July bleeds into August as I continue to vaguely exist in a state of mourning.

With high school done and college not starting until September I gratefully take the break to come to terms with my loss. My family gives me all the space I need to process my feelings and are always ready to talk when I need it.

Jasper is, of course, perfect. It cannot be easy for an empath to be joined at the hip with a grief stricken human, but he never lets any discomfort show. He holds me during every setback and celebrates every little victory with me.

When I see a flash of Emmett's dark hair in the corner of my eye and for a moment think it is dad and break down, Jasper holds me.

When we are grocery shopping and yet another Forks inhabitant offers their condolences and I have to fight back my tears to not have a fit in public, he stands beside me.

When I drink a cup of coffee, remember that I like it exactly the way dad used to, and for the first time it makes me feel nostalgic rather than sad, he smiles at me.

Now that the start of college approaches I have to shake myself out of it and start making arrangements though. At least I make myself, because doing nothing is starting to drive me up the wall.

I had thankfully been accepted into the University of Washington in Seattle, which is within reasonable driving distance of Forks for weekly visits. If using an energy efficient vehicle that is. For this purpose Rosalie and Emmett have been giving my truck an overhaul. The Cullens had been pushing me to accept one of their cars or a new one, but after dad died they finally accepted that I would not be able to part with the truck because of the many memories attached to it.

Rosalie basically gutted the entire inside of my truck and put a new, much more efficient engine in the skeleton. The thing looks just the same on the outside, but now purrs when I drive it. Jasper and I actually made it to Seattle on less than one tank of gas when we went to have a look at the campus.

One thing I am grateful for is that I will not be on my own there. Jasper I had expected to come with me, but I was surprised to learn that Garrett and Kate quite fancied to see what the whole college thing was about as well. Neither of them had had any formal education as a human, nor had they made the attempt as a vampire. Jasper got some paperwork forged for them, but he and Carlisle insisted they actually sit the GED to make sure they have the proper base level of knowledge to not sound suspiciously weird to any of the human students.

I still wonder how much of their decision was influenced by the security of having two extra guards near me on campus, but they do seem genuinely excited at the prospect.

Security of course is still a concern. Victoria has been laying low since killing my father, but is still out there. Her home base has presumably been near Seattle, as her tracks were previously most concentrated there. However, after Jasper, Kate and Garrett set up a small house near campus there and started marking the territory as theirs, she disappeared again.

Jasper is now reasonably convinced that I will be able to safely attend university. With so many humans on site she will not dare to cause a scene and anger the Volturi. Additionally, at least one of the three vampires attending with me should always be near enough to help defend me. Both Jasper and Garrett are exemplary fighters, and they have been training Kate well, who has the additional advantage of her electric shock ability.

All in all the biggest challenge of the operation was choosing what to study, and Garrett was the hardest of the lot. Oh he had no shortage of interests, but there are very few classes that it would be wise to unleash him on. His first pick of political science was immediately vetoed by both Jasper and Kate, and as a revolutionary war veteran even he had to eventually admit that was not a good idea. Next he considered history, but Jasper shared his experiences of how frustrating it is to be taught wrong information and not be able to correct it without explaining that you actually lived in that era. Eventually he settled on an art program, somewhat to our surprise but definitely to our relief.

The next hardest choice was mine. Going by passion I would have picked English literature, but due to the lack of viable careers in that field I could not bring myself to, even if the Cullens insisted I should not worry about money anymore.

For a more practical pick I had contemplated mechanical engineering, because assisting Rosalie with working on her vehicles and machines had made me realize I truly enjoy that. However, when I saw how much of the syllabus consists of math classes I decided I would not force my human brain to do that, but return to the subject at some point in my vampire future.

Kate did choose the mechanical engineering program, as she had become determined to be in charge of the second blood processing plant that would be built at the Denali settlement. For that purpose she would not strictly need such deep knowledge, as Rosalie had by now improved the dehydration machine design to the point that it is no harder to assemble and operate than following an IKEA manual. However Kate wants the skills to keep improving it as well.

For myself I eventually found a middle ground between fun and useful when I read up on the journalism degree. I would still get to occupy myself with language, just in writings about current events rather than old fiction. It was oddly exciting that rather than consuming the written word, I would largely focus on creating it. Also the job prospects, while not overwhelming, are sufficient for the reasonable expectation to be able to keep a roof over my head.

