I had entered almost a meditative state, a robot going through the motions not unlike the one I had when Edward left me what felt like so many years ago, but I knew how to cope this time. I had Leah watching out for me and sleeping over at my house and making me laugh. Today was the first time in two weeks I was left on my own.
I saw Charlie step into my room and mouth something while holding the black receiver out towards me.
"What?" I asked, pulling off my headphones.
"Phone. It's for you." He said. "You must have had that music up pretty loud." He grinned. I took the phone and he left the room
I put it up to my ear without saying anything.
"Bella!" Alice's unforgettable voice was almost subdued in what sounded like excitement. Probably an order from Edward to not be overexcited.
"Hey Alice. What's up?" I asked, sitting back from my work.
"Just wondering how you've been." Her voice rose as she could barely contain herself.
"I've been better."
"Yeah."
"So, why'd call me?"
"Just to make sure."
"Sure of what?" I asked, but I was suddenly speaking to dead air. I hung up the phone and set it down, confused of what exactly was happening. Alice always had something brewing.
Forgetting about the Alice thing, I looked back at my computer. I moved my mouse towards the submit button, clicked it and closed my shiny Cullen-gifted Macbook. I didn't know if I could wait for those results to come back, but I decided to forget about it for the time being.
I walked towards the closet to throw a cardigan over my tank top. It was getting a little cold in the house. As I put my second arm through and turned around, I stopped cold.
Sitting in my windowsill was the person I had tried to forget about in the last few months. He stared at me with black eyes. His clothing was immaculate. Not a wrinkle. His hair was tousled more so than usual and it seemed he hadn't fed in a while, the only indication that he may have been having a hard time with the breakup.
"Edward." I gasped, the blood rushing from my face.
"I've missed you." He said lowly in his musical voice.
"And I've tried to forget about you. What are you doing here?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
"I've been watching you from afar. I wanted to talk to you again."
I stood by my desk, hands on my hips.
"Don't come any closer." I warned. He ignored me and came all the way into my room, sitting down on the edge of the rocking chair, his posture perfect, his hands resting lightly on his knees. Just like he had said he spent his nights on before we dated. I sighed, not ready for this piled on top of everything else.
"Your dog–" He started.
"Don't call him a dog." I hissed. He sighed.
"Jacob has imprinted on another poor girl. Which means the two of you cannot be together anymore. I've told you I would step back until he did imprint, then we could be together again. Now he has and we can start building our life right where we left off."
"I left the wedding for a reason." I said lowly. Edward just sniffed, putting on a show for me.
"It smells like a different scent of dog in here. The girl one."
"Leah's my friend. I dare you to say anything hurtful about her, because she's been one of the only people there for me. That list also doesn't include you."
Edward was in front of me in a flash. His cold hand cupped the side of my face. I leaned back.
"I'd rather not be touched right now." My assuredness was surprising me.
"My love, I want you not to hurt. I want to make you happy. Since you can't be happy with–" Edward took a breath "Jacob, then you should be happy with someone. I want to be here for you"
"Edward, I–" I started, but he got down on one knee, his black eyes staring up into mine.
"Take me back, Isabella, please. It kills me to live without you, and I know I can try to make you happy. You can stay human, I can change you without us being married, you can do whatever you wish. Just let me try." He was begging, I realized with a start. Such a change from years ago, when he was the calm, assured one with a steely resolve and I was the one frantic to keep him mine.
The pain in his eyes was obvious. I had to look away.
"Okay…" I said.
Edward shot back up, looking hopeful.
"Okay?"
"Okay I'll think about it." I said, exasperated. After all, if I couldn't be happy with Jake, and I couldn't lead Seth on then why not spend my short life with someone who liked torturing themselves? Someone who liked being a monster?
Edward smiled at me and took my hand, lifting it up towards his chest. He reached underneath his collared shirt and set something in my hand. I looked down at the icy ring he had proposed to me with on a chain.
