As I walked through my front door, I slammed it behind me and headed straight for the kitchen. I needed caffeine.

Jacob had been silent the entire ride home, not looking at me and barely breathing as far as I could tell, except for the constant, spasm-like tapping of his left leg.

The rain was oppressive, the gray sky closing me in on all sides, and I was happy to be back in my house where I could breathe alone. I expected to hear the roar of Jake's bike outside as I stomped through the living room, but instead, the door opened quietly behind me.

"Hey, guys, did you go to the store?" Emmett asked, looking up from the movie he and Rosalie were watching. I didn't register what it was. I scowled at him as I continued on my quest.

"What's wrong with her?" I heard from behind me.

"Me…"

"What did you do now?" Rose teased as I slammed open the cabinet, grabbing a glass. I filled it with ice before hunting for a soda.

"…Jessica…" was all I heard from the room behind me as I poured a Diet Coke over the ice. I watched the fizzing before me - soothing. I could get lost in carbonation… bubble after bubble, each one a perfect sphere - the kind that only nature can create - appearing only to destroy another.

Grabbing my glass, I walked back through the living room, ignoring the three sets of eyes following my trek up the stairs. I was going to my rooms, and if Jacob was smart, he was going to follow me.

I opened my door, and the smell of Jacob still hung heavily in the air, a musky sweet smell. Just this morning I had been reveling in the scent of him.

I grabbed my notebook from my desk and turned to my loveseat, finding Jacob standing in my door.

"Am I allowed to come in?"

"Suit 'cherself."

"Bella…"

"What?

"Come on…"

"What, Jacob?"

"Will you just stop it, okay? Just…"

"Just what? Listen to you? So you can tell me again about what kind of guy you are, and you can fill my head with how great you are? Oh, but wait, you forgot to mention an ex-fiancé and whatever it is that has you all twitchy around people in town."

"I'm not… fuck."

"What? Spit it out, Jake!"

"Stop fucking yelling at me!"

"Oh, right, sure, I'll do that. I'll just sit silently and ignore you. How's that sound? Is that better? 'Cause let me tell you, that's been a hoot and a half this morning."

"Fuck, Bella, will you give me one goddamn second?"

"Sure… Take your time." I sat down and stared up at him.

…

…

…

Jake started pacing in my small sitting room.

Up and down my black rug.

From the bathroom to the window.

…

…

Touching my bookshelf, he paused, running his fingers over the titles there.

I sat, watching him pick up the picture of my father, looking at it quickly before setting it back down.

…

…

…

Jake paced.

Wearing a virtual path in my rug.

…

…

"Okay, I'm going to go do laundry I guess."

"No…Bella…"

"Well, are you going to talk or just walk around all day? I'm getting hungry; you know I didn't get any breakfast…"

"Stop being a bitch, okay?" he said dejectedly, passing his hand through his hair.

"Then sit down and talk," I answered, trying not to let my annoyance get the better of me.

"All right." He walked over and sat down, settling into the farthest corner of a loveseat barely big enough for both of us.

"So, remember when I told you I used to have a temper…"

"Yeah…"

"Okay… well, there were a couple of times it got out of hand and…shit…"

"What does this have to do with Jessica?"

"I'm getting there. Okay…I…"

Jacob leaned back, staring at the ceiling with his hands in his hair as he took a few breaths.

"Okay…Jessica and I started dating my senior year of high school. We'd known each other for a while, and she was, well, fuck this makes me sound shallow, but I guess I was… she was gorgeous and popular and, well, she was…willing…

"But, see, I was totally convinced that meant we were, like, together for life. We were together for a year when I asked her to marry me, and she said yes, and like an idiot, I was all planning our life. We'd live on the Rez, and I'd work at the fish hatchery with my Dad. I mean, I was just a kid, you know, but I was sure this was it for me.

"Honestly, I didn't even really like Jessica, and she was never interested in me, really. I guess she liked being with the star jock; the fact that it pissed off her parents that I was Quileute was just a bonus. She would laugh at my sketches and carvings, and she'd always talk about TV shows I didn't know, but... I mean, I never even got her a ring or anything, but we told our parents, and they completely freaked out.

"It was right after Royce was born, and shit was nasty. Rose wouldn't let Paul anywhere near him, and his parents were being really obnoxious about the whole thing, telling him it served him right for being with a white girl and shit.

"Jess's parents basically locked her in the house and wouldn't let her out, and if it was possible, my dad started talking to me even less."

