A/N: Hey guys! This is my second fanfiction dealing with Renesmee and Jacob. I was writing the other story, but I decided that I liked this story better. I hope that you enjoy it! *I do NOT own any of the characters, & I am not Stephenie Meyer. * Read & Review please to tell me if you like it, and want more chapters! (: thank you!
One hundred and seventy four. That is how many questions my father has asked me about the Civil War, and he is only warming up. I flip the pages of my World History textbook quickly, not reading a word in it. Instead, I am wishing that I was playing outside with my best friend, Jacob Black.
"Renesmee," My father warns, as he listens to my thoughts drifting. "Please read your assignment. There will be fifty questions after."
Sometimes I wish that he didn't home school me, because he is extremely strict, but I refuse to go to a normal school. I would rather spend about three hours a day studying, than eight hours away from my family. I read a sentence, but my thoughts linger on the thought of the hot sun on my skin instead of this cold granite countertop.
"Studying history?" My mom's voice echoes through the kitchen, as she walks gracefully to us. She gives Dad a peck on the cheek, and then places a kiss on my head.
I look up at her with my deep brown eyes, and pout my lips like I did when I was little. "Can I please have a break? I'm thirsty."
"Sure sweetie," My mom says with a grin, and pulls her straight brown hair over one shoulder. "I'll take you hunting."
My dad looks up from the textbook, and raises an eyebrow at her. "Love, we are in the middle of the Civil War."
"The Civil War can wait," She says gently, placing her hands on his shoulder. "She does have an eternity to learn about it."
He smiles a crooked smile, and kisses her hand. "Of course, but we will be learning it eventually."
I cross my arms, and roll my arms. If I used the "we have forever" line, he would have took that as a challenge, and made me study longer. He looks over at me, and I can tell that he read my thoughts. He just laughs lightly, kisses my mom goodbye, and then walks out of the kitchen.
"Are you ready?" She asks as she slides open the glass door that leads to the dozens of acres that we now own.
I nod, and then with that we run, full speed, out the door and into the sunlight.
About thirty minutes later, I am finish eating the large elk I found and I look around the forest. In between the trees I find my mom feeding off of another elk. When she is finished, she stands up, and then pats her throat. "Are you ready to return home?"
"Yes," I say with a smile, and when she is about to run, I grab her arm. "Do you think we could walk some? I wanted to talk."
She grins widely, and places her hand on my shoulder comfortingly, "Of course, sweetie. What did you want to talk about?"
"Do you ever miss Forks?" I ask her, as we start walking slowly the back we came.
We had to move to New Hampshire when I turned seven because that is when I stopped aging. The rest of the family thought that they had been there too long and that they would return when most people were…gone.
"I do," She says with a sad smile, and I can see waves of emotions as they are displayed on her face. "I miss Charlie. I miss the house that I lived in when I met your father. I miss the place where your father and I married, and where we had you."
The breath in my throat catches, as I realize how much she left. "I'm so sorry, Mom."
"Don't be," She tells me, as she continues to look forward, into the trees. "I have my family and that is all that matters to me."
I'll be sixteen in a few months, and that means that we have been gone nine years. That is a long time to be away from your father, and memories that were so precious to you. "Can you tell me the story of you and Dad before you had me, again?"
"From the beginning?" She asks me, and I just nod, waiting for her to continue. "I saw him at school, and I noticed there was something different about him. I just couldn't place it then. He would leave school for 'camping trips', and when he was gone I already felt like something was missing from me. One day, he stopped a car from hitting me in the school parking lot."
Dad tells me that his life didn't start until he met my mom, but I never knew how much of an effect he had on her from the begging. Like a perfect love story.
"I became curious, and started asking questions that he never answered. I decided that I would take it into my own hands, so one night someone told me the old legends. I look more into it, and I slowly started piecing everything together. I knew he was a vampire, but it didn't scare me." She says with a smile, as she tries to push through the blur of her human memories. I can tell that she focused on keeping these ones, the clearest. "We became closer when I found out, but something that brought us closer is something that your father has a hard time dealing with. A vampire named James stalked me, and almost killed me."
