Just A Girl
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: Bella gets a new English teacher. It changes everything. New Moon AU. Imprint.
There were a thousand things that Bella wanted to say to Jacob when she saw him that evening. Charlie was home and camped out on the couch, his snores echoing through the kitchen. Jacob was raiding the refrigerator. Bella was still at the table, finishing up her Calculus homework. The college applications sat in a neat pile under her history textbook – hidden from Jacob's eyes.
"Where's the mustard?" Jacob muttered, more to himself that to her.
"It's all gone." Bella grimaced. "I haven't been able to get to the store with everything going on. I was going to go today, but the flooding…"
Jacob rolled his eyes at her, the corners of his mouth perked up. "How can I possibly survive without mustard?"
Bella stood up and walked over to Jacob, looping her arms around his waist. "You'll have to find something else, I guess."
Jacob's half made sandwich was forgotten as he wrapped his arms around her. He stared down at her. "Do you have any suggestions?"
Suddenly, Bella could see all the possibilities. She blushed, pressing her forehead into his chest. "There's still miracle whip."
Jacob laughed, a sound that Bella had not heard much in the past week as the hunt for Victoria commenced. Jacob had been so tense around the edges – all of his lines firm and unmolding to outside influences. The only time his body seemed to give way was when she was standing like this, curved into his form like an extension of his skin.
Jacob kissed the top of her head and released her. Bella leaned back against the counter, watching as his finished an entire loaf of bread and the last of the sandwich fixings. She didn't mind one bit.
"Did you do anything interesting today?" Jacob asked, after swallowing a bite, ketchup dotted one side of his mouth. Without thinking about it, Bella reached up to swipe her thumb across his face.
The whole world froze just for a moment as they stared at one another. Bella stepped back quickly, wiping her finger on her jean clad thighs.
"Embry stopped by today."
Jacob raised an eyebrow. "What did you guys do?"
There was no jealousy or worry when Jacob voiced his question. A part of Bella relaxed that she didn't realize had been tense to begin with.
Edward had never wanted her to be around male company without him – especially the company of his brothers. Jacob carried no such inhibitions – with the exception of Sam and Paul, both whom Bella had no desire to be alone with ever.
"I made some pancakes and he helped me with some college applications." Bella watched him, wanting to know how he would react to the topic of college.
They had never talked about their future before. The only thing Bella really knew was that Jacob would be in her future and she would be in his.
There was only a sliver of doubt inside the old corners of the scar across her heart that had once been a gabbing, suckling wound.
"So you make Embry pancakes but leave me to fend for myself?" Jacob said in mock outrage.
Bella laughed, a warm sound with no harshness around the edges.
"What colleges are you applying too?" Jacob asked.
Bella shrugged. "Kind of everywhere, to be honest."
"Got a favorite?"
"UW."
Jacob smirked. "I can see why Embry was so keen on helping you out. He's been looking forward to applying to UW since the eighth grade."
"He's really interested in their English program." Bella said. "I knew that he read a lot, but I didn't realize that he wanted to make a career out of it."
"He writes. He's really good." There was as softness to his words that spoke of how much he cared about his friend.
"How's Quil?" Bella asked, watching as Jacob washed his plate off in the kitchen sink.
"Good. He's got a very interesting brain." Jacob shook his head, obviously amused by an inside joke.
"I can't imagine having to share my mind with anyone."
Jacob sighed and moved over towards her. In a movement that was entirely unexpected, Jacob lifted her up onto the counter like she was as light as a feather and angled himself so he was standing between her parted knees. There was an easiness to his movements that relaxed Bella, despite the intimacy of their position.
"It's really hard sometimes. I think I have a better time of it because of bloodlines and stuff. But it's really easy to get distracted by all of the thoughts that aren't your own. It easier with Em and Quil – we know each other so well already that we just kind of…work."
"Bloodlines?"
Jacob tensed a little, looking away from her eyes.
"You don't have to tell me, Jake."
