AN: Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this story despite the slow updates.

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Bella POV

I was kept in the hospital for just over a day after I woke up. The doctors found all kinds of things to check before they'd let me leave. They let me go home, even though they still couldn't figure out why I'd been in such bad shape to begin with. For myself, I still couldn't quite believe that I'd been lost in that fog for four days. And now, I wasn't sure what waking up meant. Why had I woken up? What was I supposed to do now? Other than rest, that is; I'd been warned ad nauseum that I was going to have to take it easy for quite a few weeks or else end up back in the hospital again. As I had no desire whatsoever to be back at Forks Community Hospital, rest it would be.

We'd barely walked through Charlie's front door before Renee started 'encouraging' me to move in with her for the summer. "You'll need some help getting back on your feet, Bella," she argued. "Charlie can't take off from work indefinitely." Great, a guilt trip.

"Neither can you, Mom."

She gave me an indulgent look. "School's out for the summer for me, too, Bella."

"But Phil needs you with him," I countered. "And I've already moved cross-country once this year. I don't want to have to do it again twice more. I'm settled here. I'll be fine."

"Bella—"

"Renee, why don't we let Bella get something to eat and then some sleep? There'll be time later to talk." I smiled gratefully at my dad for standing up for me and not letting me get pressured.

I managed to convince my parents to let me watch some TV in the living room after I ate. "I've been in a bed for too long—I want to sit up," I wheedled. Not surprisingly, I fell asleep. I got woken up a while later by the sound of Charlie's and Renee's voices coming from the kitchen.

"No, Renee. If Bella doesn't want to go, I'm not going to force her to."

"But, Charlie, really, how can you take care of her?"

"I'll figure something out."

"How? She's been through too much here. Bella needs me."

"To do what?" Charlie's voice was heavy. "To take her for aura readings or crystal therapy or some other crap? To smother her? To have her take over running your life like she used to?"

"But—"

"I mean it, Renee. Bella is almost eighteen now—she's old enough to have a say in where she wants to live. She's already moved cross-country once this year—that's enough. And with how quickly she took over things here, it's a pretty safe bet that's what she was doing when she lived with you, too. I let you take her with you, because I figured a girl needed her mother most. Now…I wish I'd put up more of a fight, insisted she spend more than a couple weeks a year with me."

"And you'd have done a better job raising her than I did?" My mom's voice was a mix of scornful and hurt—I knew she'd done the best she could, even if she wasn't the kind of mom that most kids had.

Charlie snorted. "I get the feeling Bella basically raised herself. I don't know if I would have done better or not, but I for sure would have made sure she got the chance to just be a kid, to be silly with her friends or get in trouble, or whatever else. Bella might not have had the choice on where she lived growing up, but she for damn sure will have that choice now."

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Despite pressure from my mom, in the end, I won my case to stay in Forks. It really meant a lot to me—more than I thought it would—that Charlie had fought so hard to give me this choice. I felt bad for how much I'd taken advantage of him in the six months I'd lived here.

Like he'd told Renee, my dad did come up with a way to make sure I'd be looked after once he went back to work. Charlie's friend Harry had a daughter a year older than me, and Leah was at loose ends this summer. It got agreed upon among the parents that she'd be my buddy while Charlie was at work. Leah was looking to study healthcare in college—just like her mom, Sue—so it was going to be useful experience for her. For some reason, that actually made me feel better about the whole situation; I'd have hated it if Leah'd had to give up her summer for no good reason.

Hearing that Jacob Black wanted to spend time with me, too…I wasn't quite sure what to think about that. We'd hung out a lot as kids, when I'd visited for the summers, but as teens our interaction had been limited to that one meeting early this year, when the Forks kids had come down to La Push for a beach trip and Jake had met up with us. Thinking about that day, I now felt really bad about how I'd handled things. It had been wrong of me to pump Jake for information about his tribal stories, especially as he'd said he wasn't supposed to share them with outsiders, just to get details to confirm what I'd suspected about…them. Using Jacob that way, just because of how some of his friends had reacted to hearing that I knew them…maybe I could make it up to him.

It wasn't like I'd really have anything else to do. I'd thought vaguely about looking for a summer job, but with what I'd just been through, and having been hospitalized, I wasn't going to physically be up to even a part-time job for quite a while. And with it already being summer, there probably weren't any jobs left now, anyway.

