"I'm asking you to choose me, Bella." He was standing in the driveway. I paused, my hand on the door handle to my truck.
"This is me asking, begging. Change your mind." He was really pleading with me. He had tears in his eyes. Each one was a knife in my heart.
"Please don't cry," I heard my voice break as I said it, and tears begin to fall down my own face. He took a step toward me and brushed them away as quickly as they fell. I took his face in my hands and pulled him toward me and I kissed his eyes and cheeks.
"Bella, what is this really about?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why are you with him. And not me?"
"I…love him. You know that."
"I also know you love me." I opened my mouth to object but he warned, "Don't pretend, Bella. Your words deny it, but everything else about is confirms my belief, every day." He paused before adding quietly, "You can't kiss him. You don't laugh with him…You can't live with him, Bella."
"You're right," I whispered after a pause.
"Then choose me. I'm asking you to choose, and I'm asking you to choose me."
I did love him. I loved him enough to leave Edward, but…
Jake could see the hesitancy in my eyes and asked, "What can he give you that I can't?"
"Security. Edward is a certainty. He won't change." I tried to explain.
"I don't understand...you want to be stagnant? You never want to be able to grow with him? You just want to exist on pause?" He was getting angry. He stepped away from me. I felt my anger rise through my chest and out my mouth.
"Yes, that is what I want!" I shouted back.
"I don't understand you right now!" he growled back. "I love that you have the element of surprise in you and everything, but right now it's killing me." he paused as he struggled for words. Then he said with an attempt at calm, "I know you. I can't box you in, or predict you the way he thinks he can, but I know you. How can this truly be what you want? I can't understand that."
"Of course you can't," I said quietly, but seething with anger.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that predictability is safety. You never err on the side of caution."
"Predictability is also as boring as hell. You have adventure in your spirit, and you're killing it for him."
"None of this is for him."
"If this is for you, then you'd stay here with me. I know you would." he shot back.
"You can't make promises the way he can."
"What have I been doing since I met you? I promise I will never hurt you. I promise I would never leave you. I promise to love you."
"You can't keep those promises," I half-screamed, half-cried.
"What have I done to make you doubt me?" He said it softly. He was honestly hurt and confused, trying to think of when he had broken my trust in him.
"You haven't done anything," I said miserably.
He stepped closer to me again. He put his hands on my face and tilted it up so I'd look into his sorrowful eyes. "Name one thing strong enough to break my promises to you."
I looked at his full eyes with my own empty ones and replied, "Imprint."
His eyes changed, "Is this what that is about? How can you worry about that?"
"How can I not?" I challenged.
"Bella," he said my name slowly, to capture my full attention. "I love you. Nothing will change that."
"All it would take is one glance," I reminded him.
"Love is choice," he told me solemnly. "I chose you. I will chose you each and every day. I choose you today. I will choose you tomorrow, and I will you choose you until the day I die."
"But what about...?"
"This is stronger than myths and magic," he interrupted. "This is reality, if anything is." He sighed. "Please," he whispered, pleaded, taking my hands in his large warm ones and resting his forehead against mine, "Please don't marry him."
I breathed in his woodsy scent. Could I trust uncertainty? I could trust him.
"I choose life," I whispered, right before our lips met.