He said
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Author's note: Jacob is swimming in a river in Egypt called de-nial. Grief wears many faces.
It rankled, that he would be thought of so.
Dude, really, you need to stop dwelling on it.
Yeah. Uh-huh. Give it a rest! Puh-leeese, came the affirmative chorus.
An unspoken silence commanded theirs, and the conversation was ended by the mental equivalent of a grunt.
Tired of the exercise. Too tired to exercise, Jacob phased, and released himself from the web of their mind.
The relief was mutual.
He inserted himself in, and mulled over, the memory of that night.
There had been no sign. No warning. Just their togetherness.
Maybe it had been the giddiness that got to him. Made him so careless with her.
She'd jumped off a cliff. Off a cliff.
He'd told her it was safe, said they could do it together—but he hadn't thought she'd actually do it. Not alone. Never imagined he'd have to pump the water from her lungs, wondering if she was dead.
He shook off the shudder that wanted him.
No.
He'd been burning up with relief. With the feelings he didn't want to deny.
She had hit her head. He should have been more careful. Definitely. That was on him.
But after?—Rape?—Really? How did you know? How could you tell? Should he have stopped, asked her? She'd been so...engaged, in it. He remembered her hands, clinging, the splay of her legs, pushing up into him. Her moans when he'd touched her. What else could she have possibly meant?
Here, he revisited his favorite theory, that she had wanted to, and that it was the hit to the head that knocked the inhibitions away. Jarred them loose, enough, to move on what she really felt.
This theory bled into his next favorite, where this whole rape thing was a distorted regret, fuelled by confused feelings over him. God that bastard had messed her up. Likely planted the idea.
His muscles tensed. He didn't want to think about what else he'd—they'd pushed into her head. Or what they were planning to do to her.
And there, he needed a plan. They couldn't, and they wouldn't. No. Not while he still breathed. And definitely not while she was still pregnant.
He felt the choke in his throat at the thought of losing her.
He missed her deeply. Still. Even after all of this ridiculousness. After her rejection.
Even after this betrayal.
Even after Charlie had called, and nearly blown one of his ear drums out, yelling. Echoing Bella's accusation.
Rape, he sneered.
As if.