A/N: I am so not happy with this story, at all. It didn't go how I wanted it at all. There's only about three chapters or so left and maybe an epilogue if you want.

Thank you to everyone that has read and enjoyed this story.

Disclaimer: All Twilight characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

Chapter 6

BPOV

I had already packed everything except what I would use that day. Jacob called to wake me up at seven and came for me for breakfast at eight. We spent the day together and at five that evening, it was time to disembark. It wasn't a bad day at all. It was fun to just hang out with Jacob, no pressure from any sides. I realized that I was glad that we'd met. Even if I really couldn't see us as anything more than friends.

We left the ship early. I knew that Edward would stay until the last minute and I didn't want to see him again yet. Jacob helped load my car and I helped him with his.

"Well, I guess I'll see you in three weeks." I said.

"Right, in Washington. Are you sure you don't want to come and see my house?"

"No, besides, don't you want to see your dad? I'm sure he'd like to see you. And LaPush is only about fifteen minutes or so from where my dad lives."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Okay, I gotta get going. I'm on a tight schedule at first and want to go as far as possible tonight."

"I'll miss you, Bells."

"I'll miss you too, Jacob." I gave him a kiss on the cheek, never having felt comfortable to kiss him on the mouth, and got in my car.

I finally left the parking lot. I was headed to Orlando first. I would be staying with my friend Rosalie and her fiancé Emmett and we would go to Disney World. I was excited to go because I've never been before. Emmett would be a blast as I knew from past experience and it would be good to have a different set of issues to deal with.

As I expected, Rose and Emmett got my mind completely off Edward and Jacob. They never over thought anything and tended to be a little shallow. Their lives were exciting and spontaneous and very physical. It was a good distraction from what my life had recently consisted of.

I knew, though, that Rosalie might be able to help me with a few things. She'd never, in her whole life, had issues dealing with men. She was a gorgeous model-blonde with long legs and a beautiful face. She was also a very shrewd woman who knew how to get what she wanted. I wondered if maybe she could help me figure this whole thing out.

"Hey, Rosalie?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure." We were lounging around their living room, waiting for Emmett to finish getting ready for our day at Disney. I swear, he seemed more like a girl than I did, taking more than an hour to get ready in the morning. His dark curly hair had to be exactly perfect.

"What do you need to talk about Bella?"

"Well, see, there's this guy, Edward."

"Alice's brother."

"Yeah, and he's really being a jerk to me. So I started dating this other guy, Jacob. He's nice and all, but I don't know that I have feelings for him other than friendship."

"You should just go with what you feel. If you're not feeling Jacob, just have some fun with him for now, but be sure and keep the relationship light and simple. Just surface stuff. You can't really get in deep with one guy, anyway, if you're in love with another."

"Just have fun?"

"Yes, Bella. Fun. You can date someone without marrying them, you know. Although, I know your feelings about it."

"Well, Rose, I don't know if having sex with a different guy every night is what I'd call fun…." She laughed and bumped my shoulder with hers.

"It wasn't every night. Maybe every other-." She stopped as soon as her fiancé walked into the room. She didn't like to talk about her past guys when she had her soul mate staring in her eyes. I gagged and walked out the door.

From there I drove straight through to Phoenix and spent a few days with my mom and her side of the family. It was actually fun. She gave me money for my birthday. It wasn't much, but we had fun shopping.

My latest step-dad Phil turned out to be a wonderful man. He was helping Renee to get her life straightened out and she was pregnant with a new baby. She looked so happy and she wanted me to join in. She didn't try to push me away as usual, but pulled me closer to her than she had since she divorced my dad. I almost wanted to stay.

"Bella, I would love for you to be a part of my new life. I am trying to straighten it up. And I realize that I screwed up when it came to you. I want you to move back in with me, or at least near me." I gave her a look that made her qualify her statement.

"However, I understand that you are grown up now and have your own life. And there is your college life. I know that you have to find your own place in this world. I want you to be happy, no matter where you are or who you are with. Tell me more about Jacob." She deftly changed the subject, although it wasn't one I wanted to discuss with her.

I couldn't hide my heart from my mother. Her new happiness had given her some of the motherly instinct that she had ignored for so long. She knew a lot and guessed at the rest.

"Bells, dating someone you barely know isn't a way to get over someone you love."

"I know him better now than when I first started dating him. He's a nice guy and I have fun with him."

"But you are in love with someone else. And you are not happy with Jacob. It sounds like he doesn't really allow you to be you."

