He set a hot hand on each of her shoulders and bent down to look into her face. His brain re-created her while he slept, but she was never this beautiful. Quiet and still on the surface, teeming with flickering, silver words underneath. He'd be happy to watch forever, transfixed by the depth and the darkness, but he had to say it. He knew his words would break the glassy surface, but water doesn't stay still forever.

He let his hands grow roots, tunneling through her veins into her heart. She squirmed, trying to slither away from the sensation, the feeling of him living against her, pushing.

"Jake, what's going on?"

"Bella, it's not your fault." His breath hitched in his chest, caught on something ancient, too clear to be jealousy and too incandescent to be a lie.

"What's not my fault?" Bella knew to whisper. She could sense when something big was being said.

"The way he treats you. It's not your fault."

"What do you mean 'the way he treats me'?" Her armor had snapped into place, anger pushing back against Jacob.

"I mean the way he tells you what you can and can't do and tells you it's for your own protection. How he pulls you away from everyone, people you care about."

"Well, look at you! You're trying to convince me to leave Edward. I love him, Jacob."

"I know you do. You never think about anything else. You're just completely consumed by him and all that's left for me..." His gaze fell to the grass underneath them. He was almost insulted that things kept going, kept growing. But if he'd learned anything in life, it was that they always did.

"What's left for you, Jacob? Why try so hard if I'm not worth it?" Bitterness added new spikes to the words.

His eyes snapped back to hers.

"Bella, I'll take whatever I can get. If all that's left is anger and blame, I want it. If I have to fix you every single day from now until I die, I want to. Do you understand? You're worth it because I love you. You're my best friend."

Bella closed her eyes for several seconds, knitting crackling, metallic words together.

"Jacob, I want you to let me go. It will always be him. It always has been. I just... I can't love you." She looked everywhere but his face.

She spoke louder than she needed to, trying to drown out something primal in her chest that was screaming and pounding its fists against the cage of her ribs.

Don't leave me, Jacob.

Love can be easy. This could have such an effortless ending.

Jacob, I love you. I'm scared because it doesn't hurt at all.

I want to wake up next to you every morning until the day I don't wake up.

I did this to you, didn't I? All of it. It'll be easier if you're angry. Please be angry.

One day, Bella Swan, when you have seen everything, heard everything, said everything, you will regret this moment more than any other in your eternity.

Our kids would have been so alive. This beautiful, translucent burden of life would have fit their small shoulders perfectly. We would've smiled as they drew their first breaths.

God, Jacob, please don't go!

The ending would've been gorgeous. Meteors would have dripped from it, air and ocean water and sunlight would have been its blood, and silence would have been the only music perfect enough to match it.

But none of these words slipped past her mercenary lips.

His hands fell from her shoulders, uprooted. Jacob Black managed a smile, as always.

"Ok, Bells."