The Truth

"Yeeeeaaaahhh," I yelled on my way down. It was the only voice I heard, just my own sounds of exhilaration. The air screamed past my ears. The ocean seemed to be speeding toward me, and I thought I may have left my stomach somewhere back up on the ledge. But my mind was my own and I was free to enjoy the journey. I couldn't help but think that if I would have never moved to Forks, I would have never felt the greatest experiences of my life. I had ridden a motor cycle. I had jumped off a cliff. I had met my first love.

I felt the cool water close over my head as my body torpedoed downward. I kicked and swam for the surface. I opened my eyes and looked up to see the sun shining through the short distance of water that I still had to cover. My lungs were starting to ache. I gave one last thrust with my arms and broke the surface. "Wahoooo!" I screamed because at that moment I realized the best thing that had happened to me since moving to Forks.

I quickly swam to the sandbar where Jacob stood laughing at my reaction to the jump. I threw my arms around him. "I love you Jacob Black." I was not ashamed or embarrassed that I had said it. Sometimes the truth just demands to be heard.

He pulled me tightly to him and looked into my eyes. "I love you too, Isabella Swan."

Jacob's feet were firmly planted on the sand below the surface. I wrapped my legs around his middle and kissed him allowing my declaration to him to show through the physical connection we shared. I gripped his muscular shoulders and I relished the blazing vice like clamp his arms made around my ribs. Every sensation of what Jacob and I shared felt completely right, like we were created for each other, everything else we had done in our lives up until this point had just been preparing us for this.

"I've wanted to hear you say that for so long," he said almost in a whisper. "I've loved you since the first time we rode our bikes together, but I knew you weren't ready."

I felt a wave of guilt as I thought about all of the grief I had caused him. I pressed tighter against him. "I'm sorry…"

"Don't be sorry, Bells," he interrupted pulling me back to look at me. "This is just like our first kiss," he said with his familiar smirk, "worth the wait."

I laid my head on his shoulder and buried my nose in the crook of his neck breathing in his woodsy scent. I twined my fingers in his sea soaked hair; he had let it grow out a little since the initial cut. Jacob gently rubbed the back of my neck. I let out a contented sigh and opened my eyes to take in the beauty of the calm waters surrounding us. I caught sight of something red floating out in the distance. I thought back to the day Harry Clearwater died; the day of my edict to myself to give up my hallucinations. It seemed to be further out today than it had been then. If it was a buoy I wondered why it was moved. I would have to ask Jacob about it sometime but not now. This moment was to perfect to worry about drifting buoys. We held each other until I started to shiver from the chilly spring water despite Jacob's intense body heat wrapped around me.

"Can we go again?" I asked as we waded toward the shore. Well, Jacob waded carrying me until I could touch the bottom, and then we walked hand in hand.

"If you'll tell me you love me again."

"I'll tell you that anytime you want to hear it."

"O.K., now," he said playfully.

"I love you."

"And now."

"I love you, I love you, I love you!" I said in a sing-song voice. I looked at Jacob to see the beautiful smile that I called the smile of My Jacob. His face looked as relaxed as it had the night, which seemed so long ago now, that we had gone to the movie theater with Mike Newton. It was our last time together before he became a werewolf. I had wondered for a long time if he would ever smile that uninhibitedly again. I imagine Jacob had probably wondered the same thing about me at times, if I would ever truly experience joy again after Edward had left me. I was beholden to the phenomenon that had returned the beam to both of our features.

I noticed a group of people had congregated on First Beach since we had left there. "Bella," I heard a familiar female voice call. "Bella, come join us."

I waved to Angela and the group of my friends from Forks High School.

"Cliff diving later?" Jacob asked, steering us toward the crowd.

"Do you mind?"

"Of course not," he said snaking his arm around my waist, "we can do that any time."

Jacob pulled me closer to him as we approached the crowd. I figured out why when Mike stepped forward. "You remember Jacob, right Mike?" I asked motioning between the two of them.

"Yeah, the sophomore," Mike said the last word with unnecessary emphasis, but extended his hand to Jacob at the same time.

Jacob gripped his hand with enough force to make Mike's eyes squint with pain. "I remember you," Jake said. "You're the one who puked your guts out during the zombie movie."

"I had the flu," Mike said through gritted teeth.

"Un-huh." Jake finally let go of Mike's hand and he slinked back into the crowd.

Angela approached us next and grabbed me in a hug. "I tried to call you to let you know we were all coming over to the beach today, but no one was home."

"I worked this morning, and Charlie is probably fishing somewhere," I said hugging her back in earnest. "He can't stay inside when the weather is lousy. I'm sure he's out enjoying this today. Do you remember my friend Jacob?" I asked motioning toward him. "I think the two of you met one day at the grocery store."

Angela reached to shake Jacob's hand followed by Ben who had joined us by that time. "It's nice to meet you Jacob," Ben said puffing his chest out as far as his little body would allow. "I'm Angela's boyfriend."

I finished introducing Jacob around to the rest of my school cafeteria crowd. I noticed Lauren couldn't take her eyes off of him. I quashed the urge to rip her short spiky hair from her scalp. I had never been a particularly jealous person, but this was Lauren. What Jacob did next was better than any amount of hair ripping I could have done. He bent down and brushed a kiss on my lips. I got the feeling it was more in an attempt to show the males in the crowd I was taken, but for my benefit, it got the point across to Lauren as well. Her ears turned bright red and she stormed over to help Tyler and a couple of the guys from the baseball team setting up a volleyball net.