"No, it's okay." Jacob gave her a painful looking smile. "I'm rightful alpha."
Something pulled at Bella's chest. She remembered Embry's words from earlier this afternoon. Something about his being especially protective over her because she was the rightful alpha's mate. The alpha female, Embry had said.
"What do you mean?"
"It all has to do with bloodlines. The Black family – my family is the alpha line. We're the direct offspring of the first alpha. I was basically born to be alpha, if my generation phased." Jacob didn't sound very happy about what he was saying. Bella started running her fingers across the back of his neck.
"Then why is Sam alpha?"
"Because he phased first. Someone had to step up to be alpha once Paul phased. Sam was the logical choice. He's the bloodline of beta."
"Beta?"
"The alpha's second. Basically, if the alpha isn't around or if needs help, it's the beta's job to pick up the slack." Jacob wasn't looking at her, but at his hand that was balanced on the dip of her waist. She was almost eye level with him, sitting on the counter.
"So Sam was born to be beta like you were born to be alpha?"
"Yeah. The alpha is always a Black and the beta is always a Uley. Until now, I guess."
"So why didn't you take over once you phased?" Bella asked, wanting him to look at her. There was no judgement in her words, only curiosity.
"Because I don't want to be alpha." Jacob's words were very soft.
It didn't make a lot of sense to her that Jacob would step away from his birthright – especially when Sam had proven himself to her as a bad leader. But Jacob had been shoved into so many roles at such a young age. He was his father's primary caretaker and now a vampire hunter. Who could blame him for not wanting to be alpha of a pack of teenage wolves?
"Okay." She accepted, not asking for a detailed explanation. Jacob's demeanor was enough of one.
Jacob, however, felt a need to explain.
"I didn't want the responsibility. I know that sounds selfish and juvenile, but I didn't want this life. I just want to be normal."
Bella felt like this had been weighing on Jacob for a long time.
"There's no such thing as normal, Jake." She admitted, pressing her hand under his chin to bring his eyes to hers. "I know that you don't want the responsibility, but I think – at least one day – you won't have a choice."
Jacob closed his eyes, rubbing his cheek against her hand with a pained expression on his face. "I know."
Jacob had left around nine o'clock that evening when a wolf howl had rung out there the trees. Bella was now packing up her books and tugging them up the stairs. Charlie was still asleep on the couch and Bella debated with herself about waking him. He had a long day today– and yesterday night – fighting through the storm and then the wreckage.
Bella shook him gently. "Dad?"
Charlie woke up abruptly, looking confused. "Bella?"
"Yeah, it's me. It's getting kind of late and I don't think you want to sleep all night on the couch."
"Right." Charlie answered ruffling, pulling himself up from his recliner. "You heading to bed?"
"Yeah." Bella said. She lingered for a moment at the staircase. "Goodnight."
Charlie didn't look at her, instead pressing the remote to turn off the television. "Goodnight," came off of his tongue like an afterthought.
Bella mourned for the relationship she would never have with her father. She knew that he cared for her, but he had lost any respect he had for her in the past months. She was trying desperately to build it back up, but Charlie seemed to look at her with his eyes shut now-a-days.
Her bed was starting to feel empty without Jacob curled up beside her. She was worried about him. Instead of sleeping, she thought about what she had learned today.
Imprinting was a basic unknown – but Jacob could not function with her too far due to their bond. She would have to take this into consideration for the rest of her life. Should she be upset? She wasn't right now. Would she be later? Would she get tired of Jacob? She couldn't see herself ever feeling suffocated by his arms, but time caused a lot of changes. The pinpricks of doubt in her chest throbbed.
There were journals written by the last pack that could help explain imprinting and who knows what else, but it was against tribal law to share it with anyone other than the current alpha. Sam had proven that he was against sharing any information he had gained from the journals – unless he just hadn't read them, as Embry assumed.
