PAIRINGS: ... um, I still have no idea lol.
AUTHOR NOTES: It's been awhile, but it is summer, thusly the time for starting again!
EMBRY
If ever there was a girl to avoid, it is Bella Swan. She is a force of nature in and of herself, sly, bold and torrential and more destructive than I have ever witnessed. The vampires are our enemies, but she will be our downfall.
Because she has ensnared the strongest of us and brought him to his knees.
Jacob is my friend, my family. The best in me if Quil is the worst. The three of us make a balance, but without Jacob Quil and I are struggling. Stumbling along the tight rope and we don't have the safety net anymore. It is gone and so is Jake.
Piece by piece by tiny little crumbling piece.
That is the curse that is Bella.
I won't lie and say that I have not felt the pull. The inexplicable urge to be near her. It was there when we first met again. In the garage and I was timid. Quil had noticed it, too. But she wasn't meant for us. We were not the target, merely rocks in her path of destruction, moved aside easily enough.
She is not my soul mate and I am thankful.
Her I curse, because she steals what is important and leaves nothing in her wake. Not even remorse.
A better man than I would not blame her, but without Jacob I cannot be that better man. So I lay the destruction at her feet hoping one day she will see the ruins she leaves behind her, so carelessly. So without concern.
She is with him again, because it is her cause.
She is abandoned and thus abandons.
I have no pity for the wicked.
…
QUIL
I am of the mind that there are simple solutions to all problems. And Bella is a problem. For Jake. Thus, the solution is simple: find another girl.
Because she is only a girl.
I don't care for her softness, for her simplicity, for her otherness that makes her appeal to the sameness that we are and share. If she was meant for Jacob, then she has denied it entirely, and this would not be a problem, except that Jake can forget to see the gifts he might be given.
So I say, find another girl.
And that is why I make him go with me and Embry to the movies and to the mall. Every day if I have to. Because his morose attitude is eating away at me. It makes me angry and nervous – this is not how it should be. It makes Embry worry and suddenly we are all too different.
Maybe it isn't Bella's fault. Perhaps that is too much blame to place with her, but Jacob cannot let it go.
So I say find him another girl.
I'm looking. I scour Port Angeles and La Push. Forks and Seattle, if I must. I'll find him someone else and he'll forget her and we can be as we were: same.
…
JACOB
My father is not home. Perhaps he is with her father – they are as brothers. We are alone in my home that is as much hers now. Every corner is littered with memories of her. I could not live her much longer if I thought she would never come back.
I have not told my father this.
She sits on the couch still, uncertain why she is here with me, though I know. Instinct. Her soul calls to mine and mine to hers and I wish she could understand it like I do. Sometimes I dare to hope she will, and others I know she never can.
"He left," she whispered. She was shaking, distraught. "But he'll come back."
She wasn't trying to convince me.
I don't say anything, because there is nothing I can say. I cannot offer her comfort with words, because the platitudes she seeks are the ones that are hollow and rise like bile in my throat. She wants me to tell her that he will return and everything will be okay.
But if that happens – as surely it will – nothing will ever be okay.
Not for me. And not for her, if only she could see it like I do.
So I offer her no words.
Instead, I coddle her and hold her. I remind her that there is life beyond the leech, beyond the curse she so desperately craves, but she ignores it.
I will and have given her everything. My heart and soul. Whatever she asks of me, it is hers. But it's just not enough. I have been judged and left wanting.
Love is a bitch sometimes.
…
BELLA
It is stupid of me to be here with Jacob. There is no reason for it. Not for the anxiety I feel, for the ripping hole in my chest. No reason at all. Because Edward did not leave me out of want, but out of necessity.
He will return.
And I have told Jacob this, but he says nothing in return.
Edward is love, eternal and forever.
Yet.
Yet the coldness I felt with him tonight was not the cold I so often crave. It was not the hard marble of his skin or the hard stone of his lips. There was something different tonight. Something terrifying. Something that whispered to me of losing eternity and promises broken.
And that is why I went to Jacob. Why I fall into his arms so easily when I have denied them before. He makes me forget the chill of the night, the unnatural chill that eats at my sanity and heart.
Jacob is warmth and comfort – and it is cruel of me to accept it.
But I am crueler than the man I love, and than Jacob. Both are far better than I will ever be or ever deserve, but I take it anyway.
I wish I had something in return, but I have only myself and it is enough for neither of them.
…
BILLY
My son is in love.
For him, I grieve. As I have for his lost mother, for his lost youth, for the burden that is his birthright.
My son is in love and there is no force as beautiful, as perfect, as destructive. He is strong, but love weakens the strength of heart and if he cannot let her go and she cannot return his offer, his heart will be left barren and without.
Yes, my son is in love.
A/N: Yay! New POV's lol. They're weird if you ask me, but I like them anyway. Suggestions and comments are always welcome. :)