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I feel like an old timer, sitting on this porch in a weather-worn rocking chair. All I need is a dog at my feet and a pipe in my hands.

This is my first winter anywhere besides home, and the lack of sunlight does take some getting used to. Even now, the sun is already beginning to fade, a washed out glow barely lingering around the edges. Still, it's pretty, watching the snow glisten soft. My new world is hushed, quiet, all sound absorbed by the blankets of white.

In the grand scheme of things, I won't be in Alaska long. It's nearly February now, and by May I will have graduated. I guess I'm lucky to be able to finish at all… my behavior was screwed up enough to get me kicked out, but my grades are stellar enough to get me back in. I'd hoped my aunt and uncle would just home school me the way they do my cousins, but two days after I arrived I was enrolled at Ketchikan High.

Sighing, I sit up off the rocking chair just enough so I can scrape it forward. I rest my heavily insulated boots on the cracked wood rail in front of me, focusing on the way the air puffs around my face each time I breathe.

I want to be angry right now, but I'm just tired. I don't even have the luxury of resentment; outside of my parents, Alice…and Emmett… Uncle Garrett and Aunt Kate are the family I'm closest too. I've always liked them better than any of my other aunts and uncles, even my grandparents. He's a park ranger and she stays home with their twin girls; they say what they mean and they mean what they say. They love me, but they don't coddle me. They grieved just like the rest of us when Em disappeared but they don't pity me.

And if Uncle Garrett ever caught me smoking or high, he'd kick my ass. Physically.

So, it's time to cowboy up.

I snort, thinking about that idiot, Jasper Hale… he's definitely all up in Alice now that I'm gone.

My smile fades faster than the ebbing sunlight.

Useless.

I am useless.

I couldn't protect my brother or his goddess of a girlfriend from whatever happened to them. I couldn't protect Bella from the scum of Forks like Mike Newton…and now I can't even protect my disturbingly nubile baby sister from being bedded by slick cowboy types.

The door behind me opens and closes and I can tell by the softer footsteps it's Maggie, slightly younger of the two girls. She walks over to me, glancing between my lap and my face until I drop my legs with a thud. She scoots quickly onto my lap, her mittened hands grabbing at my jacket like I'm some kind of jungle gym.

Like a little cat, she shifts around until she's comfortable, staring up at me with the tactlessness that only little kids can get away with.

"Whatcha doon?"" she asks, pursing her lips as she pokes at my chin.

"Thinking," I say. She's so cute.

"People think all the time," she observes, looking out onto the white front yard. "You don't have to sit down to do it."

I laugh, because, that's true.

"Mhm," I nod, smelling her hair. Mr. Bubbles.

"Do you like it in here?" she says, sticking her little leg out.

"It's okay," I shrug. "I like the cold."

"Me too."

"I like when you share your cookies with me," I add, tugging her straw blonde hair.

"You steal them," she says primly.

"You let me," I say.

She giggles. "'Cause I love you."

Her giddiness makes me for-real smile and we sit there in reverent silence, watching the world dim. I think about what she says, how she lets me take her cookies because she loves me. People do that, I realize. We let people hurt us when we love them, sometimes. Obviously, I'm not really hurting Maggie…but I hurt my parents and Alice.

And Bella.

I was always honest with Bella, never led her on, and never mistreated her…until the end, anyway. Her weakness turned my stomach, got under my skin, so much so that I sought ways to chip away at her stubborn resolve, her need for me.

Need and weakness are linked, aren't they?

But maybe she wasn't weak at all. Maybe she was actually just as strong as I was. It's got to be scary, offering parts of yourself that way, even when you've been rejected. Maybe that's strength.

Or maybe I was as weak as she was, building walls so nothing could get in and hurt me more. Maybe I was weak.

Over thinking hurts my head so I push it away, wishing I had a bowl to smoke. I'll be able to make contacts at school on Monday, sniff out who has what. This is a small town, so I'll have to watch my back. They don't know me, so they won't trust me, and they all know my uncle. People here like him, respect him.

So maybe I'll leave the pot alone. Maybe I just need to own this… whatever it is.

Maybe I need to find a warm and willing girl.

"Can we go in now?" Maggie shivers, cowering from the cold.

"Oh, sh-um, yeah. Come on," I say, standing abruptly with her in my arms. Even with the all the outerwear she weighs about as much as a feather.

"Were you gonna cuss?" she whisper-giggles, her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist.

"Mhm," I smile, not insulting her instinct and intelligence by fibbing.

She kisses my cheek as we go inside, the warm air hitting me so good it hurts.

"Dinner in ten," Aunt Kate says, peeking out from the kitchen. She grins as her little one jumps from my arms and scurries away.

"Okay," I smile back. I feel pathetically empty now with no tiny person to hold.

How sad.

Bella.

She let me hurt her because she loved me.

And... I let her.