Hey, new update for Burning Solstice after this pointless author's note stating what you already knew.
PLT!
~AliceSwift
I couldn't believe what was happening.
I was trying to spread the blood over the ashes, large clumps of dark flakes were poking through the blood, mixing with the particles that it wasn't supposed to.
She was trying to help, but I knew she could barely see what she was doing. Her tears were flying this way and that, also combining with the ashes.
"It's not working Jacob, she died for nothing. She died for him and it was a waste!" She snarled at me. I looked up at her then. Her eyes were filled with all sorts of emotion. Rage, sorrow, loss. She stormed off and I watched her walk away. I wondered how she felt in comparison to me. Hadn't she wanted him to be alive, to come back? I hadn't. I had spent years praying that he would dissappear. Now, when he finally was gone I was going to try to get him back?
Yeah.
Right.
Well if she was going to leave I wasn't going to sit here, standing over a dead bloodsucker and try to bring him back to life. Or undead life. Existence. I wasn't going to try to bring him back to existence if she wasn't going to. We were sworn enemies I wasn't really going to help them out was I?
Or was I?
What would Bella want you to do? A small voice in the back of my head asked.
And there it was.
The voice that would forever keep me loving Isabella Swan. I couldn't believe I listened but I spread the blood and mixed the ashes in. I waited and waited and finally gave up.
Well, the day was done. I could now go home, sit on the couch, and watch T.V. I would spend the night sleeping instead of researching things to make her happy. Things to bring him back.
I could go back to the way things were. There were only two things that had kept me going when I was away. First, the fact that if I decided to quit half way through, the pack, especially Leah, or so I thought at the time, would never stop torturing me about it. And when you can transform forever, never is a pretty long time. And the other was Bella. She was the one thing, as ironic as it might be with her immortality, that kept me alive. Whenever I was down, I thought of her and how, even though it would never beat again, her heart kept shining in her smile, her laugh, her happiness and every move she made.
When I came back, nothing was the same. Nothing.
Not Bella.
Not me.
As I paced back an forth in the living room, contemplating what to do, somewhere in the back of my head there was something that reminded me of Leah.
The note that she gave me suddenly weighed a thousand pounds in my back pocket.
I reached back in my pocket, shocked by how familiar the denim fabric and crisp paper felt in my hands.
I opened it up and the paper rubbing against my fingers was the only sound. It seemed to echo in the empty room, as if people for miles could hear it.
Leah's note, her handwriting scribbled across the page. I wondered if she had put thought into it, or if it was something that she jotted down before she walked in.
As I read it I found tears in my eyes. I found thoughts that had never belonged to Leah, but then did. I couldn't believe she felt the way she did all this time. I couldn't believe she had done what she had, and for them. To help the leeches, great. Now that's how everyone would remember her. Not as the noble one who died for the enemy. But as a wimp who had fallen for the opposite side's trick.
"Jacob." I heard a familiar voice say. I turned to face him. Edward Cullen.
"Edward." I said reluctantly. Shaking, trying to keep my voice steady as the white hot anger started to bubble it's way through my pores and transform me.
"Where's Bella?" he asked feverishly.
"You don't deserve her. Too many people have suffered to bring you back. Too many perfectly good hearts have stopped beating for you and here you stand, still selfish." I said sobbing.
"I somehow doubt that asking if my wife is alive or not is being selfish now where is she?" he stormed to me and our faces were only inches apart. I could tell then he loved her, I knew it all along, I still knew she deserved better than him, but she was happy with him at least. Got what she wanted.
It hit me like a ton of bricks falling from the sky and knocking me to my knees. I had worked so long, and so hard for all those years. And for what? Not something greater, not for the big picture. For me. Even though Bella was happier with someone who wasn't me, I still put myself through years of heartache and pain. Why had I done that to myself? So I could stand here, almost ten years later and say that I tried but failed. An amazing attempt but still I only got the participation award, which was seeing Bella happy, had to be some consolation.
But then was it really that great? Yeah. It's so much fun to see the girl who I love kissing, hugging, even talking to the one who she wanted to be with, obviously not me. What was it about Bella that even made me want to go through that hurt? Was it her personality? Her smile? Or was it simply the fact that I would never be with her that made her, somehow, more attractive?
Why couldn't I have realized before that Leah loved me. If I had, who knew, maybe she would be alive right now, because, apparently, the feelings were returned.
I saw her then, and I honestly wasn't sure weather to crack a joke at her tear stained face or to glare at it in hatred for what she had done. She walked out of the bathroom, to see his face, to kiss his lips, to hear his voice whisper her name. Not mine. She was still looking down at the tissues she held in her hands, sniffled before looking up. But when she did she beamed. She wanted to see him, wanted him to hold her.
