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The next two months were wonderful. Jacob and I kept pretty much to ourselves, hanging out at his place and at the beach. He was everything I wanted and needed- in every sense of the phrase.
That was just it, though.
I sat on my bed, staring at the little white stick. Two lines. My mind was blank.
Two hours later, I woke up to Charlie calling my name downstairs. Scrambling, I threw the test under my bed and ran downstairs before he could come up to my room.
"Jacob called," he informed me, his eyes glued to the TV. "I didn't want to wake you up, but I figured after the third time that it must be important. He's still on the line."
For a second, I couldn't breathe. Slowly, I made myself walk into the kitchen. From where I was standing, Charlie could still see me, so I stretched the cord to its limit before speaking into it. "Hello?" I said tentatively.
"Bella!" Jake sounded relieved. "Charlie said you were asleep. It's two o'clock!"
"Yeah," I answered distantly.
There was an awkward silence, during which I usually would have explained my sudden lethargy. But I didn't.
"So… do you want to come over?" he asked.
"Ok."
"Ok." Another silence. "So, I'll see you in a few."
"Yeah." I hung up the phone.
Charlie called into the kitchen, "Bells? What did he want?"
I stopped my run up the stairs to change. "He, uh, just wanted me to come over. I'm leaving in a few minutes."
"Oh, ok."
Maybe I was just being paranoid, but all of a sudden everything was slow and unreal. I was just about to head back downstairs and out to my truck, but something made me stop and fish out the little white stick from under my bed. Trying not to look at it, I shoved it in my jacket pocket and raced back down the stairs.
"Bye, Dad!" I called as I rushed out the door.
Once I got out of the house, though, I wasn't really in any hurry to get to the Blacks'. I knew I had to tell Jacob, and I wasn't looking forward to it. I wasn't even ready to accept it myself, yet. So I drove about fifteen miles an hour all the way to La Push.
Jake was waiting on the front porch for me. When I didn't immediately get out of the truck, he walked over to my door with a concerned expression.
"Bells, are you ok?" His forehead was wrinkled with a frown. I took a deep breath, fished around in my jacket pocket, and flicked the wretched thing at him.
His face curious, he plucked it out of the air and grinned at me before turning his attention to it. After a few delayed seconds, though, his smile faded. He stood there for almost a full minute before saying, "What- what is this?" I looked down, suddenly very interested in the steering wheel. "Is this a- is this a pregnancy test?" I couldn't make myself meet his unbelieving gaze. "Bella." I bit my lip. "Bella!!" Jake opened the truck door, reaching up to my chin and forcing me to look at him. And just like that, I was crying. But he wasn't reaching for me, comforting me like he always had before. Through my tears, I jerked myself away from him. Really, I can't exactly blame him for slapping me like he did.
I gasped, finally looking into his eyes. "Isabella," he said, his voice hard. "Are you trying to tell me that you're- we're- pregnant?"
"Stop saying that," I blurted. He squinted at me.
"From what I gather, it's the truth." That hung in the air for a moment before he added, "Right?" All I could do was nod, and then I was sobbing again. Finally, he heaved himself up into the truck and wrapped his arms around me, like I'd wanted him to do all along. When my tears ran dry, he whispered, "You can do whatever you feel like you need to, Bella. I'll support you either way."
This, I hadn't even thought about. I was just now starting to register the fact that there was a baby inside me, and I hadn't even considered what I was going to do about it. "Well," I stammered, lifting my head from his shoulder. "I guess I could, you know, nip it in the bud."
"You could." There was no inflection in his voice; he wasn't giving me anything to go from.
"Or there's, um, the alternate." Suddenly, I saw that same vision from so long ago, from when Jake and I were standing in the clearing, just before he went off to fight the newborns. I saw the little black heads, playing around in the yard. And I knew what I was going to do.
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Ever since the first day, Jacob and I hadn't talked about our situation. I knew eventually we were going to have to tell our parents, but I still had no idea how one did that. I didn't think throwing the pregnancy test at Charlie was going to work out like it did with Jake.
So we just didn't bring it up. Mostly now, we sat without talking on his couch, just holding each other and staring blankly at the TV. I buried my head in his warm chest, and he wrapped his huge arms around me. This was my favorite place to be. I pushed away the thought that one day soon, I wouldn't fit here anymore.
"Jake!" Suddenly, Paul burst through the Blacks' front door, stumbling in. "The bloodsucker's back. We need you, now."
I looked up at Jake, startled. His eyes searched Paul's for a moment, and then he got up and walked toward the door. "Stay here, Bella," he commanded, his voice somewhere near a growl.
"What's going on?" I asked, but they were already gone. So I trudged into Jacob's room and lay down on his bed, hoping I would fall asleep. But every time I got close, I would hear a low howl from the woods, and all efforts were ruined.
Was it Alice who had come back again? It seemed like forever since Jake had told me to stay away from her. But that hadn't been a problem, because I hadn't heard anything of her since. Why would she come back now? I shivered when I pictured her dark, tiny figure standing alone in the night.
I was saved, though, when Billy came home. I heard the wheels of his wheelchair squeaking across the old hardwood, so I came out to meet him. "Hey, Billy," I called, plopping back down on the couch.
"Where's Jake?" he asked casually. I bit my lip, nervous again.
"Paul said that they, um, needed him." Billy glanced at me from the kitchen, but didn't say anything, instead opening the refrigerator.
I jumped up, asking, "Hey, do you want me to make dinner?"
For a second, he just looked at me. "We don't have many ingredients."
"Oh, I'm sure I can find something." I tried to make my voice sound cheerful. All I really wanted was something to do to distract me from my worrying. I think Billy sensed that, because he rolled out of the kitchen and into the living room to make room for me. I reopened the fridge, slowing scanning its contents. Billy hadn't been lying. In the end, I decided to make cheese quesadillas, which didn't take nearly as long as I'd hoped. When I carried his plate out to the living room, though, I stopped in my tracks.
Billy was holding the little white pregnancy test, staring at it as if he didn't know what it was. I caught my breath, but he didn't look at me. It seemed like forever that I stood there, the hot plate almost burning my hand, before he said, "Bella? Do you know anything about this?"
The heat from his dinner was getting really uncomfortable now. "Yes," I answered quietly. I didn't know what else to say.
"Is it yours?" He finally looked at me, so I just nodded. "And Jacob's?" I bobbed my head once. "Oh." Neither of us knew what to do, so I just set down his plate on the coffee table. He stared at it for a minute, before asking, "Are you going to keep it?"
I turned my attention to the television, biting my lip and nonchalantly saying, "Oh, you know, I just couldn't see the justice in the alternate. So um, yeah."
I heard a gust of air as Billy blew out. "Does Charlie know?"
Nervous again, I fiddled with a loose thread on my shirt. "We haven't told him yet," I replied, trying to emphasize the we. No way on earth did I want Charlie to hear about this from Billy.
"Oh." After an awkward moment of silence, he said, "I didn't know that you guys were-"
"Yeah." I cut him off, definitely not wanting to hear those words out of Billy's mouth. Luckily, I was saved, because Jake chose that moment to walk through the door. He looked tired, and even more so when he saw what Billy was holding. Glancing from his father, to me, and back again, his eyes didn't change. None of us said anything as he came and sat down on the couch, and I took my place in his lap. I touched my stomach, which still looked the same. Both men were looking at it, too, as if expecting a baby to spring forth at any moment. Soon enough, I thought.
Yeah, ok, this is weird, but I needed to have something happening alongside the action of Alice coming back. I couldn't just have Bella sitting around, could I? So, review, please! I need to know what you guys think about this!
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