A/N: love y'all

Chapter 39

Happiness is fleeting.

The passage of time has proven that to me over and over again. My childhood was happy because I didn't know any better. Then I grew up. Edward made me happy, happier than I'd ever been, but time ripped him away from me once again.

With the passage of time comes clarity, at least.

The truth? We were just two fucked up kids from fucked up families. We never learned how to love - not really. We felt it, and I mean, fuck did I feel it, but we didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't blame myself for that, so I wouldn't blame Edward for it, either.

The first stage in this enlightenment-through-an-ever-too-slowly-ticking-clock came the day after I walked out on Edward in his hospital bed. The sun was low by the time I'd ventured out of my bedroom, which, by the way, still held all of Jacob's shit within its walls. It wasn't until I rounded the bend into the kitchen that I heard my mother's voice- had I heard it earlier, I would have stayed the fuck upstairs.

I loved my mom. I really did, despite all she'd put me through. Here was Exhibit A in a long list of lessons I was soon to learn.

Remember when we talked about that defensive projecting thing? The first thing I said to Mom was 'what the fuck are you doing here?'

What that stupid-ass shrink should have told me was something more cliche, like 'the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree' or 'like mother like daughter."

"I'm here because you fucked my life up, Bella."

She was high as a kite, of course, and angry because she stopped receiving weekly payments from Jacob Black. I didn't even know he was sending her money- if I did, I would have told him that sending money to a junkie is just about the worst thing you could do. He wouldn't have understood, of course, but he would have listened.

She didn't care when she heard how he'd nearly killed Edward. Actually, that's a lie; she cared enough to call Edward a girlfriend-stealing pig and to say that he deserved it.

I quite possibly would have killed her if Charlie hadn't been home to come to her rescue once again, just like when I was a little kid. At least I managed to get a few good swings in.

She did, too, but I only noticed when I left the house and caught my reflection in a car window and saw my new black eye and swollen lip.

That was when I finally learned that just because you loved something, doesn't mean it was okay. That was when I learned that I never knew how to love.

It took six months for Charlie to kick Mom out of the house. I guess time didn't provide him with the clarity it provided me.

Alice, who stayed behind in Chicago so as to not be away from Jasper, offered asylum at her house so I could escape the wrath of mother-scorned.

I had to decline her offer. It was hard enough to look at her, so much like her brother. It would be impossible for me to step foot in that house without him. I would never survive.

It quickly became moot, anyway. Only two months after Edward left, she moved into the Hale house with Jasper. I knew that was something she'd wanted to do for a while, but refused, unwilling to leave Edward to fend against their father on his own.

Ed Senior hadn't been seen since he tried to visit Edward in the hospital, actually. Much like Jacob, who, six months later, was still on the loose.

A plus side to avoiding home as much as possible was that it kept me busy, which in turn helped me attempt to keep my mind off Edward. Keyword: attempt. I booked shows, I wrote music. It helped pass the time. Much like years ago, my songwriting had never been better; there was just something about heartbreak to get the creative juices flowing. I most certainly wasn't the first one to learn that.

I was lucky I could lock myself in my room with my keyboard - the piano in the living room was not only too risky for a run-in with Renee; there were too many memories of Edward wrapped up in the instrument. I tried to play it once, when the house was empty, but could barely get through three notes without tears welling up in my eyes. I tinkered a bit with the keys, letting the piano elicit cries much like my own, but ended up slamming down the lid, effectively silencing it. I didn't want its goddamn condolences - I wanted Edward back, and melting into memories with him was not going to make it happen.

After he first left, he called me a few times. I let it go to voicemail, still too angry at him for leaving to talk to him. Or maybe I was afraid I would only be able to plead for his return. He never left me any messages.

A few weeks - and drinks - later, I tried to call him, to no avail. In fact, I was drinking way more than I should have been those days, and I was calling him more and more, but he never answered. Once I was finally confident enough in my abilities to say his name without breaking down, I started asking Alice about him. She eventually started giving updates all on her own, though not once did she mention he was asking for me. Still, I wondered if he was, and if so, what she would tell him.

Carlisle provided me with updates of his own, though it was only through text messages and from a very medical standpoint. His recovery was going better than expected - six months after the shooting, he was walking without the help of a cane or walker. It felt like a long time to me - the longest amount of time ever, in fact, but Carlisle said he was way ahead of projections. I didn't ask him any questions like I did Alice. I just took the information and locked it down in my heart, where I tried to stuff every emotion I felt.

Sadness and rage. Miserable loneliness, second only to the sensation of longing. Longing for what I had and for what I lost. I longed for Edward in ways that I simply can't find the words to describe.

At least the last time, I had distractions. I had college classes and a drug addict mother and Jacob Black. Now, I had nothing. I felt no concern towards Renee, besides wishing she would get the fuck out of my house. Sure, I could spend my time worrying about where Jake had disappeared to and if he would ever return, but even that wasn't enough to dull the ache. It was just me and my memories and my music, and, of course, my music was all about my memories; time spent with the only person I'd ever really and truly loved.