"Edward." her voice said from behind his back. She sniffled and he turned to face her.
"Bella." he said and she smiled, then ran to him, jumping in his arms. Her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. Moments like this would never belong to me. She would always hold her in his arms. Always smell her hair while she's in his cold, dead embrace.
Right in front of me. Was she blind? She hadn't even looked at me. She had looked around me, and past me, and beyond me. But never had she truly seen how infinite my love was for her. Not even Edward was able to love her for as long as I could. I was done.
I was done trying to see it from her side. Done trying to understand why I hadn't had a chance. Done trying to understand who I was.
Finished. Defeated. Done.
I stormed out of the house turning before I could stop myself, barely off the porch.
I honestly hope I never saw any of them ever again.
Not Edward, not even Bella.
Jacob,
I know what you're thinking, I trusted our enemies and I died to save them. But, hey, I see what you mean now about Bella, once you get to know her you'll do anything for her. All I could focus on was her love for Edward and how somehow they had to see each other again. I know you think it's ridiculous but they have to save Renessme, Jacob. Bella couldn't do it without Edward and Edward would be dead without her. Dead in a zombie sense not in a literal sense, he is already...hopefully that all made sense.
Don't give up on Bella, Jake. She loves you and you know that, she just isn't in love with you. And despite how pathetic, or useless, or neglected, or idiotic you may feel when you're in the room with her and Edward, you shouldn't, because she needs you. I know that, trust me. She loves you more than she can verbalize. You've put her through hell and then taken her back to earth, she has to be a little upset about that. You can't blame her. And you can't stay away from her either.
Jacob don't be stupid. Go and save Renessme because they all deserve that much. You do too.
Don't give up, because I promise that you'll get your happy ending.
Trust me Jacob Black,
Leah.
I stood there, waiting for pain to hit. To fall to the ground and for Edward to appear in the room. I waited until Leah spoke.
"Like she said," another short pause. "I'm just taking myself out." I heard Jake whimper and that was the last thing before Leah fell to the floor.
I had many thoughts in a short period of time. Seconds. Despite what all had happened to me up until this point in life, the death, the violence, the vampires, the werewolves, in all those streams of thoughts, I never knew I could think as fast as I did.
It must have been only three seconds before I turned around to face them. Three seconds. In a swirl of something close to pain. I had too many thoughts. Everything came rushing back to me.
Everything that had happened since I met Edward Cullen.
It seemed as if my head was divided into two parts with a tiny sliver down the middle.
In the center you had your human memories. Everything that was perfectly normal, logical, and non-fairytale that had ever happened in my life was held there. Why was it small in comparison? Because it was just that. Small in comparison to how I felt when I was with Edward. Small in comparison to how I felt when I was with Jake.
On the right you had your vampires.
On the left your werewolves.
Edward.
Jacob.
Secrets.
My first day at Forks high, the day seemed like an eternity ago now. I walked in the front doors and excepted my schedule. I saw him first in biology class when he ignored me, I thought he had hated me but I was so wrong. Skip ahead a few memories and you'll find our magical day in the meadow. The day that he had exposed him self to me. The day that in my opinion almost meant the most, he had put his trust in me. From there we grew. First meeting the full Cullen clan, then meeting James in the baseball field, him tracking me down until Edward killed him to save me. Destroy, kill, end someone for me.
Then the next clump of thoughts started when he left me, made your way through bland human experiences and into Jake.
He had helped me through a time where I was nothing but mass. Noting but air and particles and liquids and he brought me out and snapped me back. He showed me the brighter side of being down. How I could be happy and almost forget when I was with him. The first day when I brought the bikes to him and we started fixing them up, an awkward night at the movies, then the next time I see him he's completely different. I figured out what he was and both our lives changed. Then Alice came, with the news of the Volturi and Edward's wishes to destroy himself. Racing to Italy, being spared, with a promise that I too would one day be a vampire. Edwards proposal to me only hours later.
Why had it taken so long for me to except? I don't know. I could have had it all much sooner and might have avoided this if I would have just said yes and eloped. But I hadn't. If I had said yes then I would have been like him so much sooner, been able to fight Victoria with him and she would have been truly defeated. But because of my selfishness we were all in hell now.
The waiting period of my decision. Filled with animal attacks and murders and Victoria coming after me. Mate for a mate, as we had heard so many times before. Training with Jasper, hearing his incredible story of his army days. Hearing the story of him and Alice, how they met and how they fell in love. The tradgety that was Rosalie's story. Her fairy-tale world crushed and destroyed by one drunken fiance`, her dreams foiled by vampire who were gracious enough to change her. The magic of his world then seemed more intriguing now then actual vampirism. The mystery that I would never get back, the feeling of not knowing what it was like to be immortal was sweeter than I had realized I suppose.
