Chapter 11: New Feelings

"If you're not the one for me

Then how come I can bring you to your knees

If you're not the one for me

Why do I hate the idea of being free?

And if I'm not the one for you

You've gotta stop holding me the way you do

Oh honey if I'm not the one for you

Why have we been through what we have been through

It's so cold out here in your wilderness

I want you to be my keeper

But not if you are so reckless"

~Water Under the Bridge (Adele)

11 hours and 27 minutes.

The journey that had once taken me about a month and a half when I was running for my life had been drastically cut down thanks to the erratic driving of both Bella and Edward, as well as their infrequent stops.

I sat in the backseat of the Volvo, happily munching away on a bag of Cheetos. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bella, now in the passenger seat, staring intensely at the bag in my hands. I jokingly reach it out to her and say "Want some?"

She wrinkles her nose as if the Cheetos were emitting a putrid odor and shakes her head. "I was just trying to remember why I ever liked those orange monstrosities."

I laugh. "If these are monsters, then they're my favorite kind. Much better than vampires." I stick my tongue out at her, even though it's now covered in orange cheese dust.

She does the same and smiles. "You should offer some to Jake when we stop. He's a sucker for junk food."

"Really?" I ask. "He seems more like a meat and potatoes kind of guy."

"He eats like absolute crap," Bella replies still smiling. "Though you couldn't tell by looking at him."

You most definitely could not. I found myself picturing him the night we met, leaving nothing to the imagination. I felt my cheeks flush and was once again thankful that Edward couldn't read my mind.

Bella laughs once again. "I used to do that a lot, too," she says, referring to my red-stained cheeks.

"And it was absolutely endearing," Edward chimes in, shooting a smirk Bella's way.

"Edward," I start, trying to dispel lingering thoughts of Jacob Black's naked body from my mind. "Is it tiring being able to hearing everyone's –well almost everyone's- thoughts?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," he replies with a sigh. "It's similar to a constant humming in the background. It never really subsides."

"How far away can you hear people's thoughts?"

"It ranges, depending on how recently I've fed, but I can hear Jacob's now, unfortunately, if that gives you any idea."

I twist to peer out the back window to see Jake on his bike nearly half a mile behind us. "What's he thinking about?" I ask, hopefully that I sound more interested in Edward's ability and less in nosing into Jake's private thoughts.

I turn back around in time to see Edward raise an eyebrow at me in the rearview mirror. "Mostly Renesmee." He states simply. I could have guessed that. "And a lot about you as well, more recently."

I feel my cheeks flare up again, and say nothing in response out of embarrassment.

"Gabriella," he continues, "has Ness ever mentioned imprinting to you?"

I shake my head, unsure of where this is going.

"It's definitely a conversation worth having with Jacob then," he says simply. "It's why he and Renesmee are so close, and why we tolerate his presence at our home."

Bella slaps his arm good-naturedly. "And because he is a good and loyal friend to our family," she adds.

"He seems…angry," I say, thinking of the cold shoulder he had given me since we met.

Bella sighs quietly. "Jacob is…very protective of Ness. Once you get to know each other better, he'll warm up to you. He always does." She smiles lightly again. "We didn't always get along either. But then again, I've known him since before he lost all of his baby fat."

I turn to look out the window. The familiar mountainous landscape of eastern Pennsylvania passed by in a blur as we sped down the winding road. We were getting close. I could feel my stomach twist into nervous knots as I thought about returning to my home.

"I feel like I've made so many enemies in the past few months," I say quietly. "I lived my life so simply before, I don't know how to handle all this…hostility."

Bella hesitantly reached an icy hand out and laid it gingerly on my knee. I turn my gaze back towards her.

"You've made a lot of friends, too, Gabby."

I can't help myself from grinning. "I guess you're right."

After another twenty miles of pavement, I realize the road that lead to my family cottage was fast approaching. "You're going to want to make a right turn up ahead," I tell Edward.

