Dear Readers,

Hi! I'm back. And I've finished this novel. I worked for months and months, and now I will post the final chapters every few days instead of every few months. There are nine chapters to go.

I want to thank everyone who has supported my story, especially Pingou, Beaches of La Push, and ilovefanfic. Also I want to thank everyone who reviewed the last few chapters: Blue Moon, KaioM, RedRosie03, April-Showers82, Leppy99, Sophie, ilovfanfic, mymyshadow, MagicalMercenary, Ruby Red-Venustas, pingou, Lorraine, Koddt24, the dr donna, Amaleea, m. m. press, Maxsmomma, vriend, cazzy1, Taytay123456, Beaches of La Push, Emilise284, jharv241, echo58, alixandria, Jane, Eludain, Crazy kitten, cloudshadow22, flashahh, tonyamic10, JSam1021, Anony, mrslisablack, Zayide, firecewolf, Chat1, CharmedBooklett, nothinwrong2013, MissPoisonedAddiction1, twilightlover212, PernFan, LCB, withlovej, Maggie, SunshineDaisies6, ThePeopleOfThisNation, a little girl blue, feebes86, IceQueen2012, Ashmerlin, Tiggerb722, TaleWeaver, Dnicholson127, WackyWisher, weekaa1313, YouHaveGOT2BeKiddingMe, JessicaBlack1, DarkSouthernBelle, dancingbarefoot, katteken, klarsen117, twilightlover212, Havran, Jessy Rhian, Gillian Cooke, and Jena2013!

Also, I want to shout out the roll call of Twilight fans from around the globe. Readers who chimed in are from France (2) Minnesota (3), Ohio (2), Michigan (1) in the Upper Peninsula(!), New Jersey (3), California (1), Sweden (1), Texas (3) including 2 from San Antonio (!), Connecticut (1), South Africa (1) (wow), Oregon (1), and Hawaii (1). That's pretty cool.

One more thing: a summary. Thanks to Crazy Kitten for this idea.

Previously, Jacob told Bella he was no longer interested in pursuing romance with her because of stress at home and in La Push. He needs her to be his best friend, not run away because of her worries about his feelings. Bella tried to help him feel better by planning a fun outing to Port Angeles, but in a pizza parlor she hurt his feelings by freaking out and declaring, "This is not a date." Also, Mike realized that Jessica avoids him because she is insecure about his friendship with Bella, and Quil tried to buy a used van, only to be thwarted by Mr. Dowling's apparent racism. Charlie keeps working on the search for the second missing hiker in Olympic National Park. (The first hiker was found dead, the victim of an "animal attack," but Charlie's not ready to close the case on that.) Sam and Paul are now employed by Forks PD and the ONP, respectively, to assist with the search since Charlie's deputies and other park rangers are suddenly uncomfortable going into the woods.

I think that should do it. Please enjoy this new chapter.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"Forgiveness"

A minor. D major. A minor. D major.

Billy's hallway had not been vacuumed in a while. She figured it wasn't unlike him to leave it alone, but it was unlike Jake. Jake was nearly as neat as she was, about things that mattered, that is. The Rabbit. His tools. His home.

A minor. D major. A minor. D major.

She sat on the floor outside his room, leaning her back against the wall. Her guitar lay across her lap. Quietly, she played the chords that came to her, that seemed to suit her mood. And Jake's mood. His door was closed.

It was Wednesday, February 11. Valentine's Day was coming up soon, and more and more, she was coming to adopt Leah's attitude that love was shit. On Monday morning, after Sunday's trip to Port Angeles with Jacob, she awaked from the first nightmare she'd had in weeks, and it rattled her. She had come home miserable and ashamed of herself after the way she treated Jake in the restaurant, and she'd fallen asleep on her bedroom floor, feeling sick and dizzy.

In her dream, she had stumbled after Jacob through the wet streets of Port Angeles. His shoulders were stiff. He was walking too fast. Then everything changed; she was in the forest again, running after Edward, but Edward was gone. She woke with Jake's name stuck in her throat; only a strangled gasp would come out, but it was enough to wake Charlie. He'd leaped out of bed and opened her door at four in the morning. She was glad she'd had the presence of mind to tell him to not turn on the light, for she'd slept naked where she'd fallen.

"You're sure you're all right?" he said.

"Yes. Now that I'm awake. I'm okay."

Charlie had closed her door again quietly.

D major. G major. D major. G major.

Billy's hallway was cold, and the brown, matted carpet was faintly damp. Everything was faintly damp around here. She played her chords softly. Billy sat in the living room with the TV set on, but the volume very low. She couldn't tell if he was watching it, or if he wanted her to think that he was watching it. Maybe, she thought, he was trying to watch it. Maybe he was trying to give her a little privacy in a very small house.

Love was shit. The past few days had been terrible, collectively speaking. There was Jake, who hadn't spoken to her since Sunday night, though she had telephoned him several times. Each time, Billy was apologetic as he said that Jake didn't want to come to the phone.

