Jacob held me as I burst into tears again; the searing pain from the Edward-induced hole was tearing me in pieces from the inside out. This happened at least once a month now. Way less than it was three years ago; it had been four or five times a day. "Shh, Bella, shh." Jacob whispered, patting my hair while holding me to his warm chest. I bawled as Edwards beautiful face swam into my memories; our first kiss, the night in Italy, the day we met, when he proposed…I began to hyperventilate now. I was close to screaming when Jacob put his palm against the small of my back and kissed my forehead. He knew that always calmed me down. My breathing, though still ragged, began to slow. Jacob took my chin and gently pressed his lips to mine. "Are you better, Bell?" I nodded once and slumped into his chest.
Jacob had been there through everything. The fight, the pain, and then at the break-up. He had been waiting for me with open arms. He was content with just being my friend for the first year and a half, but he begged for a chance and he has not disappointed me. I love Jacob so much. Had Edward never existed, I could love Jacob the way he deserved. But Edward did exist, and I was still too broken to be in love with Jacob. Jacob accepted me as I was; broken and a little crazy. Jacob was in love with me and I knew that I was in love with him too. I just loved Edward more.
The night Edward left me forever…three years ago…was still vivid in my mind. We had a fight. The fight was all my fault of course. It was stupid. I knew better but I threw a fit about it anyway. Edward admitted to me that he had lost his virtue to a vampire back during his rebellious stage. I screamed and hit him. He tried to calm me down but I couldn't. "Why did you lie to me, Edward? How could you do this to me? It's over. IT'S OVER!" He ran to me and pressed me to his chest and I tried to pull away and he broke my arm. I knew it was an accident, but he still hated himself. He told me that if I was too fragile to handle fights then I didn't deserve him; I deserved someone better, someone human. He didn't even spend the night with me that night, and the next morning he was gone. He somehow snuck in and took my ring during the twenty minutes I slept that night. I had nothing of his. It was like the first time. I could still hear his voice reverberating in my thoughts. "It will be as if I never existed…."
I lay down on the bed and curled into a ball, trying to re-stitch the hole. Jacob knew that when I had gotten to this stage it was safe to talk to me. "Bella, I love you." I just nodded. It wasn't the time for that sort of exchange. Maybe in a minute or two. He put his hand on the back of my head and petted me soothingly. "I'll make you some hot cocoa, okay?" He left the room. Good, I thought, I need to think for a second. The last scene of love between me and Edward played in my memories. It was off limits, I knew, but I hadn't thought about it in so long it was fuzzy around the edges.
Edward was above me while I was writhing on the bed beneath him—but not from pain, from intense and other-worldly pleasure—I was screaming hiss name. I could still feel the sensation, the heat of my blood mixed with the chill of his skin, everything was so clear and then my memory abruptly turned to that last fight. He was holding me in his arms and I tried it turn free. I was so furious that I succeeded but he instantly pulled me back. "Bella." He sighed. I turned from him and he tried to turn me back. A sharp snap issued from my arm and I uttered a cry. My arm had snapped. The look on his face was horrid—so hurt and disbelieving. Yet he acted as if he knew it would happen. He rushed me to Carlisle. While he was fixing my arm, Edward paced, thinking deep. I tried telling him it was okay but he wouldn't listen. After he drove me home I never saw him again.
Jake had been my sanctuary; my safe haven for when the hole had reopened and claimed me forever. I had needed him the most then, and he held me together physically and emotionally. I was in love with Jacob Black. I had been for a while now. I would focus on him and only him. Why would Jacob want a deranged fiancée? I would do whatever it took to be who he deserved. These were the thoughts that always closed the hole back up. My engagement ring suddenly weighed ten pounds; it was a hand-carved polished, wooden band with a Quilette proverb carved into it. In their own language, it said "She who runs with wolves is protected from black magic." It sounded much prettier and more practical in Quilette.
Jacob returned with my favorite treat—hot cocoa with a huge dollop of Cool Whip—and smoothed back my hair and kissed my head. "Are you better, honey?" He knew better than to ask if I was "okay," he was a quick learner. I just nodded. I didn't trust my mouth. It felt like if I opened it then my heart would leap out of my throat. He curled me around his flame-hot body. This was procedure. After one of my depression attacks I was always shivering with cold. I tucked my face under his chin and kissed it gently. "I'm better now, Jake." He looked down at me, grinning softly. His warm oak-colored eyes gazed into my dark-chocolate shaded ones.
It had been five years since that night. I was a fully-developed 22 year old young woman; a virgin, fully developed, 22-year-old-woman. Jacob of course was a 20 year old, hormone-crazed, virgin male and he brought it up…all the time. It's not that I didn't want to be with Jacob in that way, it was just that I never got in that mood. He would try to get me there and I would just lose it. I knew there was something wrong with me, but the fact that we tried almost every night for a year and I just couldn't do it. It's very rarely that Jacob tried with me now.
I sighed and Jacob looked at me. "You say something?" He asked. I just shook my head and kissed his chin.
That night I couldn't sleep. I had a dream that made me want to wake up so bad that I threw myself out of bed in the attempt. It was about Edward. In my dream, I still lived with Charlie, in my old bedroom. Edward was standing at my window. His eyes were black with thirst, in the dark his skin glowed so bright and the circles under his eyes were so dark he looked like a beautiful, angelic skeleton. I reached for him, but he stood, rigid as a pole, and stared at me. I opened my mouth to speak but in the second that I had just thought about saying something his mouth had already crossed the room and descended on mine. I moaned in satisfaction and pleasure as his hands roamed my back and face. It felt so real, so lovely that I didn't know I was dreaming until I woke up. I was too stunned to even cry.
The next morning I woke up, exhausted. Jacob was with the pack and I felt lonely, as I always do when he's gone. This time, though, there was a letter on a ripped piece of notebook paper.
"Honey,
I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up. I miss you more than you know, and you're always in my thoughts. Leah complains about it but that's just Leah. I can't wait for the moment you're 100% mine. I don't care how long it takes. I have forever to wait."
I love you.
Jake"
I don't know when the tears started to fall; I do know that before I was done reading, the paper was already wet. Jacob was in love with me. I was in love with Jacob. In a world where magic didn't exist and myths and legends were just stories, Jake was my soul mate. If Jacob was human, and Edward died in 1918 when he was supposed to then Jacob and I would have been meant to be together.
I gasped as my final, life-changing choice had been made.
I would focus on Jacob, and no one else. Edward and his memories would be shut up into a drawer in the very back of my mind.
Forever.