He nods and follows my instructions. After another 5 minutes of driving, I recognize the unmarked dirt path that led to the house. As we follow it, I feel my anxiety returning. My already rapidly-paced heart begins beating faster, my breathing becomes shallower. When I left, I never imagined returning here, not after what happened.

Bella reached over the center console once more to grasp my hand tightly in hers. She gives me a small smile for comfort.

Edward stops the car suddenly, and I realize that Jacob is trying to get our attention, waving one arm in the air.

"He says he's caught a scent. He thinks it's the hybrid," Edward says, obviously having ascertained this information from Jacob's thoughts.

"Roman was right," I say, almost absentmindedly. Stepping out of the car, I feel a breeze rustle past me and with it, the faint odor of the boy I had met on the Cullen's territory. Nolan.

"We don't want to scare him into running away," Edward states. "He needs to feel safe enough to approach us. We need his help, after all."

Jake jogs up to us. "Or we could just chase him down," he says with a smirk. "That'd be more fun, at least."

"The scent is relatively fresh," Bella chimes in. "He must've have been here in the past day or so. "

"Thanks for your insight, Bells," Jacob says sarcastically, mock-rolling his eyes in her direction.

Bella punches him in the shoulder in response, sticking her tongue out at him.

He shrugs, as if the blow caused him no pain. As Bella turns away to watch Edward the bridge of his nose in exasperation at their antics, out of the corner of my eye, I see Jacob mouth the word "Ow" and rub his injured shoulder tenderly.

I raise an eyebrow in his direction. I feel the tug of a small smile playing around the corners of my mouth.

He notices me leering at him. Instead of immediately looking away from me, as he normally did when we accidentally made awkward eye contact, his gaze held mine, as if he had never actually noticed me before. It was unnerving.

"This is your neck of the woods, right?" he asks.

For a moment, I'm speechless. There's no contempt in his tone, no anger. I nod in response, not wanting to say something that might upset Jacob and cause his usual disdain for me to return.

"Then lead the way." He says this in a low, quiet voice.

I see Edward raise an eyebrow at this. For once, I wish that I too had the ability to read minds. Anything to decipher the enigma that was Jacob Black.

I sniff gently at the air, letting the faint scent of the hybrid fill my nostrils. Along with it came the comforting and familiar smells of the Pennsylvanian landscape.

I try to push the nostalgic aromas out of my mind, to ignore the beckoning sensation I felt towards my family home. I begin to follow Nolan's scent westward, into the thick tree line.

While Bella and Edward walk by my side, I notice that Jake lingers behind us.

"I'll catch up in a second," he says simply. "Don't want to rip my clothes to shreds when I shift."

That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

I take off, running deeper into the forest, just as Jake begins to strip down. Edward and Bella follow silently, keeping pace with my rapid movement. In mere seconds, I hear the pounding of four paws hitting the dirt behind us, and realize that Jake is close behind.

I recognize a worn trail on the forest floor as we zoom through the foliage. It was one that Roman and I had beat into the ground during our many excursions through the area surrounding our home. I follow it, and the scent, until we reach a small clearing in the woods.

I inhale sharply as the sight of my home comes into view through the tree line. Even though I knew that I would be seeing it, it was completely surreal to take in the grey stone of its walls, the modest chimney stock that protruded from the sloping roofline. It looked as if nothing had changed.

I slow my pace as we approach the house. The hybrid's smell is all over the cottage, leading in and around it in various directions. Nolan had left both fresh and days-old trails of scent throughout the area.

I stop as we reach the front of the house. I go to reach for the brass knob of the front door, but something stops me. I drop my hand limply to my side. A hundred images fill my mind and all the memories I've had in this home suddenly overwhelm my senses. All the family dinners, the waking up early for church, the endless hours I had spent sketching in the cozy window nook in the living room bay window. The good slowly gave way to darker remembrances, the ones I had tried to hide away in the periphery of my memory. I see the crack in the front window pane, where my mother's face had been smashed against the glass.

"I…I don't know if I can do this," I say, my voice almost a whisper. I angrily brush tears off of my cheek as they force their way out of my eyes.

"We can stay out here, if you'd like to have a few moments to yourself," Bella says, hesitantly.

