A/N: Sorry I didn't get to post yesterday. I'm on vacation, so I'm going to post a few today in anticipation of not having time over the next few days.

In response to a common question: This story has a total of fifty chapters. The first twenty-four chapters are from Bella's point of view. The second half of the story is from Edward's point of view; past events are re-told from his perspective, but the present day stuff picks up where Bella leaves off.

Thanks, as always, for reading. xo

. . .

February 21, 2013 – Word Prompt: Puppet. Scenario: "A funny thing happened on the way to…"

. . .

The venue Carlisle and Esme have chosen for the celebration is resplendent, an arch of autumn leaves hanging over the doorway. Inside, a banquet table is set up at the front of the room with a row of cream-colored pillar candles amid a line of red, gold, and dark peach rose petals along the front edge of it; the rest of the tables have centerpieces of clustered roses in the same hues. Tealight candles are everywhere, making the room feel warm and cozy, the seats wrapped in cream slipcovers and hugged with bows of gauzy brown ribbon.

Esme is wearing a cocktail dress the color of a vanilla cupcake, and Carlisle has a chocolate brown suit with a crisp white open-necked shirt, and they look so happy and so in love, and I wonder if they're the exception to the rule.

Emmett, Jasper, and Edward are dapper and dashing in dark slacks and dress shirts in a variety of appropriate shades: Edward's is deep burgundy, Jasper's is a taupe hue, and Emmett's is the color of espresso. They look casually handsome, effortlessly beautiful.

A girl I've never seen is trying to strike up a conversation with Edward, who is swirling a small tumbler of amber-colored liquid in his fingers as he tries to avoid making eye contact.

I glance out the enormous window overlooking the gently sloping landscape, and for the first time I realize that while I always associated Edward with winter and hot chocolate and blanket forts, fall is painted with his color palette. The auburn of his hair is in the changing leaves, and the deep green of his eyes is in the evergreens that don't transform – despite my half-hearted attempt to avoid looking at him, he's inescapable.

When I spy Emmett leaning against the bar alone, I make my way over to him.

"So, I owe you congratulations," I say to his back. He turns, and the warm smile he's always given me so easily breaks over his face. "I don't think I really conveyed that appropriately the other day."

"Thanks," he replies, lifting his full drink to his lips. "Understandable." His dark eyes find his youngest brother across the room. "I'm sure it was…a surprise."

I follow his gaze to where Edward has moved and is now talking to Carlisle. "Must be weird for him." I silently berate myself for that rather spectacular admission, that rather ineloquent nosedive into the subject that has loomed large since I ran into them in the grocery store. For years, really.

"Swan, my little brother lives ten minutes from my house in Seattle, and has for the past two years. When he first moved to the city, he was at my house at least three times a week. Since Rose moved in with me six months ago, he's been over twice."

I feel immediately sad, despite a tiny, admittedly ugly hint of satisfaction. Edward has always been close with his big brother, and I know that the distance between them, regardless of the reason, must be hard for both of them. Then I see Rosalie standing with Esme beside the bar, and the thin thread of pity I'd felt for a moment vanishes altogether.

"Isn't it awkward for you?"

Emmett doesn't even bother to pretend not to know what I'm talking about. He watches his fiancée talking with his mother as he slowly swirls a glass of champagne in his hand. "It was, at first," he allows. "But eventually we just decided that it just…didn't matter."

I look away from Rosalie and Esme, his words unexpectedly painful. How something that left such a fault line in my life can be an event that other people deem insignificant hurts, selfish though that may be. I should be happy for Emmett, but I'm having a hard time surgically detaching the woman he's marrying from the girl who played such a key role in the betrayal that broke my young, untested heart. He shifts his weight in the space beside me. "I know," he says, correctly interpreting my look, and then raising his eyebrows as if going for a joke. "A funny thing happened on the way to adulthood." When I frown, he shrugs. "Everyone has a past, and no one gets to choose what theirs looks like. You can't go back in time and undo the things you did that you wish you hadn't. Nobody has that option. The only choice you have is how much of an impact you let the past have on your present." I realize for the first time that, perhaps because Edward was always so intellectually brilliant, no one ever gave Emmett much credit. When I say nothing, he continues, his voice gentle. "And people change when they grow up. Sometimes it's surprising how much."

It doesn't occur to me until he's crossed the room and pulled his fiancée onto the dance floor that I'm not sure whether he was talking about Rosalie or Edward. Another ugly realization hits me as I watch Rosalie laugh, feeling seventeen all over again, relegated to the sidelines: in a room of people I once knew, I might be the one who's grown the least.

. . .

A month. It's been a month since I found out about Edward losing his virginity, and the wound is still raw to the point of anguish. According to Alice, it was a one-night stand: Edward has no interest in dating Rosalie, despite her best efforts to convince him otherwise for a whole two days afterward. This, as much as anything, makes him seem like a stranger, and I find myself unable to make the two Edwards coexist in my mind. A not-so-small part of me hopes that it's out of guilt, that he knows how hurt I was when I found out and is attempting, however unsuccessfully, to minimize the damage. But there's a terrified part of me that wonders if this is just one more indication of the fact that I never knew Edward nearly as well as I thought I did, and that he is, in fact, the type of boy who will have sex with a girl he doesn't love.

The hits are always unexpected, and always brutal. In the locker room, I hear second-hand details about the physical attributes of the boy I dated for two years. In the newspaper, I see headlines about the baseball team's winning record and Edward's stellar pitching. In the hallways, I read the posters listing Edward among the nominees for prom king. I try, and fail, not to care about any of it. I navigate my days with the seemingly involuntary movements of a marionette coaxed to life by a puppet master, sleepwalking through schoolwork and the sad mockery of a social life I can claim as my own, and I come to terms with the fact that a broken heart keeps beating.

. . .