IX.

This was something she had to do. It wasn't exactly the part she was looking most forward to, but it was the one she was most anxious about. Telling someone she loved them... well, she'd done that before. But telling someone she didn't. That was something else entirely.

Edward rode in the passenger's seat the whole way with her. He made a show about crossing the boundary to the Quileute reservation, but Bella wasn't about to just drop him off alongside the road and pick him up on her way back through. He settled for staying hidden in the cab while Jake and Bella talked, but she was sure he would somehow be able to hear their conversation one way or another. Besides the telepathy he had explained to her, he could hear everyone's thoughts. All except her own. Great, her first thought had been. One more thing I'm a freak at. Then there was his miraculous sensory skills he'd shared with her - unbelievable strength, listening to the grass grow, a speed that was rarely matched even by others of his own kind. The sight, thought of, and worst of all, the smell of blood bothered him to no end. He and his family were vegetarian vampires that chose to feed off of deer and animals instead of people, for their own moral beliefs. Bella thought it was almost masochistic to deny themselves daily of the thing they needed and craved the most, but she admired them all for it. She was especially proud of Edward when he told her her blood had been the one to have driven him the craziest, and he'd still resisted.

"I smelled better than all of the rest?" she inquired, trying to make sense of something she had no knowledge of.

"You certainly did. We have a thing we call humans who smell irresistible to our kind - "bloodsingers." Because their blood literally sings to us to be drunk. Yours called to me, and I nearly gave in that day. But something stopped me."

"I remember you looked like you were in such horrible pain that day. I thought it was just chalked up to your displeasure at having the seat besides you taken now, halfway through the school year."

He chuckled. "Oh, I was. But more so because I though to myself, poor soul. Someone else has to endure having me for a Biology partner. What a joy."

"Did I disappoint you, Mister Cullen?" she asked jokingly.

"Isabella Marie Swan, you've done nothing but surprise me from day one. Actually, this very moment, I'm surprised you'll be alone with me at all."

"Because you're a vampire?" she clarified.

"How?" He threw his hands up exasperatedly. "How do you take everything so calmly? Why aren't you scared out of your mind right now?"

"I told you. Because it doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter," he scoffed. "It doesn't matter that I'm a monster?"

"No."

"It doesn't matter than I've killed people before?"

"No."

"It doesn't matter that you and I are impossible?"

That time, her head spun as if it were a top. "You and I?"

"Us, yes."

Bella pondered that a moment before saying the words that had been frustrating her for days now. "But I can't help it, Edward. You and I found each other for some reason. And now, seeing into you the way you just let me, nothing's going to let me let you go."

Edward shook his head slowly. "You make absolutely no sense sometimes, you know."

"I'm sorry," she allowed.

"Don't be." He was smiling again all of a sudden. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it."

Billy Black, Jacob's father, opening the door enough to see her standing in the doorway, was plenty enough to pull her out of reverie. It was time.

"Is Jake home?" she asked quietly.

"You alright, Bella?" Billy asked concernedly. "It's late."

"I know, and I'm really sorry. It's something I need to talk to Jacob about. Alone, please," she said pointedly.

"You look upset."

"Not nearly as much as I will once I say what I have to say."

"I don't like the sound of that very much."

Bella did her best to smile apologetically. "Neither do I. Now please, Billy. Let me in."

Instead of waiting for Billy to drag Jake back from the inner regions of the house, Bella crossed the threshold with a fleeting glance back at the truck.

It'll be worth it, she assured herself. It'll be more than worth it.

Worth it or not, Bella still emerged from the interior of the house with tears threatening to stream down her cheeks. She knew she couldn't let them win until she'd pulled out of the driveway, but Edward pressing in close to her once she was back inside the cab of the truck again didn't help her resolve any.

"I'm so sorry," he repeated over and over again. As if he were to blame for what had just happened.

"You don't have to be. Nor do I want you to be," she would choke back in response.

"I don't care what should or could be. You're hurting, and I don't know what to do to make it better."

"Take me back home," she begged. "Please."

In an instant, Edward slid her over to where he'd just been sitting, keeping his arm around her as he stepped on the gas. "We'll be home soon."

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. It was her turn to apologize, over and over again.

"For what?"

"For having to listen to that."

"I think I understand better now, Bella. But shh. Let it out of you while we make the trip back."

And so she clung to his side, and quietly snuck up to her room when they got there, her eyes finally dry.

"I'll come back tonight," he said, bending over her as she pulled up her covers. It was well after midnight. And they had school the next day.

"Edward," she whispered.

"Yes?"

"Don't go."

"I'll be back," he promised.

That night she dreamt of two things: Edward and Jake.

Her first all too vivid dream was of Jacob. Him standing there, looking like a lost puppy, as she pathetically made an attempt at telling him she didn't love him anymore. Not the way they both had thought.

"You love me, Bella," he reassured her, his hands on both of her shoulders like hot furnaces ready to burn her at any moment. "I'm sure of it."

"I do love you. But I'm not... Jake, I'm not in love with you. I don't think we're meant to be anything more than best friends, and I feel closest to you that way than anything else."

"I haven't been a good boyfriend," he said quickly.

"I wish you wouldn't blame yourself."

"But it's true. If I'd tried harder, you'd still want to be with me. Instead of taking this for granted, we'd be trying to make it work. Instead of just giving up on it."

"I can't help the way I feel," she said softly.

"No." He took her face in his hands, forcing her eyes up to meet hers. "But I can."

"Don't kiss me, Jake."

He stopped with his inches an inch away from her own. "Why?" he asked roughly.

"Because I don't want you to."

Reluctantly, he'd let his hands fall away from her face to hang limply at his sides. "This is what you really want?"

"Yes." Her voice quivered for the first time. It was a sign to end the conversation before the floodgates opened. She wouldn't let him see one of her tears. Not if it killed her.

"I know who it is, you know." He didn't elaborate, and she didn't need him to.

"I figured you would."

"Do you love him?"

"I haven't told him yet."

Jacob Black turned his back on her then, and only turned back to smile at her as he reached his bedroom door. "If this is what you really want. Because quite frankly, Bella, I don't know what else to do." And the door shut, with him on the other side of it.

In her dream, she walked back out to the truck to find Edward crouched over a doe, a pool of liquid crimson underneath its jugular on the ground where it lay. She gasped, and Edward straightened up to glance back at her. His mouth had not ring of blood around it, but his eyes were like warm honey pools, swimming in the moonlight. He reached out to her. "Don't be afraid," he cooed in his velvet voice. And she wasn't. With a sure step and her tears swallowed, she stepped forward and took his hand. The deer's neck only had two puncture wounds in it. Its legs flinched back and forth as if it weren't aware it was dead yet, the nerve endings still flamed up from the gallop it had been taken down during. Bella glanced back up at Edward's face, calm, collective, himself. He was staring back at her. Without hesitation, he bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead. And in that moment, she knew this was the choice she could live with.

Bella woke, startled and covered in her own cold sweat. She got up, heading straight for her shower, to let the warm water wash away the tremors that were starting from some depth in her chest and working their way out. They hadn't completely gone away yet when the hot water ran out, but she dressed in fresh clothes and laid back down. It wasn't yet light out, and she wanted the time to rest before school. Her night, and her dreams, had exhausted her. And, if she was correct, she'd be needing her strength today.