Well, it turns out that the key to me getting a lot of writing done is to be incredibly busy with things that should take priority space in my brain!

I told you this chapter was probably going to be long and full of dialogue, so I hope this doesn't disappoint! Without further ado, let's get on with the show!

BPOV

The bell on the door dinging, and a gust of cool September evening air, snatched my attention from my sister-in-law and brother. Like a magnet, my gaze was drawn to intense, emerald green eyes set in a handsome face. Just like mine, Edwards' eyes were locked to me, and it was like we were the only two people in the room.

~oOo~

He walked toward me slowly, our eye contact never breaking, though he seemed hesitant as he came to a stop beside the table and looked away. Like he was still in the process of deciding if he should be here or not, Edward stood frozen for a moment, looking intensely down at the table, before taking a deep breath and sliding into the opposite side of the booth. As he sat he met my eyes, flashing me a small, yet kind smile.

"Hello, Edward," I greeted, my voice unexpectedly soft. I tried to clear my throat subtly, slightly embarrassed.

"Hi," he said quietly, settling into his seat and folding his hands on the table.

His bright green eyes met mine once again, and I was momentarily dazzled. The silence must have stretched into uncomfortable territory because Edward started to look a little concerned.

"I didn't know if you would reach out or not," he finally said, trying to break the silence. "I'd hoped, but…"

I took a stuttering breath, trying to centre my mind back into my body. "It wasn't initially something I was going to do, but after I read your letter there were two or three… well, two things I wanted to talk to you about."

"Okay, sure," Edward said, nodding his head. "Whatever you want."

Before either of us could say anything else, the waitress who had served me earlier came back over. "Can I get you folks anything?" she asked with an accent. She was looking between us, but her eyes kept lingering on Edward. Since she'd been over last, she'd put her hair up in a high ponytail, and it was swaying behind her as she bounced like an excited child faced with a present.

"I'll get another Coke, thanks," I replied awkwardly, trying to give her a smile. I couldn't help but shoot small glances toward Edward, who hadn't taken his eyes off me.

"I'll get one, too. And a plate of fries to share, please," Edward said, with little more than a tilt of his head towards the waitress. His intense gaze, though friendly, felt penetrating, and I started to feel my skin blush.

Trying to distract him, and myself from the feelings that fluttered in my stomach, I searched for something to say. "Why the fries?" I finally asked.

"Two reasons, really," he answered, breaking his burning gaze and chuckling quietly to himself. "Firstly, fries are delicious. And secondly, it seems like we're both a little nervous and it might help to have something to do with our hands."

I felt like an open book in front of this man. "Is it that obvious that I'm nervous?"

Edward looked a little taken aback. "No! No, it's just…It's just that you're biting your lip," he stopped, looking a little uncomfortable. "Maria used to do that when she was nervous, and it always helped her to have something to do with her hands."

"Oh," was all I could say, as I felt my face heat again. It had been a long while since I'd felt this embarrassed, and that was saying something for me. It was obvious Edward felt embarrassed as well, so we both sat in strained silence for a moment.

I caught Rose's concerned look from across the room, while Emmett looked like he wanted to come over and butt in and the only thing holding him back was his wife's hand on his arm. "We're not the only ones that are nervous," I said, looking back at him. "The only way my brother would let me come here tonight was if he came with me. Both he and my sister-in-law are sitting over there." I nodded in their direction.

Edward turned to look in the direction I indicated, catching sight of my brother in all of his protective glory. Sitting a little more stiffly, he turned back to me. "I was a little surprised you wanted to meet face to face instead of calling, or something to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did."

"You thought I deserved to be told face-to-face, and I thought we both deserve to finish that conversation," I tell him, trying to convey as much honesty as possible.

"I appreciate it more than you know. Though, I do understand your brother's feelings. I would want to be there for my sister if she was going through something big like this."

I couldn't help rolling my eyes a little. "For Emmett, it's more the 'stranger danger' paranoia he's developed as a cop."

"Your brother's a cop?" Edward asked with a nervous chuckle. "Of course, you have an intimidatingly big cop for a brother."

Suddenly apprehensive, I felt the need to confess something to him. "He's a detective, actually. And, um… he may have looked into you and Maria. Just background checks to confirm it wasn't, you know, some sort of scam, like you said."

Edwards' strong brows furrowed, and he looked conflicted. "Oh, okay, um. It's… that's fine. I mean, I understand, and I don't hold it against you."

I flashed him a grateful smile. "Okay, good."

