AN: So, I am super excited to be finally posting this story after working on it for quite some time. As of this moment, I am finished with chapters one through five with several other chapters partially written. However, I am only going to post about once a week. This gives me time to keep ahead to ensure that this story is complete in a timely fashion.

For those who are reading my story, Our Connected Familyrevised, I assure you that I am going to finish that story. It is just taking longer than I thought it would. I am stuck with it at the moment, so I am hoping that this will open up the creative flow a bit.

I do hope that you enjoy this story. It is AU/AH, so it is a bit different than I normally write. However, my writing style is similar. It is Esme/Carlisle, Rosalie/Emmett, and eventual Alice/Jasper. Edward and Bella are partial to one another, however, they are young in this story. Jacob. No Renesme as the moment.

I would like to thank all of my readers, and especially, Marrabelle. If you have not read her stories, you should check them out, because they are amazing.

-ash

P.S. This chapter will be the prologue, however, since it is so short, I will be posting the first chapter shortly.

Enjoy! =)

Prologue ~ Leaving a Shadow

Parents are never supposed to leave their kids. It is supposed to be like encoded within their genes as soon as they have a child.

But, my father left me and my mother when I was two years old.

He couldn't handle the stress of a family.

You would think that, that would be enough; that one event like this would be enough on a girl to last her entire life.

You would think.

When people say that everything happens for a reason…well, maybe they should have something really bad happen to them and see how they like it. See if they like the outcome. See if they still think that everything happens for a reason.

Then, I got hit with the final blow. My mother practically left me on the doorstep of strangers to go on her so-called vacation with her so-called boyfriend, James, for three months.

Three months. Are you kidding me? Like I didn't have enough on my plate but to have to worry about the strangers that my mother was making me live with for three months. So what if she knew them. That was beside the point. I did not know them.

The day she left, I could swear I saw her shadow linger longer than she did from the second story window of my new room. I stared at it for several minutes, then, when I closed my eyes and reopened them, it was gone, just like her.

But, like I said: they say everything happens for a reason.

And, then again, sometimes people get left in the shadows.