A/N: Please note: I have changed this story's label to "friendship/angst." I genuinely don't think this story is "angst" – at least, not in comparison with many I've read (and written) that are labeled as such – but I do make every attempt to be sensitive to things that may bother readers. Therefore, if the possibility that you may be in some way triggered by this story exists, I urge you to read elsewhere. If you were negatively affected by the path this story has taken, I apologize. That said, this story is, at its root, about friendship. So that one stays. (It likely comes as no surprise that I hate labels. In fic and in life.)

If this is not the story for you, that's okay. There are plenty others out there. Thanks for giving it a try anyway, and happy reading. xo

Also, I'm staring down the barrel of a 10-hour road trip with a two-month-old and a three-year-old tomorrow, but I will do my best to get the next chapter posted.

As always, thanks for reading. Onward. xo

. . .

February 18, 2013 – Word Prompt: Retrieve. Dialogue Flex: "I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Oh, Bella, love, I'm so happy to see you!" Esme's hug is like a time machine; for a moment, I'm a fifteen-year-old girl with a poorly-disguised crush and whipped cream on the tip her nose. "Thank you so much for coming. When your dad told me you'd be here, I can't tell you how glad I was."

"Thanks, Esme. It's really good to see you, too." One of the countless sad things about losing Edward was losing his family, too. "Congratulations," I add, and she waves me off.

"Thank you. I know some people think it's silly, the whole vow renewal thing, but we didn't want to just throw an anniversary party, and we figured after thirty years, people might cut us some slack."

"I'd say it's definitely worth celebrating," I say, flashing briefly to my own parents, who barely made it a decade.

"And we figured that if we had it Thanksgiving weekend, we had a better chance of getting all of our kids home at once." I laugh, remembering how Esme would bribe Emmett and Jasper to come home for long weekends from their respective colleges. She must have been so sad when Edward went all the way to Chicago. "I'm so glad you're feeling better," she says, smiling into my face, still holding my wrists in her cool hands.

"I'm sorry?"

"The other night, when you left the club. Edward said…" She trails off, glancing from her son to me, and I can see that he took it upon himself to excuse my abrupt exit from the bar after I rather unceremoniously turned down his request for a dance. "Well, anyway," she finishes, squeezing both of my hands in hers. "I'm so glad you're here. And thank you for helping Alice pick up the arrangement. If I'd realized it was such a monstrosity, I'd never have asked her to do it. Shelly does beautiful work, but sometimes she lets her artistic flair get the better of her good sense. I admit, I'm mildly concerned what tomorrow's centerpieces are going to look like."

I smile. "I'm sure they'll be beautiful." After all, everything even remotely related to the Cullens is always beautiful.

Their home.

Their parties.

Their sons.

Why would their floral arrangements be any different?

"You will come to dinner tonight, won't you?"

"Oh," I stutter, glancing to Alice for help, but she's murmuring with Jasper across the room and has left me out to dry. The only person who notices my despair is Edward, and I'd rather eat that monstrosity of a floral arrangement than give him the chance to come to my rescue. "That's really kind of you, Esme, but I promised Charlie I'd spend some time with him tonight. He's been out of town, and I have to leave right after Thanksgiving."

"Bring him!" she replies warmly and without hesitation. "We don't see nearly enough of your dad, considering we're practically neighbors. There'll be plenty of food, and it will give us a chance to chat that we probably won't have tomorrow night when more family is milling about."

"Thanks. I appreciate the invitation. I'll ask Charlie; he only just got back from a few days of ice fishing, so he still might be thawing out." I force a smile to my lips, and Esme does the same, her shrewd eyes searching mine for the unspoken, and not for the first time, I miss Edward's family with a sharp longing that makes me want to lunge forward and hug Esme around the waist. I miss his mother, who was more like my own than my own; I miss her concern, her affection, her tendency to push when she feels like she isn't getting the whole story. I miss them all, even as I have to force myself not to look back in Edward's direction as I leave.

. . .

"I need to know what happened. I need to understand." My eyes are as pleading as my words, and I'm hoping the fact that he's able to look me in the eye means this isn't as bad as I've been making it out to be since Alice blindsided me in the hallway this morning. That it's not too late to retrieve what we had. His eyes seem to be begging right back, but while I'm asking for answers, he's asking for forgiveness. I hope I can give it to him, because sitting across from him with my arms folded across my chest feels foreign and slightly scary. It's been ages since we sat this close without touching at least some part of each other, and I want nothing more than to unfold my arms and wrap them around his neck. Still, I remain sitting with them crossed in front of me: a shield to protect me, a knot to hold me together. I hope I won't need either.

He blows out a breath. "It was…stupid. She said she knew that we weren't…y'know. Doing anything." He glances up at me in apology, as if this is the transgression. "And she said she could help me out with that. 'Relieve some tension,' she said. So that I could focus on going slow with you."

My mind flashes to the feel of his body pressed to mine as his tongue licks fire against my mouth and the pained groans that sometimes escape his lips when I pull away. I'm seeking answers, but his words only give me more questions. "How does kissing relieve tension?"

He frowns. "What?"

"Kissing," I say, remembering once again that every time we make out, it only seems to fuel the fire rather than diminish it. "I don't understand why she thought kissing would relieve any tension." He looks panicked, and after a split second of confusion, my stomach drops. "That wasn't all."

It's the first time he looks down, and any hope that this might have hurt less than I anticipated vanishes. "She…touched me. I tried to stop her, but she…touched me some."

I want to close my eyes, to run, to leave before it can get any worse, but I'm glued to the top step. "Touched you where?"

"Bella—"

"Touched you where?"

His eyes are glistening and he waves a hand in the direction of his lap. I nod, feeling suddenly, oddly, numb. "Where I won't," I say for him. "She touched you where I won't."

"Bella," he says again, but that's it. He doesn't say anything else, and I sit, stupidly, waiting for him to spit out the words that will somehow negate the pain tearing through my chest, but apparently he reaches the same conclusion I do: they don't exist.

"I hope it was worth it," I say, surprised at the fact that my voice doesn't falter, doesn't shake, doesn't break when my insides are doing all three. I rise from the step and take one last look at him before turning my back and walking inside my house. I don't even slam the door, but the click when it shuts is the loudest thing I've ever heard.

Four hours later, the calm I'd managed to achieve on that front porch is nowhere to be found, and I'm curled up in a ball in the middle of my bedspread, head pounding from hours of sobbing and nose too stuffy to breathe through. Salt is drying on my cheeks and my eyes are burning and feel three sizes bigger than normal. I ignored the phone that rang every ten minutes until Charlie came home, and when I heard the muffled murmur of him answering it through the floorboards and the heavy thuds of his feet climbing the stairs, I told him through the door that I didn't want to talk to Edward. Or anyone. After a characteristically gruff offer to talk if I wanted to, Charlie retreated downstairs and left me to suffer my heartbreak in peace.

I stare at my wall, feeling like the cliché of every teenage girl with a broken heart, except that this must be different because it's Edward. It's us. Surely not every broken heart hurts this badly; if it does, how does anyone ever find the will to get out of bed the morning after? I realize suddenly that I'm going to have to go to school tomorrow, and wish idly that he could have broken my heart on a Friday instead of some otherwise ordinary Tuesday.

As it turns out, getting out of bed the Wednesday morning after a broken heart isn't the hardest thing ever.

As it turns out, things can always get worse.

In fact, they usually do.

. . .