We were interrupted as the waitress brought over our drinks, and the bowl of fries. She leaned over the table towards Edward, flashing him a grin as she gave him his drink.

"Thanks," he said, flashing her a polite, yet brief, smile, then he turned away and plucked a couple fries from the bowl, stuffing them in his mouth. He was right about it being better when I had something to do with my hands, and I instinctively reached for one as well.

"So," Edward began after he had swallowed his fries. "You said there were a few things you wanted to talk about?"

I took a sip of my drink to clear the potato from my mouth. "Yes, there are. So, um… I read your letter, and I had a lot of questions after. The stuff my brother gave me helped with a few things. But, there is something that still doesn't make sense to me."

I had to stop and take another deep breath. I couldn't meet his eyes, focusing instead on the top button of his gray, check shirt. "You said that Maria was adopted through an agency? Did she ever look into her adoption?"

"Yes," he answered swiftly. "To both. She always knew she was adopted, Carmen and Eleazar never hid it from her. When we were planning our wedding, she contacted the agency - the Guardian Angel Adoptions - looking for any information on her birth mother. She had this feeling about needing to know who her mother was at this important time in her life."

"What did she find out?" I asked, my heart pounding.

"Unfortunately, the records were all sealed. Apparently, the mother asked for a closed adoption and for her details to not be revealed at all. And there certainly wasn't any mention of a twin. Maria was able to see a copy of her original adoption document with all the mother's details redacted, but the signature was still there. It was a bit of a scribble, but she thought the last name might be Tunner."

My heart sank into my stomach. It was hard listening to Edward talk about the woman who gave me and my sister up as 'the mother', but what hurt more was that it turned the image I'd built up in my head of my birth mother upside down. It also made everything so much more confusing.

"What doesn't make sense to me," I said, after taking a moment to collect myself. "Is the fact that Maria and I were adopted in completely different ways."

The wrinkle between Edwards eyes deepened. "What do you mean?"

"Maria was adopted through an agency, but I wasn't. I was adopted privately, though my dad has never really told me much about it."

Even though Edwards' confusion had immediately turned to shock, his voice was still kind. "What do you know?"

I quickly picked up another fry and popped it in my mouth. Edward must have sensed that I needed a minute and followed my lead, picking up a few more fries and dipping them in ketchup.

"Well, what my dad told me is that he'd helped a pregnant teenager, who'd run away from a troubled home, get to hospital while on shift one day. He said that he got a call from the hospital a day later asking if he'd be willing to take custody of me, as my birth mother had left the hospital without me. My dad is a cop, too - well, now he's the Chief of Police of our town - and in small towns, some Police can be considered temporary foster guardians in emergency situations, so it never sounded like something too unusual to me. Now I wonder how much he knew, and was hiding from me?"

"That doesn't make any sense," Edward was shaking his head. "Your birth mother left both of you at the hospital, but only organized for Maria to be officially adopted?"

"That's what it looks like," I said, biting on my lip. "I'd hoped you might be able to tell me something that would help me solve that puzzle, but it seems you know as much as me."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help," he said, sadly. "Did you ever ask your dad for answers?"

I laughed humorlessly. "Of course, I did. He'd originally only told me that I'd been given to him because he was an emergency foster guardian. I only found out more when I was older, after I pushed him into it. But then he told me there were confidentiality protocols, because my birth mother was a minor at the time of my birth, that stopped him from sharing more. He said he loved me more than his own life, but he took his job seriously and wouldn't break someone's privacy, not even for his own daughter."

"Wow," Edward said as he blew out a breath. "He seriously never told you anything else?"

I shook my head. "No. We had some pretty big fights about it when I was a teenager."

"Your mom never said anything, either?"

His question made me pause because it felt like a very long time since I'd thought about my adopted mother, Renee. "It's just been my dad, brother, and I for as long as I can remember. It's time to ask my dad about it again, though. And, hopefully, this time he'll finally give me some answers."

"I hope so," Edward said with a compassionate smile.

"Did Maria's parents know anything about our birth mother? About me?" I couldn't help asking. Even though they never hid the fact that she was adopted, maybe just like my father, they'd kept more secrets than they let on.

"They've never known anything, either. And I, um," Edward looked a little uncomfortable. "I haven't actually told them about you yet."

"Oh. Why not?" Why would he hide the fact that their daughter had an identical twin from them?

"I wanted it to be your choice," he explained. "Whether or not more people find out about this should be up to you because it's your life. But also, if I'd told them and they wanted to meet you, and you didn't want that, I think it would have brought up a lot of difficult emotions for them. They've been through enough, and I wanted to spare them, just in case."

