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Updates are going to be weekly–on a Wednesday until everything gets finished–I am DETERMINED
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Order : 3rd August 2006 – 10 days till the wedding.
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If six months ago you'd asked me what my plans were this summer I know exactly what it was that I'd have said to you, I could have summed it up with one word: Bella. I'll be with, Bella, plain and simple. Every spare moment she has, you find her and I'll be with her. From the moment she parked her truck at the side of the road in front of my house. I just knew that this was fates way of bringing us together.
Looking back now, it seemed really… immature the way I'd hang off her every word, I'd do anything to raise a smile from her. That day I thought all my Christmases' had come at once and I doted on her completely, even though over and over she would keep me at arms length, tell me that we could only be friends, to me the reality of it was, so long as she was around I was happy and if at the same time that made her feel even the slightest relief then without a doubt I'd continue to follow her no matter what.
Things just got complicated along the way a little.
Yea, just six months ago she was broken, still in her 'zombie' stage as Charlie called it but I'd hoped that by the time the rain clouds finally lifted, or at least when the atmosphere turned warmer, with more sun pushing through the clouds she would really, really start to be better.
As time wore on we were getting closer, she said I was fixing her. She was getting better. She tried to play it off as fixing things was part of my nature but what she didn't realise was I wouldn't do it for just anyone. Honestly I wasn't nearly as out going as she thought I was. I chose my friends and kept them close. I didn't let just anyone in, I chose her, I wanted to be there for her.
On more optimistic days I might have told Quil or Embry if they had bothered to ask that I hoped to be pushing third, it really didn't matter to me so long as we were together, I'd do anything for her, be anything for her.
If you'd have told me you had the gift of foresight and that in six months time I would be invited to Bella's wedding I wouldn't have even laughed at you, because seriously. I know Bella Swan and there was no way she would get married right out of high school, not even if she got pregnant.
If you'd have told me she was marrying a vampire I'd have thought you spent too much time talking to my dad about tribal stuff. Would I have believed you if you told me I'd grow over a foot in a month and pack on over one hundred pounds at the same time before transforming into a shape-shifting werewolf. Nope, no way would I have believed you.
But it was all true.
And Dad had the ridiculously fancy evidence tucked into the side of his chair at this very moment.
The first time I saw it what did I do?
I ran.
What did Sam do?
He ordered me back to La Push, he said I knew this could happen, that I needed to look at what this actually meant and move past it, that at least if she was getting married before changing I would have 'closure', like I should take some comfort in the fact that it wasn't just going to happen and she wasn't just going to disappear with out me knowing.
The closure comment was just downright cruel, is that what he thought it was like for Leah when she found out about imprinting? That she could get closure? I didn't really think he was that callous. Not really. I suppose he needed me here, fully functioning for the protection of La Push, what with the hoards of vampires that were undoubtedly going to attend this 'function'. I also didn't know what he was hinting at by his comment what this 'actually meant', really what did it actually mean? Was she was telling me that I just wasn't good enough. That in another life, another time we'd be together just not this one. Was she telling me that if it wasn't for him would we be together. Would she ever have chosen to be with me?
I did nothing but think about it all. It was the only thing I could think about Sometimes I would split it down: 1. Bella is getting married, 2. It's not to me, 3. She's willingly going to die, one way or the other, 4. She expects me to be ok with it.
I wasn't ok with it. Not one - little - bit.
So, here I was, confined to La Push as per my order. Existing, like they all expected of me, protecting, like they all expected. The order still in place - unless I wanted to take up the alpha position just so I could run. That was what dad had hinted at. What I think Sam was hoping for. Becoming Alpha and running was kind of an oxymoron in my eyes though.
It had been a warm, dry day – now late afternoon, no vampire 'threat', no newly phased wolves, the local leech family were out 'hunting' in preparation for previously mentioned 'celebration' - funeral as Quil and Embry had 'secretly' started calling it, but I knew, of course I knew, there was nothing we could hide from one another, not really.
