Raum

A Good Liar

Who was waiting for Bella? Only a few readers guessed it right. Here's the answer.

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. But you already knew it.

Chapter 3: "Stuck"

Leaning against his motorcycle, with arms folded in front of his muscular chest, Jacob Black could be intimidating. But his expression opened into a welcoming smile as his eyes caught Bella's through the windshield.

Like a sunray, his grin penetrated the thick cloud of her sadness. Her thoughts shifted to the summers she had spent in Forks visiting Charlie. Years had gone by, but Jacob's infectious smile hadn't changed. The boy who, in their childhood, had been her best friend in Washington – the only one who could keep her happy when she missed Phoenix and her friends – was in front of her, hidden inside the man he was becoming.

She parked quickly on a stretch of firm shoulder and walked over to him. Despite being slanted against his bike seat with legs casually crossed, Jacob towered over her imposingly. He had always been tall for his age, but since Bella was two years older than him, their height difference hadn't been huge. Now, instead, it seemed that he had grown yet again in the few days since she'd seen him.

"Bells, what are you doing here?"

She shrugged, perhaps a little defensively. "I went for a drive."

"You shouldn't wander alone in these woods."

Her eyebrows jerked up in disbelief. Jacob usually didn't tell her what she should or shouldn't do. Even when she had brought him two old motorcycles, asking to fix them and give her lessons, he hadn't objected. Edward would have been mad at just the idea of her on a motorcycle...she pushed the thought away. Edward would never know. He didn't care to know.

Since that first day at his garage, Bella had known that she could trust Jake. It was thanks to him that Charlie hadn't discovered anything about her riding a motorcycle – or the double visit to the ER that this new hobby had cost her. I understand, Jake had told her, when she'd asked him to keep his mouth shut.

But this time he wouldn't understand.

"I needed some time to think," she mumbled, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "What about you? What are you doing here?"

He turned his gaze toward the woods where she had just come out, and Bella feared he had fully realized where she had just been.

"I saw you taking that road and waited for you," he admitted. "It's better if next time you choose another way, okay?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Were you following me?"

He held up his hands, signaling that he meant no harm. "No. I was coming to visit you and caught sight of your truck on the road. So I waited for you."

She hadn't spent a lot of time at the Cullen house – the more she stayed there, the more she hurt – but still... "You stayed here all this time, just waiting for me?"

He smirked. "I don't mind waiting for you." His words seemed flirtatious, but his gaze darkened. "When I saw you taking that way..." he nodded toward the narrow road that led to the Cullens' lawn. "Even if the Cullens are gone, I don't like the idea of you being over there."

Bella stiffened. Jacob knew where she had gone, and he had already jumped to the wrong conclusions. "The Cullens wouldn't have made the woods less safe for me," she retorted. "You should know that. Weren't you the one who told me they weren't dangerous?"

He averted his eyes. "Speaking of them, I wanted to talk with you at your place, but since we're here." He gestured to the space between them. "I've heard the news." He reached out a hand, but she ducked her head before he could cup her cheek. A heavy silence descended on them. Jacob was the one who broke it, stumbling on his own words. "Do you know how it happened? I mean...Charlie told Billy that Edward was ill, but we know..."

For once, he didn't call Edward a leech or anything offensive. Bella recalled how the Quileutes had celebrated the Cullens' departure with bonfires. Just after she had been found in the woods, she'd heard Mrs. Stanley calling Charlie to say that she'd seen fires out on the sea cliffs. But this time, if Jacob was relieved by the death of his natural enemy, he wasn't showing it off, at least not in front of her.

And yet she couldn't stop herself from unleashing her frustration on him. "I'm sorry to burst your bubble, Jake, but Edward is not dead. You of all people should realize that!"

Jacob let out a bitter laugh. "What do you mean? That he'll live on in your memories?"