My eyes filled with tears, so I looked away. I caught sight of Emmett and Rose again, both with matching looks of concern on their faces. It was odd to think that they'd been watching us the entire time, because it honestly had felt like Edward and I were the only ones in the diner. I gave them both a soft smile and turned back to look at the man opposite me.

He was watching me, his face full of sympathy. He was so handsome, it made my heart skip a beat each time I looked at him. I still felt the same flutter I had in my belly when I first saw him walking past me in the hospital lobby. But now whenever I felt those butterflies swarming, all I could think was that he was my biological sister's husband. Not just my sister, but a twin that looked exactly like me. What did he see when he saw me? A knockoff of the real thing? Or maybe looking at me was torture? A constant reminder of his lost love?

"Bella," Edward said, pulling me from my thoughts. "I hope you know that even though Maria is gone, you're not in this alone. I don't just mean your family and friends." He nodded his head back in the direction of Rose and my brother. "But I'm here, too. I want to know the truth for my wife's sake. So, if you ever need someone to talk to, or help tracking down any and every lead, I'll be there if you ask."

His jewel eyes glisten with sincerity. To know that he would be there in my sister's stead if I asked him to be made the knot in my chest loosen a little. Maria wasn't gone from me completely. Edward had been by her side her entire life, and he would be her eyes and ears now that she was gone.

"Thank you, Edward. That means a lot to me."

He smiled and reached for more fries. We sat for a moment in silence as we both mulled over what the other had said, eating the lukewarm food and taking a few sips of our drinks.

It had always felt like there was some larger secret around my adoption. My father had always been so evasive and unforthcoming whenever I'd brought it up over the years that it had been hard not to let myself create some concealed conspiracy in my head. Now it felt like I'd been justified in all my adolescent imaginings. As it turns out, there was a conspiracy to uncover.

Now that Maria existed, the mystery was greater than just what my father did, or didn't, know. Or the questions of an adopted girl about her biological mother. Now it wasn't just about asking why I had been given away, it was about finding the answer to why I was separated from my sister with no proof of it ever happening.

This mystery seemed too complex, too insurmountable, to tackle alone. Having Edward as part of the team I would need to uncover the truth could help in many ways. Just as with the mystery of who my sister was. I would have someone who could give me the answers to any question I could come up with, to bring her to life for me. But I also had answers for him, too. Ones that I hoped may give Edward some peace of mind.

"So," I finally said after mustering enough courage. "You said in your letter that one of the reasons you made contact with me was because you want me to see a doctor, in case what happened to Maria is hereditary. I wanted to relieve you of any worry about me. I've had to see many doctors over the last few years, and the last time I checked, I was perfectly healthy."

Edward looked extremely worried. "Are you alright? Were you I'll?"

I felt warmed by his concern, though it probably stemmed from an anxiety he'd developed over people's health, after his wife's surprise death.

"I wasn't sick," I said, trying to reassure him. "I don't know if I mentioned this, but… I was in the car when my fiance died. I was actually the one driving when we crashed. He died before help could arrive, but I was rushed to the hospital. I was unstable for a while, and I had a seizure during one of my surgeries."

"You had a seizure?" Edward interrupted, reaching his hand out across the table before pulling it back.

I nodded, "Yes, but my body and brain had gone through a lot of trauma. The surgeon said that if it had happened at any other time than during my surgery, they might not have been able to deal with it before it caused more damage. I had to be put in a medically induced coma for eleven days. After that, I've had to have a lot of physical therapy, including many doctor visits. They have all given me a clean bill of health, but I'll still have to go in for check ups, which should hopefully catch anything like that before it happens. You don't have to worry about me, Edward."

His face had gone a deathly pale as I'd talk, and his jaw looked tense. I could see how tense he was in the way his neck strained as he swallowed.

"You're sure you were okay?" he asked, his voice deliberately gentle. "The doctor didn't suspect any underlying condition could have been the cause of your seizure?"

"I'd just been in a bad car accident," I replied, shaking my head. "The only cause they suspected was that."

"Alright," Edward contritely said, slumping back into his seat.

We once again sat silent. Edward seemed to be thinking deeply, his brows almost meeting in the middle they were furrowed so hard. I, too, was weighed heavily by a decision - whether or not now was the time to bring up yet another eerie parallel between my twin's life and mine.

"There's something else," I muttered, making the choice to do it.

Edward glanced back up at me in alarm.

