Sorry about the waiting. wtvoc is completing her last semester of nursing school and is rather overwhelmed lately.

Congrats to mcsmirkle, winner of the recent Support Stacie Auction! We wonder what she's gonna have us write…

Dedicated as always to wolvesnvamps.

Chapter 11

Bella

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason."

W.H. Auden once said "To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith."

William Woodsworth said "Faith is passionate intuition."

So.

Edward had left me cold and alone, all wrapped in his shirt in the meadow, and my lover, my best friend and soul mate was miles away, howling in despair and every part of me knew I should go back to him.

To Jacob.

Where I knew love and where I fit and was wanted—and was where I swore I wanted to be for my life and thereafter.

It was as though I were standing on the edge of a knife, on a thin line that separated two worlds, night and day or black and white.

If I thought it was a choice at all, I would've run home, to my Jacob.

If I thought for half a second I could return to him and forget all about Edward Cullen, I would have.

But I knew now, for the rest of my life, his face would haunt me.

I knew he'd hang like a silver cloud over me and Jacob for the rest of our lives.

I knew I'd never be whole and happy if I just let Edward go.

And though it shamed me and made me physically flinch and reel—I couldn't admit to myself that I felt the same about Jacob.

So I didn't think about the fact that Jacob couldn't live without me.

I didn't think about the last seven years of utter bliss and fantasy I'd lived.

I didn't think about every promise and vow and kiss and touch I had given wholeheartedly to Jacob.

I ran and cried out for his enemy instead.

With no logical reasoning, with nothing but passionate intuition and faith—it was that easy to choose the difficult road.

I ran. Away from La Push. Closer to Forks.

I tripped and stumbled, but I never stopped—not once did my physical weakness overcome my abrupt, fierce determination, which was, of course, to have Edward Cullen.

I ran past what I knew to be the territorial boundary lines, and I didn't pause, not even when I heard the strangled, enraged howling of enormous wolves, threaded in with a much louder howl—a howl riddled with despair.

I put my hands over my ears and kept running, but now I knew the actual, physical sound a heart makes when it breaks.

I ran full force until I was slammed to a stop—a cold stab right through my gut.

For a second, I thought the grief and guilt had actually killed me.

I was pulled until my back was pressed against cold steel.

"Switch teams? If not, you're on the wrong side of the line, sweetheart."

I struggled against his arm, and he let me go into a forward stumble, then I whipped around to face him.

"Jacob… is not my enemy. Jacob, will never, ever be my enemy," I spat and shouted.

"But you ran this way. And you had to have known you wouldn't find him here. You'd only find me."

"I… can't… you pulled me this way and I hate you for it."

"You made a choice," he said, pointing a finger and his black eyes at me.

"I didn't have a choice."

"Of course you did. I made a choice not to kill you in the meadow and countless times before, even when I thought it was impossible. I made a choice not to just take you, even though I could have many times. Now. Are you choosing me?"

"I don't want any of this. I didn't want you to show up and ruin my life and ruin Jacob. I don't want to have to think about you when I lay next to him in bed and I don't want to see your face everywhere I look and I don't want to imagine your voice or your hands. I don't want any of this to happen."

"But. Do you want me?"

I snapped my head to the side and let my chin dig into my shoulder because I could be quiet, but I couldn't lie.

I heard a twig snap as he took a step closer to me.

"I hate that I ever saw your face," I said, still unwilling to look at him.

"But. Do you want me?"

"I hate that the only person I ever really loved is dying for this. And for that I hate the both of us."

"But. Do you want me?"

"I hate the phenomenon of imprinting because it's one-sided and it's not fair. Not to anyone."

"Bella."

"I hate that I am a liar and a cheater and an unfaithful, undeserving, cold bitch— no matter how much I don't want to be. And I hate that that's what you make me. And I hate that whatever this is, it's stronger than imprinting and stronger than what should have been an eternal love."

"Say it."

"I love him. In a way that I'll never love you, I love Jacob."

And then, even when I couldn't help but stretch one hand out to touch Edward, I mourned Jacob.

"But, Bella, do you want me?" he whispered, leaning his face heavily into my palm.

I made a sound like crumbling or crying- because with that touch, I knew we all came undone.

My nails bent and buckled underneath his granite skin when I tried to sink them into his flesh. Maybe because I wanted to hurt him or maybe because I wanted to disprove him— all of him.

His entire, mythical existence.

Because if he wasn't here, if he didn't exist the way he shouldn't—my life would be my own again.

I looked at him from the corner of my eye; he was smiling, brilliant and anticipatory, waiting for the triumph we both knew I was going to give him.

"Are you happy? This makes you happy, doesn't it?" I asked. "Everyone is tortured—"

"I'm happy you won't go back to him. I'm happy you're here with me, right here, right now."

"You're much worse than they made you out to be. You're much more dangerous. You're not just a vampire, you're a life-taker, in every sense of the word—"

"I want you, Bella."

"In which way?"

"The dangerous ways."

His cold fingers went under my chin and he jerked my face toward his.

I looked up into his black eyes, intense with longing and impending victory, but shadowed by a hunger I couldn't name.

"But, Bella, do you want me?"

"Yes."

Yep, it's short. Every chapter's short, really. We don't believe in bullshit filler, yo.