"That's terrible, Jake…"

"Yeah, well, we'd sneak out and see each other, and she'd come to my games and shit… But I didn't see her much, and with all the shit we hear about what girls in town are like… You know, there's even a Quileute word for them: Hókwat'. It translates to 'white girl,' but really it means someone you just use and forget about because they can't be trusted.

"My whole life I was told not to trust white girls, you know? I mean, it's okay to be friends, but to date one, to marry one… totally not okay. And then with Rose and Paul, everyone was kind of freaking out."

He looked at me fleetingly, up through his lashes, as if making sure I was still listening.

"I started really… I don't know… like, obsessing about Jess and what she was doing. I'd drive into town in the middle of the day to find her, convinced she was seeing someone.

"So one day I went to where she worked, the little beauty salon on Park Road, and I saw her hug this kid I knew she'd gone to school with, and I completely freaked out. I mean, I was all paranoid and totally out of control with my temper, and…I really just lost it, Bella."

Jacob took a deep breath, shaking his head for a minute, attempting to get the courage to continue.

"All right, so, fuck… So, I basically beat the shit out of this kid, Mike. I mean, in my head it was a fight, but it really wasn't. I was a lot bigger than him, and he had no idea what was going on. So the police were called, and I got taken in, and, yeah, that was fun… My dad wouldn't come get me, so I had to call Mr. Uley, which sucked…"

"Jake…" I said, unable to even imagine him doing what he was describing.

"Yeah…"

"Is that why you left?"

"No, Bella… It actually gets worse…"

The pause was stifling. I needed him to continue; whatever he had to tell me, I needed to know everything. This was one of those moments I could watch myself in. It was happening around me, but I was absorbing it like an observer, not a participant. What he was telling me was all in abstract, impossible to connect to the man sitting in front of me. He'd just been a kid. I could see he was ashamed of himself, but whatever had happened didn't seem to be anything worth torturing himself like this over.

I took a sip of my soda and handed it to him. He took a sip and smiled at me weakly.

"Thanks."

"Sure."

The rain outside fell steadily on the roof,filling our shoes and weighing our clothes down as I sat listening to Jacob tell me the damage he'd done. Sometimes it takes moments like this before you realize you have no one.

"I… Fuck, Bella, I don't want to go through all this with you. I like you not seeing me this way. I don't want you to think I'm…"

"You have to finish; you started now you have to finish, okay? I'm still here, and I'm listening, but I'm not doing secrets."

"Okay…"

…

…

…

"Okay… So my dad was totally unimpressed with me, but most of the kids on the Rez thought what I'd done was awesome. Suddenly I was more popular than I'd ever been, and I felt like I must have been right, you know?

"You know, my grandfather was Chief back when we still did things that way. Now we're run by the Council, but my Dad is still big into the Chief thing, and people still look at him that way… and I guess, I just thought I was big shit, you know?

"But, okay… fuck… so Jess and I kept sneaking around, and I was supposed to meet her one night. She didn't show up, so I went to her house, and she was there with that same Mike kid. She was kissing him, and I swear, I fucking blacked out or something then because the next thing I knew I was in cuffs, and Mike was just…really fucked up.

"He was in the hospital for almost a week… Lost his spleen and still has some problems with his leg… And Jessica… I guess… I'd pushed her out of the way or something… her wrist was broken…

"They said I almost killed Mike, and I was over eighteen, so I was an adult, and… Well, my dad had been fishing buddies with the Chief of Police, and they let the Council deal with me instead of having a trial, which Jess's parents were not happy about, but…

"So they told me my choices were to go to jail or leave and not come back… When I joined the Air Force, that seemed to make them happy enough though, said I could come back to visit my dad since I was doing something useful with myself…

"I never meant to come back here. I never wanted to, and I'm not wanted… But my dad needs me now, and Emmett's dad insisted I do the installation for the library, and for the most part, everyone was really nice about it. I guess this still is home. I just… Fuck…

…

…

…

"Are you going to say anything, Bella?"

"I…I don't know what to say."

"I'm really… what happened… it's not who I am, okay?"

"I…"

The moments were spreading out before me; I could watch as each second approached and passed over us. The couch was outside of time, the flow moving around us as air does when it whips around a child sitting alone on a bench. The more I tried to focus on what Jacob had told me, the slower the moments of time swirling around me moved.

"You almost killed someone, Jake…"

"I know," he said, putting his head in his hands and looking at the rug between his feet. Angela's ominous words came back to me. Was I, in fact, brave enough to be with him?

