Okay you guys, YES I am back! (: But since I'm in my senior year the updates will be a bit stretched. I'm going to try my best to update regularly but that might not happen. In your review, leave a comment whether you want sneak peeks to the next chapter or not during the wait and I'll do that (hopefully to make it easier). To my old readers, thanks for sticking with me and to my new readers, thank you for reading and supporting! I hope this chapter meets your standards. Enjoy!

Chapter Nine: What I Want

"Bella." Alice crawls through my two story window as if it's just a step up on my stairs instead of two hundred and fifty feet from the ground. Her brown short, spiked hair was seen before she was completely standing in front of my window, full frontal. She looked at me as if she was studying me for a reaction. "Don't freak out." What seemed like the most ludicrous thing right now, was exactly what I'd done yesterday.

I refuse to retort with words I couldn't think of and immediately wrapped my arms around her. My heart took a breath of relief that she was here and they hadn't left yet. Yet.

But they were still leaving. I'd gained my memory back and there was no reason to stay now.

"I assume you remember everything," Alice spoke as she hugged me back as gently as possible for with her strength it didn't take much for her to crush me like a soda can under a thick boot. I nod with my face partially buried in a mix of shoulder and hair.

"Don't leave," I whispered. The thought of them leaving after I'd regained the privilege of seeing their faces again made the pain of loss resurface. My chest ached. Could I really lose them again? My arms tightened around her waist as I spoke. I was terrified she would evaporate from my grasp.

"I'm not going to leave you Bella." My relief was short lived when I heard her sigh heavily.

"What?"

"Bella…I have to tell Edward." Edward. That name still had the impact of a monster truck slamming into me. It took all my strength just to keep standing. If she told Edward, he wouldn't come back. He had no reason to.

"Edward…doesn't love me anymore," I stammered out between short gasps in numbness. I wanted to feel pain; I should've felt some degree of pain but didn't. I was numb…feeling nothing…which was the worst possible feeling there was.

There was a hesitation as she thought about her next words, choosing them carefully as to avoid hurting my feelings.

"Bella…" I pulled back, moving my thick hair out of my eyes so I could see her face. Her eyes were in the same rhythm as the rest of her facial features. She was trying to spare me anymore pain.

"He…doesn't know you're in Forks does he?" I asked, voice shaking when the realization hit me. I was onto something. She didn't answer me but her eyes said it all. He didn't know. And if he had known, there was no doubt in my mind he would've stopped her from relieving a significant portion of my pain. He would've left me here, thinking none of them really wanted me once he had gotten tired of my company.

This made me angry.

If Edward didn't want me, I couldn't change that no matter how much I wanted to or how loud my heart screamed for a metamorphosis to make me into something he'd love for eternity. An eternity he promised me but never fell through.

My jaw clenched involuntarily and I look up at Alice with a mix of pain and rage in my eyes. "I don't want Edward here. You can't tell him." The look on Alice's face matched half of the thoughts running through my mind at the speed of light.

I am ruining any chance I have of seeing him again….

I was pushing Edward away further than he had ran. But he had ran. He was the one that ignited this emotional battle going on inside me. I loved and hated him…I couldn't even stay in one piece without half of myself ripping and tearing at the other with the fury of an ax murderer from one of those cheesy horror films.

"Bella-"

"No Alice." My mouth was ahead of me and not giving my brain time to process the words shooting from my mouth.. "You can stay. But I don't want Edward in Forks."

She just looked at me. Her yellow eyes flickered with some of the pain I'd caused her earlier when we had acted out this very scene with different lines and different results. I could read the words lingering on her lips, restrained by her self control to be silent. I felt like if I didn't keep talking, the both of us would remain unconvinced that I meant what I was saying.

"He left me, Alice. He left me to keep me safe and because he no longer loves me." I blink, noticing for the first time that faint stab of pain as I smacked into reality. "I love Jacob…and just mentioning Edward's name hurts him. I don't want to cause him anymore pain." I forced myself to gaze into her unusually animated irises, composing themselves after the mention of a werewolf. "Edward chose his path and I'm choosing mine. Please respect that."

It took a moment for her to comprehend what I said. My own ears were plastic and playing tricks on me, for I thought she said, "Okay. As you wish." Really? She was going to leave Edward out of this?

"Are you leaving?" I asked. It was common for me to think she would follow her brother's footsteps out of my life. It killed me all over again to think she'd conform to Edward's logic that it was safer to abandon me without love nor hope.

She snorted at the ridiculous theory she was certain I'd materialized. "Of course not. My brother is a fool and I will not suffer because of him." She smiled at me dazzlingly. "Edward shall never know of this." The relief and joy her words washed over me was overwhelming. She was handing me a part of my life back on a silver platter. I through my arms around her and hugged her as tight as I could hug a statue.

The instant Alice slipped out of my window, claiming it wasn't safe for Jake to have them both contained in the same room -especially a room as small as mine- Jake knocked on my front door. I met Jake at the bottom of the stairs, my heart felt like a burning flame, pounding in my chest. I was excited to see him, hold him in my arms. Jake made me feel as if I had been laying out on the beach under the sun for hours…so…so warm. Edward covered my fire with snow…cold then hot. The sensations roll over my skin and I shiver, trying to forget and focus on the one I did manage to keep a hold of. And I refused to let him go.

"Jake!" He immediately encases me in his arms, burying me in his chest. His moves seemed reluctant and forced, like he was fighting with himself. I heard him inhale my scent and frowned when he pulled away with a wrinkled nose. His features hardened but I saw the hurt in his eyes and sucked in a sharp intake of breath, feeling his pain. And the frigid distance.

"You smell like…them." His words were pushed through clenched teeth, shredded to the point I felt the teeth of the wolf slashing into my chest. I looked at him accused and caught red-handed.

"A-Alice came over," I choked out. I hated the dark shadow that crossed his face. "Jake…" I didn't want to think about the line he was drawing in the sand between him and my friends…the friends that were so close to becoming family. If I was with Jake that would never happen…there would be a lot of changes in my now short and semi-normal future…but at least I was with someone who wanted me. "I need Alice." There. It was out. "I…I just got her back and if she leaves again, I-I'd die…"

"Bella. Stop." Those two words rammed into me with such agony, I almost did stop and crawl into a ball painfully, trying to disappear.

What if he left me? Would he not want me anymore because I was holding onto Alice? Or did he think me getting closer to them meant I'd forget him? The last thought disturbed me more than the others. I reached out to him and he stepped further away, leaving a burning ache in my chest and washing over my arms and hands. I wanted to hold him. I wanted him to hold me.

"Here me out," I begged. He looked up at me; his eyes met mind but wasn't really seeing. "Jake, I love you. I…I would never leave you. I don't want Edward; I don't want Mike; I don't want anyone but you, Jake." I took a breath, stammering on. "B-But I need them. Please don't force me to choose. Please. We can be together and I can keep Alice, can't we?" I had just bared my soul.

And I lied. I did want Edward, to see his perfect angelic face and touch him…but I wanted Jake more. Jake was standing right in front of me, in my line of vision, not gone to lord knows where to be away from me because he no longer shared the intense, intimate affection as me. I would sacrifice anything to keep Jake here with me…even my unreturned love for Edward.

I felt Jake reeling me in; the familiar heat of his arms wrapped around me. He pressed his lips against my forehead and whispered, voice full of emotion, "We can try."