It was really hard to take advice from Renee even though I knew she was right. It would take a while to get used to her being a mom and caring what and when I did things. Before long, it was time to head up to Washington.

I went up through the west coast, stopping at different places, saving some for my time with Jacob who would be riding back to Florida with me. My dad's house was a very different story from my mom's. They always were very different. Too different to live in the same state, much less the same house.

Mom was more laid back and country. My dad was into technology and buying my love. He actively tried to give me better things for Christmas and birthdays than my mom. This year he had a brand new SUV waiting for me. I had wanted one for years but could never afford it.

"Bells, now I know you wanted to do things on your own and take care of yourself. But I knew you wanted one and couldn't resist. And if you need help with gas, that's part of your birthday as well. Since you insist on going on this trip."

"Dad, I need this trip. And I accept your help with gas. Oh, I love it, but I could never afford the gas for this trip." I hugged him and we went inside his house. I was closer to Charlie than Renee, but that wasn't saying much. I normally didn't accept the more extravagant gifts or just accidentally left them at his house. But I really really really wanted that SUV and my old car was about to fall apart.

He'd recently moved outside the city into a large house, much too large for it to remain just him for very long. He'd divorced my latest step-mother for adultery and had cleaned her out. However, she did get the apartment. I guess he'd already set his sights on a new prospect.

I spent a few days alone with my dad, and then we picked Jacob up at the airport. My dad was eager to meet my first boyfriend, and I knew that Jacob was nervous about meeting my dad. He could be very overpowering and intimidating.

However, Charlie and Jacob took to each other from the first second. They were both into technology and money. Jacob came from the reservation just down the road from Charlie's new house and he'd actually spent some time with Jacob's dad Billy. We were having such a good time that I didn't want to leave on the trip with Jacob. But two days later, we packed up my SUV and headed east.

Things were okay for the first few days. We had a lot of fun at the museums and historic landmarks. Then Jacob got tired of it. He complained about the "monuments to a dead time and dead people." He complained about being bored. He complained about the motels we stayed in. Then he started complaining about being thirsty.

No matter how many bottles of water he drank, no matter how many times we had to stop for him to use the restroom, he continued to whine about being very thirsty. One day, I pulled over and stopped the car. His complaining was not helping me think about my future.

"What'd you do that for?"

"Jacob, why are you still whining about being thirsty? There are four empty bottles back there that you have drunk in the past two hours. What do you want?" He squirmed and fidgeted for a few seconds before he answered.

"I didn't want to tell you this. I didn't think it was this big of a problem. Um, I have diabetes. It makes you really thirsty. I have to drink a lot of water and have to watch my sugar intake."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Diabetes? Why had he never told me that?

"That's okay. I'm sorry that I've been so cranky, whiny, and taking it out on you. I just need a day's rest from this vehicle."

"Okay. We're ahead of schedule anyway. We can stop in Detroit and spend a day doing nothing."

"No, that's okay; I wouldn't want to keep you from what you had planned. You can visit places in Detroit and I'll stay in the motel." The day off seemed to help him a lot. When I got home from shopping in the city, he was happy and back to himself. He had a weird smell on his clothes, though, that I couldn't identify.

His happiness didn't last long. Two days later he was whining again so I stopped early in the day to find a motel. This time I found out the real reason. He didn't wait for me to be gone before he sought relief from his nausea.

That day we could not find a motel. We had to splurge and get rooms in a nice hotel. They were linked by a door. I settled in my room and knocked on the door between. His side wasn't locked, so after I knocked, I walked on in. I knew now what the weird smell was that sometimes followed Jacob every few days. The mini bar was open and Jacob was sitting in a chair with a lot of empty bottles on the floor in front of him and one more in his hand. He was out cold. He hadn't even unpacked. He'd gotten this drunk in just twenty minutes.

I realized then that I didn't really know much about him. He'd hidden himself away, behind his charm and ego. He gave certain details to make me think he was telling me about him. He also used alcohol to hide. I closed the door between our rooms and locked my side.

I spent the day, getting up my nerve to break up with him. Or I was trying to decide whether to give him another chance. My mother had had three alcoholic husbands and a lot of the men in my family had drinking problems. I did not want to join the battered women in my family. I refused to let any man treat me that way. I knew that Jacob had never so much as raised his voice at me, but there was menace in his voice sometimes when he got aggravated at me. Those times he really scared me.

My observations also showed me that alcoholics rarely changed.

I really didn't know Jacob. The little while I'd known him was not long enough to see all of him. My pain over Edward was really the reason I'd agreed to date him, but I thought that maybe I'd like him more after a while. Those bottles smashed any chance he might have for that.

