Chapter Two

I do not own Twilight, no copyright infringement intended.

Some part of me refuses to believe what I'm seeing, and so I continue to gape in silence as they scramble for their abandoned clothing.

But he was waiting for me, wasn't he? This can't be happening—I'm his imprint. Aren't we destined to be together?

My bottom lip trembles and I turn and run.

"Wait, Ness! Come back. "

I head back to the forest before the tears can start, but before I get too far, I hear the familiar sound of wolf paws behind me, and I slow.

"Jake."

I turn around slowly to see him behind me in wolf form. He pads up, and instead of rubbing his russet snout like I usually would, I just stand and look back at him.

I'm hurting—I feel betrayed. I feel like an idiot.

After a few moments, he trots off into the undergrowth and about twenty seconds later, Jake in human form walks back in just a pair of sweat pants. His eyes look pained and he struggles to spit out what he wants to say.

"I'm sorry. It's just…Leah and I…"

"I know exactly what you and Leah were doing. I'm not a child."

Jake goes to say something, but obviously thinks better of it. After a few moments of silence, he sighs.

"You shouldn't have seen that. You weren't ready. I just thought that if you were a little bit older…you might understand."

"I might understand what?" My voice is a high-pitched screech. I want to bite him, to take a chunk out of him, and not just playing this time. I want to hurt him, like he is hurting me.

He looks down at the ground. "I know you have a crush on me. It's just that…I've seen you grow up from a baby. I love you to pieces, Ness—just not that way."

His words tear my insides into shreds and I unsuccessfully repress a sob. "You don't feel that way? So why did you let me think that you did?"

"Ness, I…" He looks so forlorn, and my heart twists in my chest.

"But I thought that…"

"I'm sorry, Ness. I tried not to lead you on." Jake runs a hand through his hair. "I've only ever said that I'll be there for you, to protect you. That I'll be there whenever you need me, and I mean it. It's just that, thinking of you like that, just feels…wrong."

Realizing how wrong my perceptions were, I try to swallow down just how mistaken I really have been. I'm breathing hard, trying to hold back the tears welling in my eyes.

"But, I'm your imprint…"

"I know, and this doesn't change that. You're everything to me, Ness. That's why it kills me that I'm hurting you. I never meant to—I just didn't know how to do it right."

I give a humorless choked laugh. "Well, that was probably the worst way for me to find out. How long have you and Leah—"

"Since your third birthday," he blurts out and then watches for my reaction nervously.

Ten years. This has been going on under my nose for a decade, and I never suspected a thing.

The gut-wrenching hurt turns into a flush of anger. He obviously knew that I liked him, and he never once let me know that there was something going on with his beta. Surely he could have said something, rather than have me waiting all these years thinking that he was mine.

My dad or Alice must have known—my buddy, Seth, too. Why didn't they say? I think back and a million throwaway comments suddenly have a more sinister meaning.

Everyone knew but me. I feel humiliated. Betrayed.

With a sniff, I wipe away a stray tear and force words past the lump blocking my throat. "I'd like to be alone now, Jake." My voice is shaky. "Will you tell Mom and Dad I'll be back by dawn?"

Jake doesn't want to go, I can tell.

"Please, Jake. I have a few things on my mind. I don't want you here."

"But—"

"Jake. Go away."

With that kicked puppy look in his eye, he turns away and runs into the trees. After a few moments, I hear a mournful howl.

Now that he's gone, I hunch in on myself and drop to my knees, allowing my sobs to come now that no one else can see or hear. I wail and let everything that I'm feeling out.

Whenever I picture Jake, the bottom of my stomach plunges, and the pain is physical. I decide that I hate Leah. If she was here now, I'd kill her with my own bare hands. I'd let my vamp side have free rein and tear her throat out.

How can I be around her now that she's with Jake? My Jake. My wolf and constant protector since I was born.

Though, I guess he's just as much hers as mine—maybe even more so. It can't have been easy keeping the secret all these years.

I don't know how I'm going to look at any of my family now I know that they were all keeping this from me. What did they expect? Did they think it was just some teenage crush? That I would grow out of it?

I'm his imprint. Was it really so unthinkable that I might assume that meant we would be together? For a second, I dare to hope that this is all a bad dream, or that Jake will come running back and tell me that he's changed his mind. I'm hoping in vain and I know it.

With a snotty intake of breath, I get to my feet and look down at myself. I have mud and bits of undergrowth stuck to both me and my dress. If I looked like hell when I checked my reflection in the car, I hate to think what I look like now. After a good cry, I bet I look ten times worse—I bet I look like…

A crazy wild woman.

I stand and turn the idea over in my head. I don't want to go home. How can I after all this?

I can't go back. But there again, why would I have to? I'm a super-intelligent thirteen-year-old with the body of a seventeen-year-old girl. I have superhuman speed and agility, unnatural strength, and I don't even need food to survive—other than full vampires, I'm the deadliest creature in the forest.

Why on earth would I want to go back to a bunch of traitors? The answer is that I wouldn't.

They make me pretend to be something less than I am. They give me a taste of a real life by making me go to school, hanging around with human teens that have more freedom than I do.

They think I'm a child and will always treat me like one. All my time on earth, I've been wrapped in cotton wool, allegedly protected from anything that could possibly hurt me. Yet, the people I love have hurt me more than anything else ever could.

I'm practically a woman. I don't need anybody.

It's decided. I'm running away. I'm not even going back for clothes.

Then, I think "crap" and decide that I'm going to decide everything on the spur of the moment to avoid Aunt Alice keeping track of me. I'm going to wander wherever the hell I feel like, and I'm going to live as dangerously as I can. This is the new Renesmee Cullen. The new Ness is her own girl, and answers to nobody.

Now that my anger and self-determination is masking my hurt slightly, I turn in the opposite direction of home and hurtle through my trees. I don't know where I'm heading, but I'm getting there fast. It doesn't take long until my shoes break, and when they do, I throw them into the forest, laughing.

I don't give a damn, I tell myself.

The speed and the uncertainty is liberating. I've spent my whole life knowing what is coming next, feeling as if everything was mapped out for me. High school, college, the cycle repeated over and over again. I had planned to go to Harvard to study medicine next—mainly to help out Grandpa Cullen and help him keep his training up to date. I was going to study law next time, as Jasper's contact was getting a little old and it would be nice for us to be a little more self-sufficient.

Jake. I had always thought that I would end up with Jake, we'd get married, and maybe have children if I was as fertile as my irregular menstrual cycle suggested I might be. Now, that wasn't likely to happen.

Everything I had once thought was set in stone is now turned on its head. Until now, I never realized exactly how suffocated I'd felt.

There is a whole world out there for me to see. I can live for an undetermined amount of time, and I want to see everything.

I run for what seems like ages, but it's still dark. It's then that it hits me. Hangover.

I slow down as I feel nauseous, and a splitting headache starts throbbing in my temples.

Well, if I'm going to be a nomad, I had best get used to sleeping in the woods, I guess. I stop and slump to the ground against a large, smooth boulder. I have no idea where I am.

When I wake up, I'm definitely going to have to find a town, and get some more practical clothes—maybe a tent and a blanket. I definitely need some face wipes and a hair brush.

Despite feeling hugely uncomfortable, it doesn't take long until I'm fast asleep.