Jacob was rightful alpha. He could fix all of this conflict with Sam if he would step up to take his birthright. He could read the journals once he had claimed his position and he would share the information with his packmates. He would let them go to college. He would not stand when everyone else was sitting just so he felt bigger. He would still be Jacob. However, Jacob didn't want to be alpha. Bella was not going to demand that of him if he didn't want it. A part of her really understood his reasoning. Another more selfish part knew that it made a lot more sense for Jacob to take over.
There was definitely sexual tension between them.
Bella pondered on the last thought for a while.
Bella must have fallen asleep at some point, because she woke suddenly when a figure landed on her bedroom floor with a dull thump – from the bedroom window. She sat up immediately because she knew that it was not Jacob. She had a sixth sense when it came to Jacob – there was a certain feeling of ease whenever he was around. The figure standing at the foot of her bed, dark shadows hiding his face, did not give her any sense of easy.
She was frozen. The breeze from the window gave her goosebumps.
"Bella." The figure said.
"Quil? What's going on?"
"Bella." There was an urgency in his voice. "We need to get you out of here."
"What?" Bella climbed out of bed, tossing her covers from her legs.
"C'mon," Quil urged her, stepping into the lines of moonlight. He was taller than she had last seen him. "Get some warm clothes on, we're going for a run."
Run?
Bella shook off the completely rational lines of fear twisting inside of her mind for the completely irrational calmness that she had always been able to reach in times of utter distortion. Quil would not be in her bedroom, sweeping her away, if there was not a certain urgency.
"Charlie?" She asked breathlessly as she tugged a pair of jeans up her thighs.
"He's gone, already." Quil said, grabbing her jacket from the back of her door and helping her into it.
Bella didn't remember him leaving, but Quil had supernatural senses and she trusted him.
"Ready?" He asked.
"Ready." She confirmed.
With the movement of something inhumane, Quil swept her into his arms and jumped from her window. He handed with the grace of a cat – or, she supposed, a wolf.
Before he sat her down, he hugged her to him like a child.
"Missed you, Bells." Quil breathed into her hair.
"You too, Q." Bella pressed her nails into his shoulder.
At quick as the moment had come, Quil had set her on the ground and started jogging away. "I'll be right back!" He whispered roughly in the darkness.
Bella nodded. Her calves were shaking, but she stood like an anchor in the grass. The darkness was cornering her on all edges and she wished that she had freaky night vision too.
Only a minute later, Quil reemerged from the trees. Only it was not Quil. It was a caramel colored wolf.
It's Quil. Bella remind herself. She had never seen any of them in their wolf forms before. They were huge and she realized while feeling a slight fluctuation in her breathing that they certainly looked like vampire hunters to her.
The wolf gave a small whine and Bella snapped out of whatever trance she had fallen into. She walked with purpose right up to the wolf, feeling the forced calm once again.
"Where to, Scooby doo?" She asked.
The wolf seemed to grin at her, tongue flopping out the side of its mouth. As soon as Bella smiled back, it jerked its head in the general direction of its back.
"You want me to get on your back?" Bella stared at the wolf, who seemed to be highly amused at this point. "Wouldn't that give you back trouble? I don't think wolves are supposed to carry humans."
The wolf huffed at her and gave a low growl. Bella huffed back. She grabbed onto the fur at its neck and threw her leg over its back. The wolf shook itself and Bella settled with a surprising easiness.
"Geronimo." She muttered into its ear.
They took off.
They had only been running for a few minutes when two other shapes emerged from the woods to run parallel to them.
Bella pulled her face from Quil's next to try to get a good look at them, wondering if she would be able to tell the boy underneath the wolf skin.
Alas, they were running too fast – the air was stinging her eyes, creating tears that dried before them even touched her cheeks. The darkness was deeper in the forest. Bella could tell Quil was taking care not to ram her into any low hanging tree branches or rub her leg against thorn bushes. Her cheeks felt bruised by the sheer speed at which they were shredding through the forest.
It vaguely reminded her of Edward.
