-| Glitch continues |-
It's dark.
Dark is good. Dark is cold and infinite and night. I'm sinking down, deep down, toward the dark.
Toward Edward.
Edward is night.
It's always night down here at the bottom of the sea, and night is when Edward is close. When I sleep, I often dream of Edward—Edward's hands smoothing my sheets, my face, my hair. Sometimes, in that split second when dreams are real, I see him rock in the chair by my bed. Through eyelash-blurred vision, I almost see his face.
But when my eyes open, he's gone, white curtain fluttering like a final goodbye. He's nothing but a dream. I want my dreams to be real. I want to sleep forever.
So I sink, deep and down and dead.
Death is the forever dream.
Then, I no longer sink.
Cool currents stir—water's version of wind.
They stir, and I sink no longer.
I rise.
Watery wind swirls invisibly and pushes me toward the light.
My lungs, they're burning.
I guess I'm not dead after all. Death should be calm, peaceful, as easy as a leaf drifting away on an eddy or falling asleep in a warm bubble bath.
This? This is not easy. This is scorching fire and clawing desire and if I don't get oxygen right now—right now—my lungs will implode.
Bella.
A name—someone's saying it, and the name is familiar. The voice is familiar. I've heard this name before. I've heard this voice before.
"Bella Bella Bella."
I can't think more about this name or this voice because I'm busy drowning here. Darkness is no longer something to embrace; it's something to fear. Some wet, cold thing kisses my mouth; something pushes on my chest—one, two, three, four.
"Please, Bella," the voice begs, and I realize that the name is my name and the person is talking to me. He wants me to do something. He wants me to breathe.
I want me to breathe, too.
My lungs fight for air, jerking my neck and spasming my body against the arms holding me steady. The arms are thick and strong and warm. Cough, and salty sea erupts from the volcano of my mouth.
Breathe in.
"Bella," the person with the warm, strong arms is pleading, and he wants me to do something else. He wants me to open my eyes.
I do, and the sky is storm-slate gray.
Breathe out.
I'm lying on my back, and my fingers claw through ground that is too porous, too wet, too fine.
Breathe in, deep in.
Make a fist, and bits of rocks and shells siphon from the curve of my pinky.
Breathe out and I'm on a beach. Breathe in and that dull roar is the ocean creeping its tendrils through rocks and sand, grabbing for me, reaching to finish what it started. What it couldn't finish because of the dark shape hovering overhead, cradling me in his arms like I'm a newborn.
Look down at an arm splayed across my stomach, and I see too-short nails with grease under them.
The hands of a boy.
My boy.
Jacob.
Jacob saved me.
Jacob would never let me die.
Jacob helps me sit. We sit, elbows touching, on a pebbled beach until I can breathe in, out, in, out without coughing, until I can breathe without burning, until the afternoon warmth begins to stretch into the chill of evening. Beside me, Jacob is as still and taut and silent as a balloon stretched to burst.
I sit and listen to the roar of the sea, a roar that can't quite drown Jacob's silence. I sit and stare at the wind stirring the waves. I sit until I'm sure I'm no longer dreaming, until I'm sure I'm awake. Until I'm sure I didn't see Edward, didn't feel Edward.
I felt only Jacob, tugging and pulling my body toward the light.
I feel Jacob now.
I feel Jacob's silence.
When I can no longer sit in this silence—a silence worse than speech—I stand on newborn colt's legs and begin the trek back to my truck. After a moment, I hear Jacob's feet begin to track a second set of footprints in the sand.
On the long and winding path back up to the road, I'm overly aware of his presence, the noises he makes, his breathing. He's right behind me, keeping pace with my steps. He's here, he's real, he saved me. I wish he were someone else. I wish someone else were real.
When we arrive at my truck at last, I step around to the passenger's side. Just like you don't drink and drive, you don't drown and drive, either. I fumble for the door handle and hear his steps quicken. His silence is about to burst.
"Bella, we need to talk about this."