"But Dad saved you," I finish that part of the story for her, and she just smiled down at me.
"Yes he did." She said, her mind getting lost in her thoughts. "We became even closer, and everything was going great until my eighteen birthday party. I was injured, but it wasn't anything- to me at least. Your dad, decided it would be best for me if he left, so he did." Her voice became tighter. "Those six months was the lowest time in my life, Nessie. I found someone in my life then that could make me smile, though. He didn't heal my wounds, but he helped cover them."
I've never heard this part of the story before. "Who was he?"
"Jacob." Suddenly, her face became sad, and she stopped in her tracks. "That isn't my story to tell, Nessie. If you want to know, and if he is willing to tell you, you should ask him later."
How did Jacob fit in the story? I knew that Jacob and Mom were friends when they were younger, and reconnected when she moved back to Forks. I just never wondered how they became as close as they were now. If they were friends, then what kept him here? Surely he wouldn't just stay so he could talk to her every other day. It had to be something else, but what?
"You look like your brain is going to explode," My mom says as she wraps her arm around my shoulder. "Don't worry."
I pull one of my bronze curls out from in front of my face, and I tuck it behind my ear. "Keep going with your story. I want to get to the happy ending."
"Edward heard that I was dead, and so he decided that he wanted to kill himself, too. Alice found me in time though, so we raced to Italy to try to save him from making an awful mistake. I didn't care if he didn't care for me at the time; I just wanted him to be safe." She says, as I can almost hear tears in her throat. "Here is the happy ending, though. When he got back we promised each other that we would get married, and then before I knew it I was married to the love of my life. You came short after, and you know the rest."
Their loved seemed so true and real, that I could only hope to have a love as great as theirs one day. "Does Dad still think your scent is addicting?"
"Yes," She says happily. I knew that that was one thing that they were worried about when he turned her into a vampire.
I think of Jake's scent, "I wonder if it's the same why I think about Jake."
"What do you mean?" She asks me curiously, as she gracefully jumps over a log.
I shrug my shoulders, as I try to find a way to explain it. Instead, I just place my hand on her face, using my gift, and show her the way he smells to me. I show her different times when he would walk up to me, and I would notice the way he smelled like the woods, and I showed her how Aunt Rose's reaction was completely different than mine. When I am done, I drop my hand from her, "I can barely stand to be away from him, and when I do I feel like I'm a puzzle and most pieces are missing."
"I guess it's something like that," She says with a small smile escaping her lips. "Don't worry, honey, you are only fifteen. You have a long time to figure out everything." I glance up at her, and she rolls her eyes. "I know you think and look about eighteen years old, but Nessie, you have only been mine for fifteen years. I don't want to lose you yet."
I raise my eyebrows, as I try to understand what she just said. "What do you mean you 'don't want to lose me yet'? You will never lose me, Mom."
"Nothing, sweetie, just a mother's worry, I guess." She says, but avoids looking into my eyes. I feel like there is more behind it than that answer, but I already dragged so much out of her today so I drop it.
"Race me back?" I ask her with a smile, and then we run quickly back to the house.
During the whole run I was trying to decide what I had learned from the talk with her. I knew that Jacob means a lot to her, because he helped her when she most needed him. I just don't know what 'helping her out' really means. I also realized that for some reason I am attached to Jacob, and whenever he is away, I don't feel like myself. Finally, I know that my mom is afraid of losing me too quickly, but to what?
When we arrived back to our house, Mom went into the main room to listen to Dad play the piano for her. I decide to not go in just yet, because I don't feel like being quizzed on the Cold War again today. Besides, I haven't seen Jacob since this morning, and I miss him. I figure since I wasn't home, that Jacob would be in his cabin that Alice built him when he moved here so he would feel more comfortable.
About a mile away from our house, I can hear the clink of the tools as they land on the garage floor. Of course he would be working on the 1987 Jeep Wrangler he bought from a junk yard a few weeks ago. Why does that even surprise me? He works on them whenever he has free time. Either that or he changes into a wolf and runs around property.
