Chapter 7: You Found Me

Watching Jacob walk out the door had been difficult for me, I wasn't accustomed to being mean, especially to my Jacob. On the other hand, I also wasn't accustomed to him keeping secrets from me and treating me like a child. When Jasper chased after him though, I had to admit that I was fearful. I don't like drama, I've never been theatrical and this was getting out of hand. I was just happy that Charlie wasn't here to see it.

I was sitting on the couch when Jasper came back through the door.

"You didn't kill him did you?" I stood up quickly, praying that everyone was safe.

"Of course not Bella, he means too much to you for me to harm him."

"Okay, so what happened then?"

"Well aside from the fact that he hates me with a fiery passion of hell…" Jasper smiled jokingly.

"Yeah, yeah, that part I gathered."

"I'm going to tell you why he's been acting so weird towards you lately, um, you may want to sit down," Jasper dragged me onto the couch.

"Oh God, he's not sick is he?" I immediately started hating myself for being so hateful to him.

"Well, not technically, though if I had his affliction I'd probably kill myself," he laughed. Laughed! This wasn't a joke to me.

"Jasper, please."

"Okay," he sighed "Jacob is a werewolf." Just like that, Jacob is a werewolf. Okay. Three days ago this would've been a dream to me, I would have woken up and said to myself "I need to stop watching so much TV before bed," but this wasn't three days ago, this was today. Jasper was a vampire and Jacob was a werewolf.

I stood up and walked to the phone, then changed my mind. I turned to Jasper and stared at him for a good minute.

"Anything else?" I asked curtly.

"Pardon?"

"Is there anything else I need to know? Is Charlie a warlock, or maybe my next door neighbor's cat is actually a unicorn?"

"Bella…" Jasper started, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I huffed as I took my seat on the couch back.

"I don't believe that. In the past few days there have been a lot of changes, I don't believe that you are taking it as coolly as you let on," he explained.

"It's hard to believe, I'll give you that. But…it's fine. So vampires and werewolves exist, as long as everyone is okay and happy, I'm okay and happy."

"That's very unselfish of you, I'm impressed."

"He's really a wolf?" I asked.

"Unfortunately yes," Jasper answered.

"That's why he hates you…it's like the movie Underworld, vampires hate werewolves right?"

"Yeah, something like that," he couldn't help but crack a smile.

"I need to go to him…I treated him like shit," a few tears formed around the rim of my eyes.

"Yes, well, I'd give him an hour or two. He's going to be in big trouble when he gets home," Jasper warned.

"Trouble? Why?"

"The reason he never told you himself is because he was forbidden by his pack leader. Werewolves are hardwired to be obedient, he didn't have a choice. That's why he asked me to tell you everything, he found a loophole, but they aren't going to be happy with him," he explained. Great, I got him into trouble, that's exactly what he needs after all I put him through.

"It doesn't matter, I still need to talk to him. I suppose you can't go with me?" I asked nervously.

"No way, but I'll be here waiting for you when you get back."

"I guess…Charlie won't be back till tomorrow anyway." Jasper nodded and got more comfortable in the chair. I walked over and grabbed my keys and jacket then looked back at him.

"Jasper?"

"Yes Bella?"

"Promise me you'll be here when I get back?"

"I promise, I'll be here."

Driving to La Push seemed to take forever and when I finally pulled into the Black's driveway my stomach dropped when I saw several other cars there that didn't belong to Jake or Billy. I swallowed hard and got out of the truck.

"Bella," a familiar face opened the door, he was a broad guy with a deep voice, what was his name? Sam something…

"I know this is a bad time, but I really need to talk to Jacob, I have to apologize to him," I tried to step inside but he blocked my way.

"I'd like to talk to you first if that's okay," he fully stepped outside and shut the door behind him.

"You're the leader?" I guessed.

"Yes." His voice was harsh and coarse but I could tell by his tone that he wasn't a danger to me.

