A/N: This actually didn't turn out the way I wanted to, but I figured I'd post it anyway. Just for kicks.
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Jacob Black knows a lot about Bella Swan. But there are seven things that he is entirely sure of.
1.
He knows that she wouldn't pick him. He had seen it in her eyes the second he met her—even more when she came to him, broken, asking him to pick up the pieces. And he had done so, willingly—placing her back together with the precision and knowing of a good mechanic.
It wasn't a question that when she went to Italy, she wouldn't be coming back. Not to Jacob, anyway. Not to La Push and the pack and her family. She would be coming back to cold and legends—with the constant thought that, soon, she wouldn't even be alive.
And he knows that she knows this; she had told him, hadn't she, the very second she had started to realize what he felt for her. But the stupid teenage werewolf always had hopes.
2.
He knows that she loves him. She could say that she didn't, she could shy away from his words and his kiss, but he knew. It was in the way she held his hand, like he was the only thing keeping her attached to the world. In the way she hugged him, her tiny fingers scratching hard at the skin of his back—searching for an answer, a resolution, a future.
He had known it the second she looked at him on the beach, a year and ten thousand worlds ago. It had been in her step and her blush and it grew every time they touched and talked and lived.
He is her constant; her savior; her knight in shining armor. And she loves him. He knows that she does. But it didn't change a thing.
3.
He knows that she still thought of him. Even when he is millions of miles away, even when he can't be sure whether she is really still Bella, his Bella, he knows that he will always be running through her head. Because she was always in his.
And they are connected in a way that she had never been with the leech. They just fit, like those puzzles you did when you were young—they make sense. And she knows it, too.
He imagines her in her bed, wide awake our sound asleep (the image changes depending on how hopeful he is)—but one thing is for sure: it's his face she sees. Her best friend or her little brother or her true love—it's still him. And it always will be.
4.
He knows that she loves being with him. She likes sitting in the kitchen with Emily and Sam, even when she can't look at them without thinking of him. She likes watching the pack laugh and joke like siblings, because they are siblings, just as much as the Cullens pretend to be.
He can see that being in La Push fills her with a warmth different than the fullness she feels with her other family, that one is right and sensible and she can see that it goes on forever—that it is a constant repetition of this love that she is always holding on to. His is content and human and it has an end—it has little dark children and a limited number of family Christmases.
And she won't admit it, but he knows that she can't decide which one she likes the best.
5.
He knows that she is doubtful. That she runs her choices through her head every day, the pros and cons constantly changing; the outcome slightly different every time. He knows that she will never be sure as long as he exists, she will never be completely confident.
He is secretly glad. Because as long as he is alive (and he is planning on living as long as she does), she will always have a choice.
When he sees her, she holds on longer every time, and it's harder for him to let go. He imagines that maybe one of these days she won't—and it's useless, wishful thinking but he can't help but envision it all the same.
6.
He knows that if she does change her mind, he will be there. There will be no question; no pause or consideration.
Because as many times as she leaves him, he will not give up. He will not stop loving her. He can't. And it hurts.
But even though he will hug her and kiss her like he knew all along that it would be like this, there will always be a part of him that whispers run, Jake, run and leave this all behind—run and love, run and live. And it makes him sad that he knows that it's true.
7.
He knows he can never completely let go to her. Because she will never completely be his.
And it is the worst feeling in the entire world.
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END