New Release
Bella x Jacob
The thing about Jacob Black was that no matter where we were in our lives or what was going on, the dark was never really dark when he was around. He would always find a way to illuminate even the stormiest of nights.
At the moment we were sitting, watching a horror film. Well, he was watching it, mostly I was just attempting to interpret the shadows and lights flashing on the pale walls. I imagined the lights to be alive, like little creatures flirting and dancing. They twisted together in a way that made me lean a little closer to Jake, trying to soak up his supernatural heat.
We were inside the shack-like cabin, the warm air pouring out of the window heater box was trying to keep the chill of the Washington winter out. But I was cold. Always cold, I could feel the ice freeze over my seemingly frail bones.
Freezing Forks had been my home for as long as I could remember. Although more years had been spent in the heat of Arizona, the forests of Washington called to me like the pulsing sound of a beating heart. Always present.
When I returned home, I could breathe, the air was crisp and the rain kept washing all the unwanted memories away. Then I'd met Edward and he took my breath away… he just forgot to give it back when he left.
Where my breath, my life force once was, now was a cavernous hole. Gaping and gasping, a painful emptiness took purchase there in my chest instead. My fingers squeezed into a fist in an attempt to keep themselves away from my aching chest, lest Jacob see the pain I was in.
True to his own nature, he noticed anyways. Instead of looking at me and acknowledging that he knew though, he simply pulled me closer and continued to watch the film.
I burrowed into his side and took a deep draw of his woodsy scent, the hole in my chest sewing shut just the tiniest bit more. Jake was the only one who could ever manage to help. The only one who could light a candle in the cave that was once my heart.
He realized before I did, that I had started to cry. His warm, dark eyes that were filled with concern now met my watery expression. His calloused thumb tenderly wiped away my tears, and while the movie was forgotten, he still didn't say a word.
This was the first time I had cried since the night Edward had left. I hadn't talked about it, I had only just begun to even think his whole name without the hollow inside of me breaking wide open like a fresh wound. Jake had waited patiently for this moment since I'd shown up at his garage with a couple of beat up bikes several months ago. Finally, I was allowing myself to crumble in front of him.
The thing about crumbling... it allowed for the chance to rebuild.
Once the trickling of tears had begun, it was like a faucet had been turned on. I gasped and hiccupped, I cried, I sobbed. I grieved all that I had lost when Edward left me and took his family with him. I grieved for the brothers and sisters that were never truly mine, and I grieved for the second set of parents that had doted on me like no one had before.
Jacob sat with me through it all, whispering to me words of comfort, the movie forgotten in the background. His hot skin, like satin covering iron, was the biggest comfort, and I sank further into him.
It felt like I had cried for hours, but as quickly as it had begun, all of a sudden it stopped. The cavernous hole in my chest lingered, but the pain was gone. It was as if I was the one keeping the pain there all along by acknowledging it, but not giving myself into it.
There was a sting of grief still, but the deep, bone- chilling depression was gone. The robotic, catatonic Bella was finally gone along with it.
I nuzzled my way into his shoulder yet again.
I'd always wondered why it was that I could be numb to the most explosive events in life, yet something so small could inspire me so infinitely.