Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns The Twilight Saga.
Sunday, August 13th
3:17 AM
The gas station is on Third Street; a nondescript structure flanked by trees and brush on one side, by modest housing on the other. The windows are dark, the property deserted, poorly warded by a single streetlight on the far end of the parking lot. It's a motorist's last chance to fuel up before crossing into Canada.
Bella Swan isn't crossing into Canada.
She pulls into one of the outermost spaces, kills the engine; leaves her lights on. Her phone leans on its side in the beverage holder. She picks it up, thumbing the keypad to activate the display. From the fishtank blue glow she peers out of the windshield, eyes roaming the empty parking lot, the fill station's polygon contours.
Nothing.
For the first time in hours, she doesn't know what to do next.
It's been easy – mostly. Get out of the house without waking Charlie. Get on the road, get out of town. Get to Coupeville by ferry. Get on twenty, then I-5, north toward Vancouver. Get to Blaine, get to D-Street. Get to—
She scans the parking lot, the trees.
Nothing.
She touches the keypad again. Makes a selection.
He answers right away, low and tense. "Bella?"
"Hey," she says quietly. "I made it."
"You had me nervous," Seth admits, laughing a little. "Thought you got lost."
"I can read a map," she replies, eyes still searching. "Seth…"
"We're betting on who gets there first, you or—"
"Seth," she repeats. "He's not here."
Silence, and Seth's breathing. She stares out the windshield, lets her eyes adjust to the fresh black morning, where there is nothing to see. Nothing. In the side mirror, the houses are dark, silent. The gas station is dead, deserted. It's a motorist's last chance to fuel up before crossing into Canada.
Bella Swan isn't crossing into Canada.
As for last chances—
She rubs her eyes. They're dry, gritty with exhaustion. She feels like crying, because it's 3:24 in the morning and she's parked at a gas station in Blaine, Washington on her wedding day. Because she's just driven hundreds of miles to get here and she's starting to think that was a mistake. Because he's supposed to be here, and he's not. Because she told herself she could live without him, and she was right – she can. But she doesn't want to. Not anymore.
She feels like crying, but she can't.
"Crap," Seth mutters. "My money's on—"
-Bella drops her hand.
Opens her eyes-
"Jake," she says.
Sunday, August 13th
3:27 AM
He comes forward as the wolf, a black hole silhouette defecting from the cover of the nearby trees. He is massive. Overwhelming. Larger than the vehicle she is suddenly, irrationally, in no rush to step out of. Then he passes into the scope of her headlights, and she knows that she is right to be afraid.
But not of Jacob Black.
"Call you back," she tells Seth, and hangs up before he can reply.
The wolf approaches soundlessly. Held low, his muzzle hangs level with her mirrors. She places the cell phone on the dashboard and shuts off her highbeams as he comes to a stop directly in front of the car. The huge head slides along the hood, where it pauses for a moment, breath whooshing from the muzzle. She's never heard any creature sound so exhausted.
Or so content.
She reaches over, cracking her door open.
And the wolf disappears.
Sunday, August 13th
3:33 AM
"Jake!"
Her fingers squeeze the door handle and she falls sideways out of the car, sabotaged by her own momentum. The heel of her hand hits cement. She pushes up off the pavement, hands smacking the hood as she scrambles over it to—
His hands come up before he does. It just makes sense to lean over and grab them. She hooks her fingers between his, wedging her thumbs against his wrists. He smells like heat; there is no other word to describe it.
Then he's hauling himself upright, and hauling her forward across the hood. She throws a leg up, scooting along the chassis toward him. Toward contact.
Without warning, he flexes his wrists, keeping her at arms' length.
"Don't," he scrapes out into the dark.
She does anyway.
Sunday, August 13th
3:38 AM
Eventually they both remember that the only thing he's wearing is her.
She loosens her grip around his neck, trying to touch him as little as possible on her way to the asphalt, and keeps her head low as she ducks behind the still-open driver's –side door to pop the trunk.
"They're Charlie's," she warns, balling up the pair of gym pants before throwing them over the roof of the car. "Sorry if that's weird."
There's a magnetic sense of propriety tying her eyes to her feet. She shoves the trunk closed a little harder than she means to and falls back against it on her elbows, looking out into the dark. But the nonchalance doesn't stick. Not with her pulse snapping like a rubberband, and her heartbeat thick and close in her ears.
Suddenly, he's right there.
She glares at him, stepping away from the car. He smells different, now, less like raw energy, more like dirt, smoke. Pine needles. Even after phasing back, he's still huge. Charlie's sweatpants fit him like board shorts. She thinks back six weeks to the last time she saw him, broken and bandaged in his too-small bed.
He's changed, since then.
So has she.
"Should've brought you a shirt," she says, averting her eyes.
"I wouldn't have worn it anyway," he tells her.
Sunday, August 13th
3:42 AM
It takes him a minute to get into the car. She grabs her phone off the dash and checks her voicemail, just to have something to do other than watch him adjust and readjust the seat. There's just too much of him, even for the Guardian. She wonders if he even fits into the Rabbit anymore.
Finally, with his head touching the ceiling and his knees flush with the glove compartment, he stops.
"This worked better in the truck," he says.
"It broke down, after—"
Even as the words take shape in her head she knows there's no stopping what comes next. It has to be said.
"You left," she finishes.
He's quiet, turns his face away, toward the window. He's hard to see in the half-light. She can make out the cloud of his breath against the glass, the muscle jumping in his left cheek. He breathes like a tired dog, ribs expanding, emptying rhythmically, the rest of him utterly still.
"It's sitting in front of the house," she continues. "I can't get rid of it. I see you on those stupid posters and I can't get rid of it."
He swallows, loud enough to hear.
"Please say something," she whispers.
He sighs, deflating visibly. His arms hang slack in his lap. Throwing his head back against his seat, he turns to face her. She can't make out his face for shadows, but he reaches across to grab her hand.
"Something," he says.
Sunday, August 13th
4:10 AM
They sit like that for a while, wrapped in an old, homespun silence, the warmth of shared breath catching in the crisscrossing threads. He moves constantly, she realizes - but it's just the pulse of his thumb, the impression of his heartbeat on her eardrums, the blood pushing through his veins, the rise and fall of his chest, the reflex of his eyelashes when he stares too long at one spot.
"What happened?" he asks, finally.
She clenches the hand he's holding into a fist. His palm moves with her knuckles, following the contraction. His hands are filthy, knuckles earthstained knots in his long, square-edged fingers. She doesn't mind.
"I don't know," she begins. "I thought about things, I guess."
She can feel his eyes on her.
"Mostly I thought about what it was like to be alone," she says. "In the woods. And how glad I am now that someone came after me."
His voice is a scrape. "I love you, Bells."
"Yeah," she whispers. "Thought about that, too."
Sunday, August 13th
5:57 AM
The gas station is on Third Street. It opens – what she presumes is – early. She spends $32.57 of her own money on a full tank of gas, orange juice, two croissants, and a t-shirt with a maple leaf on it – size XXL.
Jacob's waiting by the car when she walks out. He turns to look at her. For the first time in six weeks, she sees his face without a street sign for a backdrop.
"Sun's coming up," he says.
2010 AKC