Thanks for the kind reviews! I hope you guys enjoy the second installment.

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Chapter 2 – Fateful Days

Renesmee's POV

I've been told that most humans don't remember much from their first ten or so years of life. For me, the memories started sticking with me after the first month. I've got some blurry snatches from my first few weeks - my mother's skin sparkling in the sun, my father smiling down at me, biting Jacob a few times. Then things come into focus.

Still, some days stand out more clearly than others. Like the day my family stood against the Volturi.

And the day I realized I was in love with my best friend.

It was a few days before my sixth birthday, but with my accelerated growth I looked about 14. I had my father's bronze curls, though mine were much longer, and the fair skin and brown eyes my mother had before she'd been changed. The awkwardness of my preteen body was wearing off and I was just starting to round out in embarrassing ways.

The wolves were throwing me a birthday party, of sorts. Jake had asked how I wanted to celebrate and I had just wanted things to feel normal. So I asked for a bonfire. To my mind, there was nothing like hotdogs and junk food by an open flame to complete the teenage experience.

The pack was all gathered on the beach, fooling around in the last of the afternoon sun on a rare clear day at First Beach. I was helping Jake bring the last of the food down to the beach when I saw Embry sitting on the sand by the stack of driftwood that would be our fire once it got dark. He was stabbing at the sand by his feet with a stick, his lips pursed and eyebrows pulled together.

"Why's Embry all mopey?" I whispered at Jake, setting down a bag of buns and condiments a couple yards away from the fire.

"Tara left this morning. School starts up for her on Monday, so she won't be back up for a while."

Embry had imprinted on Tara at the beginning of the summer when she had come up from Portland in June to spend the school break with her grandmother on the reservation. From what I'd heard, he'd run into her in a back aisle at the store and just about walked through a rack of Doritos trying to get closer. I'd met her a week or so later, and hadn't seen either of them without the other the rest of the summer.

And now she was a five-hour drive away. Poor Embry.

I rested my palm against the back of Jake's hand for a second, letting him know I was going to sit with Embry for a bit. He smiled and kissed the top of my head before heading across the beach to where the others were messing around.

Jake had never really talked about the whole imprinting process. Of course I'd seen imprinted couples – Sam and Emily, Jared and Kim – but it almost seemed to make him uncomfortable when it had come up with Embry. I guess I didn't blame him. The idea that someday he would fall compulsively in love with a total stranger freaked me out, too. Well, if I was being honest with myself, it made me jealous.

I'd seen the way Embry looked at Tara. It was like she had instantly become the center of his universe. Everyone else disappeared when she was around. One day, that would happen to Jake.

"Hey, Embry," I said, sitting on the sand next to him. He looked up from the gouges he'd drawn as I flicked some sand at him. "It's my birthday, so you have to pretend to be happy."

He gave me a small, real smile before pasting on a gruesome looking fake grin.

"Hhhuppy Birfday!" he lisped, sounding just like the mouse from Cinderella, and I laughed, flicking more sand at him. This time, the real smile stayed.

"Sorry I'm pulling the fun out of the air."

"Nah, don't worry about it. It sucks you and Tara had to say goodbye. I know you two were really… close." That was totally the wrong word for it, but I didn't really have any way to describe the way he was… tied to her.

And suddenly, I was desperate to understand.

"What's it like?" I asked, scooting closer and grabbing my own stick to stab the ground with, so I didn't have to meet his eyes. "Imprinting, I mean."

He looked at me for a moment, and then at the rest of the pack across the beach, like he was trying to decide whether or not to answer. Then his face started changing, almost lighting up from the inside.

"It's like I didn't know that I didn't really feel alive until I met her. Like the world was a little fuzzy and then everything came clear cuz she was there."

I tried to swallow around my suddenly dry throat. He kept talking about air and gravity, but I didn't really hear much. I was picturing Jake's face, lit by the same internal glow as he talked about some girl he'd just met. I felt a little sick.

Sudden shouts and laughter distracted me from the traumatic drama playing in my head and Embry and I both looked up to see what was going on.

Seth had Jake by the head while Quil managed to get a good enough grip on his legs to pull him off his feet. It was amazing they managed to keep hold with him writhing and kicking as they ran across the sand toward the water. They only got in one swing before launching him out into the water.

He was under for a few seconds while they stood in the sand and laughed, Seth holding his hand up for a high five. Quil reached up, but instead of slapping Seth's hand, gripped him by the back of the neck and launched him out into the waves, where he crashed into a sputtering Jacob. Both went under again and Quil turned and bolted for the woods.

Jake was on his feet again by the time he made the trees.

"Idiot!" he shouted, "We have all the food – you're gonna have to come back eventually!"

