Will You Be My Friend in My Dream?

I see my pretty face in his old eyes / I listen to our blood run side by side
Sóley, "Pretty Face"

You look at him, steal glances at his face that only last an instant.

You avert your eyes, but only when he realizes what you're doing.

I can't choose now. Please don't make me choose now, you'd told him - Edward. You saw something flash momentarily in his eyes - those wonderful golden irises - but he said nothing. You tell yourself it's because marriage is a serious commitment, an eternal one, in your case. You didn't want to marry, but conditions are conditions, and all you've ever wanted was a life with him. Forever. So, would it make a difference to have papers to prove it?

When you appear in the doorway of Jacob's garage (after the newborns are annihilated, and Edward has proposed, and things are finally falling into place, no complications, no complications, so you go and make some), you are prepared for him to tell you to go fuck yourself and get it over with. You brace yourself for it.

His outburst: "Hey, Bella."

When you walk into Jacob's garage, the second time around, his greeting differs slightly: "Hey, Bells."

There are no bikes to fix this time, so you have no excuse to be here, other than to be with him. This is how you dash his initial doubts. His disbelief at your presence. You don't say: "I could be anywhere else, but I'm right here, with you." It sounds manipulative, it reeks of the deperation with which you pursued his company, back when things were less complicated. But only just.

You say: "I've got time." And that's that.

He smiles at you, and you could write essays, conduct seminars on that smile that makes the sun pale in comparison. The earth would perish, if the sun burnt out. You would not; you would languish, wither, but you would live. And that would be worse.

You'd marry Edward and become this, this, this perfect, marble thing. Your sun would die eventually, and you would have to eternally avoid its flawed substitute.

You have time, though, and it is more than enough, for now.

You deliberately put off the formal anouncement of your engagement. When Edward traces your jaw with his icy fingers (as though he is about to kiss you - you see a fleeting flash of desire in his eyes - but you know he won't), when he brings your hand to his lips and whispers into your palm, "I can wait, Bella. For as long as you'd like.", you shake your head and mutter some makeshift lie you know he'll believe.

You can't go without manipulating one of them, can you?

Days drag themselves into weeks. Your visits to the reservation and La Push proliferate instead of dwindling. And Edward knows; he can smell him all over your shirt, and he wrinkles his nose each time he holds you into those rigid arms. You build walls between you and him from the rubble of the walls you shattered between you and Jacob.

You drive along the cliffs, one day. Jacob beside you, like it is spring all over again. Like his hair is long and sleek, instead of cropped short against his head. His face, too. His face was rounder, not entirely hard and sharp, like that of a tortured, old man. You can still see them, if you squint enough, those final vestiges of childhood, of innocence and carelessness.

Your truck rattles and growls, as usual; the corners of your lips tilt up in a cheerful smile. If you peered at your right, you'd see Jacob smiling, too. It's a sunny smile, a Jake smile. If only you could see it.

"Do you have time?" he asks, his voice barely higher than a whisper.

"Enough."

When he asks you again, the following day, and the following week, the answer is the same. "Enough."

On a sunny August morning, he asks again. His voice is harsher now, more desperate. His gaze is pinned upon a wave that crashes into the shore, fails to settle and find peace, recedes and tries again. And again.

"I don't know."

He laughs mirthlessly, and part of you collapses into the poorly-healed hole that has been lurking in your chest, ripped apart by his cruel laugh. "Right when we'd stagnated. Can't say I don't appreciate the change," he offers, his words drenched in acid.

You stand like that for a few moments, facing, sizing up each other. Silent.

"We don't have much time," you say, eventually. We. You cast your indecision aside - that's a first - and fling yourself into his waiting, open arms. And you stay there. You revel in his warmth, his overwhelming heat. And you savor it. Absorb it. As much as you can, because deep inside you know there will come a day, and you won't be able to feel it anymore. You won't be able to feel anything anymore.

"We could run," he half-whispers, half-whimpers into your hair. "Remember? You said we could run." More desperation.

"Remember what you'd told me, then?" He must remember, for he doesn't say anything. "We can't run. Not from this."

You know Edward would give you up, if it made you happy. What you don't know, what you don't wish to find out, is what happens when you ask a drug addict to give up his personal brand of heroin.

You stand there - as the sand that is perpetually slithering out of the hourglass floats mid-air, frozen - with your face nestled in the heat of his chest, basking in the feeling of his fingers travelling through your hair, his gentle voice trailing your skin with soothing words, and the thundering, frantic beat of his heart.

And, for now, it is enough.

Side Note: I probably ought to stop listening to perfect music and start studying. Damn you, stupid plot bunnies.