Eleanor POV

I should've known that something would go wrong.

I had to know that things wouldn't just fall back together as I had once hoped.

It had almost seemed as if we would come back together as best friends, just like we used to be. Like we would've totally been able to clear the slate, and return to our perfect friendship.

"Will you make me mac n cheese? Pleaseeee?" Andrea groaned, I giggled and nodded, tossing my bag onto the floor and heading towards the kitchen.

She followed suit and slung herself into a table chair, giggling.

I pulled the box from the cupboard and the pot from the cabinet and began to pour in the hot water.

"I'm sorry."

Andrea broke me from my trance, I turned to face her with wide eyes.

"Don't worry about it, I mean, it's okay now." I tried to shrug it off, continuing on the task at hand.

"I just," she began, pausing to rest her cheek against the table, "you've been my best friend since sixth grade. And Jacob was, I thought, the love of my life. He left me for Sam and Jared and them, and then you start hanging out with Kim, and. And I just thought I would lose you next."

I was shocked, to say the least. I was at a loss for words.

How could she possibly think that I was leaving her? She was all I had had since I was eleven years old, I owed her everything. She was why I had survived as long as I had, why I had held onto my sanity as long as I had. Giving up our friendship would've been the absolute most foolish thing a person in my position could have ever done.

"You couldn't lose me if you tried, Andy."

I'll admit, I wasn't good at tenderness.

It's not that I didn't feel insane gratitude for her, it's not that I didn't love my best friend whole heartedly. I just wasn't good with words. I couldn't express it.

How was one who was so mentally unstable at all times supposed to show and tell every feeling they had? It was honestly easier to just show none.

Jacob had been the first person, excluding Andrea, who had seen me cry since my sister died. And I was even ashamed that he had seen that. Yet a part of me accepted it.

When the macaroni and cheese was made I sat across from her at the table and we chattered as we ate, as if nothing had happened.

She didn't speak of Malina and I didn't speak of Jacob and Kim.

That was something different. I had never not said something around her, albeit the select few times when I had been around Jacob at Emily's and hadn't told her.

But it was nice.

Until the knock on the front door.

I knew who it was as soon as I heard it, though I tried to pretend I didn't know.

Andrea had looked to me with curious eyes and had followed me to the living room as I went to answer it.

My stomach was in my throat.

I felt myself begin to shake and I gulped.

Here goes nothing.

And there, Jacob stood.

Tall, and beautiful, and smiling down at me with a look that movie stars would kill for.

"There's my favorite girl,"

He smiled at me and though my stomach dared to do flops, the realization of what was about to take place was making me want to be sick.

I squinted my eyes shut and immediately heard her feet patter to the opening of the hallway and stop.

Here it comes.

"What is this?!" Her voice shrieked out, I winced and opened my eyes to find Jacob's wide.

This was going to be a mess, I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.

"Your favorite girl? What the hell?!" She came towards us, I instinctively turned to face her.

"How long has this been going on?" Her eyes were wide with fury and her forehead was crumpled together in anger.

"You don't understand, Andy, it's-"

"No, I do understand. I understand that you are the worst best friend in the world. Now I need you to understand this: I hate you, Eleanor."

Her words stung and she shouldered me as she fled my house, throwing herself into her car and speeding out of my driveway.

I was left there, everything crumbling around me with Jacob still behind me. I just stood there in the doorway and watched where she had once been. I guess I was in shock.

I had no words when Nia died, either.

The police stood on our doorstep and told my parents, I had stood behind them and listened. And I had continued to stand there, long after they had left and long after my parents had fled to the living room to cry. And that night I had slept in that spot, crumpled in a ball on the floor and silent.

I hadn't cried until three days after, when I went running into her room asking her where my shirt was. Only to find the room empty and left just as it had been the day she died.

That's when I cried.

I collapsed right there and sobbed for hours until my parents had found me there and carried me back to my bedroom.

"Eleanor." Jacob's soft voice and warm grasp pulled me from my memory and forced me to look up at him. I just stared at him. His eyebrows scrunched together in upset and his eyes scanned my face a hundred times over.

I shut my eyes and exhaled and I felt his arms hesitantly mold around me, tugging me to his chest. I let it happen. I didn't object to his warm embrace, and I allowed for the heat to engulf my body.

One hand tenderly rubbed between my shoulder blades and one worked its way through my curls and I allowed my hands to come up and rest on his back- as far up as I could reach considering that his size swallowed mine.

I wanted to object, I wanted to chase after Andy and tell her that it wasn't true, that we didn't have anything going on. Because we didn't. Did we?

No. No, nothing was going on.

I didn't know him, and he didn't know me.

Yet something about the way that his hand carefully wove through my hair and the way that his scent heightened all of my senses made me question everything.

I don't know how long we stood there hugging, the door wide open and the cool spring air blowing through my small house.

What was my life turning to? Months ago Andrea was my best friend, no question about it. Jacob and her were the power couple, madly in love and destined to be together. I was crazy about Embry and he hardly knew I existed. In such a short span of time, it was all so wrong now.

But somehow it was all so right.

Jacob's phone started buzzing.

I pulled my face from his chest and looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. He sighed and I pulled from his embrace, feeling cold the moment I did it.

"What?"

His voice was cold once more. I had a feeling almost immediately on who it was.

"You keep those," he paused, looked down at me and shutting his eyes, "keep them away from here."

I watched his eyebrows scrunch together with aggravation and his free hand casually reach up and roam through my hair. I subconsciously leaned into his touch. It just felt so good.

"No, Bella. No."

He hung up. I knew it was Bella.

"Eleanor, please, don't pay any attention to her. Okay?"

I nodded in response.

But I lied.