A/N: I've missed you guys! This damn story needs so much editing it's not even funny! Hopefully i can work on that. But here's a new chapter anyway! Note- I remade Jake's character because WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING BEFORE.

Love you guys!

"What a tall glass of water." Rosa whistler under her breath, her baby blue eyes never leaving his lean figure. "Cora has some competition." I rolled my eyes at her preseumption, still not fully understanding where the boundaries of her sexuality were. Did she truly like girls? Did she like boys anymore? It wasn't a topic I was particularly brimming with excitement to broach verbally with her, so I left those unanswered. "What's his name again?"

I sent her a warning look before crossing my arms. "His name's Jacob, and leave him be." Rosalie flashed a quick turn of her lips and stepped away from the bay window and finally let him work on my automobile in peace, without being stared down and ogled by a harlot. He was a nice boy offering to help me out around the house for pretty cheap, almost free at times- I didn't need Rosa and her man-izing ways to ruin that. "He's very young, anyway." Only two years younger than myself, but he was an innocent kind of young- I just turned nineteen the week before, but I had put a few decades on myself.

"Are you keeping him as a pet, then?" Her mischievous smirk made me blush, even if her light probing was false. I was soon to celebrate a blissful three months of peace and and six months of living alone; my body had healed from my incident, but my heart was taking a little longer.

"Nah." I scrunched my nose at the thought of being in another relationship. "I would ruin his life." I teased softly as I adjusted the buckle of my floral overalls.

"Same." Rosa jibed back and followed me to the backyard where a lustrous work in progress garden had started. "Look at these beautiful roses- blooming just like you." I blushed at her compliment and leaned my head against hers briefly before digging into a plotted plant. In a way, I was blooming. I was more active, less gloomy, more sociable to neighbors and people in town- hell, I even took a part time job at the local florist shop to help me learn how to care for my own garden. Maybe I was starting to fit in... people actually waved when I drove past and occasionally invited me to birthdays and cookouts now. I was cultivating a normal life for myself, I was learning how to be healthy not just physically but mentally as well.

We chatted for what felt like hours as we potted plants, trimmed around the baby rose buds, watered the plants- it was something that started as a chore and slowly morphed into something absolutely therapeutic. It wasn't long before I roped Rosalie and Victoria into it as well and it sort of became a Sunday tradition to work on the garden after church. They alternated weekends on who would come visit me, much like parents that shared custody, but I didn't mind it.

They were worried for me still and I could understand why. Even though I felt one hundred percent recovered and promised to never touch another drug in my life, they had their natural doubts.

"Miss Swan?" Jacob's innocent baritone broke us from our utopia. I looked up from the shrub I was unsuccessfully trying to shape and waited patiently for him to continue. He was a sort of meek boy, and it only got worse around other people. "There's someone here for you... uh, in the drawing room, I told him to wait outside but-" the rest of his words were drowned out as my heart started doing this weird pitter patter thing it hadn't done in ninety days. "Are you okay, Miss Swan?" Jacob looked genuinely concerned for me as he stood there wringing his worn cap between his hands.

"Yeah- yes, I'm fine." I waved him off and went into the house, slowly preparing myself for whatever unwanted guest had arrived. There was only a handful of men brash enough to storm into a house unwelcomed, and I didn't want to see anyone on that list today. My heart knew before my eyes confirmed it; there Edward stood, now looking so out of place in his five piece suit amongst the took of serenity I had created. Gone we're the expensive paintings and crystal trinkets, replaced instead with hand-painted pieces from my downtime and small art projects of mine. Rosa called it my Serenity Room and the name just kind of stuck. His attention was stuck on the first painting I ever finished, what I imagined his godfathers coastal villa in Sicily looked like. Did he see that in the jumbled mess of water colors? Rosalie had said it looked like a beautiful blob of blues and orange.

