Note: I don't own anything, it all belongs to stephenie meyers

Esme's POV

I've always been the one who believed that love could heal all things.

But now, standing in the empty house, with everything so quiet and broken, I wasn't sure that was true anymore.

Renesmee's absence was suffocating. Her laughter, once a gentle melody throughout our home, had been replaced with the stark emptiness of something lost. She was our sunshine—the one we had all circled around, the one who had brought us so much joy after years of darkness. And now… now she was gone, her future fractured by decisions made for her, not by her.

I knew what we had done. I understood the reasoning behind it. We had only wanted to protect her, to give her time to grow, to figure out her life without the weight of this on her shoulders. But in our efforts to protect her, we had hurt her.

I could feel her hurt, too. It wasn't just her absence that made my chest ache—it was the feeling that she no longer trusted us. The look on her face when she left… the words she said. I can't trust you right now.

How could she have thought that? We had always been her safety, her family. But to her, we had become strangers. We had betrayed her, lied to her.

I couldn't stop the tears that welled up in my eyes. I wanted to go to her, to hold her, to tell her that I was sorry—that we all were. But I couldn't.

All I could do was wait. And pray that someday she would come back to us. When she was ready. When she could see that all we had ever wanted was to love her.

But would that day ever come?

I had raised so many of my family, loved them all as my own, but Renesmee… she was different. She was a piece of my heart I hadn't known I was missing until I had her. And now it felt like that piece had been ripped away, leaving only a hollow void.

Edward had been trying to call her. I could hear the strain in his voice when he spoke, the desperate plea that I knew was there, even though he tried to hide it. He wanted to fix this. But like the rest of us, he didn't know how.

"Esme?" Bella's voice broke through my thoughts.

I turned to find her standing in the doorway, her face pale and tired, her eyes heavy with sorrow. It was like she hadn't slept at all. Maybe she hadn't.

I opened my arms to her, and she came into them, resting her head on my shoulder, letting me hold her. I didn't have the answers for her, either. I didn't know how to make it right. But I held her the way I had held Renesmee when she was a child, offering whatever comfort I could.

"We'll find a way back to her," Bella whispered, her voice fragile.

I didn't answer. I didn't have the words. I wanted to believe her, but right now, it seemed impossible.