I nod, desperate to hide the sorrow and remorse that was quickly beginning to overflow inside me within the comforts of home.

I feel something wet nudge my arm softly. I look at the gigantic russet wolf standing beside me, and realize the sensation I had felt was his nose. In this form, his brown eyed-gaze was almost exactly level with my own. As usual, I couldn't quite read the expression within it. Was that…pain?

He gently nods his furry head towards the door, as much of a gesture of encouragement that he could articulate in his wolf body.

I take a deep breath and push the front door open, its hinges squealing in protest. Thousands of dust particles hang in the stagnant air, glinting through the rays of light that stream through the dirt-streaked window panes. The house wasn't quite as I'd left it nearly three months before, when I had haphazardly thrown my few sentimental possessions into a duffel and fled my old life.

It looked surprisingly lived-in. Blankets were strewn across the furniture of the small living room. I noticed blackened wood in the fireplace. It had been lit extremely recently.

In the kitchen, a small pile of unwashed dishes rests beside the sink. Nolan's scent runs throughout the cottage. It was glaringly obvious he had been staying here since he'd run off. Almost suspiciously so. If he was a shield like me wouldn't he be able to mask his scent?

The train of thought I had been following abruptly vanishes from my mind as my gaze settles on the wooden planks of the kitchen floor. I couldn't hold myself up anymore. I dropped to my knees, practically involuntarily.

Almost indiscernible against the dark stain of the wood, was a pool of dried blood.

My mother's scent suddenly clouds my senses and the hairs on the back of my neck rise as a feeling of dread overcomes me. This is where she had died. Where I had run away instead of doing something…anything to save her. I had known that she was gone, but being confronted with the sight of her blood had broken a wall I had been building up inside me. Behind it, I had hidden all the sadness, the regret I had felt from running away. I had merely watched as the vampire drained my mom of her blood, her life. I stood by as they drug my brother kicking and screaming off into the woods and imprisoned him God knows where. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right.

My hands ball themselves into fists. I allow the anger to surge through me and begin relentlessly hitting the planks of the wooden floor. They splinter and crack as my fists pounded the ground.

I sit, breathing heavily as I realize what I child I must look like. At the moment, I didn't really give a damn. I begin to cry once again as the anger started to subside. It was a bad idea to come home. Being confronted once more with a stark reminder that my family was gone had only served to push me over the edge. I was alone. Nothing could change that now.

A cough from behind me causes me to snap my head towards Jacob, who was leaning on the door frame to the kitchen.

"How long have you been standing there?" I ask angrily, still feeling the lingering pulses of resentment and sorrow within me. I must have been too busy pulverizing the floorboards to notice him come in behind me.

"Long enough," he says softly. The expression I had seen earlier in his eyes was still present, except for right now it looked almost like pity to me.

"I don't need your sympathy," I say defiantly, trying to act like I didn't care that Jake had seen me throw an adult-sized temper tantrum.

Slowly, as if he was unsure of himself, Jacob walked over to where I sat in a crumpled heap on the floor. He crouched down to my level in a swift motion. I was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was wearing only a pair of sweats.

"I know." A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "You're a lot stronger than I gave you credit for."

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't help but think he was only being kind because I looked so pathetic.

He sat down directly next to me, drawing his knees up to his chest. His eyes turned towards the red-streaked floorboards in front of us.

"It's hard to lose your mom." His voice is low, almost a whisper. "Mine died in a car crash. A real shitty way to go."

We sat in silence for a moment, reflecting on our mutual losses.

"I don't remember a lot about her. She used to like to paint I think…" he says to himself.

"I'm sorry, Jacob." I feel guilty for snapping at him earlier. I wasn't used to this new, sensitive Jake.

He shrugs. "S'okay. I was still young when she died." He turns his head to look around the kitchen and across the hallway to the living room. "I didn't have quite as many memories with her." His eyes ran across the dozens of framed photographs that hung on the walls and sat on shelves.