Bella closed her eyes once again at the ache that made itself known in her chest, pressing her face back into the fur of Quil's neck. The heat that he was emitting was keeping her warm.
Bella allowed herself to think of Edward – the day he had run them to the meadow in the woods. He had been beautiful to her them. Those memories felt tainted now. She thought of Jacob instead – the way he had easily stood himself in between her knees as she sat on the counter. The heat of his hand against her waist.
The running abruptly stopped. The force of it sent Bella tumbling to the ground beside Quil's form, her fingers unable to hold on. She was definitely going to have a bruise on her side.
Quil's wolf whined and moved to cover her from some unknown threat. The threat, Bella was sure, that they were running from in the first place.
There was a wolf next to her now, a speckled gray wolf with black paws. Its fur pressed against her cheek.
Embry. Bella knew without a doubt.
Bella tried to stand up – her knees wobbled, but she grabbed a fistful of each of her wolves' fur to steady herself.
She could see now what they were defending her from.
A vampire stood in front of them, red eyes looking straight into her brown ones.
Oh. Bella thought. Victoria had found her.
Only, her eyes were betraying her. It took her a moment to realize that the figure standing before her was not Victoria. First of all, it was a man. A young man. A boy, probably her age. She tried to open her mouth – to ask this boy why he wanted to kill her – when a blur shot from behind the vampire. The other wolf that had run with them had its teeth deep into the vampire's leg. It screamed.
Bella's whole body shook at the sound.
Quil pulled away from her and took long, sweeping strides to the vampires. Embry moved closer, his gray fur blocking the sight of the fight.
She had fallen to her knees, she realized. She pressed her face into Embry's side.
Bella may not have been able to see the fight, but she could hear. There were screeching sounds that could only be the tearing of vampire limbs. She had a vivid image in her head of Jasper's face contorted in utter rage, eyes black, as he twisted James' head from his body. There was a high pitched whine that could only come from one of the wolves.
She cringed.
Embry made a keening sound in his throat.
Bella had no idea if he was trying to comfort his packmate which had obviously just gotten injured – or the poor girl clinging to his side, unable to hide her terror any longer.
Dear friend,
I haven't had a chance to read your novel yet. I'm sorry, but things have gotten super convoluted for me lately. I have a bruise on my side that's larger than my hand. I am basically the clumsiest person on the planet.
Please don't be worried about the quality of your writing. If it's utter crap, I promise to tell you in a very nice way.
I have been writing a lot more. I think my life has finally started back up again from where I was in neutral for so long. You can't write realistically without life experience, right? That's what my eighth grade writing teacher said, at least. He got fired half way through term for having an affair with one of my classmates, though. I wonder if he used that line on her.
Sometimes you can have too little of a life and sometimes you can have too much of a life.
I'm going to try to take your advice and see myself from other people's perspective. I think I've always been a remarkably self-centered person. I don't mean to be – it's just something that has evolved subconsciously. I'm trying to work on that.
I'm a senior this year, actually. I'm kind of afraid of graduating, because it means that everything is going to chance immensely. On the other hand, I hate high school.
I have absolutely no idea what name to give you. You could just be my friend? My secret friend.
That sounds so middle school.
Yours,
Bee
P.S. You suck.
Bella woke up to utter darkness. Her head was pounding. Her side felt like she had been hit by a truck. There was something pinning her down – on a mattress? She wasn't sure. Everything felt fuzzy, like she was in a dream. She remembered being near Embry – and Quil! He had been there… his wolf was kind of chocolate colored – or caramel. But they had been protecting her from something.
Oh.
A vampire had tried to kill her in the woods.
"Jacob?" Bella tried – her throat felt like sandpaper. She reached to touch the thing pinning her chest to what she officially decided in her mind was a mattress.
It was an arm laying across her chest – a very warm arm, obviously belonging to a wolf.
"Jacob?" She tried again, feeling more desperate.