It was Carlisle's suggestion for me to, and I quote, 'get out there and meet some people.' We usually didn't discuss my life in any capacity, but I guess after the millionth time I ignored his 'how are yous?,' he decided he needed to step in somehow.

I spent the night after receiving that message in tears, sure that this was his subtle way of telling me that Edward had moved on and that it was time for me to do the same. That was something that just wouldn't happen. After ignoring him for another day and a half, he clarified; 'there's an open mic night at Gardiener's Park,' he sent. 'You should go network.'

A business venture, I guess. It made sense, knowing him and his incessant desire to get his niece and nephew out of the impoverished South Side. Now that he had Edward with him, that must have freed up some time for him to take me under his nagging wing.

I can't say I didn't appreciate it, though.

I don't know why - maybe because he was the first adult in my life to ever seem to care, - but I took his advice. I went to that stupid open mic on that hot night in June, and it was there that I met Peter.

We could call Peter Exhibit B in my lesson plan.

I didn't play anything that night- I would be far too vulnerable if I dared sing a word I'd written about Edward Masen, but I listened. Most of the acts were downright fucking bad, but not Peter. Peter got on the stage with an acoustic guitar and, without saying a thing, managed to play so well that it threatened all those emotions I kept locked up inside my heart to come spilling out.

When he came to join me for a cigarette after the show, I told him "that was really fucking good."

He said "Thanks," and "Do you play anything?" I told him I did, and that I sang, too. He told me about his friend, Leah, who played the drums, and her boyfriend, Sam, who played the bass.

"We've been looking for a decent vocalist everywhere, I swear."

"How do you know I'm decent?"

He smirked at me. "I can tell."

When he came to my house the following week to hear me play, he stopped next to the grand piano. "Why don't you show me on this?"

"I don't play that one," I replied, instead leading him up to my bedroom. It didn't fly over my head that he was the first person to step inside my room since Jacob, but I didn't think anything of it until I saw his eyebrows pull together as he stared at my bedside table.

"Are you like, a murderer or something?"

I said nothing as I strode past him, gently picking up those blood-soaked pajamas I kept next to me each night and tucking them in the drawer.

I'm sure he was dying for an explanation, but he wasn't getting one.

"I'm really just humoring you with this," I told him as I took a seat behind my keyboard. "I'm kind of more of a solo-artist."

"I'm kind of just humoring you, too," he replied, gesturing to my keyboard. "I saw you play at McCusker's bar last month. I know you're good."

And suddenly, a deal was struck. Peter wasn't lying, per se, when he told me that his band was looking for a vocalist. He was omitting a few details, such as 'as soon as I heard you play, I wanted it to be you,' and 'we're not really looking for a singer as much as we're looking for someone to back.'

We would play my songs, together. No more half-assed drum track Jacob found online. No more empty spaces in the music where my piano wouldn't reach. I had three people who were committed to fleshing out what I had already written, committed to making my songs whole.

I just had to get over my aversion to playing the good ones; the ones about Edward.

"Isabella Swan," Peter's voice snarled through my phone. "You've been holding out on us. I'm coming over."

It was a boiling hot day in early August. There's just something about a summer day in the city to make you feel like you're an egg about to get fried on a sidewalk.

"Why do we have to do whatever this is here?" I asked, letting him in the front door. "Doesn't Leah's house have air conditioning?"

"Doesn't everyone's except yours?" He retorted, plopping himself down on my couch. I sat down next to him.

"Uh, definitely not. I know at least a few people on this block who are sweating just as much as I am, thank you very much."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. We have to do this here, because of that," he pointed at my piano, across the living room.

"I told you I don't play that."

His big, brown eyes rolled once again - so dramatic - as he leaned down to pull his laptop out of his backpack. With a few clicks, he was on YouTube, pulling up a video of me from last summer, playing that godforsaken song I'd written about Edward after I left him.

It sounded like child's play compared to the dark shit I'd been writing now, but he didn't need to know that.

"You've been holding out on us."

If I wasn't so taken aback by this entire experience, I'm sure I would have put up much more of a fight as Peter pulled me over to my piano bench.

"Its probably not tuned," I managed to mumble, lifting the lid and running my fingers across the pearly keys.

"That's okay,"

I pressed down on a G note. Peter waited with patience. I hit a C, then a D before I said "I can't do it."

Pete squatted down next to me, making us eye level. "Yes, you can. I saw you," he gestured towards his laptop sitting on the coffee table. "I don't know what changed since then, Bella, but whatever it is, you have to use it."

Something about the way he said it struck me. My chest tightened and tears swelled in my eyes, but I repositioned myself in front of my piano.

"Everything's changed." I told him, and I took a deep breath and I opened up my heart that had been locked down for nearly eight months now, and I played a new fucking song of heartache and longing and maybe I was crying while I sang, but Peter didn't say anything, and then it was over and he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and squeezed me and said "that was beatiful."

And it was.