Thanks to all the nice reviews and suggestions! I took them all into consideration and, obviously, used a few. I'm sorry to report that this chapter is also short, and I wanted to continue it, but at the same time it was an eh…I think it would just be a rift in the tempo I've got going on here. So, yes, another short one, but I'm hoping for character development, plot development, and a longer chapter next time!

So this took me a little too long, but everything got hectic again for various reasons, and it's calming again. So I'm thinking within the next week or so I'll get the next chapter up for ya'll, though I don't want to get your hopes up too far, just in case. But now that I've reached a slightly crucial turning point for our Bella here, I think it'll start flowing easier. I want to guarantee this self-loathing phase is going to end—not immediately, but this marks the start of that, 'kay?

Also, before I forget to mention, I hate this chapter. I don't know what bugs me, but it truly gets under my skin. I just want you all to know it's less than par, and I hope to improve next time. ;)

And so, in order to shorten everything, I want to thank everybody! Believe it or not, and I really hope you choose to believe it, but I do love you all and your reviews! They make me so happy, and sometimes when the plot is slow coming I'll read them over just to get a jump-start on the story again. Honestly, I can't stress enough how much your meaningful reviews help me. When you take the time to critique and comment and commend my writing, I'm truly touched through reading what you have to say. You, my readers, are the makers of this story. No, that's not just a corny line for the sake of corny lines, that's the garsh-darn truth!

So, super long authors note from hell, then super short chapter from hell. But I hope you all like it hot!

*Insert disclaimer here. Yes, I'm too lazy to be creative*

:D

The air was crisp as she walked home slowly. She didn't care about the chill nipping at her exposed fresh, the drops of rain falling down on her and soaking through her clothes, she didn't care about any of that. She had her assignments and for some strange reason, her eyes were burning with the need to cry. She sucked back any tears that threatened to fall and continued her steady pace through the rain, fearing that she could start bawling any second. She wasn't sure why, but she felt strangely homesick. At first she began to run toward her dorm, thinking it was the rain making her want to be home sooner. But then the pain in her chest grew, the longing becoming staggering, and she realized it was more than that. It was homesickness for her mother's hugs, her father's awkward smiles, Jacob's warmth. Anything but this.

And now most of those things were gone. She couldn't see Jacob anymore, not like she wanted. And if she couldn't be around him always, then she wasn't going to tease herself with the little bits and pieces she could steal from his imprint. It was hard enough already. And her parents…she simply couldn't see them. At all.

That had been what hurt. She was sure she'd coped with it enough just to think about it, but she couldn't. When the solid thought began to form in her mind that never once in her life would she get to experience the feeling of being loved, of feeling love, she began to get this quivering tremor in her heart that made her nearly fall to her knees. She just couldn't bear the thought of being like this forever. But she knew she would be.

She was just too weak. Too weak to keep them by her side. Too weak to cope with losing them. Too weak to end the pain. She was just too weak.

So she kept her stride steady. She let her tears fall. She pretended they were merely raindrops and kept going.

She allowed herself this time to wallow, to let her mask fall, to feel something other than blank. She allowed herself to become human again, to become herself—no matter how weak. But it was all cut short as her blood ran cold.

It was all over the campus now, the killer. He was lurking everywhere—he was something she'd never seen, never had described in detail. He was just some figure that she knew existed, something that picked off the weak ones in the crowd. He was lying in the darkness, waiting. She'd grown to believe he simply was the dark, the shadow in the corner. He was just some being that, while existing, she'd never thought about too much.

But her blood ran cold as he came to the forefront of her mind now. There was a hunched figure in the distance, no trace of anything but a black coat showing. Just a moving shadow against every other shadow. And he was coming her way, his strides quick and long compared to her own. She felt her chest tighten as the seed planted itself in her mind, that fear, that worry, that refusal. It grew to be painful as her lungs sucked in the cool air, her throat burned, and she became sure that was him there, ready to snatch her.