Jasper simply immediately chose the same as me, and I have a feeling that he would happily have studied ballet if that was required to stay close enough to protect me from Victoria. He did produce some reasonably convincing excitement though, as this is a degree he has not studied yet and it closely aligns with his own interests in historical research.

Next in the preparations for this new phase of my life is packing up dad's old house. I can't bring myself to sell it quite yet, but I need to at least sort out the stuff in there before I move out of town.

Thankfully it is not a very large house, and my father was not the type to spend needlessly on useless junk. The only category of items that there is an excess of is fishing gear. I go to the diner where Sue Clearwater works to beg her to take it off my hands and distribute it among dad's and her late husband's fishing buddies. She laughs and insists on giving me a free lunch and since the diner is quiet that day we spend a surprisingly pleasant couple of hours with her telling me stories of my father when he was younger.

Likewise there is at least sixty kilos of fish stored in the two freezers in the garage which I am eager to be rid of. Over a year after her husband's death Sue has finally finished up her own fish supply, so she borrows a few coolers to transport it all to the reservation. That should help keep her children fed for a while. She told me that Seth was not the first werewolf in her family, her daughter Leah had actually been the first to shift. They must be eating her out of the house, and I suspect her salary at the diner isn't much. Also, while my dad had a generous life insurance policy through his job, I remember him saying that Harry Clearwater had made no such arrangements for his dependents.

I have not forgotten that she was the only one of dad's friends from the reservation who could be bothered to attend his memorial service, and silently promise to myself to check in every once in a while to see if I can help.

With the fish and the fishing gear gone the house is really getting empty. All my own stuff had already been moved to the Cullen house weeks ago. The kitchen and bathroom were quickly cleared out. Most of the living room furniture had been moved to the house in Seattle. Esme had offered to decorate that one, but we argued that with secondhand furniture we would have a more authentic college accommodation. With each room that was sorted out my heart got a little lighter.

Now the only real task left to do is to go through my father's bedroom, and I have been dreading it.

Where my family helped me with all the other work, especially lifting the furniture, I have asked to do this alone. With Victoria around they are not really leaving me alone of course, but agree that the vampires can give me some space.

My guard detail for the occasion consists of Kate and Esme. They stay downstairs, where Esme is teaching Kate to knit. The much older vampire wanted to gift some handmade baby clothes to Rosalie, but her knitting skills were limited to the 1000+ year old techniques she had learned as a human girl in medieval Slovakia. Esme's skills were at least acquired within a century, though when I look in on them as I go to grab a snack the fruit of their labors still seems beyond old-fashioned. I cannot say with certainty what it is, but it appears to be an incredibly frilly, lacy baby bonnet.

Not wanting to be asked for my opinion on this creation, I quickly make my way back upstairs.

I have already sorted through the entire wardrobe, and all of dad's clothes are now bagged up outside his bedroom door. There is one pile of work uniforms that we will be dropping off at the station later today. A couple of bags of clothes that are in good enough condition and style that I will let Jasper have them if he wants them. The rest is split between donation and recycling.

With a sigh I turn to the small desk next to the window. The clothes had still been relatively unpersonal. I had handled his laundry often enough to not even be embarrassed at going through his underwear. However in this desk I had no idea what I was going to find.

There is one drawer which I know to be empty. That one had held a small safe with the most important paperwork. The deed to the house, our birth certificates, dad's life insurance policy, his pension plan, a copy of his will, et cetera. He had shown it to me when I moved in and quizzed me several times to check if I remembered the location and the code to the safe. At the time I had thought he was being paranoid, now I understand he was a man in a dangerous job who wanted to make sure his daughter would be all right if anything happened to him. It had certainly made it easier to get his affairs in order when my family knew to just grab the box.

The rest of the contents of the desk turn out to mostly be likewise well-organized paperwork. There are a few binders of old invoices, contracts and bank statements. There are a few photo albums too, of his own childhood, and a stack of letters exchanged with his parents who died before email became common.

The only true surprise is a large, book-shaped wrapped package that is hidden in the bottom drawer underneath a map of permitted fishing locations in the Olympic Peninsula. I open the card attached to the package and read.

Dear Bells,

I can't believe you're already leaving for college. Generally I'm bad at being sappy, but I need to say how grateful I am that we got to live together for a bit before you really go out into the world. These were the two happiest years of my life and I wish we had longer, but at least this time I know you will visit a lot. Or else!

In the meantime, here is something for you to keep track of all your adventures in. I'd tell you not to do anything I wouldn't do, but you have always been very responsible, and your young man is a trustworthy sort. So I tell you to not forget to have fun. You make me very proud.