"No. We don't."
Before I can creak the door fully open, before I can start shifting to squeeze inside, Jacob's palm impacts the metal, slamming it shut.
The sound gunshots through the trees. The woods around us go still, quiet, the birds and squirrels and frogs cowering from Jacob's wrath.
I turn, my face blank.
Jacob's face is not blank.
"I let the bike thing go," he says, eyes dark. "I did. I took your word that it was an accident." He scoffs the last word, lips curling over sharp teeth. "But this. This was no accident."
He pauses, and now would be the perfect time to speak up, downplay, reassure. Of course, I can't. I can't say anything, anything at all, because he's right.
It wasn't an accident.
It was a test.
He understands what my silence means. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"
I huff, "Of course not."
"Then what, exactly, were you trying to do?"
We stand staring, jaws jutted, both too stubborn to back down. He's not going to move until I answer, and I'm not going to answer. The air between us chills, crystallizes; our usual warm, easy camaraderie—it's icing over, crackling and frozen. We can't move, can't go forward unless someone breaks.
"Jacob, I'm freezing here." In more ways than one. "Can we at least get in the car?"
The frustration on his face fades as he registers my subtle shiver. A cool breeze dances with nearby leaves and turns my sodden clothes to ice. Not waiting for him to respond, I wrench open the door again and edge into the passenger's seat.
Jacob watches me for a moment before slowly rounding the hood and joining me in the cab. Although he turns over the engine and blasts the heater, he makes no other move to send us on our merry little way.
We sit.
"Can you just talk to me?" he pleads, voice low, desperate.
I look away from him, out the window. "Not now."
He hears, Not ever.
We sit more. The only sounds in the truck cab are the hiss of the heater and the knocking of my teeth as I will my body to get warm.
I cringe when Jacob says, "C'mere."
Yet I let him reach for me. I let him touch me. I let him tuck me into his body.
Immediately, I'm aware of three things: he's warm, he's strong, and he's half naked. Abstractly, I'd noticed that he'd taken off his shirt somewhere between the point I jumped into the water and he pulled me out of it, but this fact suddenly becomes very real and very warm.
Jacob has a penchant for taking off shirts.
And this is a good thing.
I think.
"Okay," he says. "If you won't talk, I will." He takes a deep breath. "These past several months have been some of the best of my life. I've enjoyed spending time with you. I've enjoyed getting to know you."
"Same here," I mumble against his chest because it's true.
We're silent as warmth seeps.
Then he whispers, "I thought I had lost you, Bella."
I hadn't really thought. I hadn't really thought what it would do to Jacob, watching me plummet to my death. I had wanted him scared. I had wanted him panicked.
My voice is very small. "But you didn't, so..."
We shift, and without even meaning to, we're looking into each other's eyes. A beat, and then he's no longer looking into my eyes. He's looking a little lower. He's looking at my lips.
He licks his own in anticipation.
I'm trembling, but not for the same reason as before. The cold, I almost can't feel it now.
He goes in to kiss me.
And this is it.
This is the moment I've been working toward for months, the ultimate test of Edward's silence, his presence. Is he out there right now, peering through the cracked windshield of a '53 Chevy? Does he see Jacob's arms wrapped around me and Jacob's mouth seeking mine? Does he wish he were Jacob? Does he wish he were sitting where Jacob sits? Does he even care? I hope he does. I hope he's watching. I hope it more than anything, more than life.
Then Jacob becomes all I can see, all I can feel.
In this instant, the instant before I forever sacrifice the virgin of my lips, I realize one thing—there's a reason why a defunct tree house nestled in a gnarled tree has yet to hear about my first kiss. When all the junior high girls were kissing their pillows and hands and that poster of Hollywood's latest "it" boy, I didn't practice up for the big event. When my peers, including Alice, were experiencing their first kiss with this boy or that, I…wasn't.
In this instant, I realize I've been saving my first kiss—for someone who might not exist.