And then there was Mike. In the cafeteria on Monday, Lauren had been talking about how it was time for Jessica to turn in her V-card. It was an awkward encumbrance that she didn't need to cart off to college in the fall, and Kevin Whats-his-Face from Peninsula College in Port Angeles was more than willing to accept her resignation, if she would just grow a pair of balls and step up to the plate. Tyler said he was surprised Kevin hadn't knocked that one out of the park a month ago, and Eric was mocking Lauren's mixed metaphors, but Mike sat silent, the color draining from his face. He reached for Jessica's hand across the table. That's when it went bad.

"What do you care?" she had shrieked, standing, her chair skittering backward. "You don't care!"

"I care! I fucking care!"

"You don't!"

Then it got worse. Angela shouldn't have interfered; even Bella could see that, but she did, putting her hand on Jessica's arm and saying that maybe she shouldn't do this if she wasn't totally sure about it; she didn't have to, and Jessica wheeled on her, saying that Ben hadn't wanted her. The problem wasn't with her father; it was with her. He'd told them all about it. She didn't know where to put her hands or her mouth or much else. She could pretend she was off-limits because she was God's favorite jewel, but the truth was that she was a—

"Stop!" Mike said. "Stop, stop stop!"

Lauren burst out laughing, and Angela walked out, her long neck held rigid. Bella and Mike followed. In the school library, Mike apologized. He actually knelt at Angela's feet as she sat on a bench. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he kept saying. It took Bella a minute to realize that he wasn't apologizing for the way Jessica had acted, but for himself. He was such an idiot, an asshole, he said. Jessica was a mean, nasty bitch lately, but he still loved her.

"What's wrong with me?" he said. "I want things to be like they were before. Or I want to stop wanting her."

He didn't know what to do.

Bella thought of what Mr. Horowitz would say to Jessica.

Angela had placed her hand on top of Mike's head. "It's okay," she said, though her voice sounded far away. "She's still your girl." Then she got up and drifted into the hallway. Bella had followed her around for the rest of the day, and all her questions about whether she was all right received answers that sounded like air.

A minor. D major. A minor. D major.

G major. G minor. G major. G minor.

Her fingertips hurt. She'd been sitting on the floor in Jacob's hallway for almost two hours. Sarah Black's old songbook lay on the carpet. She had tried all kinds of songs when she first arrived. Bluegrass songs like "Nine Pound Hammer" and "Angel Band," thinking maybe this would make him smile. Then folk songs: "This Land is Your Land." Even blues songs: "Sweet Home, Chicago" and "She Caught the Katy." She remembered Jacob saying that his mom had liked the blues. She played all the ones she knew the chords for, and she tried singing a little, but it was hard because her throat was so tight. So after a while, she just sat there and strummed through chords without songs. Whatever came to mind.

D major. C major.

It was funny how moving down a step sounded dismal, even though they were both major chords.

D major. C major.

Jacob's door remained shut.

Three days since she'd seen him.

On the first day after their trip, on Monday the ninth, she had called him at Quil's house and spoke to Quil. He put his hand over the receiver as he called to Jake, but in the background, she could still hear the murmur of Jake's voice. Tell her I don't want to talk to her.

It hurt.

Quil got back on the line. "Sorry."

That day she felt frantic and sick. She called Angela, but Angela wouldn't come to the phone, either; her mother said she was lying down. Desperate to do something, Bella had made a huge batch of brownies and driven out to La Push in the rain. She felt hesitant, as if she were intruding. As if she were unwanted. She left half of the brownies at Billy's house, wrapped in a paper towel. She found a pencil in Billy's kitchen and wrote "I'm sorry" on the paper, but it tore and looked awful. Billy looked at her pityingly and her eyes welled up with tears, so she drove to Leah's house with the second half of the brownies.

Sue let her in at the door and made her take off her wet boots. Then Bella padded down the hall to Leah's room. Before she opened the door, Leah said, "Ooh, I smell brownies!"

Nice to see you, too, thought Bella.

"No food in your room!" Sue hollered, so Leah stuffed all of them in her mouth in six bites. Eight brownies, six bites. Bella stared at her. With her mouth full, Leah hollered back at her mother, "Dey's no foo in hee-ah!" Then she said to Bella, swallowing, "Oh, sorry. Did you want one?"

D major. C major. F major.

Visiting Leah was the first nice thing that had happened this week. Maybe the only nice thing. Bella had sat down on her unmade bed; there was a tangle of blue-flowered sheets and a dark blue comforter half on the floor. She picked up the comforter and wrapped it around her shoulders. Leah wheeled to her dresser, opened a drawer, and pulled out a hairbrush. As they talked, she pulled it slowly through her long, shining hair. It fell over her shoulders and almost to her waist in a spill of black silk.

"You look like shit," she began.

Bella shrugged.

"Is it Jacob? Did he hurt you?"

"I hurt him," she confessed.

Leah rolled to the door, silently closed it, and wheeled back to the bed. "Shh..." she said, lifting herself from her chair. But instead of sitting beside Bella, she wiggled behind her, pulling Bella between her knees with her back to her chest. She hugged her from behind, setting her head on Bella's shoulder and wrapping the comforter more closely around her. Bella squirmed at first, then she just leaned forward and put her hands on Leah's cast feet where they crossed in front of her own.

