Chapter 1

Reality Bites

"Good bye, Bella," he said in the same quiet, peaceful voice…"Take care of yourself," he breathed, cool against my skin.

There was a light, unnatural breeze. My eyes flashed open. The leaves on a small vine maple shuddered with the gentle wind of his passage.

He was gone.

I was walking along the beach, the wind whipping at my hair, the waves gently lapping at my heels. All was calm. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge wave came crashing up against the shore. I was swept away in the tide into the turbulent waters. I'm able to get my head above the water; I see him standing on the shore. I call out to him Edward! , but my voice is strained. I can barely get it above a whisper. Again, I cry out Edward! , trying to make my voice louder over the crashing of the waves. He may not be able to hear me, but I know he can see me! Why doesn't he come and save me? I see him start to turn and walk away. I cry out, in vain, at one last attempt. Edward! But just as I do, my head is pulled beneath water.

I didn't have to shake myself awake from this dream. For some reason, I awoke more calmly this time than I usually do. Charlie wasn't standing there, alarmed, in my room, so I know I hadn't woken up screaming, which was good; I think. This was progress. The more time I spent asleep, the less time Charlie spent up in my room, and that meant less time for him to worry about me. I was fine. I kept telling myself this, even though I knew it was a lie. I wasn't fine; and anyone that knew me as well as I do, would know that. But not many people knew me that well, other than Charlie and Jacob. Charlie had taken off of work for a couple of weeks to look after me to make sure I was okay. He actually had me on suicide watch for the first week. It took a lot of convincing to tell Charlie that I wasn't going to kill myself. It took even more convincing to get him to go back to work. He finally did and I was left home by myself. It was quiet and lonely with no one else there. I mean, Charlie was never one to make much noise in the first place, but, I was just so used to having someone else there with me that it was odd to be there alone.

Jacob was the only other person that knew me real well, other than Charlie. But I hadn't seen him in awhile. When Edwa—just thinking his name is painful. I mean, when "we" were together, Jacob wouldn't hang out with us. He didn't like him, for some reason. After he left, I hadn't seen any of my old friends. I was just too depressed. My other friends had shunned me after I stopped hanging out with them; except Jacob. He followed me around like a little puppy. It was like, no matter what I did to him, he was always there for me, by my side when I needed him. That very thought brought a smile to my face. I decided I was going to call Jacob one of these days and see how he was doing. Maybe we could hang out sometime. Yeah. I think I'd like that.

I was still lying in bed, trying to shake off that dream, wondering what it meant. I lay there quietly, listening to the wind rushing outside my window. The house was eerily still. Charlie had gone to work. It was just me, all alone in this house, all alone with my thoughts. This could be dangerous. Before all this happened, I hadn't minded being alone. But, now. I didn't know which I despised the most. Having Charlie here, rushing to my rescue every time I moved; or being alone. When Charlie was here, I wished he wasn't, and when he wasn't here, I wished he was. But, like I said, I was making progress. And in order to make more, I needed to be by myself.

I got up out of bed and decided that I would feel a whole lot better once I had taken a shower. I turned on the hot water, and just stood there for a few moments, allowing it to melt the chill that I had felt these last few weeks. It felt nice. I took my sweet time washing my hair and getting all clean. When I had finished, I grabbed my clean towel, wrung the water out of my hair, and dried off. I stood there in front of the sink. I wiped the mirror off and stood there, staring at myself. Wow. I looked different, somehow. I didn't look like…myself. It was like something had been taken from me, torn away, and I was not whole without it. As I stood there, I began to think about the dream I had. There had to be some meaning behind it, but I had no idea what it was. The very thought saddened me. I could bear the sight of me no longer. I turned off the light and walked to my bedroom.

I was rummaging through my clothes, deciding on what to wear, when I accidentally happened upon one of his old shirts. I started to bring it up to my nose so I could smell him, to remind myself that he was real. But I caught myself and stopped. I lowered it back down and shoved it to the back of my closet so I would never find it again. After slowly brushing out my hair and getting dressed, I headed downstairs to the kitchen and decided that I needed to eat something. I went into the cabinet and reached for the box of Wheaties. After all, it was the breakfast of champions, right? I slowly ate my meal, washed my dirty dishes, and put them away. Then suddenly I remembered. I was going to call Jacob Black. I picked up the phone and dialed his number from memory.

The phone rang a few times before a very familiar voice picked up and answered. "Hello?"

I wasn't expecting Jacob to answer. I was shocked at first and almost hung up on him from sheer embarrassment. But before he hung up the phone on me, I quickly replied, "Hi, Jake. It's me. Bella."

I didn't know if he was happy or delighted to hear my voice, because he didn't say anything at first. I think he was just as shocked as I was. "Oh! Hi, Bella! I wasn't expecting you to call. It's been a long time."

"Yeah," I agreed, "it has." So far our conversation wasn't headed in a very good direction. If I didn't say something fast, this was going to be the shortest phone call in the history of the world. "So," I ventured, "how have you been?" I think I knew the answer to this question. Miserable. Ever since I stopped talking to him after the "incident", he'd probably been pretty upset.

"Not too bad," he said to my surprise. I'd expected worse, but 'not too bad' was pretty good. "How about you? What've you been up to?"

I was afraid he was going to ask me this. Not wanting to run the risk of me telling him how I really was and crying on his shoulder the entire time, I gave a courteous answer. "Not much. Just been hanging around, that's all." More like hanging on. Again, the gist of our conversation left something to be desired. I had thought of asking him if he'd like to hang out sometime, but I wasn't sure if I was quite ready for that, yet. It was hanging on the tip of my tongue, and before I could stop it, I'd said it. "Hey, I was thinking. If you weren't too busy, would you like to hang out sometime?" I'd regretted saying it as soon as it left my mouth.

But to my chagrin, he'd happily responded, "Yeah! I'd love to! How's this Saturday? I'll come pick you up at 7, ok?"

Before I could even say anything, he'd said, "See you then, Bella! Bye!" and he hung up. My good-bye was delayed from shock and was said after he was already gone. I hung up the phone and plopped down on the sofa. Oh, dear Lord, I thought. What had I done? Well, it's too late to go back now, a voice inside my head replied. And who knows, you may just end up having fun. After all, you were best friends. So I took it in and, to my surprise, I found myself smiling: I had a date Saturday night.