Much of the immediate future Jake spent at the Cullens, or I at La Push. I knew he didn't spend enough time at home so I dragged him back whenever I could. I don't think he intentionally spent so much time away; he just never really realized it. So I would take him home. I'd talk with Billy – who was a freaking riot – and meet some of the people Jake was surrounded with. Because for a long time it was the other way around.

Billy was full of stories about everything. I especially enjoyed watching Jake squirm when he was the main character. Although he's lucky, Billy never revealed anything very embarrassing. He was a trove of folk tales, life lessons, bad jokes, and witty catch phrases.

When Jacob would get antsy from being in the house or just waiting for the moment his father would reveal potty training stories, we'd venture outside. I'd spent time in his garage and he showed me his VW Rabbit and how he'd built it from the ground up. Like Rosalie had begun with my bike, Jake began to show me some basics so I wasn't completely unsophisticated in the art of basic mechanics. I'd learned as a human that my small nimble fingers were a great boon but they were also always getting crushed and scraped; that wasn't a problem anymore thankfully.

I went with Jake and some of the pack when they went cliff diving. Leah and I sat on the grass, having gone first. I wrung my hair out as I watched Embry – who gained a newfound respect for me when I didn't argue the nickname 'bloodsucker (hey, it was true) – and Quil climb back up from the bottom. I liked Leah. Her every word was dripping with sarcasm but she cared for brothers (biological and otherwise). Her and Jacob, I found, had an especial sibling rivalry of sorts.

As Seth – the last pack mate – jumped and dove towards the rolling sea, Leah spoke. "So are you and Jacob a thing now?"

I couldn't help it as my laugh sputtered out. It just sounded so middle school – and I knew that's how she intended it - but I couldn't help the chuckle. "I guess so," I said after I calmed down. "It's weird; I don't know what you'd call us. We were friends and then I came back home and… I don't know, now we're 'more-than-friends'? I guess it's kind of my fault. I did maul him in my backyard."

Leah held up a hand to halt anything further. "I know," she said, "believe me, I know. Remember the pack mind? I see it. All the time. With recurring frequency. It's gross – no offense. The boy is crazy about you."

I crinkled my eyes, "That's such an alien concept to me."

She shrugged, "As far as I can tell, he's been this way for a while. I think the wedding really did it for everyone except him. Just reading all the stuff going on in his mind. I could tell he liked you as more than a friend – but I don't even think he knew."

"Your leaving was the final nail in the coffin for him," she nodded. "Having you actually not be around really threw it all into perspective. I didn't know whether to feel bad or punch him in the face. He was bitchy and rude all the time. But I also knew he wasn't eating or sleeping much. And I knew why."

I was rather intrigued by this course of discussion. Jake wasn't willing to discuss anything that related specifically to himself while I was gone. I didn't know why, but I now I had an idea.

"He's a lot better now that you're back. Actually, even better than he was before. Far less of a pain in the ass," she told me.

I nodded mulling this all over before changing up subjects so I wasn't so silent. "So which pack you think you'll join?"

"The new pack – no contest," she said instantly. "Like I said: Jacob is marginally less irritating and Sam is just… no, it's not worth it."

"You know for all your ragging on Jake, I happen to be quite fond of him," I smiled.

"Oh, I know," she rolled her eyes, "who else is going to even out the scale, though? Quil and Embry are his friends and I'm pretty sure Seth has never disliked anyone. So I've got to keep the balance."

"You seem very assertive," she noted, "I don't know how you two work together without killing each other."

"It's sure to be an interesting combination," I agreed.

In our brief time together since I'd come home, Jacob and I had grown exponentially more comfortable around each other than the in the whole time before I'd left. I just loved being around him. His smoky scent and pulsing warmth was the best feeling in the world. I couldn't even sit next to him without wanting to burrow into his side, just to get closer. His hand would close entirely around mine and after long enough my fingers would warm to the point where I almost felt human again.

I loved sitting on his couch and talking about the most ridiculous things or just sitting inside his garage with him. Jacob was still so much a part of the human world and I loved being able to experience some of that with him. It had been a long time since I'd felt 'normal'.

Jacob, I learned, was a physical being. There were times where he wouldn't tell me what was going on inside his head and I would have to figure it out. He communicated with body language and action.

