Bella's Pov.

The rest of the chapters are going to be much longer than this one, I promise.