A/N: So, those of you who are kind enough to follow me know that I should be posting a new chapter of An Earlier Meeting right now. Yeah, sorry about that. :) It's nearly ready to post, but I woke up yesterday morning thinking about this story and I had to write it, like I had no choice. I'm just finishing up the end of this and I may write an outtake or two, and one day I may write it as a full-length novel with original characters-I swear, it's like I'm being consumed by it; my husband is freaked out ;)- but I really will get the next chapter of AEM up by the end of the week. Anyway, whether you prefer Austen or Twilight, I hope you enjoy this. Oh, and this is all human, no vampires, something I always thought I would never write. LOL

Unfortunately, I remembered that day with perfect clarity.

My boyfriend, Edward Cullen, his family, and his sister's boyfriend Jasper, were returning that day from a three week long camping trip. Edward and his sister, Alice, had graduated high school that June, along with myself and Jasper, and they were going on the trip in celebration. I had been invited to go, but decided to stay behind, even though I knew I would miss him dreadfully. I was working and trying to save as much money as I could before we left for college, and besides, I hated sleeping in tents. They were either too cold or too hot, and were uncomfortable. I used to tease him that when we were married we would need to either stay in a cabin or rent an RV.

We had been joking about marriage for months. We'd only been dating for a little over a year, but it had been serious and comfortable and perfect from the very beginning. We both knew that this was it. Or I did, anyway.

I had been rushing around getting all my chores done for the week, so that I wouldn't have to spend a minute away from Edward that I didn't have to, when the doorbell rang. No one was there when I answered it, but there was an envelope tucked between the screen door and the door frame.

Myname was on it. I opened it without any real interest, thinking about what I still had to do, and had the photos in my hand before I realized what the top one showed.

It was Edward. With his arm around a blonde.

I was not blonde. He didn't even like blondes.

The rest of the pictures were of them in bed.

You couldn't see her face. I thought of that as I tried to call him, my fingers shaking so badly that it took me three tries to dial. It seemed somehow important to me that you couldn't see her face.

The call went straight to voice mail. I didn't leave a message. What was I supposed to say, "Please tell me this isn't true because since I can't see her face maybe it didn't really happen?" Even then, so desperately wanting him to tell me it wasn't true, I knew it must be. It was him.

I listened to his voice mail message all the way through before hanging up. His voice was so beautiful.

I didn't call him again.

I did leave Alice messages. She was his sister, yes, but she was also my friend, my best friend outside of him. We had been friends for longer than he and I had been together.

I didn't tell her what I had gotten. I couldn't say it. I just asked her to call me. By the end I was crying and begging her to call me. I made myself stop calling her after I left the twentieth message.

I could still see the photos on the floor where I'd dropped them. Some of them had landed face side up. I could no more touch them to turn them over than I would willingly have reached out my hand to flip over a tarantula.

I laid down on the floor and waited for her to call me back. If I pressed my cheek to the wood just right I couldn't see the pictures.

She never called me back. I was still laying there when my father got home from work.

I got off the floor. I wouldn't let Charlie go shoot him. I went to work, I cooked and did my chores, but I was numb. I was glad I was numb. I didn't want to feel anything. I didn't even want to imagine what this would feel like.

A month later I saw his mother, Esme, in the grocery store. I loved his mother. She, Alice, and I used to watch romantic movies almost every weekend, throwing popcorn at Edward and his father when they complained. I could talk to her about anything. She would hug me and call me sweetie. She was more of a mother to me than my real mother.

And there she was, forty feet in front of me. She looked down at her list and spun her cart around like she'd forgotten to get something in the previous aisle. It looked like she hadn't seen me.

But I knew she had.

I abandoned my cart where it was, and went home to pack. I quit my job. I made arrangements to go to a different college. I bought a one-way ticket to see my mother. I informed her I was spending the last few weeks before the start of school with her. I left early the next morning. I held myself together as I told my father goodbye.

Once I was safely in my bedroom at my mother's house, I cried for three days.

And I didn't go home for five years.