The arm tightened around her, briefly. A moan sounded beside her – confirming the fact that the body which lay beside her was indeed Jacob. She wondered if it was odd that she could identify him only with the slightest of sounds.
She tried to reach that easiness that had always taken hold when Jacob was around, but it was not there. That scared her.
Bella tried to sit up, but it was impossible.
Suddenly, the door to what Bella discovered was a bedroom was opened, the hall light shining through. Embry stood, surrounded in an unearthly glow as Bella's eyes tried to adjust to the new influx of light.
"Em?" She tried, her voice rough. He looked awful – exhaustion plagued his face. His shoulders hunched with a weight that was too heavy for such a young man. Bella had the strong desire to cry. She had no idea if it was due to Embry's appearance or the current physical pain she was experiencing.
"It's alright, Bells." Embry murmured. He pushed the door all the way open – allowing Bella to see the whole room.
It was Jacob's room, of course. Jacob, himself, was curled up around her on his small mattress, looking like he had just gotten the shit beaten out of him.
Bella's insides froze. No wonder he didn't wake up when she had called for him. No wondered there was no feeling of ease. Jacob, for lack of better terms, looked like he should be dead.
She didn't realize she had started to hyperventilate until Embry was crouching at her bedside, his eyes panicked.
"Shh, Bella – it's okay. It's okay." Embry crooned tiredly, his hand reaching to stroke her hair. He glanced worriedly at Jacob's sleeping form. "He's going to start feeling your distress soon. Please calm down. Everything is okay."
Bella started taking slow breaths. The metaphoric scar in her chest was starting to regress in the healing process.
She could not lose Jacob. She couldn't.
"What happened?" She whispered.
Embry reached behind him for a moment and came back with a cup of water. Bella managed to life her head up high enough to take a sip.
"We were ambushed." Embry whispered back, his eyes falling on Jacob's form.
"The vampire in the woods."
Embry shook his head. "We took care of that one easily. It was unexpected, but not difficult to work around. The problem was, that wasn't the only surprise."
Bella stared at him, not understanding.
Embry, who seemed tired of crouching, stood up and pressed his hand under her head. She obliged and lifted it. She didn't expect him to maneuver himself so her head was resting in his lap and one leg lay parallel to her body, the other still anchoring part of his weight to the floor.
Jacob's bed felt too small already, but somehow Embry had fit himself in. Bella could not bring herself to refuse the safety that Embry provided – Jacob's weak form scared the living daylights of her.
"We caught up with the red haired leech. She was headed right for Forks – Jacob ordered Quil to get you."
Bella nodded, remembering Quil showing up in her bedroom.
"Sam disagreed, of course. Paul agreed with Sam, but Quil was already headed to you. It made no sense for him to turn around when he was so close. Right as the redhead was about to hit your property, she did a sharp turn and headed the opposite direction. We decided that she just got scared and was running away." Embry hand, which had started threading through her hair paused. Bella could practically feel the frustration pouring off of him.
"But that's not what happened." Bella guessed.
"It was a set up. Jared and I stayed behind, to follow you and Quil – just in case, y'know. We didn't expect the second leech, but we handled it. But Jacob, Paul, and Sam were following the redhead. She led them right into a nest of leeches – six of them."
Bella stopped breathing.
"Nobody expected that. They were wild – completely bloodthirsty. Jared and I took off immediately – leaving you with Quil. It made sense – Quil was newly phased and we hadn't really gone through the whole leech dismemberment technique with him. But, Bella, it was awful." There was raw agony in Embry's voice.
"Paul and Sam were working together, and Jacob was…" His cut himself off, his breath harsh. "I always had this feeling of distrust towards them, y'know? They were best friends before they phased, did you know that?"
Bella moved her hand to press into Embry's knee that was next to her side.
"Jake was had four of them on him – Sam and Paul weren't even trying to help him. I got so mad, Bella. Jared and I immediately started pulling them off of him, but he was banged up really badly. It's amazing he didn't get bitten."
