Jacob kicked down the door of the Cullen house, bursting in like he was storming a castle. He'd always wanted to do this. He'd never had a good enough excuse for it ever before, and possibly he didn't have such a good excuse now, but he had an opportunity and he was taking it. They had enough money to pay for a new door.
"Edward Cullen!" he yelled, towing Bella gently behind him. "Edward Cullen, where are you? You need to come talk to me now, you filthy bloodsucking leech! Do you hear me?"
"It's not like you're possible to ignore." Edward had appeared quietly at the end of the hall, arms folded, leaning on the hall doorframe. Looking utterly bored, and a bit put out. "Is there a reason you're smashing our property to bits, Black?"
Jacob pulled Bella up beside him, and she looked afraid. Afraid at the look on Edward's face, afraid because he didn't immediately run up to her and say, oh, Bella, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking, I can explain. No, he just stood back and watched her dispassionately, like he didn't care whether she was here or not. That had always been her worst fear—that he wouldn't care. Not even that he would hate her, that he just wouldn't care.
"You left Bella fifteen miles out from town, in freezing weather," Jacob snarled. "You left her there. I want an explanation."
"I am sorry about that," he said, sounding a little puzzled. "I forgot she wouldn't have a way to get home."
"You forgot," Bella repeated quietly, sounding very much like a person on the verge of something. Homicide. Mental breakdown.
"You forgot," Jacob echoed savagely. "So much for eternal love, huh, Cullen?"
Edward looked over at Bella, and his eyes were the coldest she'd ever seen them. She never would have thought they could look cold, not with the warm gold color of them, but now they suddenly the color reminded her more of falcon eyes than butterscotch. A calm surveying, careless predatory intent. She wanted to run to him, to beat on his chest and scream at him, to get some kind of reaction. She did not want him to keep looking at her the way he was looking at her.
"I never promised it was eternal," Edward started, but Bella cut him off.
"Yes you did," she said quietly.
"Oh," he said, nonplussed. "Well, then I apologize, because obviously that wasn't correct."
"I don't understand how you could just stop loving me," she said. If he wanted to break up with her, fine, she would understand that. But there was something very strange about this, and she couldn't make herself let it go. She didn't buy it.
A girl Bella didn't recognize walked up behind Edward and put her arm around his waist, rested her chin on his shoulder. She looked perfectly comfortable putting her hands all over him, and she was very depressingly pretty. Bella took in the perfect oval shape of her eyes, her long loose curls like dark chocolate. Normally she wasn't catty, not the kind of girl who hated another girl just for her beauty—but normally those beautiful girls weren't lounging all over the love of her life.
"Bella, right?" purred the new girl, and Edward reached up and took her hand. "Hi. I'm Chelsea—Edward's new girlfriend. He won't be needing you around anymore."
"No, no, no," Jacob said, stepping forward. "You are not going to do this, Cullen. You are not going to drop her like this."
Chelsea looked at him with distaste, but nether of them moved at all, not terribly intimidated by Jacob even at the height of his righteous anger. Edward knew that Bella would never let Jacob hurt him—and Chelsea. Chelsea knew that she could stop him.
"Is that Jacob Black?" Rosalie wandered in from the side door, looking interestedly around the entryway. "I thought I smelled him."
"No werewolf jokes now, please," Jacob snarled, not looking at her. "We're a little busy, Rosalie."
"Oh, I wasn't going to say anything," Rosalie said breezily, still moving toward him. "I certainly don't have a problem with you being here."
Jacob was looking at her now, staring at her with a sort of startled look. It was just a little unexpected—for Rosalie. She wasn't supposed to say things like that. "You don't have a problem with it?" he said uncertainly, as if he wasn't sure he'd heard her right. "Aren't you going to—throw me out of your house, or something?"
"Oh, God, no," Rosalie said, almost unbearably sexy as she walked slowly toward him. Rosalie had that in her, she could turn it on when she wanted to, and sometimes she could be magnetic, impossible, irresistible. The thing that was confusing was why she was turning it on Jacob. "It looks like your collar is twisted, dear. Let me fix that for you."
And before anyone could stop her, she had her hands on Jacob, sliding them down his collar and collarbone. He looked extremely alarmed, but also floored enough that he didn't immediately push her away.
Bella did it for him. "Rosalie!" she said, trying to pull the girl away but not having much success. Rosalie was very strong. "What are you doing?"
"What's wrong, Bella, jealous?" Rosalie, on the other hand, really didn't have a problem with catty. "You had your chance. You've had him running after you for years, but you'll never love him back. You just want him to keep paying attention to you."
"That's not true!" Bella said, stung.
"Rosalie," Jacob said, catching her wrists. "What are you doing?"
"Just relax, Jacob," she said. Her hands weren't on his collar anymore.
"Is this some kind of joke?" he demanded. "Are you on drugs?"
"Jacob, did anyone ever tell you how incredibly sexy you are?" she said, and with a perfectly straight face.
Well, it's not a double amputee with measles, Edward heard from Chelsea's mind, but at least he's fifteen! Have fun with that, Rosalie Hale. She sounded smug, and on the verge of laughing out loud—and it wasn't the first weird thought he'd heard from her in the last few hours. Occasionally he even stopped to wonder who this girl was, what she was doing here—but that always passed quickly enough. She was here. He loved her. That was far and away more than enough.
This one, I think, she was musing to herself, ought to be one-way. He won't love her. Add to the confusion.
Edward took her shoulders and turned Chelsea toward him, looking her in her huge pretty eyes. Red eyes. There was something about red eyes that was ringing a bell, warning him about something. About her. "Tell me what you're thinking," he said, by which he meant explain to me why you're thinking it. There was something going on here, but he couldn't for the life of him put his finger on it.
"I was thinking about you," she said sweetly, turning and taking both his hands.
"Liar," he said, with a smile, as if he thought it was cute that she was standing here lying through her teeth.
She frowned for a few seconds, like she'd just remembered something. "Of course," she said, with the slightest tinge of unhappiness in her voice. "You know exactly what I'm thinking. So you know I love you."
"Oh my God!" Jacob yelled behind them. "People usually ask before they do that, Rosalie! What is wrong with you?"
"Why does there have to be something wrong with me?" she pouted. "I would think you'd want to someone to pay attention to you for once. I thought you'd appreciate a real woman."
"That's it," Bella said firmly, grabbing Jacob's arm. "We're going. There is something wrong with this house, and until we figure out what it is—we're leaving." She started to drag Jacob out the door, and then stopped. And turned back and looked Chelsea straight in the eyes.
"I don't know what's going on here," she said, and there was actually some grit showing up in her voice. Someone had just taken the thing that she loved, and until she knew why she was not going to stand for it. "I don't know what's happening, but I know it's your fault. I don't know who you are, but you've done something. And I'm going to find out what."
She stalked out the door and slammed it closed, and it swung slowly back open behind her, hanging crazily on the frame, still broken from Jacob's attack. The sound of it swinging on its hinges sliced through the quiet of everyone watching her leave.
"Jeez," Rosalie said. "What's wrong with her?"