The weakest.

She knew that her best option was to run. No longer was there doubt in her mind—she panicked. It was him. And she knew she should run. She knew that. Run. But every time she thought it, her legs didn't respond. Why wouldn't they respond? Run. Please. But nothing happened, and he was getting closer. Her heart thumped so hard she began to shake. Or was that the cold? The fear?

Her whole body locked. He was only feet away. He was going to torture her, to kill her, to defile her body, to…

"Bella?"

Her heart, which had been beating so hard it was painful, stopped. The sound of the rain drifted, her breath was held, everything paused for a moment.

There was a rush of cool relief through her limbs. Her breath came out so hard she began to cough. Her tears started again, her mind blanked and rejoiced for a brief moment.

"Spencer," she gasped. Her coughs continued.

He walked up to her, his stride quick, his face appearing in the darkness of the hood. He touched her wrist, tightly locked around her torso as her body heaved with each cough, and she felt safe in that moment. She wasn't all alone out here—there was someone protecting her. He probably wouldn't be able to actually protect her in dangerous circumstances, but his presence was enough that she didn't seem to care. In that moment, when she'd been so sure that she would have bet her life she was going to die by the hands of a psycho, she'd felt so alone. Like only she and that shadow that suddenly became all too real were the only living things in the world. She felt like she was trapped.

But now she felt better, felt like she could almost sing with relief, with thankfulness. But she kept quiet, relaxed herself, and swallowed back her coughs. Her teeth began to chatter as she looked up at Spencer, who was closer than she thought he was.

"You look sick," he stated bluntly, and she felt slightly offended, but he was here and not the murderer, so it washed back. His hands were on hers suddenly, and he almost sighed, "You're cold."

"I'm sorry," she responded, though it was probably the most idiotic thing to say. But that didn't occur to her then, she was just looking at him. He thought it was odd that she blinked so much, but he was more worried about the blue tinge to her skin—already a sickly looking pale—and her red-rimmed eyes. Bella, meanwhile, was trying to blink away the strange way the shadows skewed his face, into something almost demonic, reminding her of her thoughts on the killer. She felt the tremor running through her suddenly ice-cold body build, making her nearly fall over. Her legs were weakening, her head feeling lighter than it should.

He blinked at her, squinting his eyes as a light rain that had started—though she wasn't sure when, and neither was he—began to grow heavier, falling harder. Her hair began to mat against her face, the wind blowing it into her mouth, into her eyes. She only stared at him for another moment as her thoughts began to drift to her mother, how warm she always was. His hands were also warm on hers, strangely so, and she knew at that moment she had to get away before she could keep up the thoughts of her parents. She wouldn't cry in front of him, in front of anyone.

She tugged her hands out of his, and he let her go easily. He watched her go, and she moved as fast as possible through the thickening rain. Suddenly it was a downpour, like she was stuck in a waterfall, and she didn't look back to see him standing there. She just continued to run. But like any other time she tried to move forward, she only felt like she was running in place.

##

He watched her go, immensely confused by her behavior, by the look in her eyes, but even more than that he was relieved. She'd been here, a tangible thing, right in front of him. He'd seen her living, seen her breathing, and he was able to breathe deeply again. He felt almost like he was coming up from underwater, having been drowning in a fear he didn't quite understand, and the reasons lurking just beyond this feeling were out of his reach. He also got the feeling that if he really thought on it, really took the time to ask himself just why he got so worked up, he would either not find the answer or not like what he did find. Considering that, in his gut, he just seemed to know that road would be the less than pleasing one, he decided to leave the thoughts for later contemplation, calling a stalemate between his mind and these strange new heartstrings he'd managed to develop in such an alarmingly short amount of time.

Suddenly out of breath again, he flexed his hands into fists, suppressing a shiver as he watched her run away, her wet hair swinging behind her as she struggled not to fall. And while grace was considered a beautiful trait, he found he couldn't see what was so wrong with clumsiness. At least, on her. He'd admit it probably wasn't so attractive for a tall, lanky nerd like himself, but that didn't matter.