They talked about Sam.

She was just a freshman when she noticed him watching her. One day she had been sitting on the wooden steps after school, braiding and unbraiding her hair while she waited for Seth to finish painting the sides of the tribe's new canoe. Sam had helped carve it. Seth, only ten and far too young to paddle in it, was painting the sides red and black, and Sam was supposed to be working on the wolf's head on the prow. He'd file a little bit near the ears, then he'd look up at her on the steps. It was spring; he was eighteen and would graduate in a few weeks. Wind was blowing in from the sea. Looking left, she saw Akalat and the pines swaying on top. To her right was Sam. She put down her books and looked back at him, a question in her eyes. And he blushed.

"Never seen him do it, before or since. But that day he did, and I knew I had him."

That first year, Sam had returned from college every weekend that he could get enough gas money, and he always seemed kind of stunned, looking at her like he could hardly believe how lucky he was to have her waiting for him. Her parents had been hesitant to let her see him, given their age difference, but he had humbled himself completely, sitting in their living room every Saturday night, nice as you please. He treated her like a bird that would fly away if he made a noise, and he looked at her like she was made of magic.

"Like I was a flipping unicorn or something."

Not even her father treated her that good, and she'd had him eating out of her hand since she was four.

Sam told her everything about himself. Little things, like how he hated spaghetti, and big things, like how he would do anything for his mother, and how he would stare at photographs of the father he'd never met, trying to feel a connection. He would tell her these things in whispers. And when they were alone, he would smell her. Leah wished she could describe it in a way that didn't sound weird. He'd put his nose on her throat, or on her wrist, and close his eyes. And she had to admit that she'd smelled him, too. He just smelled right.

Bella felt tears in her eyes again, thinking of how Jacob had a habit of putting his nose in her hair.

Physically, being with Sam was so good it was terrifying. She scared herself, every time. He seemed equally moved. He approached her like she would burn him, touched her like she was made of glass, held onto her like she was made of wind. She felt like the wind. Gone away from herself. And then he'd fall on her neck and beg her not to leave him, ever.

"Asshole," said Leah. It was killing her to think of him with Emily. Don't think about it, Bella said, but Leah said she couldn't help it. She thought of it almost every day, and it was killing her.

She told Bella how it felt. How her body had changed for him.

"You can't imagine," she said.

"I'll never do that."

"I'll never do it again."

Just the idea of letting anyone else touch her like that hurt almost as much as losing Sam.

Leah picked up her hairbrush again. She leaned against her white wooden headboard and took Bella with her, sliding her between her knees and pulling her back against her chest. Bella squirmed, but Leah wouldn't let go. Eventually she relaxed and set her head on Leah's shoulder. Closed her eyes. Leah pulled her brush through her long, black hair, and then through Bella's.

"I have only one thing that makes me beautiful," she said. "But you. You have so much. You're cute. And small. And I'm a big skinny tree. No one is ever going to love me again."

Bella put her hands on Leah's knees, which was the best she could manage for a hug. "That's not true."

Leah made no reply. Instead she brushed their hair until it was straight and shining. Then she tossed her own over Bella's shoulder and brushed their hair together. Black and brown.

"We're friends," she said, as if they had made a locket of their hair. Then she brushed it out again and wove Bella's into a French braid. She tied it with a white ribbon that she pulled from a drawer in her bedside table.

"You own a ribbon?" Bella had said.

"Just one. And shut up about it or I'll take it back."

So Bella sighed and leaned back against her friend. She pulled Leah's dark blue comforter over their feet, Leah's still in casts, and her own in brown wool socks. She couldn't tell how long they sat there like that, but she knew they must have fallen asleep because she was startled, a short time later, by the sound of the front door opening. She heard the thump of feet on the mat and boots set on the floor. Then footsteps came down the hall to Leah's room and the door was thrown open.

"What the heck is this?" said Quil.

Leah sat up, blinking.

"Are you being nice to someone?"

"No," said Leah, and Bella found herself unceremoniously dumped onto the floor.

Grinning, Quil sat down at Leah's desk beside the bed. He picked up a pen and spun it on the cover of her trigonometry book. "You were playing Barbies with Bella."

"Barbie can rot in hell."

"I'm calling you Barbie from now on."

Swifter than Bella would have thought possible, Leah snapped one arm out to grab Quil's shirt and yanked his head against her mattress. With her other arm, she held her pillow over his face as he squirmed. Bella couldn't distinguish his words, but she was sure they were something profane. Leah pressed harder. After a minute or two, he quit kicking.

"Take it back," said Leah.

Only moans came from beneath the pillow. And after another minute, silence. His hands, Bella saw, were turning blue.

"Leah, you're killing him."

"Naw," said Leah. "I've had lots of practice on Seth." When she removed the pillow, Quil slid to the floor, his eyes rolled back in his head.

Bella put two fingers on his neck.

