Just another one of those pointless days, I was sat on a driftwood log at the beach as was my usual now since she had left, still empty and alone. It's been two years since she got married to Edward and became like him and I still wasn't over her. I don't think I will ever be over her, she became my world much like an imprint becomes a wolf's. The wind whipped around me, biting at my overheated bare chest but I wasn't cold. I looked out past the icy grey waves at James Island, barely visible in the mist surrounding me.

I had run, for a long time, trying to rid her from my mind and heart, and in my failure I had become lifeless, an outcast. I didn't really speak anymore unless it was to confirm one of Sam's orders, I barely recognised the sound of my own voice. My brothers were distant with me now and had been for a long time, they didn't want to feel my pain any longer. They started telling me to just get over her, that I was doing this to myself, that she was just some human who is now dead. And maybe they were right, I never imprinted on her, she was never really mine at all, maybe it is now self-inflicted, like getting over her would be to forget her.

I knew someone had been walking up and down the beach all day, longer than I had been sitting here, but I hadn't paid any attention to them. I wanted to be left alone, they obviously wanted to be left alone and that was fine with me. It was kind of nice actually, to be near another human being who didn't wince out of my way or look at me with pity or sorrow, to be alone but not at the same time.

I know that I can't go on like this forever, that I will have to do something eventually, reconnect with old-Jacob. The way I have been looking at it recently is that there are a few Jacob's; there is old-Jacob – the Jacob that I was before I met her, fun, happy and loyal, then there's new-Jacob – Bella's Jacob, all the things old-Jacob was but in love too. Wolf-Jacob – everything animalistic about me, my form, my senses and speed and lastly there is empty-Jacob – who I am now, empty and alone. I know at some point I will have to connect these different Jacobs. I will have to discard Bella's Jacob and empty-Jacob and find old-Jacob again. I will finally have to put old-Jacob and wolf-Jacob back together as one person and I have been searching for a way how, but it's impossible to find.

When she left me for him, when she told me she loved him and that she would always pick him, I ran, I ran from the pain, from her, from him, from my pack, from everything I have ever known. I didn't finish school; I got my GED instead when I returned home almost a year later. The whole time I was gone I stayed in my wolf form, as far from anything human as I could get. I sunk into my wolf self, away from my pain and misery and for a little while I could cope. I wouldn't say I was happy but I was okay with myself. But then I returned home, I had to be human again, face everything I had left behind, my heartbreak, my dad, my pack. That's when empty-Jacob really absorbed me, when I came home to everything I had run from.

I can see how much I am hurting them, my family, they want so much for me to be okay again, to be old-Jacob again, and I want that too, somewhere inside of me, I want that too. I want to be able to walk around my house and not hide in my room, I want to be able to smile at my dad and mean it, I want my friends and my family to love me again, to want to be around me, and I want to be able to be myself again, not hiding behind this sad pretence.

I was pulled out of my deep thoughts by the sound of footsteps in the sand, though muffled and slow moving, the noise still reached my ears through the wind. I felt someone stop beside me but I didn't pull my eyes away from the crashing waves to look at them. I didn't want company, I thought that was obvious.

"Do you mind if I sit with you? I've been walking up and down this beach for hours and my feet are killing me."

A girl's voice broke the silence I had created around myself, it was clear and feminine and I wondered if it matched her appearance. It wasn't one of those annoying scratchy voices or too high pitched that she squeaked at me. It was kind of the most perfect voice I had ever heard and I found myself willing her to speak again. I said nothing and waited for her to leave, I was content being here by myself as usual.

"I promise you won't even know I'm here." She muttered. She wanted to be alone too.

I nodded and felt the air around me move as she did. She sat herself down next to me, leaving a small distance between us, as strangers usually would. I couldn't feel much heat coming from her body as she sat there silently next to me and I recognised that she must be cold out here. I chanced a glance around me, the presence I had noticed walking up and down the beach had gone and I realised that it must have been her.

A gust of wind hit us full force from the left where she was sitting throwing her scent to my nose. She smelled like wild flowers on a hot sunny day, with a hint of cinnamon. She was by far the most amazing thing I had ever smelled and I wanted nothing more than to smell that smell for the rest of my life. I wanted to turn to look at her, to put a face to that smell but I couldn't force myself to do it. I was going to be okay on my own, no one could hurt me if I didn't let them in and turning to look at her would be like doing that, it would be giving her an invitation.

I balled my hands into fists on my knees, doing everything I could to not turn to her, I wasn't going to let anyone hurt me the way she had. But with this unknown girl by my side I feel less alone now, there seems to be less pain. I know it's because I'm thinking about this new girl, her scent and her voice, wondering what her name is, if she comes from the reservation. And I realise that if she does, I would recognise her scent, because there is no way I could forget that scent, but I don't. I know that thinking about her was just distracting me from Bella and I welcomed the distraction for a change.

We sat there in silence for a long time and it was taking everything I had in me not to turn to her. But too soon she got up from her seat. I'm sure we had been sat together for at least an hour in silence but she was leaving now and I could feel myself getting lonelier by the millisecond.

"Will you be back tomorrow?" I blurted it out before my brain even realised I was speaking. I didn't move my eyes to look at her, thinking that this was the only way I wouldn't be letting her in. If I didn't look at her, I didn't know her face and if I didn't know her face she couldn't be a part of my life.

"Probably." She sighed as she walked away.

She was sad and it killed me to know it, I felt my heart aching for her, longing for her. I felt the tremors running through my body as the anger starts boiling under the surface. Someone had hurt her; the more I think it the more angry it makes me, I will do whatever it takes to protect her. Somewhere deep down inside of me I know wolf-Jacob took over the second I spoke to her, but I let him as I run towards the forest, stripping off my shorts to phase.

Running freely in the forest I let loose the anger filling me up, someone hurt her I think it over and over again, willing myself to calm down. I don't even know this girl.

I replay the sound of her voice in my head, how sad and hurt she sounded, I remember her scent, particularly the hint of cinnamon which made it so alluring to me. I wanted to find her, to tell her everything would be okay, to hurt the person who hurt her, but I didn't even know her face.

Dude, did you imprint? Embry's voice pushes through the anger to fill my head.

I don't know. I tell him. I didn't look her in the eyes.