"You play guitar?" He asks, gesturing towards a photo of me sitting on a window seat, my old Taylor acoustic resting on my thigh. I was significantly younger in that photo. Still developing, even. In it, my hair fell down to obscure part of the front of the guitar as I gazed intently at the neck, where my fingers attempted to place themselves in the correct position to play a G chord.

I nod in response to his question. "I like guitar the best. I also play bass, cello, and piano."

He lets out a low whistle. "Are you sure you're not forgetting anything?"

"I'm not too bad with a sitar either," I say with a smile.

He sighs. "Of course you are."

"My brother and I had a lot of free time on our hands," I say, remembering the seemingly endless hours we spent learning to play new instruments, making up our own secret languages, reading innumerable books.

"Ah, the joys of immortality," he says grinning.

"More like the joys of homeschooling." I was surprised at how easily conversation came to us, considering only a day prior, he couldn't stand to be in the same room as me, let alone speak to me.

Yet there we were, sitting side by side, me with my puffy red eyes and Jake with his too-short sweatpants, talking…almost like friends.

Suddenly, Jake reaches across the floorboards and gingerly picks up something that had been hidden beneath the bottom edge of the cabinets. I see a glint as a small chain catches the light and I realize what's in his hand.

"Is this yours?" he asks, dangling the silver cross in front of him.

"It was my mom's," I say, and begin to reach for it. As I outstretch my hand, he turns to face me, causing his forearm to thump into it. I awkwardly drop my hand, feeling my cheeks fill with red.

Gently, Jacob places the chain over my head and lets it dangle around my neck. He doesn't move away though. Instead he reaches underneath my hair to bring it up to drop it back over the necklace.

"It suits you," he says bringing his arms around his knees once more.

I stare at him, fiddling with the simple cross between my index finger and thumb. What had suddenly changed in him? Was it that he wasn't near Renesmee?

"Gabriella," he starts, as if reading my mind. "I'm sor…."

"Am I interrupting something?" a voice asks from behind.

Jake and I both spring to our feet and turn to see Nolan standing in the doorway. He doesn't look surprised to see us in the least. His stance is incredibly nonchalant, his hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans.

Even with the shock of Nolan's appearance, I can't help but notice how Jacob takes a step forward to stand in front of me, almost in a protective stance.

In a blur, Edward and Bella appear in the entryway, obviously as surprised by Nolan as we were.

"Well, it's nice to finally see you," he says, unperturbed by the fact that he was vastly outnumbered. "Roman told me that you would be coming."

Evening had finally settled over the forest. Nolan had lit another fire in the living room, as if this were his home and not mine. I sat on the overstuffed couch, my knees pulled up to my chest, trying to process what he had told us.

After the vampires, who Nolan referred to as Blackcloaks, failed to strong-arm the Cullens into turning me over without a fight, he had seen the perfect opportunity to make his escape. They had originally taken him for his abilities. They had hoped that his gift to remain completely undetectable would aid them in sneaking up on the Cullens. Obviously things hadn't worked out the way they had planned. Nolan had gotten to the border between Maine and New Hampshire when Roman had reached out to him. He had shown him our cottage and how to get to it.

"I had nowhere else to go," he says, prodding the logs in the fireplace with a poker. "It seemed like the smartest option."

"Don't you have family you could have gone to?" Bella asks.

"Haven't had a family for a long time," he says. "I killed my mother just by existing. She died giving birth to me, typical hybrid backstory and all that." I see Bella reach over to grasp Edward's hand in hers as he says this. "As soon as I was developed enough to find food for myself, my father told me it was best if we parted ways."

"That's awful," Bella breathes, not able to comprehend this lack of compassion.

"Yeah, a real piece of work, my dad."

"But how do you know Roman?" I ask impatiently, eager to get on to the part about where he was.

Nolan plops down onto the other end of the couch next to me. "I was taken by Blackcloaks almost two years ago, just like your brother was," he states simply. "We were cellmates."

"Cellmates?" I exclaim. "Is this a prison? Where is it? How do we get to it?" The questions flooded out of my mouth one after another. After so long of knowing nothing, I finally had someone who had been on the inside.