"This is science," said Leah. "My mom's a nurse, you know."

Later, driving home, Bella reflected that it was a blessing to be on Leah's good side. When Quil had revived, he crawled down the hall to the bathroom and threw up. Sue stormed into Leah's room and lectured her on the specifics of asphyxiation, exactly how much breath a body could hold and the number of minutes an average human being could last under such circumstances. Bella had watched Leah's eyes, could see the flash of mathematics there. Quil crawled down the hall again and into Seth's room. Seth hurriedly closed the door. Not long after that, a paper airplane was flown across the hall. When Bella unfolded it, she saw that it contained a note of apology, a promise of fealty, and a crumpled five dollar bill.

"Hmm," said Leah. "Maybe a little longer next time."

On the other side of the paper was a note for Bella: "Jake needs a few days."

Her eyes filled with tears.

"I'm pretty sure," whispered Leah, "that he's not going to hurt you. He's just not that kind of person. And I think this whole town knows how he feels about you."

This didn't exactly make Bella feel better.

"He's not going to hurt you. I'm pretty sure. But I didn't think Sam would hurt me either."

Bella smudged her fingers over her eyes.

"Who knows? Maybe you'll break his heart." Leah grimaced when she said it, so Bella knew it wasn't meant unkindly. But it made the tears come again. She was so ashamed. Leah nudged her to make her look up.

"I'll never forget what you did for me. The truck. If you need me, I'll be there. And that I can promise will never change."

She nodded, and she tried to hug her, but Leah just told Bella to go away because otherwise she would start crying, too, and it would make her face look all puffy.

Bella drove home in the rain, and when she got to her driveway, she told herself to stop crying. She went inside, got her hairbrush, and drove to Angela's house.

Mrs. Weber let her in. Angela was still in her room, and her mother looked relieved that Bella had come. She spent the rest of the evening in there, and when she returned home, she was exhausted. Angela was a messy, messy, miserable person. Sloppy drunk, were the words that came to mind. She stayed until Angela had cried herself out, and then Bella found herself trying to talk about, of all things, her mother.

Renee had been sending her a lot of emails. First it was little things, about buying cereal and adopting a second cat from the Jacksonville Humane Society. Then it was about bigger things, like how Phil had a spring training game in Portland in a few weeks. Renee wanted to know if Bella would like to drive down there; she had looked up the distance, and it was four hours from Forks.

Bella had not been answering these emails. It must have been two weeks since she'd written to her mother. Much longer since she'd called on the phone. What was she supposed to say? She felt like there was a stone in her throat.

Portland is the City of Roses, honey. Do you like roses?

What did that mean?

Or maybe I could drive up to Forks, Renee wrote. I could stay in a motel. I would like to see you and meet your friends. Charlie says you've been spending time with Billy's son and with a girl from your school. Amy? Annie? I would like to meet your friends.

Huh? Why was Renee saying these things? It made her sad, but she couldn't figure out what to say to Angela, much less to Renee.

Angela had listened supportively, though she didn't know what to say either. But she was very glad that Bella had come. "Thank you," she said. "I really needed to see you." She reached for a tissue only to find that she'd already used the last one in the box. So she blew her nose on her T-shirt. "So disgusting. Sorry. It's going in the laundry hamper as soon as you're gone."

Bella went home extremely tired and a little confused.

That was Monday.

D major. A minor. D major. A minor. E minor.

On Tuesday after school she called Jake's house again only to be turned away. So she went to Olympic Acres. She had checked out Call of the Wild from the library wanted to go there anyway to read to Vera. She was actually looking forward to it, but when she arrived, Albertine was out and Vera was asleep. So she sat at their little table by the window and looked at Vera's crystal animals.

Under their glass dome, they twinkled dully. It seemed that Vera collected animals that lived around here. There was a deer, a mouse, a little owl. A fox. A bear, a sea lion, a bird. And a cat-like animal that could have been a cougar, but might have been only a house cat. There was also a wolf, but it seemed out of place because she knew wolves had disappeared from the area when white settlers came.

She felt strangely drawn to the animals. Carefully, silently, she lifted the dome. Vera did not stir. Bella knew this was probably rude, but she was bored and curious, so she lifted the crystal bear and turned it over in her hands. Depending on the angle, its facets held or reflected the light. Rainbows sparkled inside it.

Suddenly she was reminded of Tanya. This was how she had imagined her, that glittering, perfect woman of ice. Would she stalk a bear like this one, her white body camouflaged in the snow? What would be the bear's last thoughts at encountering something stronger than it, something that ought not to exist?

A year ago, thinking of Tanya had hurt. She'd thought she could never compare with that kind of beauty. But Edward hadn't wanted Tanya either, and now she wondered if Tanya felt just as bad. Would she be hurt forever, with her unchangeable feelings, or was her crystal heart strong enough not to crack?

Love sucked so bad. She knew many friends who had been hurt. But it was strange to know that somewhere—far, far away—was a woman who knew exactly what Bella had suffered.

She turned to the sleeping Vera.

"I loved somebody once," she whispered.

Vera slept on.