Bella turned to look at Jacob. He had once told her they healed quickly. She dreaded to think of how he looked like before.
"I don't know how we managed to kill them all. It all kind of feels like a nightmare now. The redhead got away, of course. Jared and I managed to carry Jacob back here, to you. He was asking for you. He only settled once we got him next to you."
Bella pressed her other hand onto Jacob's arm, which still held her.
"What about Sam? And Paul?" She asked timidly.
"I ordered them away." Embry admitted softly.
"Ordered?"
Embry seemed extremely hesitant to respond. "I don't know how I did it, I swear, I don't. But what they did during that fight – they basically left Jake to die, Bella. I didn't want them anywhere near him. They were bragging about it – how they were more capable or some shit. I just kind of yelled at them shut up and leave. It scared me half to death when they actually listened."
"You gave a command." Bella acknowledged.
"Yeah. But I have no idea how."
Bella pressed her fingers tighter to Embry's knee. "Jacob said that only the alpha and beta have that kind of control over the Pack."
"As far as we know, yeah."
"I – I have a theory, Em." Bella said softly.
Embry's hands resumed their slow track through her hair. "What's your theory?"
"I think you're Jacob's beta."
"No." Bella could practically see Embry violently shaking his head even though he was positioned behind her. "Sam is the beta bloodline. Even when Jacob takes up alpha position, Sam will still be beta. There's no way around it."
"Screw bloodlines." Bella murmured. Her head was pounding. "You've been Jacob second in command since you were toddlers. You guys communicate like you have telepathy or something. I bet that Quil would be whatever the third rank is in wolf language."
Embry was silent for a long moment. Bella eyes began to feel heavy.
"I don't know who my dad is."
Bella blinked up at the ceiling.
"My mom… she refuses to tell me. I always thought it was someone from her tribe – she's not from La Push originally. But then I phased and we knew that I had to be blood related to someone with the wolf gene."
"Do you – do you have any ideas?" Bella's chest ached for him.
"I know that it's not Billy – I know. He would have told me. Besides, he basically adopted me anyway a long time ago. If I was actually his, he wouldn't have hid it from me."
"There must be someone that everyone…" Bella trailed off.
"Joshua Uley…" Embry sucked in a breath. "He ran off after Sam was born – probably one of the reasons he's so fucked up. The rumor is that he toured around other reservations. I think he died from alcohol poisoning a few years ago."
"Em." Bella whispered with her heart in her throat. "You're Jacob's beta."
"We don't know… we don't know that for sure."
"You ordered Sam and Paul away."
"It could be some kind of freak wolf thing that no one knows about because Sam won't read those fucking journals." Embry sounded like all the energy had been sucked from him. Bella's eyes were closed.
"Whatever happens, Em," Sleep clouded her voice, but it was no less firm. "We'll figure it out. Okay?"
"Okay."
When Bella woke for the second time, Embry was gone. Light spilled in from Jacob's bedroom window. She wondered how Jacob got any sleep during the day without curtains. He did a lot of evening patrols, she knew. He surely slept during the day – when he was not at school or with her. She would have to buy him some curtains.
School.
She was supposed to be a school today. She wondered what the boys had come up with as an excuse for her mid-night disappearance that ended up with her in Jacob's bed. With that thought, she turned to the presence still curled around her.
Jacob looked absolutely relaxed in his sleep. Last night, he had looked pained, straining through his injuries. Hours must have past, Bella decided. His face was completely healed up. There were no traces of a fight left on his cheekbones.
Bella, however, could still feel the ache radiating from the side of her body she had landed on when she had fallen off of Quil. She pictured trying to tell Charlie that. Yeah, dad. I fell off of a gigantic wolf and that's why I have all these bruises. He would totally go for that.
Jacob's arm was thrown over her stomach. She was laying on her back. She could feel his chest pressed up against her shoulder. She was very warm, but not uncomfortably so. She had gotten used to lying beside him – he did have a habit of sneaking into her bedroom at night. Unlike Edward, Jacob actually slept.