I sat on the sand, half listening my brother's talk and laugh, and as the sun began to descend toward the horizon I watched them throw random logs into the pit for the bonfire, then I watched as the night drew in further. I continued to just sit there.
I'd become good at watching. Sam would look over to me occasionally but I didn't have it in me to play games and at the same time it wasn't like I wanted to be anti-social or to actually mope about or be depressed I just honestly didn't know how to... interact anymore, with anyone. It was like… I just couldn't function with everything that was going on in my head.
I wondered if this was how Bella felt when he left her?
Probably…
I thought and thought about the situation, maybe that was where Bella and I differed though; I knew she did everything she could not to think about it. I came to the conclusion that it wasn't even the fact that she didn't want to be with me, although that did obviously hurt like hell, it wasn't even really that it was him she was going to be with or that she would give up her life to be with him, she was so sure that she needed him, that she couldn't survive with out him and yet she already had.
The hardest thing for me to deal with – the thing I just couldn't fathom was that it was all totally, one hundred percent out of character for Bella. Yes she was… devoted to him, in some otherworldly way. A way so different from imprinting it scared me. Imprinting, at least didn't really change who you were. Once it happened it seemed that together, as a couple you just balanced each other, you became more together.
Edward 'unbalanced' Bella. They didn't consume one another. He consumed her. I shuddered at the very real possibility of that every time I thought of it as well. She was selfish when it came to him; she spoiled him, clung onto him, even when he hadn't been here – when he left her, but marriage, frilly fancy stuff, a six figure car… No, the very essence of it just wasn't Bella at all.
I didn't think she believed in marriage and getting married young was something I knew she personally wasn't comfortable with because of how things ended for her parents, I know she was weary of marriage because of how we both spoke of it, I found wonder in two people choosing to be together in that way because they loved one another but Bella, no I knew Bella didn't think like that.
So, I'd come to realise after thinking – a lot of thinking but thankfully I realised it anyway, it wasn't about him and I, hot and cold, rich or poor, immortal or mortal (-ish). It was all on Bella and possibly some weird vampire murdering pheromone he gave off, at least that's what we thought within the pack, anyway whether I liked it or not she had made her choice made on whatever she had deemed important and there was nothing that I could do to change it.
I'd tried and tried but like I'd said all those months ago, he did have his claws deep in her. So deep, since he'd been home she'd become unrecognisable to me. Her personality had done a complete one eighty and it was only because I knew her, only because I truly, truly loved her that I still pushed to save her – because she was worth fighting for, she was worth saving.
As if it wasn't bad enough that I had to fight for the woman I loved I had to watch as it had turned into a life and death battle for the woman that I loved and I'd failed.
She was going to become one of them. She was going to die.
Sure, she hadn't been changed yet but really I may be here but there was nothing I could do now, I knew she wouldn't come here, she'd said as much the day she told me it was over. The day she left me laying in that bed and besides she was busy planning her un-dead wedding.
Marvellous.
I threw the small piece of driftwood I'd been twirling in my fingers onto the sand between my feet and looked around wondering if I could get away with going home yet.
"Come on, man." Quil said as he slung an arm around my shoulder nodding over to a group of girls giggling at the edge of the surf. "There are definitely two ass girls over there and I know you're an ass man." Turning my face to his I frowned and he just shrugged, he was slightly out of it, hence the blabbering. "Come on, Jake, we can still salvage summer – she's not the only girl in the world." Every one froze, the chatter stopped. Even Quil himself, as if he realised a moment too late that he had in fact voiced something he only wanted to think.
A flash of heat passed through me, I was so close to the tremble, the buzz that over took your body just before a phase. With a deep breath and clenching of fists I managed to quash it.
He didn't mean it.
He didn't mean it.
He didn't mean it.
I chanted to myself, fists clenched between my knees that were bouncing erratically as I sat perched on the driftwood. Honestly I knew he didn't mean it, not quite like that. I concentrated on breathing deeply. I didn't want to phase right now, be at one with nature. That was the irony of the wolf, phasing made me into something so unnatural and yet you felt so much closer to nature.