"Look, I'm so sorry for the trouble I've caused, if I'd known…"

"Bella, please," he held up a hand, "You care about Jacob, you were worried about him. We do stupid things when we worry about those we love, so don't apologize."

"Then what do you want to talk to me about?" I had figured he was going to yell at me, rip me apart for being such a bother.

"I'm upset with Jacob for having an understanding with your Cullen friend," he said.

"I understand that too, Jasper really is a good person," I tried to reason.

"Our people have a rich history Bella, that doesn't change easily. It is our nature to hate them, it's the foundation of our existence. I'm actually surprised that you choose to spend time with him, everything inside you should be telling you to run away from him."

"I'm a weird person." He laughed at this.

"Yes, I suppose you are."

"Sam is it?" I asked and he nodded in reply, "Sam, I don't want you to be upset with Jake this is really all my fault."

"I guess that's true enough, and I also suppose you didn't drive all the way down here to talk to me so I'll let you go inside now."

"Thanks…Sam?"

"Yes?"

"About this Jasper thing, you all aren't going to try to hurt him are you?" My stomach churned as I thought of Jasper in any kind of pain.

"Well, I can't promise you anything, but for right now everything is fine." That was okay for me, "Jacob's inside if you can pry him away from Alyssa."

"Jake?" I yelled into the house.

"Bells!" he ran up to me and threw his arms around me. "I'm so sorry I couldn't tell you!"

"No…Jacob, I'm sorry. We're best friends and I should have realized that if you weren't telling me something it was for a damn good reason. Can you forgive me?"

"As long as you can forgive me for busting into your house like a maniac and yelling at you," he hugged me again.

"Consider it forgiven," I smiled.

"God it's so good to have you know everything, how are you taking it?" he rubbed my shoulders.

"It's a lot, but as long as you're okay and we're still friends, I'm okay," I assured him.

"Gosh there's so much I can tell you now. I don't even know where to start," he beamed.

"Just start at the beginning," I suggested.

We walked around La Push for hours talking about Jake and his "pack." His stories were surreal, like something from a movie but I was completely enthralled by them. I asked him questions and, typical Jake, he answered them all standing up and using his hands to motion capture every moment of every story. It was almost eleven at night by the time I got back to my truck.

"Leaving so soon?" Jake asked.

"Jasper is waiting on me," I replied timidly, my heart thumped when I thought of him.

"Ah. What is the ol' boyfriend doing while you're down here?"

"Boyfriend? Yeah, right." Jacob seemed thoroughly amused by this.

"What you don't like him like that?" he smiled widely.

"I don't know… it doesn't matter anyway."

"Why wouldn't it matter?" he raised a curious eyebrow.

"Jasper wouldn't ever like me like that, I mean, look at me," I took a step back so he could.

"Bella don't be stupid, you're really beautiful."

"Jacob…" I blushed and smacked him playfully.

"I think you should talk to the bloodsucker about how he feels about you. I bet you'd be surprised," he stuck his hands in his pockets as he turned to go inside.

I thought about it the whole way home, telling Jasper how I really felt. It was insane, I definitely couldn't tell him. What would he ever see in me? I was a 17 year old loser in high school, and he was…well, he was a lot more mature let's put it that way. There wasn't a future with me, I mean not unless he turned me into a vampire. Whoa. I hadn't thought of that possibility, not that I'd had a reason to. I couldn't imagine me as a vampire, immortal. I let out a long sigh, an eternity with Jasper, maybe even at our pond. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at myself, what the hell was I thinking? Jacob was delusional. I wasn't pretty, and I certainly wasn't good enough for Jasper.

I walked into the house and sure enough, he was there, sitting in the same chair waiting on me.

"Oh my God I'm so sorry for making you wait this long," I apologized.

"Don't worry about it, I went hunting earlier, I only just got back about twenty-five minutes ago. How'd it go with Jacob?" he asked cheerfully.

