Prologue:

A/N: I own nothing. Characters are all Stephenie Meyers' creations, I'm just torturing them. Thanks to my lovely beta (FE71SH) for looking this chap over for me. Please take the time to leave some words if you really loved it or really hated it!

- BPOV -

Edward stalked in front of me. The smell of the mountain lion's blood was carrying towards us on the wind.

You look so sexy doing that, I told him mentally.

He waved his hand at me behind his back trying to silently let me know that I was cheating. Which was true. I'd brought down my lion in sixty-five seconds. He was trying to beat that time, and I was trying to distract him so I could win. Although we still hadn't decided exactly what the winner would receive. This wasn't the first time we'd had this exact same contest. Half the time he won, half the time I did.

He crouched deeper into his hunting stance and then launched himself towards the lion, taking it down in one smooth, swift motion. To anyone with lesser eyesight he would have just been a blur, but I could see the smallest twitch of every defined muscle along the length of his torso and down the back of his lean legs, even underneath the clothes he was wearing.

He turned back towards me, with a wide grin on his face, and just a tiny hint of blood on his lips. Other than that tiny drop of red, it would have been natural to assume he was just taking a leisurely stroll through the forest.

"I'm calling that one mine, considering the distractions I had to contend with," he murmured to me as he clutched a loose strand of my hair and tucked it behind my ears.

"One comment is hardly distractions," I replied. I put my mouth close to his and licked the remaining smear of blood off with my tongue.

"No, but the constant thoughts around that comment definitely were." His hands ghosted down my sides, barely touching me but it was enough to send shivers of pleasure coursing around my entire body.

He reached his arms around my waist and brought his lips to mine. His tongue caressed mine and I existed in my past sense for that glorious moment. Remembering the taste of his lips, the texture of his tongue. Grasping hold of every precious detail I could.

His hands trailed down to my back and his fingers slipped into the waistband of my jeans.

I felt myself shifting back even though I didn't want to. I wasn't ready yet. My ability to control my power had diminished greatly over the last 12 months. I concentrated hard and managed to shift into another past, rather than return to my present. I was surprised to realise it was a past from when I was still human.

I watched as my human self walked through the door. Edward pushed the door shut behind her. She didn't turn to look at him, instead taking in the view of the makeshift field of flowers Edward had set up.

I watched as her eyes widened in surprise at the view in front of her, listened as her heart began to thump excitedly. I was jealous of her for this moment shared with Edward. She had his undivided attention. I could tell by the set of his jaw and the pitch of his breathing he was nervous and I knew why. He was about to propose to her. I couldn't think of her as me anymore. She suffered too much during her life, and yet for all of that she had things I didn't. Opportunities lost to me now. That was another life, a different time, and I could never claim it back.

Edward walked up behind her. "They're all the different types of flowers from our meadow. Had I been smart enough to not leave you. That's where I would have done this."

"Done what?" she asked, turning on the spot to face the door.

Edward circled around the other way, laughing, and knelt in behind her, waiting for her to spin back around. He held up a box which I knew contained a ring, his mother's ring. My hand raised instinctively to my neck. My fingers trailed down the chain that resided there, my fingers enclosing the ring there. It remained a permanent reminder of our love.

I couldn't watch anymore. I was here to escape what was happening in my present but this was too much.

I shifted back to present and found myself lying in a bed. I stared at the yellowing ceiling above me, hating how much it reminded me of that time. Of her and her ability to die to get away from the pain of lost love or to chose to move on with imperfect human memory. I scowled at the ceiling. I turned my head to the side but all I saw there were the holes I had punched through the plasterboard. I sighed. I knew I should do some repairs to this house, my father's old house, it was in desperate need of some TLC and my constant abuse when I grew frustrated only caused further damage.

Now that I was back in my own body I noticed how much my throat burned. I quickly realised I'd been living in my fantasy world, in my past, for three days. I would need to hunt soon, I was too close to civilization to risk waiting too much longer. I sighed because the simple act of hunting, which Edward and I used to share, held no joy for me anymore. I derived no pleasure from it, or from anything. I had no one to share my life with anymore.

I was bitterly reminded, once again, of all I had lost. I grabbed the pillow under my head and threw it across the room. It burst into a cloud of feathers when it hit the wall. I cursed at myself. I needed to take better care of my things. I didn't have limitless funds anymore. Edward's ring and the house were the only things I had left in the world.

Everything else was gone.

// * \\ * // * \\ * // * \\

- EPOV -

Something was missing from my life.

Something intangible – a vague notion of lost love. I had never experienced love, never found anyone who had turned my eye that way, but somehow I still missed it. I longed for it with every fibre of my being. I desired a love which was beautiful and transcendent. A love which would last the ages and never be broken.

The absence was most prevalent in the still of the night, when the darkness was full. When the night sky was black and the moon refused to shine. Because that was when I saw her – my light. It was as though a bright star had streaked across the night sky and now I was left with the void. The blackness. And how I craved the light. My heart longed for something I had never had and therefore shouldn't miss.

During those times I would find myself staring at the ceiling and dreaming of chocolate eyes. Of course I wasn't really dreaming, I couldn't sleep, so I didn't dream.

I often thought that maybe, just maybe, if I could dream I would see more of the one I had never met but would die for. It was maddening and heartbreaking to lie dreaming of love I had never experienced, while my family pursued their own nocturnal activities. I was always left feeling more alone that I ever had before. It was as though part of me had been torn away, like my heart resided with another. I could pinpoint the moment in my life these feelings began. For ninety years I wandered with my family, content within myself and then suddenly I changed. For no reason I could find I suddenly felt like part of me had been torn away. I had talked to Carlisle about it but he had no explanation. Change was rare for us. Rare but permanent. I would live forever dreaming of those chocolate pools of knowledge. I spent the time sifting through my darkened memories, trying to find some hint, some glimpse of the girl, anything that would help me figure out the mystery. Anything to prove she was something more than a figment of my imagination. But I always came up blank. There was nothing.

She was the love of my life and I didn't even know if she was real.

A/N:- Welcome to Life's Lesson - a simultaneous sequel to Teacher's Pet & Student Liaison. Go read at least one of those first if you haven't because this story will make little sense without the knowing the basics of Bella's power as set-up in that story (TP is BPOV - SL is EPOV).

I am not sure how soon I will be able to update but I will be getting Chapter 1 up as soon as is humanly possible around my other RL stuff :)