Whenever we were together, he would rarely not be in direct physical contact with me. Whether his leg was touching mine or he pulled me onto his lap – it didn't matter. We could be in the middle of a conversation or being walking somewhere and he'd anxiously grab my hand or gently wrap his arm around my waist and pull me close. I could be flipping through the channels and out of nowhere he'd knock me to the ground because it'd been too long since I'd nearly died from a tickle attack. When I would get angry or frustrated or just start ranting about god knows what, he'd lean in and kiss me – long and deep enough to distract my frazzled brain. I think he was trying to get me to shut up, but he said he I was cute when I got angry.

I never complained because the closer I could get to the guy, the happier I would be. And it was nice to know that I wasn't totally crazy and he also felt these sporadic urges to just be really close to or on top of me.

The pack seemed to think it odd that Jake was seriously attracted to some vampire, but they were largely accepting of me, for which I was glad. For one, they let me on their land. I was around La Push a few times a week with Jacob and they didn't mind. After a week or so, I think they just got used to us. It was new and different, but he strangeness faded with time. I also learned from Leah that I did not smell as bad to the pack as most of my kind did. That was nice.

Like I said, I got some props from Embry for not being such a pansy about my nickname. Bloodsucker. Although, it was uttered with much less contempt than the word connoted.

Seth just sort of stared at me once when he realized I knew x-Box. I kicked his butt in a quick round in Call of Duty and got more stares from Jared and Paul.

I got to know Emily as well. Sam's fiancé. She was a nice girl and she cooked a lot. That first day I'd met her was no fluke. It was a regular thing. I watched her around the kitchen and picked up some pointers. I assured her that when the packs were all teamed off, I'd cook for Jake's. Because it was hardly fair for them to be eating her out of house and home when they weren't even meeting there. "I won't have them stop by here, just to mooch off you," I told her. "We can divide and conquer."

"That's a deal," she told me. "I don't mind handing over half, but do you know what you're getting yourself into?"

I did not. Those boys eat a lot. And by a lot I mean, what would sustain a single human for one day, sustains a single Quileute boy for one meal. That times three meals a day, times about four or five boys. Plus poor Billy, who still ate in the human capacity. I was used to my speed for many things but cooking required more finesse. I didn't want to ruin anything by moving to quickly and there were certain things you just couldn't rush. If it took ten minutes to bake a tray of something, there wasn't much I could do.

I liked to hope that sealed the deal with the food. I kind of hoped that the guys would at least grow to tolerate or not hate me, because that just made things weird. And I'd hate to be the stupid girlfriend that made everything different. But I think the food might've put my into the new pack's good graces. At least for now.

I had to try a few times but I learned which bad smells were actually perceived as good to humans. I made pretty good food as a kid and young teen – who else was going to feed my mother – but I'd had limited practice after moving out. Jake, Seth, Quil and Embry seemed to appreciate you domestic enthusiasm. They were amazed that I could even cook, like my ability to manipulate stainless steel cookware must've dissolved with my humanity. Apparently my smell was so weak to all them – excepting Jacob – that they couldn't smell me through cooked food. So it all panned out quite well.

Cooking was nice for me. It didn't smell good. In fact it smelled downright horrid, but it didn't mean I was incapable. Cooking was so mundane and normal it sometimes helped me forget all the immortal crap I had to deal with. I was just a normal person, making a meal. Because that was average. Run of the mill.

Jake also spent time with me at my house. I'd taken a long and careful amount of time to explain to him that we needed to keep it to handholding at the most around my house. Because I had no doubts of Jasper or Emmett possibly having some weird older brother meltdown. I didn't worry about Edward because he seemed to lighten up about Jacob since a) he and Bella had been married and b) Jacob had taken a more avid interest in me. Not to say he wasn't concerned but I think he read Jake's intentions better because he'd know Jake on a greater degree; plus that whole mind reading thing. Emmett and Jasper were easily blinded by brotherly instinct.

It took more explaining than convincing and in the long run it meant we spent more time on the res with his family – something Billy had requested of me at the wedding – because he could lean down and kiss me whenever he gosh-darn pleased.

The rest of the Cullens didn't seem to mind. Which I thought was odd. Nice, but odd. When Esme saw our hands atop one another on the counter, she just smiled. Rose admitted to me that she thought our bond was peculiar but her disdain seemed to be diminishing. When Alice quizzed me about it, all she could do was spin around my room like a ballerina while Bella and I watched her from my bed.

