I do not own Twilight. I am writing an entire, made up premise using the characters' names. This is pure fiction inspired by stories of cheating and reconnection. I am not an advocate of infidelity; I find the concept of seeking forgiveness post infidelity fascinating and exploring what that looks like through fiction.
They were fourteen and fifteen and clumsy in love when Edward Cullen first kissed Isabella Swan behind the bleachers of their high school. She'd just won first place in the county's baking competition, still had flour on her sleeve, and he was all nerves and too much ambition, talking about med school and saving lives like the world was just waiting for him to arrive. She teased him for being too serious. He teased her for burning toast. They were opposites in every way, and it only made sense that they gravitated toward each other like magnets.
They were inseparable.
Edward Cullen was the golden boy—the youngest son of Dr. Carlisle Cullen, a respected cardiologist in Seattle, and Esme Cullen, a well respected interior decorator who ran charity events and knew how to make anyone feel welcome in her home. The Cullens were old money, tasteful about it, and when Edward declared at six years old that he'd become a doctor like his dad, nobody doubted him.
Isabella Swan was not born into that world. Her mother had walked out when she was eight, and her father—gruff, kind, overprotective—raised her alone, working a humble job as a TSA agent at Seattle Tacoma Airport. She spent more time at Cullens' house than her own by the time she hit middle school. Esme taught her how to french braid. Edward's little sister, Alice, became her best friend. And somewhere between Friday night dinners and summer camping trips with the Cullen clan, she became more than a guest. She became family.
Everyone thought they were adorable and no one was surprised they ended up together. All was well until they announced they wanted to get married.
Esme loved Isabella like her own, but even she had pulled them both aside the night he proposed and asked, gently, "Are you sure you don't want to wait?" Carlisle had been more direct: "Marriage is for after you build a life. Not while you're still building."
Bella's dad, Charlie Swan, was even more hesitant, scared that history was repeating itself. He came around eventually, ready to support his daughter and new son.
They did not wait. After Isabella graduated high school, and six months after Edward proposed, they got married.
They exchanged vows in the Cullen family's backyard under a trellis of white roses. As Isabella walked down the aisle in her father's arm, Edward could not help but think that he was the luckiest man alive. Edward's oldest brother, Emmett, served as his best man. And dear Alice, who served as the maid of honor, cried more than Isabella. It was imperfect and impulsive and undeniably sincere.
And it was hard.
Edward refused to take money from his family. "We need to do this ourselves," he'd said, and Isabella loved him for it—even when it meant scraping by. He worked part-time jobs while going to school. She took shifts at the bakery and sold custom cakes on the side, while taking online classes to get her Associates in Business degree. Rent, groceries, bills—it was a constant dance of not-quite-enough, but they made it work. They believed love was enough.
And for a while, it was.
They built their life in Duvall, a quiet town outside Seattle. It was modest and unpolished, but it was theirs. They made traditions out of little things—Tuesdays at the farmer's market, cinnamon rolls on Sundays, candlelit dinners on the floor when the power went out. They were young and tired, but in love.
Until everything changed.
Isabella was twenty-two, at the cusp of graduating, when her father died of a sudden heart attack while sweeping the porch. No warning. No goodbye. Just gone.
And slowly, quietly, so did everything else.