"He was beautiful. He told me that he loved me, too."

Rain poured down the windows, and suddenly it was easy to talk about this. Easier, even, than talking to Leah, and Leah understood, she really did. But with Vera, once she got started, she couldn't stop.

"He used to climb in my window at night. I knew it was wrong, but also it was so right. We had secrets together. Terrible, wonderful secrets. You can't even imagine."

Vera did nothing but sigh, and Bella picked up another of the crystal animals, the deer. It felt good to hold something cold and hard in her hand. Something that sparkled. It made her feel strange, a dull thrumming in her head. Memories of Edward flooded her.

"I loved his family, too," she whispered. "Seven of them! I wanted to be like them; I wanted to be with them forever. My family is small. And my mom—"

There had always been something about Renee that did nothing but blink at her, or smile in a dreamy, sleepy way that made her feel like a favorite pet. But his mother— Something about her settled over her like a blanket, thick and heavy. Like a hug she thought would never let go.

The words fell out of her like water. She told Vera about how she would walk in the forest with him, and how she would sit in his room listening to music. How he played the piano for her. How his house was so big and bright. How he would wait for her by her locker, and drive with her in his car, and how he said she enchanted him effortlessly, how the essence of her made him mad with love. Or longing. Or a kind of hunger that he tried many times to explain to her.

"I wish I knew someone who understood this," she sniffled. She picked up a corner of one of Vera's many mauve afghans and was about to blow her nose on it, unthinkingly, when Albertine returned.

"Oh!" cried the old lady. "Put that down!"

Bella dropped the blanket, but Albertine still seemed upset. She pried Bella's fingers open. Bella had forgotten she was still clutching one of the animals.

"Don't touch that!" Albertine's hands shook as she replaced it on the table and covered all the animals with the glass dome. "They're all she has left." Vera was stirring now, and Albertine dropped her voice to a whisper. "Her sweetheart gave them to her. He gave them to her, and he used to say she was his little dear."

Bella sighed. His little dear. What a sweet thing to say. Once she had been somebody's little dear, too.

She opened her book, though Vera lay still again, and read aloud about dogs and snow. Albertine liked the story. Her silver needles flashed as she worked on yet another mauve afghan. Around dinner time, Bella said goodbye and tucked the book into her backpack. That's when, finally, Vera woke up.

"Hello?" she croaked.

"Vera, it's me." Bella returned to the chair at her bedside.

"Who?"

"Bella. Your student. Well, not your student, really, but your partner. I guess." Vera seemed to stare through her, and Bella found herself babbling, eager to connect with her. "I'm from the high school, remember? From the Great Depression project?" More staring. "Your interviewer?"

"Hrrrmm," said Vera. She lifted her head, lengthening her neck, and turned toward the window, where the light of late afternoon was fading. "Al?"

"What is it, honey?"

Vera extended a claw toward the table.

"Okay," said Albertine. She lifted the dome and placed the crystal deer in Vera's hand.

"Warm," rasped Vera. She looked at Bella, her milky blue eyes seeming to see everything and nothing. Then she closed them again and lay back on her pillow.

On her way home Bella stopped at the after-hours clinic at the hospital. Dr. Gerandy had said she could come in anytime to remove the stitches on her forehead. She lay still on an examination table, feeling an odd tugging sensation, as he worked. When he was done, he handed her a mirror.

"Just a fine, white line," he said, brushing aside her hair so she could see it. "That's all."

But she knew it wasn't all. Her arm was etched with fine white lines where the broken glass from her eighteenth birthday party had cut her, and her feet were similarly marked from her night in the forest. It had started with the scratch of pine needles when she'd first lost her shoes and ended with deep cuts from shale in the streams. The gashes had healed to look like fine white lines. They would look like those first scratches forever. They would always look as if the earth were just getting started with her.

At home, Charlie had made chili for dinner. The warm, rich meal made her feel a little better. When they had eaten, she washed the dishes and called Jacob again. Still no luck. So she climbed the stairs to her room and did a little homework.

Her Wuthering Heights essay was due soon. She thought about Heathcliff digging up Cathy's coffin to look at her decayed features. It made her think of Edward, dead yet not dead. She'd always thought of him as transformed. She thought of the white marble angel in the Forks cemetery where her grandmother lay buried, and all of this together made her head hurt. She stared at her computer screen, the cursor flashing insistently where she ought to begin her introductory paragraph.

"Love," she typed, "is shit."

She deleted that and instead typed that love was a form of insanity. She didn't know if Mr. Bertie would like this, but she knew her groupmates were depending on her for a good grade, so she scoured her novel for supporting evidence and felt convinced, by the time she went to bed, that she'd proved her point.

And that was Tuesday.

Now it was Wednesday, and the carpet in Billy's hallway was dirty, damp, and cold.

A minor. D major. A minor. D major.

Her fingers hurt. She was hungry.

G major. G minor. G major. G minor.

She sat on the floor, leaning against the wall beside Jacob's door. She knew he could hear her.

A minor. D major. C major. F major.