Bella, again, was my greatest arsenal for perspective and a good sounding board. She was the one family member to have had a similar relationship with him. Except she put a stop to it about three stages ago. She was happy that Jacob had found me. She confessed feeling like a bitch having to break Jacob off the way she did, but acknowledged that they both needed that closure. She loved him but there was always Edward; Edward was always a little more and little different. She suspected it was much the same for him – he just didn't having anything to compare it to. For her it was always 'Jacob and Edward' and there was a clear and obvious difference for her. She was glad that Jacob had found his difference.

As I helped Jake work on his self-control around my brothers, he helped me work on my perception. Like I'd told Leah, having someone care that much about me in that sort of manner – a manner different than a family bond – was strange to me. I wasn't used to it and it just translated oddly in my head sometimes. I don't even know what would set me off; I don't think there was much rhyme or reason.

Jake would tell me I smelled nice while we sat in his car and that was fine but later he could tell me I was smart and I wouldn't know how to react. My shoulders would hunch or I just wouldn't say anything because I didn't know what to do. And even from Jacob – the person I talked about everything with - these words sounded weird.

Once he saw my pattern, he stopped allowing me to invert. He would hold my shoulders upright – not letting me slouch; or he'd tell me again, more firmly and directly. He didn't let it slide. He seemed genuinely surprised that I couldn't process this kind of stuff.

We were in the Rabbit when my lovely issue first surfaced. It was coming into the end of the school year; he was going into his senior year of high school in the fall and he'd missed a fair bit of his junior year – being a wolf half the time and all. He had a stack of work to get through before the summer was up or they wouldn't let him into the twelfth grade.

He saw this more as a pain than anything else. He wasn't stressed at all like most people would be. Then I found out why. He could whip a five page paper on the underlying decisions and repercussions of using the bomb in WWII in about an hour. I was absolutely amazed. No brainstorming, no outline, no rough draft. He just grabbed some paper started and an hour later was done the final product. I didn't believe him – until I read it. I don't think he even misplaced a comma.

That was the case for all his History and English homework. What would've taken most humanoids a week, he did in an afternoon. When I asked him what the deal was; if he was trying to pull a fast one on me he shrugged. "No. I've always been good with this kind of stuff. I can write well; it's easy. It helps in two subjects at least." I just continued to stare with my mouth slightly open before he closed it for me.

Math was a different story. True to form: Jacob was a man of extremes. While he was linguistic savant he had colossal issues with math. The Pre Calc was not something that computed for him. I – being the math geek - spent an entire Tuesday in the Rabbit going over it all but I'm not sure it helped. He managed to get through all of the math work in the course of a week, but he needed reminding. He would grasp a concept I spent twenty minutes explaining but it would only stick in his brain long enough for him to hammer out the next problem. This made for slow going.

He was irritated when I refused to do it for him. And he got frustrated quickly when he didn't retain the information. He'd practically begged me but I insisted that if I did it for him he'd be royally screwed come the fall because math was a building process and if he didn't get this he'd be lost. In the end he did it all himself. He'd calmed down significantly – logarithmic functions had really bent him out of shape – and he smiled at me. "Thank you," he said sincerely, "you did great. You're really smart."

I just stared ahead, biting my lip and nodding my head vaguely.

"What?" he curiously asked me, "you are."

I just shrugged and stared at the dashboard.

"Bree, you can't possibly not believe me," he said taking my hand. "You have to know that you're smart. It takes a lot to understand all this, especially to the point where you can explain it to someone else."

"I guess," I said getting a little irritated and propping my feet on the dash.

"Bree," Jacob said as he angled himself towards me.

"What?" I said snapping slightly.

He just looked at me for a moment with a calm studious face as I got more tense and exasperated. I think he was dissecting what was happening to me, because it was certainly written all over my body language. For a moment he didn't speak and I felt like I might just explode inside this car. I leaned over and was on the verge of pulling the door handle to get out because I just couldn't take it, when Jake took my hand and prevented me from leaving.

I released the handle sadly and turned around. I was clearly not getting out of this one. He took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead. Normally his lips on me were such a sedative, but in this case it just made me more anxious.

"Bree," he said steadily, "you are smart."

"Okay," I shouted, "I get it."

"No. You," he repeated, "are smart."