Love you,

Dad

Tears silently streak down my face as I read the words again and again. He must have written this weeks ago, sometime in the week between when I got together with Jasper and his death.

I carefully unwrap the package and inside I find a beautifully bound empty diary. I stroke a finger down the cover and contemplate how my father must have felt at the prospect of me leaving him again. How he, notoriously bad at outing emotions, must have gone out of his comfort zone to come up with a nice goodbye gesture. He likely had to ask someone for help. Probably Sue, the embroidery on the cover looks tribal in style. Come to think of it, she had asked me if I found anything special while cleaning the house.

I cry some more as I think of how little time I got to spend with Charlie. Partly by my own fault. It had been me who stopped visiting as a child. Though how much of that was me, and how much of it was my mom insisting that I should hate Forks? At that age I had not been able to see how much dad tried. Dad wasn't someone to show the open affection that I would have understood as a child. He was the sort to get up at 4 AM to put snow chains on the tires of your truck so you can drive to school safely, without ever telling you.

I remember seeing some odd gaps in the transactions on mom's bank account when I took over the bookkeeping for our household in my early teens. Expenses like school fees and healthcare costs that should have all come out of her account, but did so irregularly, despite the creditors assuring me that all is settled. The discrepancies are now finally explained by transcripts in the meticulous administration in my father's desk. Seems like he stepped in anytime mom blew her entire income on pottery classes again. Despite already paying through the nose on alimony and child support, an amount that should have been sufficient for her to raise me on, not even counting her own salary.

Would it have made a difference if I had known such things earlier? I sure hope so. But dad would never have talked badly about Renée, and she probably didn't even understand how irresponsible she was.

Eventually I finish up sorting out the room. I box up some memorabilia that I want to keep and designate most of the other stuff to go to charity. The diary I carefully put in my handbag - I don't want to share that with anyone else quite yet.

While I worked my guards finished their unholy knitting creation and I wonder if I could somehow get rid of it before Rosalie ever has to see it. I'm not setting anything on fire in my precious truck, but I dread to think of how badly Rosalie would freak out at the prospect of people putting her child in this monstrosity. Or actually she might adore it. I remember that she hails from roughly the same time period as Esme, that might have left her with a similar taste in knitted baby things.

We soon arrive at the Cullen house, and my window of opportunity to intervene has probably passed. Jasper helps me quickly unload the truck, and then we go to say goodbye to Peter and Charlotte, who are leaving today.

They announced this plan some weeks ago, when Jasper and I started working on our college preparations. They had never attended college, but unlike Kate and Garrett had absolutely no desire to. Around Forks they had little to do now that Rosalie and Emmett's house is nearly finished. In the Victoria situation they are some help with running patrols, but they figured it would be much more useful for them to ensure we have another base to operate from at their ranch.

For one they want to be prepared to host me when I am turned into a newborn, which may be anytime with Victoria still out there. Also they want to add a nursery to the ranch, so Rosalie and Emmett have a place to run to if things get hot with the baby. None of us liked the way the wolves talked about her.

This piece of generosity elicited the largest hormonal crying fit to date from the mother to be. Sometime around the death of my father her pregnancy hormones had switched from inciting rage to unstoppable crying. Charlie had been very supportive of Rosalie, so she had counted on him becoming something of a bonus-grandpa to the baby since her own "dad" Carlisle was physically less than five years older than herself. Thus his death had hit her very hard as well.

I see she is bawling her eyes out yet again, her arms in a vice-like grip around an uncomfortable looking Peter, while Emmett quietly tries to console her.

Charlotte, meanwhile, is talking to Kate. They are discussing the details of getting the parts for another blood processing machine shipped to Montana. Jasper and I join the two women and observe Peter's predicament with a great deal of amusement.

Though we are sad to see Peter and Charlotte go, we agree that their plan makes sense and is of great support to us. Yet another set of goodbyes, but at least these loved ones we would see again.

I am tired from all the work and crying today, but before I go to sleep I carefully take my new diary out of my bag. I tuck the card with dad's message securely inside the cover and begin to write on the first page.

Dear dad,

It has been six weeks, two days and approximately eighteen hours since you have been gone. I have been counting, and I think this is the moment to stop. It has been hard to let go, most of all because they never found your body to physically prove you left this earth. There is no grave or urn to remember you by. But now I have this diary, and it somehow feels like I can talk to you through it. I found it while clearing out your house, our house, which I finished today. I think you would like what I have done with your fish hoard...