"I didn't give you an affirmative." I said softly.
"It's not an engagement ring, think of it more as a promise ring, something to represent our relationship again."
"I'd like you to leave now." I said, closing my eyes and tightening my fist around the ring.
"I'll be waiting by my phone for you to call." He said, stepping closer to me. He placed a chaste kiss on my lips – one that I didn't return.
"Bye." I said, and only opened my eyes after I was sure he was gone
The overwhelming feeling of my past being dragged back up and the current state of my life was all too much for me at the moment. Dealing with Edward had shoved it all to the surface again. In the worst way.
I clutched at my chest, clawing at my stomach. The big dark hole in my abdomen was enough to make me drop down to the floor, ring tumbling away under the bed, tears streaming from my eyes, dragging my whole body downwards, again, gravity taking control. My forehead hit my floor with a thunk in an upright fetal position, my eyes squeezed tight, my throat barely able to help me breathe. I heaved and cried and entire body-racking sobs escaped me.
Suddenly, my body was being dragged from the floor, I was weightless. I was warm, verging on hot. Strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me into a tight chest. The earthy scent was enough to make me sob even harder.
"Bella" Jake's voice was dull as he tried to comfort me. I stayed encased in his powerful grip while I got ahold of myself again, then slowly disentangled myself from his arms. I moved backwards away from him, wiping at my nose with the back of my hand.
I was far back enough away from Jake to get a good look at him through my blurry eyes. He was kneeling, his hair was standing on end all over his head. He looked at me through sunken eyes as dull as his voice. He had deep dark circles around his eyes. He seemed to fold in on himself, looking small and hopeless, but at the same time feral and raw.
He looked utterly tortured. His face was nowhere near the calm serenity you saw with the other imprinted wolves.
"Jake." My voice was rough from my sobbing.
"Bella, my Bella." Jake whispered hoarsely. He reached out half-heartedly toward me then dropped his hand.
"It took so long. To get you. I want you. You're mine." Jake's tone was jagged as his body seemed – impossibly – to fold in on itself. "I need you."
"I….I can't" I replied, a fresh wave of tears streaming down my face. I was powerless to stop it.
"Mine" Jake whispered again. "I tried so hard. So hard to imprint on you."
"You didn't." I whispered back.
"I choose not to accept it." The sentence was strangled, almost like a last breath before dying. I could see even though he said it, his very being fought against the words, the very thought. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a feral growl.
He looked up again and his eyes were raw with emotion, of longing and regret and pain.
"From the very first day I knew you I wanted to end up with you. How can this be?"
With that very sentence, fat tears started streaming out of his eyes. He let out a dark sob. I had never seen Jake cry. His whole life was the sunny smile. He hadn't even cried after the newborn fight when he was broken, and when I had broken him further. He remained stoic and strong, like the Jake I knew.
"I wanted you to be mine. I fought for you. I pained. I was so happy when I had you."
"But it's not enough." I replied, looking away.
"I…I don't know what to do." Jake said, almost gasping for air.
"I gave my all to you, Jake. I poured my heart and soul and everything I had into loving you. I left my own wedding because I knew inside that you would be perfect for me. On the mountain, that day of the fight, yeah, you wanted me the night before, but when we kissed I saw a future for us. That was the day I fell completely and wholly and irreplaceably in love with you. Then you imprinted! On another girl!" My throat constricted and suddenly my voice was small "A girl who isn't me."
Jake's dark eyes stared at me, tortured. I was surprised at myself for pouring my heart out to him, admitting every feeling I've ever had for him. I was also slapping myself because I was making myself vulnerable to him again. When I had tried so hard to fight it.
Jake with another girl.
The pain in my chest grew sharper and larger causing me to involuntarily gasp.
Jake inhaled sharply, causing me to look at him. He seemed to steel himself, pulling his shoulders down and pushing his chest out with a puff.
"Kiss me." He said lowly, a command. She felt the timbre of his Alpha heritage in the two words.
"What?"