JPOV

I woke up with a slight hang over. I was confused for a few seconds, but wasn't startled because I had done this many times before. I knew it would be only a few moments more before I would remember where I was…Wait. No. Not here. Not in front of her. I looked at the bottles scattered around me. So small but so potent. I looked at my watch. It had been four hours since I'd given in to the pain.

I stood up on wobbly legs and walked to the door between our rooms once the room quit spinning. I hoped that maybe Bella hadn't seen that. I didn't know if Bella would still be there, but I was formulating an excuse when I discovered the door was locked.

At the other places that had doors between the rooms, she hadn't locked it until she went to sleep. I glanced at the clock again. It was still the late afternoon, so she wasn't asleep. She knew. She'd seen the bottles. I knocked, but there was no answer. I cursed loudly and ran my hand through my hair. This was so not good. I went down to the front desk and asked if they had seen her leave.

"She left about three or four hours ago. I don't know where she went, but she was in a hurry. No, she didn't check out. No, she didn't leave a note. Is everything okay, sir?"

"Yes, everything is fine, thank you." I am so dead. I went to the bar and ordered a glass of wine. It calmed the now constant cravings and wouldn't make me drunk.

I was good at hiding the need and the ways that I met that need. I could drink a few sips of Vodka or something and barely even feel the wooziness. No one on the ship even suspected me. I had hoped that I could hide it from Bella and keep both in my life. They were both forms of escape for me.

Two hours later, I watched as she walked across the lobby to the elevators. She had a lot of shopping bags. She also had what looked like two boxes of food.

I waited a few moments, left money, and rode the elevator up to my room. One of the boxes of food was set on the desk. I walked quietly over to the door and listened. I didn't hear a sound.

BPOV

I bought some food and brought it to our rooms. I knocked on the door between the rooms, unlocked it, and walked in. He wasn't there. I put his box of food on the desk and relocked the door between. I was eating when I heard his door open. Then I heard footsteps approaching the door. So I walked over and opened it.

"Jacob."

"Bells, let me explain." He paused, waiting for me to speak.

"Go ahead, I'm waiting." I tried not to look like a mother when I said that.

"I started drinking in college after my mother died. Did I tell you she was dead?" I shook my head no. Another thing I should have known but didn't. How much of the real Jacob Black was he hiding?

"Yeah. She was my best friend. I had other friends at school, but she was my best friend. She supported me more than anyone else. And she died very suddenly while I was away. Drinking was a way to hide and to escape the pain. It kept getting worse as more things happened to hurt me. Now I can't stop."

"You are an alcoholic."

"Yeah, I guess." I stared at him for a while, not speaking.

"Please, forgive me. I'll stop, I know I can. I'll do anything to keep you. I'll do whatever you want."

"Jacob, you need to do it for you, not for me. I told you that I didn't want you to change for me. I wanted to get to know you for who you really were. But I also said that if there was any reason I found-."

"Oh, don't. No. Not that! Please don't! Bella, I love you!" He grasped my hands, pulling me closer to him.

"I don't want to hurt you. But you shouldn't want to hurt me, either. I promised myself after my alcoholic step-dads that I would never marry an alcoholic. Tomorrow we will go to the airport and you will go home. There you can decide what you want to do. I hate this, BUT DO IT FOR YOURSELF. Don't do anything because of me. Think about what it is doing to you. Think about your dream to navigate ships. Drinking will destroy all of it." He hung his head. I gently pulled my hands away and went back to my room, locking the door.

It took a while for me to fall asleep. My mind was full of all kinds of things. I wondered about Edward. How was he doing with Lauren? I knew things about her that Edward would have hated and I wondered if he'd found them out yet. I cried over Jacob, only now realizing how much me meant to me as a friend. I was scared about my future in general, still without a clue as to what I would do with it.

I dropped Jacob off at the airport the next day and told him to call me.

"We are officially broken up, but I won't abandon you. If you want to stop drinking, I'll help in any way I can. If you don't want to, I'll still be your friend. Just learn to be honest. With yourself as well as others." I hugged him and left him.

One of my questions had been answered. Not at all how I expected.

I continued on my planned route and finished earlier than I thought. After breaking up with Jacob, some things just weren't as interesting. When you do sightseeing alone, you spend less time looking at things than if you had someone to talk to about them. I was wishing that Alice could have come with me, but she had to work to make money for college. I had to stretch some of my time at my last places so I wouldn't show up too early at her house.

Of course, without Jacob's complaining, I had plenty of time to think. Unfortunately, no solutions came to me.