Her guitar felt warm from holding it so long. The vibration of the chords soothed her body, but only partly. Her heart felt so sick. She looked at the dust against the baseboards and a few tiny leaves she or Jake must have tracked in. She looked at her worn boots, the mud in the treads, and the way they smudged her jeans as she sat cross-legged. She looked at her sweater. Red. Pulled on over one of her plaid flannel shirts, the tail of which was sticking out below the sweater's waistband. She wore a long-sleeved T-shirt underneath that, but she still felt cold. She wished for one of Jacob's hugs.

F major. F seven. G major.

"Oh, Jake," she said, and she tried to keep the sniffle out of her voice, "I'm so sorry."

Silence.

Billy rolled down the hall and gave her a peanut butter sandwich.

It had been raining when she arrived, but it had stopped now. The sky, what little she could see of it through a window in the living room, was a pale, silvery gray. She thought she could hear the caw of a crow.

G major. G minor. G major. C major. A minor. C major. A minor.

She couldn't make herself eat the sandwich.

E minor. E major. A minor.

The phone rang. Billy answered. "Yes, she's here." A pause. "You work too much, Charlie. Worry too much." A pause. "Let me take care of her." They said a few other things, but Bella wasn't really listening.

A minor. A major. A minor.

A fat tear rolled down her cheek.

This was maybe the worst thing she had ever done. She tried to think if there was anything was worse. Sneaking Edward into her room at night, for months and months? Sort of wrong, but it didn't hurt anybody. Living like a zombie for more months after he left? Scaring her parents with her unresponsiveness during the day, and with her screaming at night? Losing weight, losing friends at school? Very bad, she figured, but at the time it seemed like she couldn't help it. She could hardly breathe and walk and choke down a little bit of food at dinner. It wasn't like she felt that way on purpose. And what about smashing Sam's truck? That was very wrong. That she would never stop feeling ashamed of. But even then, she hardly knew herself. In her memory, she watched herself swinging the crutch and it seemed like it wasn't real. How could she do that? Well, she had done it. And it had hurt Sam's insurance. But even he seemed to have forgiven her.

As for the way she had hurt Jacob... She didn't know if she could forgive herself.

That morning, Charlie had asked about her moping. He had noticed, of course, that she had been feeling bad ever since she came home from her outing with Jacob on Sunday night. "Did he hurt you?" Charlie asked. Looking at the floor, she said, No, that she had hurt him. And Charlie hugged her. "Don't hurt Jacob," he whispered. "He's a good boy."

A minor.

"Jacob?"

Silence.

She flipped through the old songbook at her feet. The pages were bent and yellowing. In the back she found one marked, "Jacob's favorite." The penmanship was loose and round, and she wondered if it was his mother's handwriting. She tried out the chords.

F major. C major. E minor, then a quick shift to G major and C major.

It sounded more cheerful.

"You are my sunshine," she sang.

This felt stupid. But desperate, too.

"My only sunshine."

And true.

"You make me happy when skies are gray."

Which they were, most of the time. How could she make things less painful for herself, for the people she cared about? What should she do? She closed her eyes, letting the sound fill the narrow hallway.

"You'll never know, dear, how much I—"

Jacob's door cracked open. Very quietly: "You don't have to say it."

She put the guitar down. Reached behind her to the open door. Jacob's hand met hers. The whole time, he had been sitting on his bedroom floor, leaning against his wall beside the door. Mirroring her. Their hands clasped at the threshold.

"I need to get out of here, Bells. I need to get out of this place."

He squeezed hard.

Billy changed the channel on the television. A basketball game was coming on. False cheer, a hard energy from the commentators. She saw Billy roll to the wood stove and open the door. He fed the flames with wood that Jacob had split, an orange glow flaring suddenly at the rush of fresh oxygen.

Bella squeezed Jacob's hand and rubbed her other arm across her face to dry her tears on her sleeve. When he tugged at her, she got up and followed him into his room.

Though she'd seen his room plenty of times before, she felt suddenly self-conscious. A few weeks ago, she had sat on his floor, brushing her hand listlessly over the brown carpet while he told her jokes, or told her about Quil—he had been telling her something funny, but that's all she could remember—and she had felt like wood. Or like a fish trapped under ice in a pond, ice that he'd been chipping at. She remembered, also, looking up at him while he smiled, but she couldn't smile back. Before, she hadn't noticed much about his room except that it was a little messy, and he was in it. That part seemed to matter. That part kept her alive, somehow, though she felt like she had been seeing him from a long way off.

Now she felt uncomfortable. This wasn't simply Jacob's room anymore; it was a guy's room, a guy for whom she had mixed-up feelings. A guy who had feelings for her. She was suddenly aware of a pile of dirty laundry in a corner, mostly jeans and T-shirts, but there was probably some underwear in there, too. She wished she hadn't thought of that. She found herself blushing, but Jacob didn't seem to notice.

He sat on his bed. It was covered with an old Pendleton blanket, red wool with a wide black stripe across it. His closet door was open, and she could see books and toys stacked on a bookcase he'd wedged in there. Legos. He probably hadn't tinkered with them in years, but it seemed perfect, somehow, that he would have liked them when he was younger. Building things. The tiny manipulations, the perfect snap of pieces falling into a pattern.