Along the way there were blotches of anger, and different forms of happiness. When I wanted to see Jake and wanted to be with him. When he was the smiley, happy, sunny, warm Jake that I loved to be around. Not the Jake that he had become lately. The serious, more sophisticated, adult like person he was. I wanted the Jake that I could be childlike with. I could say cool and awesome and sweet and not feel like a ten-year-old boy.
Then when I had said yes and we had told Charlie of our decision, Edward and I. The far too planned out wedding that Alice and Esme had created for us. Seeing his gorgeous face as I descended down the stairs. To magnificent for lousy words to ever describe. Isle Esme.
I remember feeling as if I could go on like that. Me human, him immortal. The bliss was so sweet that it seemed like too much of a shame to give it up. I remember, through thick human memories and blurry eyes that I did want us to stay like that. Just like we were. My heart beating, his forever seventeen. I wanted to stay like that, stay human.
What if I had? I certainly wouldn't be where I was now. Waiting for my dead, vampire husband to suddenly reappear. Waiting to die. Waiting for their lives to go back to normal.
Normal.
As foreign concept was all that it was to me now.
I turned around and saw Jake working over Leah's body.
A body.
That's all she was now. She wasn't Leah Clearwater, the girl who once hated me, but over the past week or so I had gotten to know, she was nothing but a corpse.
My hand flew to my mouth and I bit my lip, trying so hard not to cry and ruin everything she had died for. For me. For my life which she had seen as so pointless and wasteful just years ago, that was, now, the very thing she died for. For me.
I got down on my knees, not sure if I had meant to or if they had just buckled with shock.
I did what I was supposed to, what she was supposed to do with my body when I died, when she killed me. But nothing worked. Nothing.
I tried so hard to make it work, she had done so much for me, I owed her effort plus my life. I waited, blood, her blood, covering my hands.
Nothing.
"It's not working Jacob, she died for nothing. She died for him and it was a waste!" I shrieked, letting emotions spill over through my eyes. He looked up at me then and I read into his heart. He had about as much emotion in his as I did mine. He looked at me, with eyes that said I was giving up.
And after all these years of people coming after us, wanting us dead, wanting to destroy us, it seemed like I was.
I stopped, time moved slower again, as it had proved to do so many times before when things had gone wrong.
I looked down at the ashes, half halfheartedly still hoping that Edward's perfect, porcelain face would look back up at me and smile it's gorgeous, crooked smile. Hoping that his lips would whisper my name and his golden eyes would burn into mine with such intensity that my heart would flutter and everything would be right again. But no, nothing about us was ever right, nothing was ever perfect.
I got up and walked away. Defeated. I made my way down the hallway, it seemed too narrow, too small and cramped and crowded, and to the bathroom. I barely was able to shut the door before my back hit the wall and I melted to the floor. With each inch I slipped down it felt as if it was that much more of me slipping away. By the time I hit the ground I was gone, I was once again just mass.
No Edward. No Renessme. No Jake. No Leah. No Charlie. No Renee. No Phil. No friends. No home. No nothing. No me.
I knew that if I had never come that I wouldn't be here now, feeling something close to what I presumed death felt like, dying on cold tile floor. Looking up and seeing nothing but ceiling. Looking around me and seeing nothing but black and white. Hearing nothing but the loud, ugly sounds of my sobs.
Where would I be? What would I be doing right now if I had nothing to do with the mythical world of vampires and wolves?
Would I be here, in Forks still? Would I be in Arizona? Would I be working? What would my career have been if I had the chance to grow up and find out? Would I have been a teacher? A chef? A scientist? The world was full of options for me until I met him.
If I had never come here then I would had never met Edward Cullen. I never would have crossed paths with him and our hearts would not have fallen for each other. That's what I got when I let my heart win.
Where was I supposed to go from here, was I just supposed to go on and live without him? Find some other guy who was average, and human, and not tell him anything of my vampire past? Was I just supposed to let this whole other life of mine go? Go to college, get a job and then settle down with a different guy who could never live up to what I once had?
Would I go through life again as just a normal human girl with a normal human boy? Would I always be comparing my awkward relationship I had with this new boy to the easy flowing, natural one I had with Edward? Would I forever think about him, and never have the same joy of seeing him beside me in the morning, never see him sparkle in the sub, never hear him play the piano again, never see his painfully beautiful crooked smile spread across his face again? Would I really just live life with a normal boy?
Then again, that sounded pretty good. Let life be normal and bland and human and good. It didn't have to be some outrageous fantasy, it just had to be okay. Alright. If I could just make t to death, wouldn't the inbetween just be something to take up time?
"Jacob." He said, muffled. I silenced myself. But I knew it wasn't really him. Option two I suppose. Let someone report me to the police, have them take me away to the nut house and live there in my own world. Where Edward and Renessme were both there with me.