"You're more talented than you give yourself credit for." He mused softly as he squared his shoulders. My cheeks pinked at the praise, knowing damn well he never complimented someone other than himself if he didn't mean it. "Is that Stefano's villa?" Edward poses the question casually with his hands in his pockets, as though we were old pals just catching up. I wanted nothing more than to kick him the hell out of my house but at the end of the day, his name was on the deed.

I nodded stoically, refusing to say anything unnecessary to this man. The less we spoke and interacted the better off we both were.

He pointedly tilted his head. "Impressive for going off just my stories- wrong color roof, but still impressive." I balled my hands into fists, still not falling for his trap to get me to gab. "I like what you've done with the place," he turned away from the paintings and gestures around, "this is what you've always wanted."

I licked my lips and nodded again. Part of me wanted to stay angry at all of the pain he put me through and give him a thorough lashing, but then another side of me (the new and improved me) chose a much different route. "Thank you for this house." I folded my garden gloves neatly and sat them on the end table, not quite looking at him anymore. "It saved me." I admitted.

I would never have been able to afford buying this home on my own, and I doubt I would have ever been able to leave the hustle and bustle of the big city if he hadn't set me up to live this retired lifestyle. So yes, I hated his guts, but I also loved him with all of my heart.

He didn't say 'you're welcome' because he wasn't that kind of guy, but he nodded in agreement. "That's part of my visit today." He pulled a folded piece of parchment from his inner coat pocket and my heart skipped a beat. Were those bank notices? Was he evicting me? Did he want me to start paying rent and be on a lease? I mentally started trying to add numbers in my head but knew my little bit of scraps at the end of the month would never cut it in a five bedroom country dwelling like this.

He snapped me from my inner doom by offering the letter to me and turned back to the painting before I could open it. "The bank contacted me about taking over this property since the hundred acres on either side of it were being highly bid on by a development company." I bit my lip and tried to scan through the legal mumbo jumbo of the document before he could deliver my fate, as if seeing it in writing first would weaken the blow. "I outbid all of them."

My hands started to shake as I finished the bottom of the page, seeing my name clear as day in the box marked "Owner". Had I ever owned anything? Ever?

Two hundred acres of land... what in the world was I going to do with that much space? "I thought they'd go to waste, but when I bought this property for you I knew you wanted it to be your hideaway. Perhaps you could plant some more flowers or grow-" I silenced him with a hug along his back and shoulders, squeezing all of my thanks and gratitude until he re-positioned us for a front hug and I squeezed some more.

My angel in devil's clothing... or was it the other way around?

"Thank you." I murmured against his cheek, not knowing if it was too toxic to put a kiss on his mouth or not.

"Happy Birthday." Edward murmured back.

We locked eyes and stayed like that for what felt like two eternities. I really hadn't thought he remembered my birthday or even cared enough to think about me in the first place. I would bald facing lying if I said I didn't miss this and miss him- but there was so much hurt there, on both sides, and I think we both knew nothing could ever happen again.

But dammit, this felt nice.

"Ahem." The clearing of Jacob's throat brought me right back to my senses and I was released from the spell. Edward made a low growl noise in the back of his throat so I put ten feet of distance between us immediately. "Sorry to interrupt, Miss Swan, but Rosalie said to give you her best as she's left for the day." He looked at me only briefly before staring my guest down. I sent him a quizzical look, not understanding where this was coming from. Since when did he act like my bulter and announce arrivals and departures of my guests? "Jacob Black." He stuck his hand out and shook the shit out of Edward's hand.

"This is Jacob, he's helping me with the house and the car." I took a step towards Jacob and put my hand on his arm in a friendly manner and tried to ignore the way he flinched when I introduced him. "This is Edward, my um," I faltered in my introduction, not really knowing how to identify him anymore, "friend." Sure we had seen each other naked and almost got married, but friend would do. Edward's eyebrow shot up in question but he said nothing, very unlike him, and instead looked to where I was still touchin Jacob's arm until I distanced myself from him as well.

