A Long Trip Alone

Author's Note: A twist on what could (should, if you ask me :P) have happened when Jacob and Bella were sitting in her truck in New Moon.

Disclaimer: Twilight & co. belong to Stephenie Meyers. Song belongs to Dierks Bentley. Just let me get my kicks in somehow, 'kay?

// so maybe you could walk with me awhile

maybe I could rest beneath your smile

everybody stumbles sometimes and needs a hand to hold

'cause it's a long trip alone //

But could I do it? Could I betray my absent heart to save my pathetic life? (374) Would I be capable of cutting off the infected limb to quell the spread of the infection? Because that is what this had become. A disease. Edward had sucked the life out of me after all.

I took one deep, long breath and forced myself back to the present. In the truck. With Jacob. I felt as if the past few months had been a slow drumroll, building up to this moment. Every heartbeat punctuated the tension that clouded the air inside my truck like a morning fog.

If you can't have the one you want, my father would say, love the one you're with.

People do it every day. Even without the gift of mindreading I knew that. Millions of people wake up next to the person that wasn't their first choice.

I closed my eyes in shame. Jacob was not second string. If anything, I was the shabby substitute. He deserved more than the shell I was now, and boy, didn't I know it.

However, there was no getting around this. I had to make a decision.

In one agonizingly slow sweep, I turned my head toward his shoulder. He drew his breath in sharply and his arms around me tensed just the tiniest bit. I lifted my eyes to his and held his gaze for a beat. "Bella?" he whispered. The wild hope in his voice was unmistakable.

Motorcycles. Cliff diving. Now this. But this was so much more dangerous than the others – I was teetering on the edge of a precipice I could never come back from.

And yet, here I was, leaning into Jacob, my lips parted slightly, and I shifted so that I was facing him. "Bella?" he repeated, now more apprehensive. "What are you-"

"Sssh," I cut him off, first with my finger, and then with my lips. He responded enthusiastically, wrapping his arms tighter around me and drawing me closer. The heat emanating from his body was nearly stifling but I barely felt it. His lips were soft and inviting and something in my mind screamed What took you so long?! The kiss quickly began to deepen as one hand slid upward into my hair, entwining in it. I reached my fingers up to his neck and caressed his face. My heart fluttered – something that hadn't happened in so long I thought it had forgotten how. The sheer sweetness of it all hit me like a ton of bricks.

Gently, I pulled away and raised my eyes to his. I wanted to see his face. And I wasn't disappointed: Jacob was beaming at me like he'd just won the lottery.

"Wow," he said softly. "That-that was amazing. You are amazing." I didn't know what to say. He reached for my hand, tiny and pale, cradling it gently in his massive sienna-colored one. I managed a small smile. Yes, it certainly was amazing.

At once I realized that we were sitting in my driveway, behind my father's cruiser. Said father was probably sitting in the living room awaiting my safe return, occasionally peeking out the front window, and it would probably be best to avoid an awkward situation. Abruptly I sat up straight and pulled my jacket tighter around me. "I better get inside. You know Charlie." I forced a chuckle, but it only came out sounding choked.

"Wait, Bella-" Jacob grabbed my arm. "Can I…come in?"

We stared at each other for a beat. Yeah, Bella, could he come in? "Y-yeah," I stuttered. "But maybe you should wait until Charlie…" I trailed off, confident he would fill in the rest for himself.

He half-smiled knowingly. "Yup. I'll wait."

With that I slid across the seat and hopped down out of the truck. The door groaned as I slammed it shut. Clumsily I jogged up the steps and into the house, where Charlie sat exactly where I had assumed he would be, eyes plastered to the flatscreen.

"Hey, Dad." Would he notice my disheveled clothes and wet-dog hair? I hoped I could sneak by him before he picked up on it.

"Where you been, Bells?" He sounded more distracted than concerned. The Seahawks were down by six and if they lost to Tennessee they could say goodbye to the playoffs.

"La Push." When it came to Charlie, less is definitely more. I glanced out of the front window into the cab of my truck. Empty.

Charlie grunted in acknowledgment. "Have fun?"