He sighs. "It's much more complicated than that. I don't feel comfortable explaining where we could be…overheard," he says, looking around the living room dramatically.

"But he's okay?" I press. Having seen the condition he had portrayed himself in his telepathic messages I knew Roman was worse for wear, although I didn't know how much he was shielding from me.

"He's alive," Nolan replies. "For now, anyway."

I exhale the breath I hadn't realized I had been holding. Knowing that someone other than myself had been communicating with Roman made me feel slightly saner about the situation.

"I don't think we should stay here much longer," Nolan adds. "I mean, it's cozy and all but they aren't going to ignore it forever."

I nod in solemn agreement. I would have to leave again. For good this time.

A wolf's lonely howl pierces the silence that had filled the living room. Jacob was outside, patrolling the cottage, tracking any unfamiliar scents.

"We'll leave at first light," Edward says. "We can stay the night to let Gabby collect some of her belongings and so you can all rest. Bella and I can keep watch."

"Making sure I don't escape?" Nolan says slyly with a smirk.

Edward narrows his eyes at him. "Well we don't want you running off giving away our location, do we?"

"Please," Nolan retorts in a sarcastic tone that I have come to realize is his usual manner of speaking. "If I wanted to leave, I would, just as easily as I appeared." Edward's marble expression remains stoic, although it is clear that he dislikes Nolan's remarks. "Besides," he adds nonchalantly. "If your coven is willing to protect me from them then I'm all yours. I don't have anywhere else to run to."

"So we have a deal then." Bella states. "Our protection for your help in bringing down these Blackcloaks." She jerks out her hand toward him, in that oddly awkward way of hers.

Nolan accepts it and lightly kisses her pale knuckles. "We have a deal," he states, still smirking at Edward, who is grimacing so intensely that a vein I hadn't realized he had begins to protrude from his forehead. Bella immediately yanks her hand out of his grasp.

With a squeaky groan, Jacob pushes the heavy oak door of the cottage open and strides into the living room, pushing it shut behind him. "Area's clear, aside from the occasional deer," he says, flopping onto the armchair that Edward had just vacated.

"Perfect," Bella says happily. "I'm starving."

Edward and Bella said their goodnights and strode toward the front door together. "Get some sleep tonight," Edward says to me. He turns his gaze to Jacob and states, "Be careful of this one," gesturing to Nolan who is once again transfixed by the flames enveloping the wood in the fireplace.

With a blur, they're gone. Off to hunt and patrol the woods around us.

"Well he's not much fun, is he?" Nolan says in the manner of a statement rather than a question.

"No he is not," Jacob agrees, twiddling his thumbs. "You don't happen to know if there's any food left, do you?"

He had meant the question for me, but Nolan answered before I could even open my mouth.

"Everything that had been in the fridge is spoiled because the electricity's been out for God knows how long, although some of the stuff in the cabinet's still good."

I turn to glare at him. The way he acted like this was his home was really starting to piss me off.

"Sweet," Jacob says, sauntering off to the kitchen, leaving Nolan and I alone in the living room.

"You have a ton of nerve," I say, not in an aggressive way but simply as a statement of the obvious.

"Who, me?" he says, batting his eyelashes at me. "Kid, you need balls of steel to get through what I have."

I frown, hoping that Roman had received a different set of circumstances. "Can you tell me anything about my brother? I can't stand the thought of him going through this alone."

"He does better than some of the others, if that makes you feel better."

"How many are there?"

"Dozens, since I was last there," he says in an almost disinterested voice, pushing a lock of hair out of his eye.

"Dozens of hybrids? How have they collected so many? It's not like we're easy to come by."

"Look, Gabby, I really don't feel like talking about this here." Nolan sounds more frustrated than scared at the moment. "It's not safe."

"So you've said."

Jake comes back into the living room, his arms full of junk food, everything from previously unopened Oreos to spray cans of Cheese-Whiz.

"What'd I miss?" he says, his mouth full of Pop-Tart.