Yea, go figure.
Slowly I stood, ignoring the hushed whispers. In my peripheral the first person I caught sight of was Emily; her expression frozen, mouth slightly open, eyes wide, her fingers pressing into Sam's upper arm, it still amazed me how I could make that kind of assessment from a half glance.
Slowly I looked over each member of the pack, the elders all within hearing distance of Quil's comment, my dad and sister were there also. I absorbed the tension, the pity, the frustration in the atmosphere surrounding us on the beach.
And I swallowed.
"Thanks' guys – that means a lot, you know that you're all here for me, ready to help me through this, no matter how long it takes." I said bitterly and began to drag myself away, toward the wooden 'shack' I called home; it didn't feel like home anymore though. I had no sense of belonging, anywhere, not even in the house where my mother gave birth to me, the garage my dad helped build for me before he ended up in the chair permanently, not the forest, the beach – my land essentially. Nothing held any meaning with out Bells.
"You know what, she may have chosen this, come to terms with everything it entails but I haven't." I looked right at Sam, "This wedding doesn't give me closure, it scares the hell out of me that for all that we are, for all that we've all been through there is absolutely nothing we can do about it until she's dead." I was breathing heavily, thoroughly exasperated and close to tears. "You know what? Right now I wouldn't even care if she never spoke to me again so long as she was safe." Pivoting I stalked further away, I wasn't done yet though, I'd kept everything locked up so tight, no one had seen how I was really feeling. I wanted to keep it for myself. "Hey! Maybe that's where I went wrong with Bells, I was too sensitive. I should've gone like a bull at a gate. Told her to just suck it up and get over him." I snapped out over my shoulder as everyone watched me walk up the beach in silence.
I walked up to the house, it was eerily silent, but I knew it was just me feeling on edge that made me think that. If there was anything I needed to be alerted to I would just know.
The house was dark, of course it was dark. Couldn't waste money leaving on the porch light, not that it made any difference to me, I could still see in pitch black but still I may have felt more at home if it looked more like a home, not a shell I habited with my disabled father – damn I just had everything going for me didn't I? No wonder she couldn't see herself with me. I'd hold her back and she had so much potential…
And she's going to kill herself…
Maybe she should have died the day Harry had? Maybe it was fate's way of punishing me for intervening…
No! There had only been select moments that caused me to be grateful for phasing and that had been one of them.
Before I realised it I was stepping into the shower, using the force of the cold water to try to drain away the tension in my back seeing as the heat made no difference anymore. When I ducked my head into the water stream I heard the trill ringing of the phone by the front door. Yea, there was no way there was anything urgent enough to get me out of the shower right now they could leave a message on that new gadget Charlie had gotten for dad to muck about with last month.
Squirting far too much shampoo in my hand – I still hadn't gotten used to it being short and it'd been months. I began to lather up my hair; the phone was still damn ringing.
Damn it – I thought the stupid thing picked up the call after six rings?
Rinsing the last of the bubbles away I snatched the towel from the rail, purely for modesties sakes. Dad had told me he didn't want me walking butt naked through the house if I could help it.
Dislodging one side of the rail with my aggravation due to the phone I stalked toward the hallway where it was still ringing.
Ahh! More conservation of electricity. I thought as I looked at the socket where the answer machine was supposed to be plugged in.
Glancing to the clock in the kitchen as I'd passed I saw it was past midnight already.
Who the hell would be calling now? And seriously what's the point in having an answer machine if you unplug it when you go out? And why the hell didn't whoever the hell it was hang up and try again?
Snatching the corded phone up in my agitation I managed to fling the whole phone off the shelf and drop the receiver at the same time. Cursing, I bent down to retrieve it. Struggling to keep the towel around my hips, it was just too damn small.
It didn't matter that the phone was scattered on the floor, I could still hear everything that was going on, on the other end, the breathless wheezing, and the sobs between words.
My angel, she was hurting. I could hear that much. Telling me she was sorry, that she didn't know who else to call, that she needed my help.
I panicked.
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