It didn't take her long to understand what he was referring to. The Quileute believed that the dead never left, so long as they were remembered. Jacob believed it, too. He had told her that when he had lost his mom, the certainty that she was still alive in his memories had helped him to grieve. But the Cold Ones...no. According to the Quileute legends, they were nothing but soulless corpses that had no business still walking the earth. No Quileute would think a Cold One worthy of keeping alive in memory.

She avoided his gaze.

"Bells," he called her, his voice less harsh. "Charlie talked to Billy and said you were the one who got the news. I knew it was strange, since the Cullens didn't keep in touch, but still..." He straightened and stepped away from his motorcycle. "Vampires don't die easily, that's for sure. The guys at the rez said it must have been a fight with other bloodsuckers. Anyway, one less leech to worry about would be good news."

She winced at his callous words but refrained from talking further. She knew how angry Jake still was, seeing her so broken over the loss of Edward. Every time he had talked with her about the Cold Ones, he had tried to work an edge of menace into the conversation. It seemed that Jacob and Edward had something in common: they both believed that she should have been scared, repulsed by those inhuman creatures.

Forgive me, she wanted to say, knowing how she was letting him down after all he had done to lift the dull veil of sadness that was swallowing her.

The first time she had gone to the reservation, she had been ashamed of herself. She knew that the tension on her face couldn't go unnoticed, not even if she tried to smile. She had lost weight and had purple circles under her eyes; rain was dripping through her hair, some drops trickling across her cheeks as if they were tears.

She had been so sure she'd be faced with his pity. Instead, Jacob had reacted to her unexpected arrival with a smile so big that it seemed his cheeks would hurt. When she had explained the reason for her visit – that she had come just to see him – he had beamed.

Less than a month had gone by since that afternoon, and Jacob had succeeded in making her smile, joke, laugh. And then one day, when she had rolled her eyes at him after the umpteenth joke about the contrast between his russet skin and her pallid shade, he had circled her shoulders with his arms and smirked at her. "No way you can be numbered among the pale-faces," he had said. "You and Charlie are family."

But that respite from her sorrow hadn't lasted long.

At first, she had tried to delay the moment she would have to lie to Jake, too. Each day that she had put off calling him or visiting the reservation, she had hoped Jacob would assume she was just busy at school. Now she chastised herself. She should have considered that Charlie would surely talk with Billy. She wondered how it had gone when Billy gave his tribe the unbelievable announcement that one of the Cullens was gone for good.

With a kick, Jacob sent a stone off the road, bringing Bella back sharply to the present and to the friend in front of her. "So now you say he's not dead. Fine. I just hope they aren't back."

"They're not back," she confirmed, her voice hoarse. She dismissed the thought of her open window at home, or the figure she had seen...no, she had thought she'd seen in her room the previous night.

"So what is this story about Cullen? Are you covering for them? Is it another one of those bloodsuckers' lies?" His words were harsh.

"No!" Bella almost shouted. "It's my lie, this time."

Jacob looked at her in confusion. "Your lie? What the hell are you talking about?"

She waved her hands in front of herself. "Forget it," she huffed. "You're right, the Cullens didn't keep in touch, so I don't know how they are." She moved back toward her truck, but he grabbed her by the wrist. She whirled around and glared at him. He released her arm and quickly strode in front of her to block her path.

"Please, don't go," he pleaded. "Have the Cullens reeled you into some kind of game they're playing? Whatever happened, you can talk to me. You don't have to pretend with me."

Bella looked up at him. She scanned his features, searching the black depths of his eyes for something to comfort her. His gaze softened; his arms were slightly distanced from his body, as if inviting her into his embrace. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she recalled a time when she had found and offered refuge in those arms.

When Jacob had lost his best friend, he had confided in her. She remembered the afternoon when he told her that Embry had been avoiding him. As she had listened to Jake, his worry had become her own; she knew too well how it felt, being rejected by the people you trusted and loved.