She turned a corner, and soon rounded out of his sight. He let out another breath and wondered just what he was doing out in the middle of campus. Nothing. Right. He stumbled backward before returning to his original pace, wandering in a circle for a moment as he tried to decide just where he'd originally come from. Eventually, he remembered that he was heading opposite of her, and started in that direction. And yet, he tried to convince himself that he had not just glanced backward, after that infuriatingly mysterious girl.

Doomed. That was the only word that ran through his head. He was so doomed.

##

She managed it back to her dorm in pieces. She was wet, she was cold, she was tired. She looked at her bed, completely void of any personality, of any joy. She wanted so badly to crawl under the nondescript covers, pretend to be warm, fall asleep, and never wake up again. She just wanted this struggle to be over. She was tired of waking up every day confronted with the realization of just how alone in the world she was, of just how tired of this feeling she was, of just how obsolete she was. Isabella Marie Swan had been replaced a long time ago—she was the empty shell, abandoned by whatever had originally inhabited it. She was beginning to realize that in all her mourning, she'd forgotten to mourn for herself, for what she'd been. For that ignorance, for that innocence. And now it was so far away, so forgotten, that she sometimes mused on whether or not this new state of hers was even that bad compared to what had been. Who knew? There wasn't anyone around to tell her different. They'd all left her.

When she thought that, when she reminded herself that she was so alone in a great big world full of monsters, and that it was all her fault, something seemed to snap.

She screamed. She just gathered a quick breath of air, filled her lungs, and allowed herself to expel her frustration into the silence. She slung off her wet jacket and snatched her alarm clock, flinging it toward the wall and shattering it. Her rage continued as she threw her cactus and smashed the pot, kicked over her drawers, screamed again, punched a nearby window, and finally hurled the last thing she had toward the wall. But the sound of decorated porcelain and glass, as well as the ripping of paper, made her go still. For a moment, she simply wondered what she'd thrown, but suddenly she felt her gut wrench, toppling over. She ignored her bloody hand and wrist, which was dripping onto the floor, and ran to the other side of the room. This couldn't be happening. No, no, no. Not this, of all things.

She fell to her knees, ignoring the pain that shot up her legs, and her tears rolled faster, her vision blurred and she felt a burning in her nose as she realized what she'd done. Her whole body shook with her sobs, the pain and loss and anger and hurt flowing like mad, like waves crashing against a shore, tearing her apart oh so slowly, grain of sand by grain of sand.

The shattered frame felt like thousands of pounds as she picked up the fragments and gazed at the paper, ripped in half by a shard of glass. Her mother had been torn from her again, in this final remnant she'd ever had of her. Her picture was unrecognizable, her baby cactus was long dead, and the matching frame and pot her mother had given her were in pieces. These things, these things she held dear…they were gone. All because she'd had another breakdown, had another day where the seams had burst, where the emotions had flown, and look what she'd done. Her thoughts became murky as she brought the pieces to her chest, sobbing, crying, mourning, and hating herself all at the same time. She couldn't believe this.

She stuttered out intelligible words, "Mom…Dad…Mom…I'm so sorry…I'm so sorry…" and she sobbed. She wished for what she'd lost, what she'd given up, what she'd stolen from herself.

An hour passed, and the bleeding never quelled. Bella, however, realized that too late. Her head became light from not getting enough air, her body felt sick from lack of movement and dehydration from so much crying, not to mention just how cold she was, and the blood-loss was nearing dangerous. She'd only just realized that she should have done something about her wounds before purple specks danced in her vision. She reached for her cell phone, which she'd thrown somewhere in all of her anger, and managed to hit the only button she could think of.

There was a deep voice on the other end and she said his name, something else, but she was losing it before she could finish. Finally, she fell into the sleep she'd wanted from the beginning.