"I hate you sometimes," he said.

Her eyes went to his, but he looked away.

"And I hate myself. Why can't I just leave you alone? I set myself up for this."

He rested his forearms on his knees and leaned forward, looking down, picking at his fingernails. His face was red. Suddenly she felt a wild impulse to push him down, to sit on his chest and put her hands on either side of his face. To make him see how much she felt. She didn't know what it was; she couldn't name it; but she felt it so strong and it was all for him.

"Can we start over?" she whispered.

And that was how they ended up in Port Angeles again. It was a stupid idea. It was late afternoon when they left La Push, and it was a school night, but they went anyway, and they went on the Harley. Bella had been surprised when he rolled it out of the garage and tossed her helmet at her. Wouldn't Billy notice this, she asked, but Jacob said fuck it, that Billy already knew. He'd been suspicious and asked Harry to look in the garage, and now their secret was out. What about Charlie, asked Bella, and Jacob said to fuck that, too. His father was an asshole, but not a tattle-tale.

They blew out of La Push at sixty miles an hour. Bella was scared. She wrapped her arms around Jacob's middle and hung on as hard as she could. There was a horrible energy inside him, an anger that she'd never felt before. The wind blew so hard and cold; it whipped her hair away from her neck like fingers of ice and sliced through the knees of her jeans with stinging force. She shivered and held onto him, and in the long, straight sections of the 101, with the sun slanting low through the trees, he'd speed up, take one hand off the handlebars, and put it over hers. He pulled her hand up to his heart, and the hard warmth of his chest frightened her more.

In Port Angeles, two strange things happened. First, they saw Jessica in a coffee shop. Second, they saw the thing Jacob had been dreaming about.

When they'd arrived, Bella was deeply, deeply cold. Her lips were blue and she was shivering, and this set off a flurry of distressed emotions in Jacob. He felt like a huge jerk and an idiot for not realizing what was happening to her, for miles and miles. At the same time, he was a little freaked out that the wind hadn't bothered him a bit. Bella climbed stiffly off the bike and leaned against him, and he pulled her under his coat and held her tightly until her teeth stopped chattering. "What's wrong with me?" he said. Bella didn't care; she was just glad that one of them wasn't frozen solid.

They walked through the gray streets looking for a place to warm up. Spotting the coffee shop where she'd had a latte with Angela a couple weeks ago, Bella tugged on his hand. Inside, he urged her to sit on a small couch near the fire while he got her some hot tea.

"I'm sorry," he said when he brought it to her.

The tea was too hot to drink, so he set it on a table and took her hands, rubbing them between his own to warm them up.

"It's okay," she said, but she was still shivering.

"No. No, I mean, I'm sorry for what I said. At home."

She looked at the floor, at the yellow wood scuffed with mud from the street. Her cheeks flushed again, and she felt herself tearing up.

Putting a finger under her chin, Jacob lifted her face. His eyes were dark and sober. "I don't hate you," he whispered. "No, not at all. Bella, I—"

"You don't have to say it," she whispered back.

He slid onto the sofa beside her and tucked her under his coat again. "I shouldn't have said that. I just— I hate this situation. Sometimes I hate everything; I hate my father. I love him. I hate him."

She nodded.

"I hate what's happening around here. I hate how I feel. Everything hurts some days; everything pisses me off. And I hate this." Taking her hand, he placed it on his neck. She could feel his pulse jump beneath her fingers, fast and hot. His skin seemed feverish. "Something's wrong with me. I hate this."

Need. Please. Mine.

"Nothing's wrong with you." It was her turn to make him look at her; she wiggled out from under his arm and held his eyes. "Nothing. You're a good person, Jacob."

He grimaced.

"You are. And I— I'm sorry, too. For what I said in the pizza place." Here she lay her cheek on his sweater, suddenly too embarrassed to look at him. "Friends. Other types of things. Stuff. You know." She hoped he couldn't see how red her face was. "Maybe we don't— Maybe this— Maybe we don't need a label."

He let out a tremendous sigh, took her hand again, and held it to his lips. "Good," he mumbled. "Don't label this."

The fire in the hearth glowed brightly. She watched the flames, and slowly, as Jacob smoothed his hands over her shoulders, she relaxed. She liked the hush of his palms over her wool coat and the warmth of his fingers as he slid her collar open at her neck and lay his hand there. When he buried his nose in her hair she stiffened, but he only said, "Shh," and "Don't label this either. Let me." He breathed deeply, and she softened on his chest as he brushed his fingers over her eyebrows, her cheekbones, along her jaw. He touched her so softly. "Let me."

Yours.

"These last few days were horrible," he mumbled against her scalp.

She nodded.

"I don't want to be apart from you."

She nodded again, brushing her hand over his sweater, laying it on his waist. And then he said the thing she suddenly knew he'd been dying to say for months, but which she was only now ready to hear: "If you ever want to talk about it. About him. I'm right here."

