Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns all things Twilight. No copyright infringement is intended.

Beta-in-Chief: Lola...she was a showgirl, but she gave that and her yellow feathers up to beta my little story. (Additional disclaimer: Barry Manilow owns the lyrics to Copacabana)

"Bella, you know how much I love you already. Edward was a fool to give you up. And I would be a bigger fool to let you leave for college without saying this to you. This is my last chance because I know once you leave here, it will be forever. You probably won't come back. Your path in life was always set for bigger things than this small town." Jacob said this with such a sincere look on his face that Bella was mesmerized.

She couldn't have moved even if she wanted to. She was becoming such a part of the old tree stump that she was surprised she didn't start growing moss. It was the same old tree stump that she had run to so many times before; where she had run to when life threw her too many curves. Usually, she a friend or her boyfriend running after her, trying to comfort her. This time, however, was different. A new person was chasing her this time. This boy was more than a friend, but not in the way he wished he could be.

She shook off the cold and jammed her hands into her jacket pocket. For a moment she closed her eyes, knowing that he would soon be placating her, telling her it was all going to be okay and that he would always be there for her. This was how things always ended up between her and Jacob. She rocked back and forth slightly waiting for him to start and when he didn't she egged him on, knowing it wouldn't take much.

"Say it," she said to him tauntingly. She looked down at the mossy green grass and focused on a mushroom patch because she couldn't even look him in the eyes. "Go ahead. You're so close. I know what you are thinking. I have always known what you're thinking. Say it. Out loud," Bella egged him on, her voice dripping with want and desire.

Her thoughts raced ahead of her. If she couldn't have the love of her life, could she at least be the love of someone else's? She knew what he wanted. He wanted her, he had always wanted her. Even when she told him she wanted someone else, he made it very clear to her that she was the one he desired, cherished, loved. He never let that thought go as he pursued her and chased away the love of her life at the same time.

"I love you Bella. I have always loved you and I have never hidden anything from you. You know my past, as much as I know yours. We are two halves of the same heart, making up a whole. Neither one of us can be happy knowing the other is in pain. That's what I have had to watch for years, Bella. I have had to watch you get hurt time and time again by him and I am done watching it. If you leave now, if you run, I'm going with you. It is the only way I can protect you. The only way that my heart will know it is whole is if I am with you." He was so sincere, his voice was so low and enchanting, that she found herself unable to move once again.

His voice now held no trace of the boy she remembered making mud pies with. It held nothing of the awkward adolescent that used to follow her around like a lost puppy begging for a bone. This voice now belonged to a boy on the edge of being a man, a dangerous man who knew her probably better than she knew herself. A man who loved her even if she didn't love herself.

At that moment, she had to admit it to herself, that she wasn't in love with Jacob Black with every fiber of her being as she was with Edward Cullen, but she did care very deeply for him.

How could she not care for Jacob Black? They had grown up together. They went through so much together. As young as she could remember, he had always been there for her. He was the best friend she ever had, even later when the Cullen family came to town and she had become girlfriends with Alice Cullen and Rosalie Hale. They had accepted the fact that she had another best friend in Jacob Black. That was back when everyone played nice together.

After Alice and Bella stopped being friends (thanks to her brother, Edward, deciding that her loyalty should lie with him, not her friend), Jacob was there for Bella - the way a best friend should be. Of course, there was Rose, but realistically, she was already sucked into the Cullen clan through Edward and Alice's older brother, Emmett. Bella knew they would all side with Edward and put their family first.

That was always the way his family worked. They didn't need her there to cause problems for Edward. Even though that was never her intent, it just appeared that way. She didn't set out to ruin his life. She didn't want to be the needy puddle of mud that couldn't let him continue on to school to realize his dream of becoming a doctor, even if it did mean leaving her for a few years while he finished up his schooling. If he would have only told her that he would come back to her, but he didn't tell her, or he couldn't tell her, or maybe he wouldn't tell her.

So, she ran. She ran straight into the arms of the one person who was always there for her and who would always be there for her. The one she knew couldn't reject her even if he tried to; the one who was there for her when her mother died years ago. He comforted her through those dark days because he knew exactly how she felt, having lost his own mother the previous year. She didn't love him as she had loved, no - loves, Edward. But she could learn to accept him. She could settle for him. She was familiar with settling. At this point in her life, it was all she had known. She had always had to settle, and she would settle now.

"I love you to Jacob. You know that. But I am not in love with you. I just need a little time. Can you give me that?" Bella asked him sincerely.

"Of course Bells," he smiled as he kissed the top of her head and she leaned into the comfort of his chest.