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Things got going a couple of days after I came home. Being her usual changeable self, my mom didn't take long to determine that I'd probably be just fine and that she could go home to Phil. Renee got a flight out of Port Angeles, and Charlie was going to drive her there, so Leah Clearwater came by for our first 'girl day'.

"Bells, this is Leah, Harry and Sue's daughter," Charlie told me, letting a girl walk into the room ahead of him. No, not a girl—a woman. She looked to be a few inches taller than me, toned and fit, with the dusky skin and straight black hair of her heritage. Leah's black eyes appraised me openly.

"Bella," she said.

"Hi, Leah," I answered, speaking quietly to avoid triggering a coughing spell.

"Time for me to go, baby," Renee breezed into the room, dropping her bag in the hallway with a loud thud.

"Bye, Mom."

"Now if you change your mind and want to come out, even for a little while, you just let me know, okay?"

"Okay."

"My, you've changed, Leah. You used to have the cutest pigtails. Your energy is so strong, you know? Share some of that with Bella."

"Renee—"

"Coming, Charlie. Don't forget to email me, Bella—or call."

"I won't."

"Is your mom always like that?" Leah asked me after my parents had left.

"Usually," I admitted. "She's nice, and she means well, but Renee is…a little erratic."

"Adult ADHD, maybe?"

An odd sensation in my chest had me opening my mouth in anticipation of a coughing spell; I was surprised when it was a breathy laugh instead. "Maybe. She's always bounced from one idea to another, one hobby to the next. It's been that way all my life. That's even how she met Charlie: spur of the moment road trip with some friends."

"So where does she live?"

"Jacksonville, Florida. Her new husband is a baseball player."

"So you traded sunny Florida for rainy Forks?" Leah snorted.

"No. We lived in Phoenix before I moved up here." I didn't like to think about that, because thinking about it meant thinking about what had happened once I'd gotten up here, and what had happened when I'd gone back to Arizona.

"Nice to know I've got strong energy," Leah commented wryly. "Not sure how I'm supposed to share it with you, though."

"I don't know, either."

"I'll admit is has come in handy at times—nothing like getting dumped to show a girl how strong she can be."

"You got dumped?" My heart clenched.

That got a grimace from my guest—babysitter—whatever. "Yeah. Couple years ago. My boyfriend took one look at some strange girl at a peninsula tribal gathering…all of a sudden, I didn't exist anymore. He takes her home with him, proposes marriage, knocks her up—not necessarily in that order—now she's playing Susie Homemaker with him and their brat. It's nauseating. End of the summer can't come too soon for me—I want to forget Sam Uley even breathes."

Sam Uley…why did that name somehow sound familiar? I didn't know, and didn't particularly care to try and track it down just now. For the first time in a long time—in forever, maybe—I had someone here who actually seemed to understand me, even a little.

"He left me," I whispered, making myself say the words. Maybe if I kept repeating them, I'd eventually accept the truth of it.

"Ripped your heart out and stomped on it, too, didn't he?" Leah shrewdly guessed.

"Yeah."

"Guys suck."

"Some of them," I agreed.

"At least, the ones around here seem to. Okay," Leah took a deep breath and started rummaging in the backpack she'd brought. "We're not going to waste any more time today on scumbag ex-boyfriends. Pick a movie, girl, and I'll go grab us some concessions."

Judging from the selection of DVDs Leah had brought, she'd obviously heard about my situation—it was like a Top 10 list of post-breakup movies. Some hit a little too close to home (He's Just Not That Into You) or looked way too raunchy (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), but I ended up picking Sliding Doors. Having had a few life-altering moments myself, it was somehow an escape to watch someone else navigate the 'might-have-been'.

Charlie was only gone a few hours—bringing back a sack of books from Port Angeles that told of a stop after dropping Renee off at the airport—yet in that time, Leah had become a friend.

"Be thinking of tomorrow's movie," she called over her shoulder on her way out the door. "I'll make a critic of you yet." Somehow, I thought she would.

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AN: So, so sorry for the 3 month gap in updates. Have had a lot go on in life (becoming an auntie, changing jobs and cities) and had my muse go MIA on me.

Hope this came out alright and that it was worth the wait. I will try to be faster next time.