He smirked after the fleeing wolf and grabbed the back of his t-shirt collar, yanking the dripping shirt up over his head. Gripping it in two hands, he began to wring out the seawater as he sloshed back toward the beach.

In that moment, it was as if something went ping in my brain, like a spring under pressure finally being released.

In a fuzzy corner of my mind I recognized that my mouth was hanging slightly open and my breath had sped up. But most of my consciousness was absorbed in the path the streams of water were taking from the fall of hair in his face, over the muscular curve of his shoulder and down his chest.

I'd seen his bare chest hundreds of times. The guy was practically allergic to shirts. But it had never hit me like this before. Like a kick to the stomach.

Oh dear god, his stomach.

My eyes drifted down the dips and curves of muscle covered with tan skin and sparkling water. His ragged sweats hung low on his slim hips from the weight of the water.

What on earth was happening to me? I felt a little lightheaded and my stomach was starting to ache in a strange way.

I was distracted from the odd sensations coursing through me as Jake gave Seth another shove, sending him flying back into the surf. He turned toward where Embry and I were sitting, laughing as he shook some of the water out of his hair. He reached up and ran the still damp shirt over his face and head.

The tip of my tongue touched the corner of my top lip and I could taste the salt of the air blowing off the sea. I wondered how Jake's skin would taste, salty from the ocean water.

Holy crow, I just fantasized about licking my best friend.

A hand came up into my line of sight and snapped its fingers.

"Huh?" I blinked a few times and looked back at Embry, who was staring at me like I had drool dripping down my chin. Oh shit, did I?

I reached up and tried to surreptitiously wipe at my mouth. No drool, thank god.

"Where'd you go there, Ness?" Embry asked as he reached out and rumpled my hair.

"Spaced out…" I mumbled, through the curls as they settled over my face. I could feel the flush heating my cheeks and debated just leaving them there.

A gust of sea air laced with brown sugar was my only warning before a pair of warm arms circled my waist and pulled me back against a very damp, exceptionally drool worthy chest.

"I like the Cousin It look on you, Ness," He said, resting his chin on the top of my head.

How many times had we sat just like this? His arms around me had always felt like the most natural thing in the world. But now I was having trouble breathing through the ache in the pit of my stomach. I was awkward and stiff – nothing about this felt natural.

Jake's hands came up, pulling my hair back out of my face before dropping down, intending to link his fingers with mine.

Oh, hell, my hands!

I pulled away quickly, locking my hands together in my lap. If he got his palm against mine my thoughts would explode through his head and I was pretty sure that meant death by embarrassment.

"Fire!" The word came out of my throat a little strangled and they both looked at me like I was nuts.

"Let's light the fire!" I said, sounding a little too bright even to my own ears. I jumped to my feet and started digging through the bags of food looking for matches.

"Uh, Ness?"

I squeaked, turning around to find Jake right behind me with a sliver lighter in his hand.

"Cool! You light – I'll get the others!" I took of across the beach, leaving Jake behind with a shocked expression on his face.

"What the hell was that about?" I heard him mutter to himself.

I managed to keep a bright smile on my face for the next half-hour as we set the food up and started the hotdogs roasting over the fire. Jake was still looking at me funny, too distracted to even terrorize Quil when he came slinking back at the smell of food cooking.

I was squirting some ketchup on my hotdog when I saw him grab Embry and pull him back a couple yards away from the fire. I crept as close as I dared, managing to catch some of Jake's whisper.

"… all weird. What the hell were you talking about?"

"She wanted to know about imprinting," Embry answered, leaning back at Jake's growl.

They were obviously trying to be quiet, but between my enhanced hearing and all-consuming concentration I managed to pick up their words.

"She just asked what it was like. I only talked about Tara, dude, I swear." Embry almost looked scared as he backed as far away as Jake's grip on him would allow. Jake dropped his arm and I darted back to the fire before he could turn around.

I was still trying to slow my heart when he dropped onto the sand next to me.

"Everything okay?" He asked, snatching the hotdog off my plate and eating half of it in one bite.

Okay? I turned on a bright smile and nodded, grabbing some chips off my plate and shoving them in my mouth so I wouldn't have to talk.

How could things possibly be okay? How could they ever be okay again? I had to concentrate to keep my eyes from straying down to his bare chest – honestly did he ever wear a shirt? – and he wanted to know if I was okay? I was epically NOT OKAY.

I knew what this feeling was. Even if I'd never felt it myself, I'd seen in portrayed in dozens of movies. This was the part where the girl has her epiphany and realized the boy in front of her was everything she had ever wanted.

I was in love with him.

But he was waiting for someone else. Someone that would be his focus or his air or… what was the word Embry used?

Gravity.

How could I ever compete with gravity?