"Great, I got to meet everyone, they were all really nice. He told me all kinds of cool stuff about being a werewolf."

"Anything interesting?"

"Everything was interesting in the sense that I'd never heard anything like it before," we both chuckled, and my mind wandered to something particular Jake had explained, imprinting. It was a weird concept that I really didn't understand, Jake had tried to explain it to me as best he could but I ended up just staring at him like an idiot.

"There was something he told me, but I didn't really get it."

"What was it?"

"It's called imprinting…" I glanced at him, sitting down on the couch as close to him as I felt comfortable with, but I could still probably fit my hands between us if I pushed them together.

"I…don't think I've heard of that," Jasper whispered as he suddenly became aware of our proximity. I instinctively moved away a few more inches.

"Apparently, it's when a wolf see's someone, and then they just fall in love with that person," I knew my explanation was feeble.

"Like love at first sight or something?" he was looking at me through the corner of his eyes. Suddenly he seemed like he really was 20 years old instead of 170.

"Something like that but more absolute, when you see them everything changes, suddenly you would do anything for them, you would walk over fire if they needed you to, everything about you is suddenly bound to that person. They're the reason you exist," I finished.

"That sounds…very powerful," he whispered.

"It is, I've seen the way Jake looks at Alyssa. It makes me jealous," I admitted for the first time.

"Oh, I see," Jasper chimed.

"What?"

"That's why you care so much about Jacob."

"Oh no! I don't feel like that for Jacob, he's like my brother," I shook the icky thought from my mind. "I'm jealous because…well because no one has ever looked at me that way."

"I'm sure someone has looked at you like that," he mumbled.

"Nope, or if someone has then they did a good job of hiding it."

"Maybe they were scared you wouldn't feel the same way back," he pointed out.

"I suppose that could be true, but still, if someone ever really felt like that for me, they wouldn't be able to keep it to themselves and I'd love them back regardless."

"You would?" he asked and I nodded.

"Iloveyou," he whispered after a few moments of silence.

"What did you say?"

"I said…I love you."

I just stared at him, was he playing a trick on me? If he was it wasn't funny. Then he took my hand in his and scooted me closer to him, closer than I'd ever been to him.

"Bella, I haven't known you very long but the time I spend with you brings me more peace and serenity than our pond could ever think of giving me. You're the only thing that makes me feel alive," he took his free hand and brushed some of my hair behind my ear. "Some men see angels, but I only see you. You mean everything to me."

And there it was; the look that I'd seen Jake give Alyssa time after time, but it was for me and it was from the most perfect person I'd ever met. It was more powerful than I'd ever imagined it to be.

"I love you too," was all I could muster.

"I want to kiss you," he closed some of the distance between us and I could feel his icy sweet breath on my lips.

"I'd like that very much."

His lips grazed mine softly and I couldn't stop the small breath that escaped. He kissed the corners of my mouth and I felt him smiling against me. His hand slid to the back of my neck and the coolness sent chill bumps all over my body and then his lips were against mine again, it was slow and sweet and delicious if I had to sum it up in three words. When he pulled back I nearly collapsed on the couch, it took every fiber of my being to keep myself from shaking.

"That was amazing," he breathed, pulling me in close. "I've never kissed a human before."

"Neither have I," I smiled and we both laughed at the irony. It was the most perfect kiss in the history of the world, I didn't need to be an expert on kissing to know that.

"I'm glad you found me," I whispered.

"Me too love, I'm sorry it took me so long."

We stayed wrapped up in each other on my couch all night.

Author's Note: Okay so a few things. First, I can't believe all the reviews and story subscriptions I've received, thanks so much. Second, I know Jacob would NEVER be this cool with Bella and Jasper but the thing is I don't particularly like Jacob and I guess I just made him how I'd want him to be. Honestly, we probably won't see Jacob for a few more chapters though. Anyway this was kind of a pivotal chapter so I can't wait to see your reactions *crosses fingers* and thanks SO much for reading and keeping up with me =)