"Edward." A different voice said, Jake's. Was he inside my head too?
"Where's Bella?" Edward asked furiously.
I sat up, was this real? Was he really just outside of the door and down the hallway?
"You don't deserve her. Too many people have suffered to bring you back. Too many perfectly good hearts have stopped beating for you and here you stand still selfish." Jake said through tears.
"I somehow doubt that asking if my wife is alive or not is being selfish now where is she?" He said and my unsteady hand reached out to the doorknob, turning it but my hands wouldn't work fast enough. I opened the door and ran down the hallway.
I saw him then. His back was to me but he turned around when I said his name.
"Edward?" my voice cracked. I sniffed and tried to calm myself.
His face turned to me. Every feature too perfect and magnificent for words to explain. It felt like years since I had seen him. I couldn't understand how I had gone so long without seeing his face.
"Bella." he said and I smiled, then ran to him, jumping in his arms.
He scooped me up and I sobbed into his shoulder. His cold, stone cheek rubbed against mine and I cried harder. His hands rubbed my back.
"Bella, Bella, it's okay." His velvet voice laughed quietly. Even in the midst of disaster he was able to stay calm. He was seeing it that if we're together things are perfect. That's all that matters.
"I know." I said and smiled. I took in the scent of him, his sweet smell, almost floral, seemed stronger than before. He looked back at me and smiled before our lips touched. I took his face in my hands and his fingers were in my hair.
It was so natural it was painful. I was in his arms and he was holding me as if nothing had changed for the months that we had been separated. His smooth, stone lips moved with my human ones as if they had been molded together, and for all this time, every single kiss we had ever shared, I think they had been made for each other. My heart was beating out of my chest, I knew he could hear that.
I wanted to stay like that forever. Just me and him and with nothing out there to ruin our perfect world. But I knew that I couldn't
Eventually, he put me down and held me tight, so tight that I thought he was frozen and I would eternally stay in his arms, which, looking at it, wouldn't be so bad.
"Bella." he said and wiped away the stray tears that were still slowly, but surely falling down my cheek. "It's going to be okay, everything's going to be fine." he said and smiled a crooked smile that was painfully familiar it hurt. I cried harder and he pulled me back into his stone chest, holding me tightly.
I remembered then, not like I had forgotten, but now that Edward was back it flashed feverishly in my mind. Bright neon colors of rage and vengean started carving the path of action we would take.
"Edward." I said sniffing again.
"Yes, love." he said smoothly, sniffing my hair.
"We have to find Renessme." I said and he pulled back to look at me slowly. Realization set in for him I suppose.
"I know exactly where she is." he smiled. He kissed my cheek and caressed my cheek before searching my face with his eyes. "Let's go." he scooped me up and ran.
I was storming through the woods, I didn't understand why I wasn't turning yet. Maybe I was too sad to be mad. Why hadn't I realized that I loved Leah before she had killed herself for him. Why had she killed herself when she could've killed Bella, who in her day she had talked alot of trash about.
I ran harder, faster through the woods, my legs begged me to stop but my head told me to keep going.
Suddenly I ran into something. I knew it wasn't a tree because it was much harder than that, I thought I had possibly ran into a brick wall.
"Ow!" I heard someone say along with a thud on the ground from me. I knew that the voice wasn't me, way too high.
"God, Jacob. You're so oblivious to where you're running, did you even have your eyes open?"
"Alice Cullen?" I said as the perky, annoying squeal of a voice from the past settled into my mind. Ugh, great like enough wasn't going on now the Cullens show up to make my life even more miserable.
"Yes, Jacob Black now get up. I need your help." she demanded. Yeah, the little black haired bloodsucker demanded the big bad wolf to get to his feet.
I popped up, angry now.
"Why would I would I help you? Why on earth would I help a stupid leech who is nothing but my enemy and has made life life nothing but hell? I am so sick of your stupid clan that I hope I never see any of you ever again. Not you, not your brother, not even Bella. So please just go away and leave me alone forever okay?" I started to walk away.
"You forgot someone." she said. I ignored her and I assumed she knew that. "Renessme. You do remember her don't you?" she said in a tone that made nails on a chalk board sound like a gorgeous symphony.
"Of course I remember her." I said. There was a reason that I had been putting her off in my mind. I didn't want to face the fact that I would most likely have to see the Cullens again. And again and again and again. I turned to see her, the pale leech who stood in front of me with her hip stuck out made me want to claw my eyes out.
"Well I know where she is, and I think that with your help I could find her alot faster. She would be safer and better." she started and I rolled my eyes. "She's scared Jacob, she needs someone to save her."
"Lead the way." I said in a heart beat, and without a second thought I followed her into where ever she was going.