Looking at Jacob, I was struck by how small he seemed. He was so strong, usually so confident, but he was absolutely terrified sitting here on my small velvet couch, staring at my floor. I stared at him, trying to fit the words dangerous and killer to the figure hunched in on himself before me, but I couldn't. It was like trying to force a cat to wear a bonnet. It simply did not fit.

But no matter how I saw Jake, it didn't change the reality of his past. He didn't even try to justify or explain why he did it… in fact… he didn't even apologize. He didn't want me to see him that way, and he didn't want me to think that was who he was, but…

"Are you even sorry?"

"What?" His head snapped up to look at me. "Of course! Have you been listening?"

"Yeah, but you seem more worried about what people think than…"

"No… Bella… No…" His eyes were round, looking at me with disbelief, like I was the one who had shocked him.

"I…I think you should go."

"Bella, please."

"No, look, you have to go." I stood up, unable to look at him.

"I'm begging you. Please."

"Goodbye, Jacob."

I walked back into my bedroom and closed the door, leaning against it, immobile while waiting to hear the click of my living room door and the roar of his motorcycle. I'd thought that silence was my biggest fear; it turns out I was wrong. My fears collided, fire and ice surrounding and engulfing me, numbing me. I was comatose with fear.

The floor was softer than I'd expected as I sat down, my back against the door as my tears fell finally. I was so wrong. I was so wrong about everything in the world. I'd thought Edward was perfect when in reality he was the outline of perfection, hollow and without meaning. And Jake… Jake… He was beauty and warmth and honesty and openness and everything I needed to thaw the inspiration that had frozen from Edward's inattention. But I was wrong again; in reality, he was a wild fire burning without direction.

I remembered the look in Jake's eyes when he saw Emmett holding my hand, and no matter how much he told himself that he wasn't the same person anymore, it was still a part of him-that rage, that fear. I shuddered with the reality of what he was capable of. It was only by grace that he hadn't killed anyone that day.

The smell of rain wafted through my cracked bedroom window, wiping away the remnants of my night with Jake. The curve of his body was no longer indented in my mattress, the smell of his skin no longer intermingled with my sheets, and I cried at the loss of what I'd thought I found.

The sun moved across the sky as I watched its flirtation with my curtains; the shadows danced slowly to the tune of a silent song. The movie of my night with Jacob played out on the bed before me, interrupted by images of a broken, bloody boy, laid out at the feet of his lover.

I burned in my place on the floor as my fingers lengthened and worked their way into the floor beneath me, searching for meaning in the wood of the house, roots digging for nourishment. My feet were buried and decomposing, my body becoming the very food I was searching for. Disconnected, I was a circular system, self-sustaining, until there was nothing but a shell remaining.

"Bella… Bella, honey…" Rose called from my outer room, but without hands and feet, I could not move.

"Honey, you have to eat something, okay? It's late, and you have work tomorrow."

I sat against my door, unable to respond; my mouth was covered with the vines of my confusion, and I was firmly attached to the floor.

"I'm gonna leave soup out here, okay? Emmett's going home tonight, and Royce will be home any minute. If you need anything, come down and get me, okay?"

I listened as she shuffled out of my room, her slippers dragging as she walked.

I slept on thefloorthat night, unable to face the pillow he'd lain his head on only hours earlier.

That night, I dreamed of a mob in a square calling for death, and a beautiful woman standing on a platform with her wrist in a sling and fire licking at the hem of her dress. My body turned, aching against the hard floor.

The morning came fast, and I awoke to find that I could stand as if I was a whole person. I could walk to the bathroom and shower and wash my hair as if I still had hands that could feel. I brushed my teeth as if I could still taste. The soup Rosalie had brought me the night before sat cool and untouched on my floor; there was a heart drawn on the napkin next to it. My mouth smiled, as if I could still be happy.

I dressed quickly, not bothering to look in the mirror before going downstairs to grab some breakfast, hoping that Rosalie and Royce would still be asleep. I wanted to get to the school early to have some time alone before greeting students this morning. My notebook was tucked into my messenger bag, an idea still unformulated, half realized in the musings within.

I jogged to my truck to find a note sitting on the driver's seat.

Bella, I may be insane to think you can see past all of this, but it's not too late. It's never too late. I don't know how to explain to you how everything that happened fucked with my honor, and it messed with my head, and it's a secret I don't know how to tell, but you showing up like this… it's like a present I don't deserve. I will do whatever I have to in order to be worthy. – Jake

The rain stopped as I slowly drove to La Push.