"I was just about to head off to bed." Nolan stands, stretching his arms upward. With that, he flitted out of the room and up the stairs. "I've been sleeping in Roman's room, I figured he wouldn't mind," he called down from the second floor.

I roll my eyes. Did he have to be so…entitled? I try to shake my inherent dislike of him. After all, he had been kidnapped and held against his will, just like Roman. The least he deserved was a little kindness.

For a while I remained sitting on the couch, watching the fire and Jake chow down on his pile of food. I poked fun at his diet and he flung an Oreo at my head, which I skillfully dodged.

As the fire began to die out, I stood. "I'm going to pack some stuff up before I head off to bed," I tell Jake as I move to leave the room.

"Do you…want some help, maybe?" He asks, suddenly timid.

I smile at him. "Thanks, but you can catch some sleep if you're tired."

He stands, suddenly uninterested in food. "I want to help," he says quietly.

I gulp. "If you insist."

It took much less time than I thought to gather the possessions I wanted to take with me. After looking through the rooms that housed my entire life's history, I decided to keep only a few photographs and Roman's favorite shirt. Most of the stuff in the cottage only served to remind me of what I had lost.

Hesitantly, I pushed open the door to my old room, Jacob in tow. It was a small space, with faded yellow walls and a full-size bed that nearly took up the entire area. In the corner sat my old keyboard, a fine layer of dust now covering its untouched keys. Next to it sat my guitar. I thought about taking it with me, but I couldn't remember the last time that I actually wanted to play. Ever since that fateful day three months ago, I no longer felt the creative urge to strum a guitar, play the piano, or even sketch absentmindedly.

"Did you paint this?" Jacob asks, pointing to a canvas depicting a waterfall gushing down a rock wall suspended above my bed.

"Yeah," I say. "That's Silverthread Falls, not too far from here, actually."

"So you're an all-around creative genius then. Music, art….what can't you do?" He says this in a fake-mocking tone, rolling his brown eyes dramatically at me.

"I couldn't carry a tune if I had a bucket, if that makes you feel better," I say, flashing him a grin.

"Well, that makes two of us," he says, returning the smile.

A silence fell over us, as his words hung in the air. It was late in the night now. The room was dark with the exception of a single beam of moonlight pouring in through the window.

"I think I'm going to head to bed, Jake," I say, mainly to break the awkward stillness. "You're welcome to sleep in my mom's old room, if you want."

He doesn't say anything for a moment. "Call me crazy, but I don't really trust that Nolan guy."

I nod my head in agreement. "I don't either. But he's the only hope I have of finding my brother."

"Look," he starts, almost unsure of how to proceed. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think it would be safer if I stayed in here tonight."

Us? Alone together? In my old bedroom? Despite my better judgement, the thought was extremely tempting.

He sensed my hesitation. "Just in case he decides to sneak up on you again. Or, you know, if the bloodsuckers show up."

"Okay…" I say, trying to hide the fact that I would like nothing more than for Jake to sleep in my room. I sit on the edge of my bed, and a layer of dust billows off the covers. Despite its condition, the duvet speckled with sunflowers looks inviting and cozy. I settle into the layer of sheets and blankets and realize Jake has plopped onto the shaggy white rug at the foot of my bed.

"You don't have to sleep on the floor, Jacob," I tell him.

"Where else would I sleep?" He asks, genuinely confused. He pokes his head up to peer over the end of my bed at me.

"Don't take this the wrong way," I say, trying my best to imitate his voice from earlier, "but there's no room for you to stretch out on the floor. There's no way that's comfortable."

"I've slept in worse places."

I sigh. "I guess that settles it, then." I clamber out of the tangle of sheets, piling my duvet and as many pillows as I can carry into my arms. I move around my bed, dropping the bedding next to Jake.

"What are you doing?" He asks, curious as I spread out the duvet and pillows into a pad on the carpet.

"Sleeping on the floor," I say stubbornly.

"You should really sleep in your bed."

"Why? Is the floor uncomfortable or something?"

"Alright, alright," he says, throwing his hands in the air in surrender. "I give up."

I smile, pick up all the bedding once more, and drop it back onto the mattress.