"Kiss me."
We were on our knees facing each other, him still, waiting for my response and staring intently at me.
As soon as I started moving toward him, there was a multitude of things happening at once. Jake's arms were around me, pulling me closer to his body, our lips crashing against each other in a mix of salty tears and tongues and hands. Our bodies couldn't get close enough, though our chests were pressed tightly and pulling tighter, my legs wrapped around his waist.
My heart was exploding. I was both turned on and turned off, not able to make sense of what was happening but not wanting it to stop. There was a feeling of finality to it, I hated to think. It was a while before we separated.
"I'm not h-happy." Jake said. "I feel… complete, but not happy." His gaze was towards the floor and the look on his face was one of embarrassment.
"We're both not happy. That's life and I can't keep you from what you're destined." It felt weird being the reasonable one in this situation, the one keeping it – for the most part – together.
"It just makes it worse when I think about it, when I think about you." His eyes brightened slightly. "We could be together still. We can do it." But they darkened again and his voice took on the tone of a maniac.
"Remember what you told me that day you told me about imprinting?" I said, making my voice soft. Jake shook his head sharply, looking away from my eyes, but I knew he did. That was a big day for both of us, sharing that kind of information. "About how Sam did love Leah, but that didn't matter anymore. More absolute than love at first sight."
"You're absolute. You're my soul mate."
"You two." I couldn't bring myself to say her name. The one that took my true love away from me. "Are made to fit together like puzzle pieces. Remember how right you are, because of this, for each other."
"This is different. There is hardly the level of adoration and commitment I recognize." He took my hand. "I don't want to see that face of accusation on you."
"You are imprinted." I pointed a finger at him.
"I love you." Jake said, enunciating every syllable. That much I absolutely knew was true. He could say that without cracking.
"I love you so much Jake." I gulped "It doesn't change anything. Sorry." I said, echoing his words to me after I had taken Edward back three years ago. He immediately recognized them, the angry letter back to me, crossed out starts to sentences and his brows furrowed.
He let out a loud angry growl and was suddenly gone from my bedroom. I looked around in shock, still able to smell his warm, spicy scent in the bedroom. The room cooled, inexplicably with his absence.
JACOB
"Doesn't change anything, sorry." Bella said, her brown eyes speaking an ocean of hurt. Hurt caused by what I did. It was the same words I wrote to her, after she had chosen Edward Cullen. That bloodsucker. We had been so close to being together again, and she had run off with the short girl. With Alice.
I had been so angry, trying to figure out what to say to her. We had both been unreasonable. I had gone through six pens writing back to her. I knew the meaning behind those words and it filled me with a rage.
My Bella. Not my impr… Not mine.
I roared, my entire body shaking with rage and anger and leapt out the window before I made the mistake of phasing indoors. I had shuddered into my wolf form before I hit the ground and took off as soon as my paws hit. A montage of images of my Bells. Her face, crumpling in pain as she realized what that moment with Renelle meant, her crying face at Quil's, Leah's memory of her soft sleeping head on her chest.
The pain ripped through me, pictures flashing in my head. My wolf needed Renelle, my body ached for the imprint by my side. I would not accept it, but it was driving me crazy. I could tell. I could hardly think in full sentences, the fact that I hadn't accepted it ripped through my body like a wave of electricity. It was painful and it was making me crazy. A thunderstorm of emotions ripped through my head, making me unable to breathe, unable to think.
Hey Jake Sam said tentatively. I could feel the waves of worry emanating from him. Why don't you come home.
No I practically growled. Sam sighed, returning to patrol, but keeping an eye on me.
It was true, I had been staying out in the woods without moving by Bella's house for about two weeks, listening to her move around the house, hearing her heartbeat, her bouts of painful sobbing, her trying to laugh with Leah. The urge to head to Quil's to see Renelle was overwhelming, pulling my paws towards it before I knew what was happening. It was almost magical. It was getting impossible to resist it. I dug my snout into the dirt on the ground
"Hey Jake." Embry said, his low voice clear in my ears. "Phase back?"