I tip toe into the garage, and the radio blasting makes it possible for me to enter without him noticing. I come up to the car, that he has lifted on some wood since the wheels aren't on yet, and all I can see are his legs sticking out the side.
"Boo!" I yell, as I grab his ankles, causing him to jump.
I hear a thud, and laughter coming up from under the car. His hands grab the outside of the car, and he wheels the skateboard that he has been laying on, out from under it. "Dang, Ness, you got me pretty good that time."
"Sorry," I manage to say between giggling. "Did you hit your head?"
He rubs the top of his head through his short, spiky brown hair, "Werewolf, remember? I heal easily."
"Yeah," I say finally calming down, and remembering the talk that I had with my mom earlier. I sit on the cement, pull my legs close to my chest, and I try to think of what I want to say.
Jake sits up, and gets a rag out of his pocket to wipe the grease off of his hands. "What's wrong, Ness?"
"Nothing," I say lightly, but I know that he can tell when I'm lying. "How did you and my mom become so close again?"
His dark brown eyes go wide, and he starts mumbling. I guess my question caught him off guard. "Did your parents approve of me telling you?"
"Mom told me I could ask you, and that you could tell me. Only if you wanted to, though." I tell him, half afraid that he wouldn't tell me, and half afraid that he would.
He moved back and forth on the skateboard for a minute, pushing himself with his feet. I let him decide what he wanted to tell me, and as he thought I saw the pain in his eyes. "Before I tell you this, I want you to know that that was the past. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I whisper so low so I could barely hear myself say it. What was it that he wanted to tell me, and was it that bad?
He bit his lip for a few seconds, took a deep breath, and then finally spoke. "When Edward left Bella, she was crushed. I have never seen anyone so depressed in my life. I slowly became her friend, and she would come over and help me build a couple of motorcycles. Then…" His voice trailed off, and I could see the struggle as he tried to choose the next words carefully.
"It's okay, Jacob. You are my best friend, and nothing is going to change that." I tell him with a shaking voice, as I place my hand on his knee for a second. "I promise." No matter how awful this news is, and no matter how angry I might be. I would still end up forgiving him in the end, I just knew it.
Different ideas pop up into my mind as I wait for him to say something. None of them are comforting to me. I watch as he raises his hand, and places it on mine. "I fell in love with her. I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened. I kissed her twice. Once time she punched me, and broke her hand."
"You kissed my mom?" I say out loud, making sure I heard him right.
I feel his hand grab mine tighter, "Yes. She loved me, I know she did. But that didn't make any difference, she had always picked Edward."
"I'm so sorry," I say, as I feel a tear run down my face. For some reason, the fact that he kissed my mom didn't make me angry. Just grossed out. The only reason I'm crying is because I can't imagine going through the pain that Jacob went through. Loving someone so much, and watching them pick someone else. I can't stand to see Jacob go through any pain, and knowing that he went through his much kills me.
He pulls his head up slowly, and looks into my eyes. "What are you sorry for?"
"You must have been in so much pain," I say feeling the tears continue to roll down my face. "I'm sorry."
He shook his head, as he lifted me off the ground and onto his lap. "Nessie, don't be sorry. It hurt then, but it doesn't hurt me anymore."
"Why did you stay? All this time, watching her be with him." I say as he wipes off the tears with his thumb.
He uses one hand to smooth down my hair, and we sit in silent until he feels that he can tell me. "Love changes, Ness. I thought that she was the love of my life, but then it turned out to be nothing in compare to what true love feels like."
I try to process what he said, as he rocks me back and forth in his large arms. It's a couple of minutes before I ask, "Jake, do you think I will fall in love with someone one day?"
"I hope you do," He says, and I look up to his smiling face that is looking down at me. "He will be a lucky guy, Nessie."
I wrap my arms around his waist, as I pull him into a tight hug. He knows how to make me feel better in just a few words. "Thanks, Jake. You are the best friend anyone could have."