She had thrown her arms around him instinctively, wrapping them around his waist. "It will be okay!" she had promised, trying to be convincing, and not for his good alone. She had to hope that sooner or later things would get better for herself, had felt the tension leaving his body and realized that the contact was comforting her as well.

Now she wanted to throw her arms around him again, press her face against his chest and bury in his warmth all the painful memories that still made her shiver.

"You don't have to lie to me," Jacob went on, his voice huskier.

When she had started the lie, Bella had only thought it would make things better somehow. But things hadn't gone the way she had intended. Charlie's sadness over the death of the boy who had shown his girl how love could bring both joy and hurt had taken her by surprise and compounded her own. She had witnessed the news of Edward's death spreading in the little town, and instead of finding relief in the ending of snide remarks, she had found herself buried under an avalanche of loss. Even though she knew that his 'death' was a lie, with everyone with everyone offering their condolences, it felt as if it were horribly real. She hadn't been ready for the finality that her lie had brought her. And yet, in all the days and weeks since she had brought this on herself, she hadn't backed down. She had never allowed her facade, or the lie it hid, to crack.

But now she slipped. "After the Cullens left, it seemed that everyone was mad at Edward because he hurt me," she murmured, her voice unsure.

Tentatively, Jacob's fingers touched her hair, not daring to go too far. "Go on."

"But I couldn't stand it anymore...it wasn't the way I wanted to remember him," she admitted. "So I said that Edward was ill and died, hoping that everyone would stop blaming and hating him." Her voice was close to an incoherent mumble as she finished speaking.

Her confession left Jacob at a loss for words. "I saw what the Cullens did to you." Gone was the tenderness with which he had spoken before. "They deserve to be hated."

"I shouldn't have told you anything," Bella snapped, angry at herself for opening up, and angry at Jake for not understanding, right after promising that he would.

"You shouldn't have lied," he seethed. "And for what? To make people pity that monster? You, more than anyone else, should know how evil he can be."

The Elders' stories Jacob had shared with her came to her mind. According to them, the Cold Ones were the most evil liars. Even though they claimed that they didn't harm humans, how could those liars be trusted? Who could know when they might get too hungry to resist? The Cullens mingled with humans at school or at work, but it was just a well-crafted pretense. Jacob had told her he bet they forged false birth and death certificates all over the country, always changing their identity, but not their nature: they were nothing but monsters in disguise.

She distanced herself from him. "You don't understand!"

"What don't I understand?" he snarled. "You almost died because of those leeches. It took you months to begin living again, and after all he did to you, you still protect him?"

"Do you think I could just turn my feelings off? Edward is still important to me," she retorted.

Jacob was almost shaking in anger. "You still love him, and at this point I wonder if anything will ever open your eyes."

She looked down, defeated. "What if I don't want to stop loving him?" she whispered.

He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides, struggling to control his words. "Even if he hasn't fed on your blood, that leech took something no less important from you," he went on. "I vowed that parasite wouldn't suck out your joy again. Bella, I thought that if I had to fight to make him disappear from your life, then I would. But what can I do now?" He huffed, exasperated. "You lied to Charlie, to your friends, to everyone," he accused. "What has that bloodsucker done to you?"

"Please," she begged. "Don't tell anyone what I told you. Please, Jake." Her eyes brimmed with tears.

He went back to his motorcycle and slammed his foot down on the pedal, starting the engine. "I won't talk, but it's better if you keep your distance from me. Don't think that I'm going to play along and join you in lying."

Bella felt as if she had been slapped in the face. Rooted to the spot, she stared as Jacob got ready to leave her. Stuck. That's what she was. She had only deluded herself, thinking that she could move on. Flashes of the afternoons she had spent with Jake in the last weeks paraded through her memory – the moment he had wrapped his hands around hers on the first time they had ridden the motorcycles. How she had felt light and buoyant in his company, learning to feel enthusiasm again, after it had become such a rarity. The way he teased her, and the silvery echo of her own laughter.

Had they all been just delusions?