"I don't bite," I tell him.

"Says the half-vampire."

"No offense, but your blood isn't exactly appetizing."

He gasps in mock-horror. "How dare you. I'll have you know that my blood is extremely tantalizing."

I roll my eyes at him. I begin to pile up a mound of pillows in the middle of the bed to act as a divider between us. "There. This way you won't catch my cooties," I say, sticking my tongue out at him.

He flops happily onto the bed, obviously grateful to not be laying across hard floorboards.

I crawl into bed, and turn my back towards him, lying as close to the edge as possible. Despite the wall of pillows, I can feel his body heat radiating towards me. Although it was late summer, the sensation of it was oddly comforting.

We lay in silence for a few minutes. I'm almost positive that he's fallen asleep until I feel the weight of his massive body shift as he rolls over to face my back.

"Gabby," he says in almost a whisper, as if not wanting to disturb me in case I was sleeping.

"Yeah?"

He pauses, attempting to collect his thoughts. "I've been thinking about how to say this for a while, and there really is no good way to do it."

I don't say anything, allowing him the time the phrase whatever it was he wanted to say.

"I'm sorry for how much of an ass I've been to you."

I was surprised, to say the least. The hot-headed, stubborn Jacob that Renesmee had told me about was not one to apologize. His attitude towards me had only served to confirm that idea.

"I know when I'm in the wrong," he continues. "It's not an excuse but I've had a lot on my plate the past few weeks. The attack on the Cullens' territory only made things worse. And you…you were there, in the middle of it all."

I understood his initial anger towards me. I had come into the Cullens' lives uninvited, towing trouble close behind me. The Blackcloaks had only come near their territory to claim me. Simply by being there, I had exposed Renesmee, Jacob's Renesmee, to the coven that was seeking out our kind. What I didn't get was the friendliness that he was showing me now.

"It's okay," I assure him. "Edward and Bella told me about you and Ness."

He takes a minute to respond. "What did they say?"

"Something about imprinting," I half-mumble, still absorbed in my thoughts. "And that it makes you really protective of her."

"That's a bit of an over-simplification," he mutters to himself.

I roll over to face him now, peering at him from over the wall of pillows. "You know," I start, "I don't think I understand you, Jacob."

"What do you mean?"

"You just don't' really seem like the person that Renesmee made you out to be."

"And what kind of person is that?"

"Well, I think she has a bit of a bias perspective of you," I say with a laugh. "She thinks of you kind of like a superhero."

"To be fair," he starts, "Not everyone can turn into a wolf at will."

"You know what I mean. She really looks up to you."

"Yeah…." After a long moment he continues. "I really haven't been living up to her standards, have I? At least for how I've been treating you."

I don't say anything. Obviously, the hostility he had shown me was well-deserved. It was my fault. I accepted that. In a weird way, his contempt made me feel slightly better, because at least someone was acknowledging how guilty I was. "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"How is it that you're able to sleep in the same bed as me, but before you wouldn't even look me in the eye?" He raises an eyebrow at me before falling from his side onto his back to stare up at the ceiling, as if to illustrate my point.

"I'm a bit of a jackass, aren't I?"

"No," I say. "Okay, maybe a little."

He glances back at me briefly. "S'okay, you can say it."

"I don't think you're a jackass." I pause, trying to figure out how to phrase what I was thinking. "It's just…you just give me whiplash. I can't tell if I should avoid you….or if we could actually be friends."

"I think I would like that," he says. "To be friends, I mean."

"Me too," I agree. "In case you didn't notice, I don't exactly have a lot of them."

"Well, we've already had our first sleepover," he says grinning.

He looked ridiculous, with that wide, happy smile from under the sunflower-covered duvet. I couldn't help but laugh.

"Goodnight, Jacob," I tell him, rolling back onto my other side to face the window.

I lay there, listening to the sound of Jake's steady breathing. As I'm about to succumb to the welcoming embrace of sleep, I hear his voice through the increasing distance of my semi-consciousness.

In a soft tone, he breathes "Goodnight….Gabriella."