"It's not really…" I hesitated. "It's not about my health or anything. Um… It's more of a very weird coincidence." I tried to meet his eyes, but my gaze flicked away nervously. I settled for staring at the space between his brows again, and took a deep breath. "So, the night Jacob and I got into the accident, the night he died, was the 22nd of July. The day before Maria passed away."

"What?" He asked in a gust. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know what it means. Or if it means anything. Maybe it's nothing more than a spooky coincidence."

Edward raised an eyebrow at me. "Maybe?"

"Who knows?," I huffed, throwing my hands up. "Maybe it's one of those weird twin bonding things where they mirror each other, and the seizure I had was actually because we had matching symptoms at the exact same time. Maybe the fact that I was in surgery when it happened, and she wasn't, is what saved me. Or maybe none of it makes any sense at all, so why should this be any different?"

Crossing my arms in frustration, I could no longer meet his eyes. I felt a little silly after my emotional outburst. Not that I'd ever admit it. Just like my father and brother, I was as stubborn as a mule.

"I'm sorry, Bella." Edward's quiet apology chipped at the wall of my defensiveness. "I didn't mean to be rude."

"No, I'm sorry," I muttered, sagging back as the last of my anger burnt away, leaving nothing but dead weight in my stomach. "I shouldn't have snapped at you. I was incredibly shocked when I read the date in your letter. It shouldn't have been surprising that you'd be just as confused."

"I guess it tracks with how messed up everything else is with this situation," he laughed humorlessly, running his hands through his already tousled hair, causing more disarray. "Why not add another layer to this Twilight Zone? Chalk it up as something we can look for an answer for but will probably never know."

"I shouldn't have brought it up. I just thought it was probably going to come up eventually, so we might as well get it all out on the table now."

Edward hung his head with a sigh. "No, you're right. It was better to find out now. Lump all the surprises together and get them out of the way. Maybe we should start keeping a tally of all the weird coincidences."

I tried to smile, but it felt forced. "It would already be a long list."

The sudden appearance of the waitress beside the table startled us both. "Can I get you folks anything else tonight?" This time it wasn't the peppy waitress with the flirty ponytail, but the same waitress who'd served as last week - Cathy.

Looking around the diner, I noticed that much had changed since Edward and I had been talking. My gaze landed on the clock, where I noticed more than two hours had passed. Glancing over at Emmett and Rose's table, Rose was still watching me concerned, nursing an iced tea. Emmett, on the other hand, was busy shoveling what looked to be his second plate of pie into his mouth.

"Could I get a coffee?" Edward asked. "Black."

"Sure," she replied, before turning to me. "Anything for you, hun?"

"Um… the same," I said, though it came out more as a question. Cathy nodded and turned to leave, but before she could I stuck up my hand to stop her. "Actually, can you make mine a decaf? I'll be up all night if I have caffeine now."

"No problem," she smiled and left to grab our drinks. She was only gone for a moment before she returned with our cups, mine with a small creamer balanced on the saucer. "Sugar's on the table," she said, then left us alone again.

We were quiet as we both started to drink our coffees. I felt completely drained from everything that had been brought to light tonight, after already feeling exhausted by the emotional week. Yet something still held me from ending our conversation.

It wasn't that I knew everything would change after tonight. Everything had already been turned upside down, so things could only begin to get clearer from here.

Part of me wondered if it was the draw I felt towards Edward that stopped me from wrapping up our time together. The heat I felt inside me hadn't waned, making it feel like anything could set off the fire simmering away in my stomach and burn through my skin as a blush. It was a wholly new experience for me.

But it could also have been a completely different desire. The desire to know, to understand, the person my sister had been. It was an odd sensation, to suddenly feel connected to someone you'd never met, and would never be able to meet, and yet still know so little about them.

"Maybe, um… Maybe you could tell me more about her."

Even though Edward looked a little surprised, he also looked happy that I'd asked. "Of course, I can," he said, as he nodded his head. His brow furrowed a little like something had just occurred to him. "I don't really know where to begin, though. Maybe you can ask me whatever it is you want to know, and I can give you the answers?"

Even though I'd had a million thoughts running around my head, I was suddenly drawing a blank. I could feel myself staring at Edward for what was becoming an uncomfortable few seconds.

Eventually a nervous giggle escaped me.

"It seems I don't really know where to begin either," I said, shaking my head. "There are so many things that I want to know, and I can't figure out what I want to know first."

Edwards eyes glinted as his face warmed with a lopsided grin. He really was an exceptionally handsome man.

"I can't help you there," he chuckled. "But a nun once said that you should start at the very beginning, as it's a very good place to start."