I shook my giant head, rolling onto my side with a huff. Embry sat down next to me, leaning against a large oak.
"It's been really … hard for the rest of us to see you like this. We've seen it before, but it's harder this time. Renelle can feel the pull toward you, she wants to explore whatever this is with you."
I snorted in reply.
"Your thoughts are unintelligible. Your face is crazed. You think like a maniac, like someone being tortured – but you…you're torturing yourself." Em looked at me, I could see his pity in his eyes, but his face was the practised mask inherited from Sam's training. "You can let Bella go, so you can both start healing. You can be happy. You can accept it. Accept your imprint." Embry swallowed. "If you don't, we're not sure what'll happen. We're worried. We're worried you could die. Please accept it."
"No." I growled at him, phasing back to human. I knew that this tough love talk was from Sam. Embry had been nominated as the one to approach me.
"Jake" Embry said slowly, hesitantly.
"I don't accept. Bella. She's mine. Mine. So long. She Renelle. I can't."
"You don't have to make it this hard." Embry said, exasperated. "It's confusing for us to be phased with you, man. You're driving yourself crazy."
I roared again, running a hand through my hair and rubbed at my eyes.
"Come back to the res, please." Embry said softly. He took off his shorts and phased, flipping his big head, his yellow eyes staring at me. The feral feeling in my head made it easy to phase.
Does she know? I wondered, speaking only to Embry.
No. She's yours to tell. Embry replied carefully.
Mine. No. I shook my head. Not mine. Bella's mine. But she's not.
I messed it up, I did it this time. I was the one causing the pain. I had spent so long convincing her to be mine and she finally had been. Bella had said as much. It hurt her as well to be so vulnerable again.
My paws hit the ground with soft thuds as I followed Embry to Sam's. It was cathartic to be running again after two weeks pent up on the ground beside Bella's house, not moving an inch.
I could smell it a while before we arrived, but it took a while to sink in. The sweetest, best scent in the world. My mind was slow, laboured. It was split between two forms of agony, ones that didn't exactly leave me clear in the head.
I phased back, something that took a lot of concentration lately. Jared, waiting outside, threw a pair of shorts at me. I could hear the pack chatting and stuffing their faces and as I walked in the door it hit me. Renelle was waiting here. I staggered, clutching my chest, breathing deeply. She smelled inexplicably like mint and raspberries, my favourite scents. My face contorted with the effort to stay in place. To either gather Renelle into my arms or run back to Bella's house and hold her close.
She stared at me then, which was what rooted me to place. I felt the hole in my chest, in my stomach fold me over. I couldn't stand up straight, like my abs were failing to hold me up. Her brown eyes so much like Bella's. So tender, caring and full of selfless compassion.
Embry put a hand on my shoulder from behind me. Emily rushed over, putting a soft hand on my face.
"Oh Jake. It's so nice to see you back here." She said, letting out a lot of emotion, which, from the look on Sam's face, was way too much. "Eat please."
I almost threw up. The very thought of eating made me sick. I couldn't, I wasn't hungry and I would throw it back up. I shook my head, tasting the bile in my mouth. My appetite was gone along with the one relationship I had wanted my entire life.
"Sweetie please." Emily begged, offering me a pie plate with an entire quiche in it. Sam intervened then, taking the pie softly out of her hands and kissing her on the cheek. I could see Quil playing distraction with Renelle, but she looked a little antsy. Her tiny heart fluttered, the only sound I could focus on in the room.
Sam gave me a sympathetic look. Even Paul was staying out of his way, choosing to remain back with Jared and Brady and Collin, making bets on something that I couldn't be bothered to listen to right now. Leah glowered at me from a corner with Kim.
Seth walked up to me then, a cautious look on his normally carefree face.
"Hey Jake." He said cautiously, looking almost guilty.