She had to bite her lip to keep from sobbing out loud. "Shh," he kept saying. "I'm here. Always."

Something settled inside her then. Something that had been fluttering in desperation for a long time. The panic. The bile, the nausea. As if her heart were a bird, beating itself against a window that would never open again. But she wasn't trapped indoors. She'd been on the other side of the glass, unbound in the light of day, all along.

The things that happened next hardly seemed to matter. They'd noticed Jessica Stanley on the other side of the coffee shop, deep in conversation with a young man. He wore tight black jeans and a newish maroon rain parka; his blond hair was cut long on top and gelled back into what she supposed was an ironically hip Happy Days-ish, Richie Cunningham look, but the thing she noticed, besides than the fact that he was more stylish than just about everybody in Forks, was the way he was nibbling on Jessica's ear. Bella stared at them. Jessica didn't seem to have noticed her, and as Bella watched, the young man put his arm around her and pulled her closer. Jessica seemed uncomfortable then. She squirmed and kept removing his hands from the inside of her jacket. Jacob seemed uncomfortable, too, watching them.

"You know them?" he asked Bella.

"I know her. She seems kind of—"

"Yeah." Jacob frowned. Then, to Bella's surprise—though she reflected later that she probably shouldn't have been surprised—Jacob got up and approached them. He seemed a little taller.

"Is this guy bothering you?"

Jessica turned around and flushed with embarrassment. Then she noticed Bella and went redder with another emotion.

The blond man stood up and eyed Jacob coolly. He whispered something to Jessica and walked out. He pulled a key fob from his pocket and with a click, he set the lights flashing on—of all things—an electric blue hatchback with gleaming silver rims, dark-tinted windows, and a VW in a circle on the grille. And on the back—

"The R-32..." said Jacob. If Jessica hadn't been glaring at them so hard, Bella would have laughed at the way his jaw went slack. The man drove off. Peninsula College said his bumper sticker.

Jessica called Bella something horrible, something that made Jacob bristle, and then she left, too, headed home in her parents' Mercedes.

"Oh, my God," said Jacob when they had gone.

"That was nice of you," said Bella. "She'll kill me later, but you were—"

"Oh, oh, oh," he said. "That car. That asshole. Life is so unfair."

"Don't cry," said Bella.

"I'll never have that. Never in a million years." He sat down and cupped his hands over his nose, breathing rapidly. "I never saw one before. It's real, it's real! And that guy—"

"Slow down," said Bella. "Breathe. You're just upset because—"

"Because life is shit!" He fluttered his hands and cupped them over his nose again. The Rabbit, Bella gathered from his moans, was in bad shape. He had done his best; he had thought he was almost there, but the left CV boot was just bleeding grease, leaking really bad, and worse, yesterday he'd discovered a crack in the engine block. It was the end. No way to repair that. All his hopes. He had all these plans, and he had wanted to do things for her.

"It's okay," she said.

"No, it's not!"

Bella knelt in front of his chair. She tried to make him drink her tea.

"Tea!" he said.

"Okay. Shh. Jake. Jake, you don't have to do those things for me."

"But I want to!"

"No, you don't need to. You and me. You and me. That's all."

Bella couldn't think of anything else to say. She lifted her tea cup again and held it out, then thought better of it.

Walking back to the Harley, she held his hand. The sun had gone down now, and a cool mist was blowing up the streets from the harbor. She watched his face in the yellow glow of the streetlights. He seemed dazed. And then he apologized. It was wrong of him, he said, to worry so much over material possessions.

"What?"

That was not how he was raised. Not how he was supposed to act. "Oh, God, I'm glad it was you. If anyone else saw this— If my father—"

She tried to tell him it was perfectly normal to want nice things, but he said no. Firmly no. It was over. The Rabbit was dead, the R-32 was a hopeless, naive daydream, and there was no use in crying over something you could never have. He squeezed her hand very hard with those words, and Bella said no more.

On the way home, he let her wear his coat over her own. She clung to him as they sped through the dusk. The black pines gave way, here and there, to broad stretches of meadow. There, in the purple twilight, tall grasses swayed in the wind. In one of those meadows they surprised a herd of deer. Bella thought they'd run into the forest, but they didn't. Instead, they leaped beside the road, a dozen or more, leaping so close to her as Jacob slowed so she could enjoy the sight. She could see their soft brown sides, their hooves and black noses. Their bright eyes.

So alive. Leaping.

Me, she thought. Maybe me. Maybe Jacob, again, if I help him. Maybe us.

Thank you for reading. Please, please review. It encourages me to keep going. I am in the process of final edits.

If you can, please tell me what you think about these things.

1. Angela's hurt feelings over what Ben said to the others at school.

2. Leah and Bella's conversation about Sam.

3. Vera's collection of crystal animals.

4. Jacob's decision to forgive Bella.

Thank you. I'll send previews with my thank you notes to your reviews.

Oh, dear readers, I hope to hear from you again after the long break I took to finish this story. YOU are my sunshine, dear readers, and I hope you'll leave me a note.