"Did you seriously just quote The Sound of Music?" I laughed out of genuine mirth.

Edward laughed as well. "What?" he shrugged. "I'm a music nerd."

"Well, by all means then," I said with a chortle.

The atmosphere was lighter now that the tension had been broken. Edward intimidated me a little, making me all the more nervous, and I'd begun to feel like a balloon that was about to burst. I took one of the fries that were still on the plate, dipping it in sauce, and popping it in my mouth. But it was cold now, and a little unappetizing. I dusted the salt from my fingers and put my hands in my lap.

"This isn't really a question," I finally started. "And it wasn't in your letter, but I saw in Emmett's report that Maria had a motorcycle licence."

"Oh," Edward said, a little surprised. "Yeah. She used to ride Vespas and mopeds while she was in Italy every summer, but her parents said she couldn't get a motorbike until she was eighteen. She'd wanted to get one for as long as I could remember, so the day after her birthday she was down at the DMV to start the process." He paused, a far off look in his eyes. "During college she bought a Ducati, though she didn't get to take it out as much as she would have liked after we moved to Chicago. Late fall and winter weren't the best to ride around, so she would use my car for a good chunk of the year, while the bike sat in the garage. But as soon as the frost melted, she'd take it out and ride as far as she could around Lake Michigan, or some other place that struck her fancy that day."

A weird feeling of déjà vu swept over me like a sudden cold breeze, making me shiver. Like I knew everything Edward was telling me already, even though this was the first time I'd ever heard about it. Like I'd somehow been able to sense my sister my entire life.

I could feel the furrow between my brows as I looked back at him with something close to astonishment. "The summer before my senior year in highschool, Jake and I found these two old, broken down motorbikes for sale outside this guy's house in town. Even as a teenager, Jake was already into fixing engines, so we picked them up and took them back to his house. Once he got them running, we spent most of the rest of summer whizzing around back-roads on the reservation. After we started dating, we used to go on rides down the coast on this Harley he picked up from one of his clients at the shop."

"That's so weird," Edward whispered. "Another one for the tally."

It was hard to believe how many ways my life and Maria's seemed to have mirrored each other. Neither of us could discover any information about how we ended up with the families we did, we both fell in love with our childhood best-friends, and both rode motorcycles. And then there were our seizures. It seemed that it was only in my sister's final moments that our lives may truly have separated.

I looked down at my half drunk cup of coffee, feeling a little overwhelmed. This long conversation, on top of an already draining last week, was finally catching up to me. I had already had so much to think about, but this evening had added to all the thoughts I needed to sort through quite substantially. It didn't help that I'd also been at school all day, and would need to get up earlier than I would already like tomorrow.

"I think…" I started before I had an idea of how to end our meeting. "Would you mind if maybe we pause our talk for tonight? I've had a long day, and I think I need time to process everything we've talked about."

I was nervous to even look at Edwards face now, so I stared at the collar of his shirt, biting my lip. The fabric shifted as he nodded his head slowly.

"Of course, Bella. Whatever you need."

Feeling braver, I met his eyes again. His face was calm, open and kind. "Thank you," I said, flashing him a soft smile.

He nodded once more in recognition, smiling back, before he pulled a twenty from his wallet and left it on the table. I followed Edward as he shifted along the bench to stand. We stood awkwardly facing each other, the width of the table still between us, like we were unsure of what the protocol was when saying goodbye to your surprise brother or sister-in-law you only just met. Edward's arms were tense, but he held his hands firmly in his pockets as if to keep them trapped to his sides. My hands were clasped so tightly in front of me, my fingers would probably start going blue soon.

"Do you think… Do you think I could text you if I have any more questions?" I stuttered, breaking the tension only slightly.

"Yes," Edward replied quickly. "Of course, you can. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Message me any time, I'll answer."

"Okay," I said with a breath. "Thank you."

"I need to thank you too, Bella. It means a lot to me that you reached back out. More than you'll know." I could see the sincerity in his warm, jewel eyes, and the flame inside of me flickered a little brighter.

My response was barely above a whisper. "You're welcome."

I could see Emmett and Rose standing by their table, waiting for me. They were both watching our final exchange with more speculative interest than I would like. "Goodnight, Edward."

He looked at me for a beat longer. "Goodnight, Bella," he said back, his rich voice wrapping around me like a blanket. It affected me so deeply that my eyes fluttered closed of their own accord. When I opened my eyes, it was to see his retreating figure disappear through the closing door.

That's it folks! They finally talked!

What do you think? Please leave a review, because I love seeing what everyone has to say :D