"All right, already. I—"

"And funny, and gorgeous. You're kind and helpful and sincere. You can bring out the best in anybody."

He'd figured it out.

At this point my eyes probably looked like quarters and my breathing was getting shallower and faster. I was crossing into the realm of a panic attack and all I could do was reach out for Jacob as an anchor to keep me from going completely postal. I sat in his lap and buried my face in my hands as he held on to me. Trying to keep me from falling apart at the seams. We opened quite a can of worms that day.

His methodology usually worked but every once in a while I'd really tweak out. It was the beautiful comments that were guaranteed to send me over the edge. If he told me I was beautiful or pretty, forget about it; I had absolutely no mental framework to operate from when he threw something like that at me. I'd get very upset because I didn't know how to receive those types of compliments – though I knew they were just that, compliments. I couldn't even look him in the eye.

He'd just hug me to his chest or gently hold my face as I let it all process through my borderline hysterics. I could feel the awkward drumming that his words would send through my nerves and down my arms and shoulders. I'd let his natural heat relax my oddball tension.

He about had an aneurysm when I suggested he simply didn't say that kind of stuff to me.

"What! Not only is that not healthy, it's bullshit. You are all those things," his vague allusion only giving me a slight flinch as he paced around his kitchen, "and I won't let you not believe them. It would be a lie."

"But we could just avoid the whole situation if you never mentioned it! It's not lying," I argued, "You said it once. Okay, I know. We don't have to talk about it again!"

He looked at me like I was growing another appendage out of my head, "Are you crazy? It would be a lie of omission and I'm not going stop saying nice things to you because you're not used to it. I think hearing them more often is good for you. I can't let you sit in the cage you've built around yourself. There'll always be that part of you stuck there."

"I'm not stuck anywhere!" I insisted. "Can't we just pretend I'm allergic? It's like peanuts. You wouldn't force feed me peanuts if I was allergic would you? Prolonged exposure doesn't help in all cases, Jacob."

He just sat at the kitchen table and ran his hands over his face. He looked defeated. "I feel like," he told me, "if we close that off it will just get worse and over time there will be less I can say to you without making you uncomfortable. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, Bree but…" and he was silent.

"What?" I asked quietly as I perched on the edge of the table.

"I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable but," he said evenly, "I think it will come to a point where I could have something important to say. Either I could tell you and you react horribly or I keep my mouth shut and you'd just never know. What are we supposed to do then?"

"Well," I said, "if it's important, I'll survive. I just think the constancy of practice is more pain than it's worth."

He stood up slowly and did a steady shuffle from one end of the kitchen to the other. When he was at the far side he turned and looked at me for a moment. He came back to the table and placed one hand on each side of me on the tabletop. "Bree, I need to know that if something is on my mind that I can say it or tell you about it without your running away from me. Because nothing scares me more than my making you run away."

I groaned and lolled my head back for a moment. "Jacob," I said bracing the side of his face with my hands to make my point clear. "It's not you. It's not the thought. It's the words inside my brain." He just sighed tiredly and closed his eyes.

"What is it? What do you need to tell me?"

"I love you."

What did he just say? I had to pause for a moment. He'd just spit it out, apropos of nothing; I wasn't sure I heard him right. But there wasn't much I could confuse those three words with.

For a moment it was all I could do to keep myself rooted to that spot. Jacob was worried about my running. And I couldn't prove his suspicions correct, not with something like this. This was a whole new level of cranial overload for me. Forget about being smart or beautiful. This was love. Love. Love… The thought came powering into my head like a semi skidding over ice. But for the first time that's as far as it manifested.

It was a few seconds before I realized I'd begun to shake my head. Jacob began to imitate me, shaking his head in my hands, "Why are you shaking your head?"

I snapped back to reality and pulled my hands away from Jake's face, like I'd been burnt. I buried my own face in my hands and leaning down towards my knees. "Jacob, you don't love me."

"What?" he asked point blank.

I lifted my eyes out of my hands, "You can't love me. Just look at me. No, I'm not good for you Jacob." I really had not seen that one coming. I was so screwed up: physically, mentally, emotionally… I just wasn't healthy for him. To form that kind of attachment, I'd just end up poisoning him.

Maybe I'd made a mistake by kissing him that day I came back. There's no denying I enjoyed it, but maybe I should've never indulged that desire or opened that door for us. It was selfish because he could give so much to another person, and me and my problems would just kill him slowly.