"Hey." I replied to Seth, but couldn't keep my eyes anywhere in the room but trained on Renelle. Her soft hair cascading down her back in loose curls, her soft, heart shaped face. Her full lips. I shook my head.
"Jake I gotta tell you something man." Seth said solemnly. Sam started forward but Seth gave him a look. I noticed Sam move closer to me, slowly.
"What." I replied, my mind elsewhere, distracted.
"Bella… The other day she" My eyes snapped to Seth as he mentioned my love's name. "She kissed me."
"She what?" I roared, growling lowly at Seth. I understood the reason for Embry staying close and Sam moving closer. Their hands were on me in seconds, dragging me backwards out the door.
"Seth's been ordered not to phase while you've been gone. We've begged him not to tell you. It was some pride big-brother thing." Embry said, his voice low in my ear.
"It was a spur of the moment thing." Sam's face was solemn as he recalled the moment he found Bella in the woods. "My guess is that she wanted to feel. You broke the last parts of her heart."
"You have no fucking right to get angry about that." Leah yelled, flying out the door. "She doesn't belong to you anymore!"
"Mine!" I roared at her comment. My heart felt like it was shattering again. I should be used to pain by now.
"No! Not yours. Not yours anymore Jacob Black." Leah was in my face now, her finger poking into my chest with every word. "Not since the moment you imprinted."
"Enough." Sam ordered. Leah backed off.
"What's going on?" Renelle's clear voice carried across the yard. My eyes snapped to her, standing in the doorway. Brady and Collin were peering out behind her and Paul and Jared, both of whom I hadn't noticed were helping holding me down with Sam and Embry. Quil stood at the bottom of the stairs to the deck, staring at me.
I calmed down immediately, looking into her soft, determined eyes. Still torn, my wolf yearned for her, to go to her. I shook my head again, squeezing my eyes shut. I heard Quil giving her some explanation.
No. I wish I had never looked her in the eyes. But I did. My mate, the one. I shut down, sagging towards the ground. But I had enough hands on me that I never dropped. Embry and Jared uprighted me again with a grunt.
"You little pussy." Paul let out a barking laugh. I didn't react.
"You'll kill yourself if you keep going on like this, Jacob." Sam said, his authoritative voice cutting through me. I let out a small cry. "If only you could see yourself. Let yourself be happy."
"I c-can't." I cried.
Sam let go of me, walking around to face me. He stepped closer and started talking in a low voice. Heard by the entire pack, but the girls were clueless.
"No one knows what you're going through, no one has not accepted their imprint. Ever. I thought Leah was the one. The one I would have spent my life with, the love of my life but I tossed her away like she was nothing. I do know that you can kill yourself with the agony you're in. I was in that situation when I hurt Emily. I wanted to die. I almost killed myself. But you can't, because you can't leave your imprint alone in this world. I know you feel the attachment, the pull. She feels it too. Look at her. She's aching to come near you." Sam gestured behind him blindly. Indeed, Renelle was trying to get away from Quil to come over.
I stared into Sam's eyes. Full of sympathy and compassion and authority. I looked at Renelle, and back at Sam.
"The need is too great." I said.
"Your feelings for Bella were stronger than I've ever seen between two normal people – akin to an imprint. But you know how much it hurts her to see you in pain like this."
"I fucking want Bella."
"Your wolf wants Renelle." Sam said, a little louder, a little angrier, heightening into a yell. "Imagine your life, choosing Bella a year down the road. Every moment you're thinking of Renelle. You're pining for her, you're dying. Look at yourself in the mirror, Jacob."
Feeling the other three let go of me, I stood forward. Emily tossed Sam a handheld mirror and he held it up in front of me.
I stared into a hollow face. Full of emotion and devoid of emotion at the same time. Dark circles under my eyes, sallow, sunken look. That wasn't me. It couldn't be.
I looked away, turning my head and stalked towards the house. I stared at Renelle, and brushed past her, almost running to the bathroom, locking the door behind myself.
