A/N: So sorry. I didn't intend to go so long without updating, but things happen. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your patience and those of you who are still interested in the story!
Bella's head began to buzz and all of her senses seemed to diminish one by one. Jacob's voice seemed very far away and garbled,
like she was underwater straining to hear him. She couldn't seem to comprehend what Jacob had just revealed: Edward is back.
Edward is back.
Edward is back.
She felt the emotions that she had tried so hard to bury deep within herself for the past six months come rushing back. They snaked
their way around her body and seemed to tighten themselves around her throat, nearly cutting off her air supply.
"Bella, listen to me!" Jacob's hands were suddenly gripping her shoulders and shaking her to bring her back to reality.
"Let me go," she said through clenched teeth, tearing his hands away from her body.
Jacob swallowed hard and took a deep breath, his jaw clenching while he struggled to calm himself down.
"Just tell me what's going on," he said.
"Nothing is going on," Bella muttered.
"Why won't you just tell me the truth?!" Jacob threw his hands in the air, exasperated by her unwillingness to confirm his suspicions.
There was no point in telling him that she didn't even know Edward had come back. He wouldn't believe her anyway, not with all of
the "evidence" all over her bedroom.
"So what, you nearly make love to me, then you come home and sleep with him too, is that it?" Jacob asked with unabashed disgust.
Bella's blood turned to ice in her veins, trickled down her spine. How could he say these things to her?
"You need to leave. Now," she said.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, inwardly cursing himself.
"I mean it. Leave," she repeated, desperately trying to hide the quiver in her voice.
Sensing her sudden vulnerability, Jacob forced his anger to subside.
"Bella, please," he pleaded, "I'm sorry."
She looked away from him.
Jacob stood motionless for a long time, lost in an abyss of thought, when the ugly truth finally forced itself free of his internal prison:
He had lost.
As much as he had tried to deny it in the past, some part of him knew that he could never emerge victorious in the battle over Bella's
heart. As long as Edward existed, he would always win, no matter what. Bella would never allow herself to love anybody else the
way she loved Edward.
He realized then what he had to do.
"Do you love me?" He asked softly.
"What?" she asked, confused by his sudden personality flip.
He walked toward her, slowly closing the distance between them once again.
Bella's heartbeat pounded in her ears.
Jacob cupped her face in his hands and slowly lowered his mouth to hers.
"N–," she began to protest, but his lips silenced her as he kissed her softly, slowly, deliberately.
He pulled away slightly, and deeply breathed in the scent of her hair, as though he was taking enough of it to last him a lifetime.
"Do you love me?" He whispered again against her lips.
Unable to speak at that moment, Bella nodded her head softly.
Jacob let out a barely audible sigh.
Bella felt the hot tears begin to roll down her cheeks, but she soon realized they weren't hers.
"But it will never be me, will it?" Jacob asked, even though he knew already knew her answer.
Bella's legs crumpled under the enormous weight of her emotions, and she let her body slide down the wall, taking Jacob with her.
"If things were different," she started, "it would have been," she said, stroking his face, memorizing every detail by heart.
Jacob closed his eyes. He held her hands as they traced his face and kissed them desperately any chance he got. He understood what
she meant. He understood it perfectly.
They sat on the floor, clinging to one another for a long time, before Jacob stood abruptly. He held his hand out and helped
Bella to her feet. He brushed a stray lock of hair away from her temple, and kissed her for the last time. He turned away and walked
toward the door.
"Jake," she suddenly called to him.
He turned around reluctantly.
"I'll be okay," he said.
Bella looked deep into his eyes, struggling to find a way to express her gratitude for everything he had done for her. For the way he
wanted her when nobody else seemed to. For the way he had loved her even when she was nothing more than a shell of herself.
She opened her mouth and expected a waterfall of words to come pouring out, but they didn't.
"I love you," she finally said, hoping it would suffice.
"I love you," he replied, and he walked out her bedroom door.
She walked to her window and peered out, catching one last glimpse of Jacob Black before he drove out of her life. She suspected
that she would see him again one day, maybe a long time from now, when his scars weren't so raw. Time wouldn't cure his wounds,
she knew from experience, but it would help.
She pressed her forehead against the cold rain-splattered glass. Her eyelids began to feel heavy. She walked over to her bed and lay
down, curled into a ball. Exhaustion overtook her body she found herself falling into the dusky black of a restless sleep.
Throughout the night and well into the next day, the rain beat down mercilessly on the house, the wind and thunder accompanying it,
creating an oddly soothing symphony. A loud crack of thunder startled Bella and took her out of her dreamless sleep. She glanced at
the bedside alarm clock.
1:48 P.M.
She sat up quickly and was somewhat delirious. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, the dull ache in them telling her that she had
been crying all night. Her head throbbed as she strained to recall the events of the previous day. Had they actually happened or was it
only a nightmare? She looked to her bedside table and saw the cloth she had gotten for Jacob's head only hours earlier, now dry and
crumpled, proof of her cruel reality.
She walked to the bathroom and started the shower, waited for the water to heat up before stepping in and letting it soothe her
exhausted body.
It was amazing how a shower could be so humanizing.
Bella gathered her crumpled clothes and walked down the hallway to her bedroom, and stopped at the threshold.
'His scent is everywhere,' Jacob's voice seemed to reverberate throughout the tiny bedroom, which seemed different to her now.
Edward had been here several times without her slightest knowledge.
A sudden thought occurred to her, made her pulse quicken and the blood rush to her cheeks: Someone else would have known about
Edward's return long before Jacob revealed the secret. Someone she thought was her friend, who could have told her.
Someone who could see the future.
Bella dressed in a hurry, her sudden anger fueling her frenzied movements. She ran down the stairs, grabbed her car keys.
She started the truck, the usual deafening groan drowned out by the rain pelting savagely on the metal roof. She suspected she
wouldn't have to drive all the way to the Cullen's house. A tiny scoff escaped her lips.
She could bet her life that Alice was probably halfway to her home right now.
I hope that was okay. :/ I'm not really happy with it. I'll do better next time. Promise.