As if in slow motion, she watched Jacob crouch on the motorcycle seat and grab the handlebars. "Goodbye," he spat.

She bowed her head. It was as if the flickers of joy they had shared were fading with every passing moment, like color pictures becoming black and white. She could have reached him, maybe she could say something, but she didn't.

At a few miles behind her, the Cullen house stood among the trees, empty and sad. A few feet in front of her, Jacob's motorcycle rumbled and sped away. She was stuck between a past which couldn't be resurrected and a future she was renouncing.

She would never be what Jacob hoped her to become.

Only when Jacob was a distant dot on the horizon, Bella finally allowed herself to go home.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The sandwich she had prepared for her lunch tasted like sand. She couldn't swallow more than a few halfhearted mouthfuls, even though she had already skipped breakfast. She sipped a glass of milk, staring at the outside from the kitchen window. She recalled when she was a child and used to play in the backyard; every now and then, Charlie would check on her from that same window. It seemed that he didn't know what she was doing, but he didn't miss anything and was always ready to run out if she needed him. Even all these years, it was still that way. Bella had made her choices in her life – choices her parents weren't always aware of – but she knew that her father would never be too far away if she called him.

The promise to prepare a good dinner provided her with a way to make the hours go by less slowly. In the silence of her home, the only sound was the rhythmic knock of the knife on the chopping board as she gathered some vegetables and started a sauce with minced meat. The smell of the browned ingredients began to fill the room. She added the tomato sauce and covered the pot. According to the recipe, she had enough time to read something while she waited for the food to be ready. It occurred to Bella that if she and Jacob hadn't argued, she could have invited him and Billy over for dinner. She felt a pang of regret, thinking about Jacob, Billy, Charlie and herself enjoying a meal together.

As far as she knew, Edward could be a thousand miles from Forks right now, hunting in some woods or other – something she had never been allowed to see. Almost one year before, when she had asked him about it, he had almost snarled at her. He had limited himself to telling her how, in the moment of the kill, even the most controlled vampires were at the mercy of their predatory instincts, unstoppable in their thirst.

Bella froze as other warnings from Edward came back to mind.

"Don't go into the woods alone."

She stared at him in blank confusion. "Why?"

He frowned, and his eyes were tight as he looked toward the trees. "I'm not always the most dangerous thing out there. Let's leave it at that."

She remembered the open window in her room and the figure she had seen in the darkness. But this time, the memory didn't fill her with hope.

Another conversation replayed in her mind: the first time she had visited the Cullens, Edward had warned her about visitors who weren't like his family in their hunting habits. And then, she recalled the moment when James, Victoria and Laurent had crossed the baseball field...

She looked down at the scar on her wrist. Everything from her time with Edward had been wiped away – the only reminder she had been allowed to keep was a scar.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Bella would have liked to stay longer under the shower, putting off the moment she'd have to go and face another day at school. She got ready begrudgingly, took her backpack and jogged toward the truck. She looked up at the sky on her way out. At least it wasn't raining – if she was lucky, the sun would allow her to spend some time outside during lunch break.

She drove in a hurry, afraid she would arrive late at school. Only when she parked her car and retrieved her things did she notice there was something odd.

Under her backpack, a white envelope stood out on the passenger's seat. She took it gingerly, as if it might burn her fingers. The paper seemed elegant and expensive, but that was it – nothing was written on it. She peeked at the contents.

The envelope contained two pieces of paper.

Bella's eyes widened as she read the first one. According to the written words, she had a reservation for the Lake Union Room at the Space Needle in Seattle, for the next Saturday afternoon.

The other one wasn't printed. It was but two words handwritten on a small square of stationery.

"Be safe."

Thanks for reading!

Notes

Thank you! to my wonderful friends Camilla10, Miaokuancha, Marlena580, and Jmolly.

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The next chapter of A Good Liar is due to be posted in less than two weeks, while An Italian Winter is due to be updated next Friday.

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