There was something about allowing yourself to fall asleep in someone's presence that mattered a lot. There was something about being able to sleep with someone that mattered a lot. That you were okay being completely relaxed around them. That you didn't wake each other up in the night. That you were okay when you woke up to find that your bodies had gravitated towards one another sometime in the cover of sleep.
Bella tried to remember moments where she had ever felt uncomfortable with Jacob. There were very few – and the moments that did exist were brief and always because she was slightly crazy.
Bella had accepted that about herself a long time ago.
She wondered where Embry had gone and what had happened to Quil and Jared. She wondered if Sam and Paul were still being held by the order that Embry had somehow inflicted upon them the previous night. She hoped so.
Jacob groaned next to her, shifting so his face was pressed into her neck. He breathed in deeply. Bella hummed softly to him, stroking her fingers across his arm that was laying across her stomach.
Jacob tried to clear his throat. She could feel his lips moving slightly against the column of her throat.
"I think there might be water on the table over here." Bella murmured to him, her voice low.
Jacob just scooted closer to her, his arm tightening around her, his lips pressed a kiss into her shoulder, over her t-shirt. She flinched as Jacob's fingers pressed against what had to be a very large bruise on her side.
Immediately, as if she had burned him, Jacob flew off of her. Before she could comprehend what was happening, Jacob was off the bed and standing in front of it, looking at her in slight horror.
"What's wrong?" Bella rushed out, sitting up. Her side protested with the movement, but she ignored it for the sake of Jacob's state of mind. "Jake?"
Jacob seemed to shake himself out of whatever state he had fallen into, instead staring at her with a gaze so intense it made her feel exposed in a way she had never thought possible.
"Did I hurt you?" His voice was husky.
"No, of course not." Bella said quickly, standing up when she realized Jacob was not moving back towards her.
"But," Jacob looked utterly confused. Concern poured from him. Bella could almost feel it as if it was her own emotion. "You're in pain. I can feel it."
Not stopping to consider how Jacob would feel her pain, Bella pressed her palms into his chest and kissed him, right above his heart.
"I fell off of a wolf last night. I think I've got a bruise on my side. It's just tender, that's all." She reassured him, softly.
Jacob's whole body gave way and he wrapped his arms around her like a protective shelf, careful not to press against her side too hard, and trapped her against his chest. She wasn't complaining. He pressed his face into her hair, like he always did. She exhaled into his collarbone.
They stood like that for a long time.
"It's going to be okay." She promised him, her voice a broken whisper. "Everything going to be okay."
Jacob didn't reply.
Beloved Bee,
I am glad that you have such high expectations of my writing. It's nice to know that I'm being supported.
I'm kidding.
I've always believed that low expectations are better than high expectations – that way you're always surprised and rarely disappointed.
No worries about not having read my (amazing) novel. Things are pretty crazy for me right now too. Everything seems to have been slammed down on me at once. I feel like the world is spinning backwards, the oceans are standing up out of their designated place, and the moon might actually be made of cheese.
That is probably one of the oddest sentences I have ever written. It's true though.
I think you are completely right about the life experiences thing. It's easier for me to write things I've actually lived through – or someone I know has lived through. When someone is able to share their thoughts with you about an experience, it's almost like having the experience yourself.
At least that's how it is for me. I may be in a unique position though. Most of the people I hang out with are kind of vivid storytellers, you could say.
You don't seem very self-centered to me. But, on the other hand, I think everyone is somewhat self-centered. It's impossible not to be. And you need to be in some cases – looking after yourself is sometimes the only option. Especially if you're tied to someone closely – looking after yourself means, in part, looking after them. I'm sure I'm self-centered too.
At least we're both aware of it.
I am definitely looking forward to graduating. I understand your hesitation, though. I'm still not certain on what is going to be happening as far as my future. I'm trying to stay hopeful. But, like I said, low expectations.
Your friend,
your secret friend
P.S. You should work on your insults.
