This chapter is for Phoebe because she gave me her chair in German and is my number one Twilight chum!!! Hee hee ily Pheebs xx

Jacob's Point of View

Bella was silent again.

She was always like this of a morning- not responding to anyone or anything apart from Silver.

She was just sat on the sofa with her dressing gown hanging loosely around her, her hands curled around the tea clasped in her lap. She hadn't taken a single sip of it.

Suddenly sick of everything, I grabbed my coat and keys off the counter. "I'm going out, okay?"

Bella looked up. "Hu?" She mumbled, not understanding simple English. I felt a flicker of irritation towards my wife. Lately, she had not even been bothering to pretend to have any interest in me.

"I'm going out." I repeated, already turning away.

Bella frowned, her face screwing up. "But it's only like…half past eight."

I jiggled my keys in my hand. "I know. But maybe some of the pack will be out…I need a run."

Bella blinked. "Oh. Right."

No goodbye. No 'see you later'. With a suddenly heavy heart, I took one step towards the door when Bella called my name.

"Jake?" She almost whispered. I span around, too keen. Her sharp eyes didn't miss this, and her face fell. She seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, her mouth wanting to say one thing, her heart another.

If it had been eight years ago, when we were just friends, she would never have struggled this much over saying something to me. If she ever had, I would have laughed, and probably said something like, "Just spit it out, Bells- what's the worst it can do?"

And then her face would have split into that old smile that I missed so much.

But that was when I was fifteen. When I didn't know the terrible things words could do. I guess now I was scared that if I really did ask her to just spit it out- that she'd say something that would finally end the lie that we had been carrying on for seven years.

Finally, Bella's eyes met mine- and she sighed.

"Take Lyra, will you?" She murmured, looking back down at her lap.

I froze for a moment, wondering whether to force her to say what she was thinking- but then I sighed and crossed the room in three strides, snatching up Silver from the floor where she was playing, oblivious to the lie that was slowly unravelling around her.

"Love you, Lyra." Bella muttered to her daughter as I marched past, catching onto one of Silver's tiny hands. Bella hesitated, then looked up at me. "See you Jake." She said.

And that's when I knew.

I didn't answer my wife, just held my daughter even closer to me, and strode out the too- small house.

Bella's words were going around and around in my head. Love you Lyra. See you Jake. Love you Lyra. See you Jake… over and over again until I had to finally put Silver down on the grass and slam the palms of my hands over my ears in a fruitless attempt to shut out my own thoughts.

That was it. That was the first moment when I finally admitted to myself that my marriage was over. It was ended. We were just two people who used to be friends, living under the same roof, pretending to be married for the sake of their young daughter.

Bella didn't love me anymore- and if I was brutally honest to myself- Leah was right. I didn't love her either. I loved the bright, sunny, girl that I had used to make mud pies with. I loved the girl who I had given my dad's old truck to. I loved the girl who I had used to walk along the beach with, who wasn't in love with a boy called Edward Cullen.

I loved the old Bella. The Bella who had joked with me, who had rode motorbikes with me. I loved her. But over the years, she had changed- for the worse. And it was time to finally admit to myself, seven years too late- that I was never going to be able to change her back.

"Dad-dad!" Silver gurgled, her star fish hands gathering up soft mud, then letting it trickle back through her fingers.

My eyes filled with tears as I looked back at her. She was the only thing holding Bella and I together now. A single, one year old baby with silver eyes was the reason for out whole lives, our whole existence.

Without Silver- we were nothing. But, I thought, as I looked at her laughing to herself, was an entire marriage too much to balance on just a baby's head?

And the answer, of course, was yes.

We both had a fear of flying alone. We wanted to be together- but not like this. Never like this. I wanted a wife who loved me for who I was now, not for who she wished I was, and I wanted a wife that I could love for ever and always.

And that just wasn't Bella.

For a moment, I wondered which of us would end it. Which of us would finally say the words that we were both thinking, and set us both free. Bella had nearly said it this morning. That knowledge sent me reeling- how long had she been ready to leave me for? Weeks? Months? Maybe even years.

I could imagine the conversation now.

"Sit down, Jake- I need to speak to you." She'd say, and she'd have a new glow back in her face, a sense of decision.

