Two years later...  “Bella, it is time to start getting dressed! The wedding starts in less than an hour.” Bella smiles patiently, understanding why Fleur is so harried at the moment. “I will put my dress on in a minute. I promise I will not hold up the wedding.” Bella looks at the beautiful white wedding dress hanging on the back of the door. It is long and flowing with a fitted lace bodice and an empire waist skirt that swirls

The once very beautiful face on the sterile white pillow was now bruised and battered. The man looking down at it frowned as he was unfamiliar with the feelings the sight of her face inspired in him. Concern. Fear. Even pain. For so many years, his emotions had been locked away, so that he would never have to feel pain again. Feelings were nothing but a pain in his ass and as the most revered Lycan warrior in all the surrounded packs, they were a nuisance that he didn't care to have get in his way. But when he looked at the woman on the bed, he couldn't help but feel something. She was no stranger to him. At one time, he had thought that he knew her very well. It has been nearly four years since he has seen her, but she has not changed a bit in that time. He has. He is no longer the funny and charming boy he was when they met all those summers ago. At twenty-two, he is a man now and he has strived to never be like he was then. Loving. Tender. Gullible. A fool. A fool that sh

The guy on the swing set turns to face her and she stops walking, frozen in place by the icy blue eyes that he levels her with. She is about to spin around on her heels and rush away when he stops her. “Hello.” Even though she is ninety-six percent certain that she is the only person out there besides him, she still looks around to make sure that it is her that he is talking to and not someone standing behind her. When she sees that no one is there, she turns back and lifts a tentative hand to give a small wave that is no higher than her waist. “Um, hi.” “Let me guess, you came here for some peace and privacy, huh? You wanted to be alone with just your thoughts, am I right?” He asks her with a grin and she can not help but to offer him a small smile in return. “Actually, I come here to get away from my thoughts as much as I do the rest of the world. I like the peace I get just from being here.” She tells him and he nods as if he understands completely. “Yeah, that makes sense.

Present Day “You're awake.” Lily blinks her eyes slowly, as if unsure if she should believe her eyes when she turns to look at him. But then she looks around the room and she sighs. “So, I'm not dead.” “Unfortunately not,” Chad agrees. “Well, this little reunion has been fun but please don't let the door hit you on the way out,” Lily says, turning over to face the wall away from him. Way to freaking go, Chad, he thinks to himself. In her company for the first time in four years and within the first two minutes of her regaining consciousness, he has insulted her. He knows that this won't do but he can not help his bitter feelings toward her. “I can not leave until I am assured that you will be okay,” Chad says giving his own little sigh at the way that she avoids looking at him. “Then let me assure you. I am fine. I will be fine. So...” She stares pointedly at the door, obviously expecting him to take the hint and walk right through it. He almost hates to disappoint her, but

“No.” “What do you mean by no?” Chad asks. “Exactly what I said. No.” Lily crosses her arms over her chest, giving him a mutinous glare. “Okay then.. since you are apparently full of other options why don't you go ahead and tell me about them? Because I know that they would have to be so much better than staying with a pack of strong, protective family members that would literally die for you. So, you must mean the sweet lady next door, who is clearly in her late forties, slightly overweight, and a mere human. Or maybe you know a family that would take you in, someone with kids that would not mind endangering them should your friends here come back.” His words make so much sense and they score a hit with Lily in the form of a flinch, that hurts him to see. He does not mean to rub in the fact that she has no one to turn to. He just wanted her to know that he was who she needed to turn to, like it or not. Of all the ways that she had imagined over the years him returning and whi