"Wait," I say. I say this practically into his warm mouth, it's so close. And although his arms tighten around me, Jacob waits.
Because that's Jacob.
"I…I can't do this," I say.
Jacob's lips remain poised and parted for a long moment. Then, reluctantly, he lowers his head to better look into my eyes.
"Why not?" he says. He's quiet, wary, hurt.
"I just…can't."
He pushes back and faces forward and I've only begun to understand how much his presence warms me.
"Is this because of him?" he says, angry.
Him.
The word is a toaster dropped into a tub.
"Him?" I breathe. Jacob should know of no him. I haven't once mentioned Edward. Not so much as a slipped "he" in our everyday conversations. I think about Edward often, but I've always been very, very good at not mentioning him. "Him who?"
My skin prickles in anticipation of his answer.
"The person you're trying to make jealous by hanging out with me."
I stare.
I stare and stare.
Jacob has always been perceptive beyond his years, but he couldn't have perceived Edward. Could he?
"Who is it…Cheney?"
Oh.
I deflate.
"No," I choke, looking down at my fingertips, tinged blue.
"Newton?"
"No."
He takes a breath.
"Quil?" The last name on his list—the most important name—comes out as a whisper. I'm sad that my big, strong Jacob could ever be worried by measly, weasly "I'm Quil Ateara."
"Of course not. There is no him, Jacob," I say, praying to every god that exists that I'm wrong.
"Hm," he grunts, staring out into the forest.
"I just can't do this with you right now," I say.
Maybe it's the sentiment, maybe it's the warble in my voice or my renewed shivering—either way, Jacob's anger recedes as quickly as the tide. "Telling me that you can't do this and that you can't do this right now are two different things."
"I know."
He sighs. "So when?"
"I need time."
Time for me to figure this out. Time for me to learn the truth and, if necessary, time for me to let go.
He just looks at me for a moment, so vulnerable and guileless and Jacob. At last, he says, "I've got loads of time."
He shifts the engine into gear.
We drive.
"Uh, you just passed your house."
"Yeah," he says.
We drive more.
"You're taking me to my house."
"Yup."
We pull up in front of my house and sit. Jacob kills the car, hands me the keys, and moves to open his door.
"What, are you just going to walk home?" I ask.
"No," he says. "I'm going to run."
The Black's house is only a bazillion miles away—more miles than Jacob can possibly run. "Are you a closet marathon runner or something?"
"No. I'll run for a while and then hitch a ride. Don't worry, I do it all the time."
"Are you sure? I could get Charlie to drive you back." My suggestion sounds half-hearted, even to me, and Jacob just looks at me. He knows as well as I do that I don't want to get Charlie involved in this. Whatever this is.
"I'm sure. It will give me time to think." He steps out of the car, closes the door, and stands leaning into the window for a sec. "And Bella. I want you to know that I'm not going anywhere. You want to come down to the rez, hang out, I'm there."
"Thanks," I say, but he's not done.
"You won't talk to me about this, fine. But I think you need to talk to someone."
Before I can say anything, before I can even blink, he's gone. I look back through distorted glass and see him take off at an easy lope.
His body, it was made for running.
I watch that body until it's very small, until it's gone.
Then I sit alone in my truck.
In a single day, my plans to "out" Edward have been blown upside down and sideways. If I can't even let myself be kissed by a boy I care about, how will I make Edward jealous? If I can't even let myself drown, how will he ever save me?
And now, this isn't only about me. This isn't only about me proving something to myself. There's a third party now, someone I've come to care about. Someone I don't want to hurt.
But no matter what, someone is going to get hurt.
I slink up to my room, undetected, and my phone winks accusingly. I've missed eleven calls. All eleven calls are from Alice.
As I pick up the phone, it rings again.
Alice speaks before I even say hello. "Are you alright?"
"Yes…?" My voice trails off in question because she sounds different, distorted…almost as though she's crying. Thing is, Alice doesn't cry. That's not Alice.
"Are you sure?" she demands.