I borrowed some suntan lotion from Angela and Jacob helped me cover my back and shoulders. I noticed that Mike and Lauren watched the whole process intently from their positions by the court. By the time we were done, the net was up and people were dividing into teams. Anyone who had ever seen me in gym class, which included most of the group, didn't protest when I offered to be the scorekeeper.

After a couple of matches, the crowd had grown as kids from the reservation joined in. Quil, Embry, Seth, Jared and Kim were among them along with a few others I didn't know yet. I looked around for Leah, but quickly remembered that she was working a long shift. I sighed and leaned back on my elbows.

I was surprised by how much most of my peers got into the game. The action got pretty intense. There were a few kids who I could tell were losing interest, obviously not as ultra-competitive as the rest of them. The teams were evenly matched, each taking two games. After the tie breaker, and a shameless round of gloating from the winning side, I was joined by most of the females. They had decided to let the guys play a round on their own. I wasn't sure if unleashing that much testosterone in one small space was such a good idea, but it should be fun to watch.

Mike was serving first. He jumped a fast one right at Jacob's face. Fortunately, Jake was fast enough to deflect it, but it went way out of bounds. Mike's team scored.

"So are you and Ben going to the prom?" Jessica asked Angela.

"Of course! My dress is about the color of Bella's bathing suit," Angela told us.

"That's a good color on you," I said remembering the blouse she wore to the spring choir concert.

"Are you going, Bella?" Angela asked.

"No." I shook my head. "Dancing and I don't get along well."

"Oh come on, Bella," Lauren said in her sugary sweet voice that she reserved for when she was being particularly vengeful. "Edward got you to go last year, and you had a good time." She said his name with extra emphasis, obviously hoping that I would crumble into a heap at the mere mention of him.

I thought about what she said for a moment. I nodded my head. "You're right, Lauren. I did have a good time." I turned toward the court and yelled, "Hey, Jake. Do you want to go to my prom with me?"

He glanced over at me and smiled. "You lead, I'll follow Babe." The ball sailed toward him; the opposite team was attempting to take advantage of his distraction. The others didn't know of Jacob's superhuman reflexes. He not only returned the ball, but returned it with enough force at Mike's head to knock him over. If Mike hadn't started it, I would have told Jacob to play nice.

"Is he a boyfriend or a puppy?" Lauren sneered.

I figured her intentions had been to get me out of the way to ask Jacob herself. I looked directly into her vindictive eyes and just couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing. If she only knew what kind of a puppy dog my Jacob was… "That's a good one," I finally managed to croak out between continued giggles.

"When is prom anyway?" I asked looking away from Lauren, so I wouldn't be hit with another wave of laughter.

"It's two weeks from today," Jessica said. "Haven't you seen the signs hanging up all over the school?" She rolled her eyes to highlight my lack of attentiveness.

"Do you want to go shopping for a dress?" Angela asked.

"Oh!" I hadn't thought about that part. I really didn't want to spend a lot of money. If I was going to afford to start college in the fall, I really needed to make every effort to save. "I may just wear the one from last year."

Every set of female eyes landed on me and stuck there as though I was a magnetic force. "You can't wear the same dress," Jessica gasped. "Why don't you come over tomorrow afternoon and you can look through the ones that I have. I have two older sisters." Jessica shrugged. "My mom says any dresses that are left in the house after I graduate, she's going to give to the Salvation Army."

"Thank you, Jessica," I said sincerely surprised at her offer. "What time would be good?"

"Um, two o'clock."

"Do you think the puppy will tag along, or will you leave him chained in the yard?" Lauren asked, her voice now dripping with venom.

I really don't know what effect she was going for with her continued mistreatment of me, but I don't think it was working in her favor. I glanced around the crowd and noticed that every single person was looking at the ground, or at the game, or at the woods. No one was looking directly at her or at me for that matter. Lauren was not recruiting any followers with her "Let's abuse Bella" campaign. I could plainly see it. I decided to just wait to see if she would figure it out.

When the afternoon turned into early evening, everyone decided to meet for supper at a little restaurant in town. As Jacob and I walked back to his place to get my truck, I began to wonder if he really wanted to go to the prom. I hadn't asked him in a very conventional way.

"Jake, if you don't want to go, I'll understand," I said slowing my pace down a little. "I sort of put you on the spot back there."

Jacob stopped abruptly and spun me to face him. "Bella, we spend all of our time together. We kiss - a lot." He allowed the smirk to creep back across his features as he added, "And I know that I enjoy it - a lot. And I would venture to say that I am not the only one."

Oh boy! Jacob leaned forward and claimed my lips until I felt like every nerve in my body was dangerously close to a high voltage wire.

"Am I?" he asked.

"I enjoy it," I admitted, "a lot."

"And today, we declared our love for each other," he continued. "I would like to consider you my girlfriend."

"I think that sounds acceptable," I said, wondering where he was going with this. I loved this boy dearly, but he had a way of getting me to agree to things before I even realized where the questions were leading. "Can I consider you my boyfriend?" I asked tentatively.

"Nothing would make me happier," he lobbed his arm back over my shoulders and we proceeded toward his house. "And as my girlfriend, I would expect that if I had something important going on, it would be safe for me to assume that you would come with me if at all possible. As your boyfriend, you can expect the same from me. Prom is pretty important, so even if I had plans for that day, I would do everything in my power to change them."

"So you really don't mind going?" I squeezed my arm tighter around his waist. He was right. I would do anything he asked. I was so relieved to know that he was willing to do the same for me. If I really thought about it though, there never should have been any doubt in my mind.

"At least I don't have to crash it this year!"