"Yup." Please, please just don't turn around. I rocked on my heels, willing this nightly song-and-dance to end. And then I realized that I sort of didn't want it to – because then I'd have to go upstairs and face what I had done. Jacob was probably already in my room, perched on my bed, just like…

Grimacing, I cleared my throat. "I don't feel so hot, Dad, I'm gonna go to bed." There. Charlie avoided sick people, especially girls, like the plague. Too many awkward and nauseating possibilities.

"'Kay. Night." Well, that was one disaster averted. The one that lay ahead of me, though, wouldn't be deflected so easily. The high I had caught after Jake's kiss had worn off and now I had to answer for my recklessness.

It was a mistake. A moment of weakness. And now Jacob would be the one to pay for it.

I took each stair like they led me to the noose. Desperately I tried to tell myself to relax, that one kiss wouldn't change the course of humanity. The world was still turning.

But when I opened my bedroom door and saw Jake sitting on my bed, grinning like the Cheshire cat, that hope went right out the window. He stood up as I entered and crossed the room to close the door behind me. He lingered there. Suddenly the closeness was suffocating. "Jake," I began with some difficulty. "What happened out in the truck-"

I felt his gigantic arms encircle me from behind as he rested his chin on the top of my hair. "Officially made this the best night of my life," he finished for me.

This sank in. What had I done? When I didn't say anything he pulled away and returned to his place on my bed. The apprehension in his eyes was almost painful. "Bella?" I couldn't even look at him. The air perceptibly chilled as realization dawned on him. "You wish you could take it back." His voice was flat. It was a statement, not a question.

"Please don't be angry," I said in a small voice. Cautiously I met his eyes. I saw only bitterness, and it broke my heart.

"Because of him. That bloodsucker." He was seething now. I saw his fists ball up and a tiny part of me began to get nervous. Emily's face flashed through my mind. He mumbled something that sounded like a string of profanities.

I took a step toward him. "Jake. I don't…regret…what happened. I don't think that's the right word. I got my heart ripped out, and I don't know if I can ever get it back. You don't know what it's like."

He dropped his head to his hands. "I guess I'm about to find out, huh?"

Now it was my turn to seethe. "Would you stop putting words in my mouth?" I burst in frustration. "Do you realize that the only times in the past five months that I haven't wanted to throw myself off a bridge are when I'm with you? Do you know that the only times I've actually been happy are…" I took another step toward him, and the room was so tiny that I was practically on top of him. I studied his face for a long moment. The truth was, once I wasn't too chicken to admit it, was that whatever I felt for Jacob was real. Whether that was love I did not know. What I did know was that whenever I thought about Jacob dating another girl, or looking at another girl, even, something red and furious roared within me. I knew that when he looked happy, I was happy. And I knew that that kiss, however brief and unexpected, had awoken something in me that I had thought, had believed, was dead.

I pondered this. Was it the kind of love that was all-consuming, like I had had with…well, like I had had before? Was it the kind that came as naturally as breathing, as automatic as my own heartbeat? Where being apart, for however long, was like chopping off my own arm?

No. But the real answer was…not yet. It was time to stop talking myself out of it and face the music.

I took a deep breath and confessed, "Jacob, I love you. I do. It's just been so long since I've felt anything. At all. I never thought I'd ever be able to again." I sat next to him, our legs touching. "I'm broken. You should know that before you go diving headfirst in this. Into me."

Jacob. My Jacob. At that moment he looked like he did when I moved back to Forks, young, innocent, sweet. He smiled, and I couldn't help but smile back. My fingers crept over until they reached his, and curled protectively around them. "I love you, Bella. And all that," he made a dismissive gesture with his hand, "I don't care about any of it. Well, I mean, I do care. I care that you're hurt, and I know that maybe I can't fix it, but we can build something else out of it. I'm not going to let us go, Bella. Not when I've just begun to feel like I'm really…alive." He brought my fingers to his lips, ever so gently.

His eyes snapped open wide as my lips crushed themselves to his. Surprise kept him rigid for a moment and then he began to respond to me, sweet and warm and inviting. I was so tired of trying to find reasons to keep myself away from Jacob – didn't I deserve to be happy?

And for the first time in a long time, I began to believe that that was truly possible.

// so maybe you could walk with me awhile

maybe I could rest beneath your smile

maybe I could feel you right beside me til I'm home

'cause it's a long trip alone //