"I'm sure. What's this about?"
"I…" There's a long pause. "…just needed to make sure you were alright."
"Alice, are you alright?"
"I am now."
She hangs up before I say goodbye.
I half expect Jacob's conscience to kick in and compel him to tell Charlie about my recreational cliff-jumping. To be safe, I stay away for a while. Let him cool down. Let him forget. Forget that Bella is becoming increasingly unstable. Forget that Bella tried to kill herself on his watch.
Days without Jacob go like this:
School, therapy, homework, repeat.
School, therapy, homework, repeat.
School, therapy, homework, repeat.
Then, one day, I get to the repeat and I just…can't. I'm sitting on my bed in the wee hours of a weekend morning, staring down at my journal, when it hits me.
My plan has failed.
Completely, utterly, irreparably failed.
Edward did not speak to me in phase one. He did not reveal his jealousy of the boy I dallied with in phase two. And in phase three…
In phase three, he did not save me when I was in mortal danger.
Through it all, Edward has remained perfectly detached, perfectly silent, just all-around perfect. He drops absolutely no hints that he cares that I need him, that I want him, that I'm single-mindedly trying to break my neck for him.
I'm staring down at my journal, the very last page. I've come to the end, it's over, I have nothing else to write. I stare with distaste at the perfect little blue lines. I've written everything in between these lines. I've written all about Edward and Dr. K and Renee. Somewhere, reading between those lines, is all about Bella.
A Bella who doesn't matter.
I lower my little red pen to the final page of my little red notebook and write outside the lines. I write in spirals; I write in circles; I write more stuff that won't matter. When my notebook is full, when the plans of mice and men crumble to dust, there is only one thing I can do.
I walk.
I leave my bedroom, my house, and my truck. I step into forest, leaving sidewalk and civilization, and go where the wind takes me.
The wind leads me through ancient trees covered in encroaching moss and choking vines. I follow the wind over fallen logs and across flowing streams. As I walk, I listen to the forest grow still, until all I can hear are my imprecise footfalls.
I walk until the sun is high overhead, at the perfect apex of the sky. The sun's rays flood unexpectedly down, anointing a particular patch of forest floor.
A sign.
I step into the small circle of light. I'm Hamlet, and this is my spotlight for the most important monologue of my life.
Is Edward or is Edward not? That is the question.
So it begins.
"Edward," I say.
"I'm here," I say. "I'm here, lost and alone. No one knows that I'm here but you. And no one knows that you're here but me."
The forest is still.
Too still.
"I'm not leaving until you talk to me. I know you're out there. I'm going to keep talking until you respond."
He doesn't.
So I keep talking.
I tell him he's been the one thing I could count on my whole life. I know he's out there, watching me, even now. I can feel him. I know that he must be lonely. I know that it can't be easy being so alone. I know because I'm alone. But I at least have Alice. I at least have Jacob. He has no one.
A momentum of electricity builds, sparking to life between the trees.
I feel it.
I beg. I cajole. I plead.
I tell him I can't live like this anymore. I can't live without him. I tell him I will leave Forks. Right now. I tell him that I will follow him wherever he wants me to go, if only he will lead.
I ask him what I need to do.
"I can't do this without you. I can't exist without you."
Do you even exist?
The air in my little clearing crackles with an invisible current that I have not felt in my seventeen years. But the energy, it's an electric spark with nowhere to jump, no one to connect to.
I stand in my halo of light and feel the energy seeping slowly away, lost, into the air and the ground and the trees. The potential connection fizzles, drains like blood into soil.
Because Edward doesn't answer.
"Edward," I whisper.
No answer.
"Edward," I state, forceful now.
No answer.
"Edward," I cry, stumbling forward out of the light, into the haze. "Edward?"
His name—it's a question.
Maybe the real question is this—if a Swan screams in the forest and no one hears, does she even make a sound? The answer tips my already precarious sanity over the edge.
I start to cry.
And then I start to scream.
And scream.
And scream.