He just stood upright, taking his hands away from the tabletop. He looked lost. "See," he said staring at a point on the floor behind me, "I knew this would happen."

I started to panic. I scooted myself back away from him and off the opposite end of the table. I needed to get out. I know he was afraid of my running but old habits die hard and if I didn't get out I would do something we'd both regret. Before I made it to the door he was in front of me blocking my way.

"Jake," I said trying not to become hysterical – and failing, "let me out."

"No," he said blocking the path of my hand. He was using his size to his advantage and covering the whole door. Plus, after what happened the last time I hit him, he knew I'd never lay a hand on him. I was too horrified by the potential results.

"Let me out!"

"No. I will not let you run away from this. Regardless of your feelings for me you can't keep running forever!"

"Jacob!" I was now officially screaming.

"If you can honestly leave here, then go," he shouted and stepped aside from the door to clear my way. "I'm not stopping you. But just know that one day your legs are going to give out."

My lungs were expanding and contracting with my each breath and I could feel them fill my empty chest. Every molecule in my body was telling my to bolt. Telling me to get out. To rip that door off the hinges and run as fast and as far away as I could. But something kept my feet firmly secured to his living room floor. I couldn't move from my spot. After what seemed like an hour of inner battling I just collapsed on the floor. Sitting on the spot. I rested my head on my knees as I clutched at my hair. Jake slid down the wall across from me. I don't think he wanted to come near me, he must've been afraid of scaring me off.

"I'm no good for you Jacob. I'm going to hell," I muttered.

"That's a crock of shit and you know it. Why would you ever think you're going to hell? You are not bad, Bree."

"Jacob," I cried, "you have to understand. I love you too – I truly do - but that's exactly the problem. You could do so much better. If I had these feelings for you that's fine, I can ignore them but for you to love me just pulls you into my mess." I tapped on my hollow chest, "there's nothing in here, Jacob. Nothing to keep me from snapping and killing anyone I know. Believe me, no god wants much to do with me."

I continued to just sit there on the floor. I didn't know what to say or do. Jacob slid across the floor towards me, watching my body language to make sure I was all right. I was having a complete meltdown because this is not how I imagined things going. I cared about Jacob. I loved Jacob but for him to love me was just dead weight around his neck. I wanted him free to do what he wanted. I didn't want him tied down to the basket case from across town. I felt like I had such an opportunity to taint him.

For a while I thought I had a chance, that there was a possibility of my making my situation work. But Volterra had broken me. I was damned.

"Bree, from what I know: most interpretations of god are willing to forgive if you're sorry. You've turned over a completely new leaf. Made a whole new life for yourself. That's quite a jump." I think he was trying to reason with me, but I didn't see much way out of this.

"You were a Christian, right? There's a story in your Bible about a man that wanted to go to heaven. Jesus told him to leave all his possessions and follow him. The man couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to leave his old life. You left everything behind Bree. And Carlisle is hardly Jesus, but I don't deny that he's probably got the right idea about your kind. You live the best you can with what you have."

As Jacob reached my defeated, crumpled form he took my hand and was still for a moment, reading my reaction. "Bree. I love you. And I will be here until the day I die. I don't want to fix you – but I can't handle you not knowing how amazing you are. I can't handle your thinking your going to hell. I don't want you to ignoring anything. I want to know what's on your mind – no matter what it is. We all have shit we need to work through but it's easier together. You are a beautiful disaster and I wouldn't want you any other way."

How could he possibly have any desire to be with me on that kind of level with the full knowledge of who I was? All my mental baggage and he didn't care. There was no way. This kind of stuff didn't happen in reality. This degree of acceptance was nigh impossible.

Jacob moved even closer to me and despite my hysterics at what he was telling me I couldn't deny the comfort of his heat so close to me. His long legs stretched on each side of me and he just pulled me close. I buried my face in the fabric of his shirt and tried to reign in the dry sobbing.

After a few minutes Jacob spoke. "You talk about love like it's a disease," he said, "but hearing you say that was still the best thing I've ever heard. Even in the middle of your self-deprecating tirade."

I smiled sadly, "It is a disease. You are not of sound mind – that I know."

He picked up my face from his shoulder, "I am completely lucid. I love you and you have never looked more gorgeous."

I didn't even flinch.

"I love you too, Jake."