"Right then, I guess I'll head out. Ring the house if you need anything," the young boy squeezed my shoulder and looked into my eyes, "anything." I looked back at him oddly, not used to Jacob acting this way at all.

He was almost out of the house when Edward walked into the hallway and called after him. "There's a Ford out front that needs some work done, perhaps Isabella can order you to it soon." The snide tone in Edward's voice caused a new fit of rage to come over Jake's face, and it took all of my will to slam the door shut on my poor friend before things could escalate. I turned back to Edward to see the smuggest asshole ever. "What? You said he was just the local handyman, didn't you?"

"But to say you would have me order him!" I snapped back at him, my hands gluing themselves to my hips in order to not punch him. "You know what, this is so like you!" I threw my hands in the air; all peace forgotten. "You stay away for months just to storm back-"

"I stayed away? And what of you? Answering no calls, no letters!" Edward threw off his suit jacket in the midst of his anger, so I ripped off my light cardigan too.

The lack of coats helped us argue against one another better.

"Bull crap, Edward! I wrote your for a month straight when we first left Atlantic City! And I know you received them, but the postman never brought anything back for me!" I screamed back.

He could do and say all he wanted about my life and the people in it, but he was not going to deny it all and pin our demise on me.

Edward leveled me with a look, and it was one I couldn't read. "I didn't receive anything. But what does that matter now? You have a new love interest to fawn over you, just how you prefer it."

I growled and my ran my hands through my shoulder length hair. "Jacob is not a love interest! And are you really one to speak? As soon as you left me, you found your little family you always wanted!" We both silenced after that.

This wasn't territory that I left myself dwell on or get into, at all. Even if he had received my letters, would I even had known him anymore? He was a father now, to a little girl I had never met or even heard of. Nicalette- that name haunted me. "I bet her mom's Italian, and you buy her furs and diamonds and have a perfect fucking mobster family!" I screamed again, wanting so bad to break everything around me. "Did you fuck her already?" It popped out of my mouth before I could stop it. They had a damn child together, what did it matter to me anyway?

"Isabella." He said it as a warning, those green eyes flashing.

"How long have you known?" I crossed my arms with the question, not sure about the way I felt of his potential answers. Rosalie tried to convince me to talk to him to sort this out when I first left the hospital but I was trying to heal and couldn't possibly take anymore emotional torture. "Did you know in Atlantic City?" I was trying my best to stay calm and speak to him in a peaceful manner, not for his sake but for my own state of mind. These were answers i needed to know, maybe I'd be able to finally move on with them.

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. "Isabella-"

"When did you know?" I grit out.

He straightened himself out and walked towards me but I stuck out a hand to distance us. "She's five. I've known since Atlantic City, that's when the paternity test proved it."

I bit down on my lip to stop myself from screeching like a banshee. I would allow myself to flip out and go ape shit, eventually, but first I wanted all of the answers. "So when you came back to the hotel late that first night, that's where you were? You were with your courmare then?" I spat out the insult Ana watched his face play out the rage I felt.

"Isabella, stop trying my fucking patience." He growler and caught my arm before I could put more space between us. "The only people I met with were the lawyers, now stop!" Edward effectively pinned both of my arms to my side. He pressed his for head against mine and took a deep breath. "Nicalette's mother passed a few years ago and her grandma couldn't afford to keep her. I wasn't sure if I was her biological father or if I should have even believed the story... but the girl lives with me now, and she's a part of my life." My head spun with all of this new info raining down on me. Edward was a father? I just couldn't wrap my head around it.

"Well good for you." I ground out.

"Bella." He pressed me against the wall, never letting my hands go. "Please- just meet her. That's all I ask."

I blinked back tears. How many nights did I cry myself to sleep trying to get this man's voice out of my head? How many low days did I have to pull myself out of in order to be standing here alive in front of him?

"Get the fuck out of my house." I whispered back. "And never come back."