I don't own Twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of the story.

Thanks to my Beta MadMooey18 for her continuous help, support, and love.

The café overlooks the waterfront, both of them holding coffee mugs.

Edward stares at her, not quite believing his eyes, as he raises the coffee to his lips.

Bella on the other hand is looking everywhere but at him. His presence is opening a door she had thought was closed a long time ago. A door she wants to keep closed. At this point her eyes have scanned the entire place. She has found all of the exits, possible exits and the bathroom.

You might wonder how many exits and possible exits could a café have to begin with? You just haven't met Bella's commitment once something becomes a special interest of hers.

"Why did you leave?"

"Huh?" She turns to look at him, having had a good job of tuning him out for the last two minutes and pretending she is somewhere else.

Clearing his throat, he asks again, "Why did you leave?"

So she did hear him correctly. His voice sounded like she was underwater the first time, but she did hear him correctly. She bites her lips to stop herself from yelling at him every single horrible thought she has had of him over the last eleven years. She has had a whole decade to stew over his hurtful action. Ten years to replay what happened in her mind. Ten years to imagine herself reacting differently, speaking differently.

In some scenarios, she is detached as if she didn't care something she wishes she was. In other times, she is hysterical knowing that this is the last time she will ever see him, so she might as well burn that bridge to the ground. She yells, and screams as she calls him the most derogatory terms she can think of before she throws in a punch and finally knees him in the groin for good measure.

In the last scenario, she is stoically cruel as she tells him the most hurtful things he could hear. Bella knows him and uses that knowledge to drive knives into his back. That's her favorite scenario, but also the most unrealistic because she would never remember those well thought out insults on the spot. She can't remember her coffee order on the spot. She needs to rehearse in her head what she wants to order two minutes in advance.

But more importantly, her heart could never let her tell him those hurtful things.

She has written countless letters, and emails she never sent.

She looks out of the window to collect her thoughts then turns to him and asks, "Do you think people come to New York to be independent or come here already independent?"

She settled for that reply instead of a direct answer because the truth was that he hurt her. He hurt her so deeply and made her realize how alone she was. He totally isolated her from everyone she thought cared for her then. When your friend expects you to do the one thing they know you hate, were they your friends or mere acquaintances? If you give your friend an ultimatum, isn't that friendship over then? Aren't you just looking for an out? An excuse to play the victim and lay the blame on the one opposite side?

She didn't leave because she wanted to. She left because she was not wanted anymore.

He doesn't understand her question and tells her so. "I left because I needed to be independent."

"What does that have to do with my question?" Edward asks her in confusion.

She rolls her eyes at him because of course he doesn't understand. "You were my best friend, the only friend that counted. You meant the world to me, but I wasn't your only friend. You started letting go. I was no longer a priority to you, so I held on to you tighter because in my head, if you hold on tightly to something, it can't leave, right?"

Edward opens his mouth to interrupt but she puts her hand up to stop him and continues, "You became an obsession of mine. Everyone around us read it as a crush, and made it clear that I wasn't good enough for you. You made me feel like a girl with a crush chasing a boy who doesn't want her, when all I was doing was holding on to my friend. I was looking out for you and you were shoving me off like a dead weight."

She stops and motions for him to talk but he shakes his head and she continues, "I became like that childhood friend who tagged along 'cause you were sorry for her, and everyone thought so. All of our friends, or who I thought were our friends talked. Maybe not in front of you, but they did, and I was tired of being that "freak". In the face of everything that happened, instead of letting go and making my own friends, I held on tighter because since Charlie had died you and mum were the only constant in my life."

She raises the mug to her lips as she takes a sip. 'Who made you feel unwelcome?" he finally demands.

Bella replies, "This isn't important. This is about how I felt, not who made me feel that way. I blamed Lauren for what happened for some times because I couldn't imagine doing to you what you did, but the truth was you stopped giving a fuck about me," she pauses for a second, "I just knew that when she asks, you would do as she says and I wasn't going to stay around to see you do that."

She doesn't tell him what Lauren would have asked. It doesn't take a genius to understand.

This is new to him. He doesn't remember any of it. All he remembers is that one minute they were friends, and the other, they weren't.

"You were like a safety blanket to me that I wasn't going to outgrow, but I wasn't your safety blanket. I was just another blanket you would donate to the children's shelter once I got frayed."

Hello lovely people of the internet,

I hope you enjoyed reading this. This is a new story that I have had on my mind for a while, and I can wait for you guys to read it. It's different from my two other stories and I am so excited to see where this story will take us.

If you are new here, welcome. I hope you have fun reading my for me. I have three other stories for you guys to check out.

If you are a reader of my other stories, welcome back. I hope that you will love this one even more than the others.

The first chapter is already written and edited, and will be updated in a couple of days.

So until my next update,

Tell me your thoughts and Stay safe.