Clutching at straws, I would say, "Can't we do this later?" Please, please let us put it off for just one more hour, just one more minuet.

"No." She would reply firmly. "I really need to speak to you right now. Sit down."

I didn't want to imagine anymore. I stood up, suddenly, shaking my head in a desperate attempt to shake away the images.

Maybe Bella and I would still be able to able to be friends? Maybe we could still hang out like we used to…

"Jacob?"

I glanced up at the sound of my name. Leah was stood about a meter away from me. She smiled when I looked up, and her grin seemed to warm my frozen heart for a moment.

"You alright?" She asked breezily, coming and sitting down next to me.

I thought about it for a moment. Was I alright? It wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be- that much I could admit. There was a sort of sense of…relief whenever I thought about it. But I was still sad. It was the end of my marriage- the end of a wasted seven years of my life of being with Bella. She had been there always ever since I was fifteen- and it would be tough not having her around anymore. My throat constricted at the thought.

"Jake?" Leah said, nudging me and waving a hand in front of my face.

I looked up, realising I had not answered her question. "Me and Bella are breaking up." I blurted it out without planning it before hand, without thinking through her reaction, without asking myself why I was telling Leah of all people.

For a moment, Leah didn't move an inch, then, without saying a word, she wound her arm around my shoulders, comforting me.

I don't know how long we sat like that, with her hand around me, her head on my shoulder, before she whispered, "What about Silver?"

I shrugged, my eyes wandering to my young daughter, my voice bleak. "She'll just grow up like every other child with split parents." My voice broke on the word split, and Leah made a sympathetic noise.

"I'm so, so sorry, Jake." She muttered, but I just shook my head jerkily. I hadn't told her because I was seeking attention.

"When did it happen?"

"Not yet." I mumbled. "But it's coming. She…she was going to do it before I came out…but she lost courage." I shrugged, with a small smile. "She'll be waiting for me when I get home."

"Oh, Jake." Leah sighed, her hand rubbing up and down my arm. I didn't want her pity. I reached out, only to move her hand away, but as soon as I touched her, her fingers curled their way through mine.

I could have pulled away. I should have pulled away, but instead I looked slowly up at Leah, my heart thudding.

For one long moment, we just looked at each other- then we both leant forward at the same time.

As I moved, a thousand million thoughts were running through my head all at the same time, all screaming for attention.

Stop this! You're married!

No, it's over. We're over.

Not yet you're not! You haven't actually broken up!

Stop this NOW!

Blood was roaring in my ears- and I couldn't stop. Not because I was afraid to hurt her feelings, or because I had gone too far already- but because I didn't want to.

Her lips touched mine, and it was so different to kissing Bella that I pulled Leah closer without a second thought.

When I kissed Bella, she was hesitant and uncaring- but this was different. As soon as our lips touched, my mind went oddly blank and all I wanted to do was to pull her closer and just kiss her, and never stop.

When Leah finally pulled away for air, my eyes were closed. I didn't want to open them. I waited as all the guilt and horror at what I had done came rushing back to me, attacking me with a vengeance.

This was terrible. I was terrible. I was such a horrible, awful terrible person that it was good that Bella was breaking up with me, because nobody as good as her could ever be meant for me.

With a deep, self suffering sigh- I opened my eyes…and froze. Everything inside me just froze and broke down as I stared at the women in front of me. Every thought in my mind was gone, every other dedication that I had- Bella, my mum, Charlie, my pack, my friends- all just floated away. They didn't matter, it didn't matter- the only thing that could matter one bit was this person in front of me.

How had I never seen her like this before? I had looked at Leah many, many times over the years- but never like this. How had I never noticed before that her eyes were not only brown? They were all kinds of shades- soft chocolate in the centre, then getting darker as they spiralled out, each line a tiny pattern in itself. How had I never before noticed that her nose was a single straight line- the perfect, movie star nose? How had I never really seen before that light dusting of freckles that traced their way over her nose? How her top lip was slightly fuller than her bottom?

How had I never seen her like this?

Leah was staring at me with the same kind of awe in her eyes as we both raised our hands at the same time and locked them together, out fingers entwining perfectly, as if they were always meant to be like that.

It was fate. It was destiny. We were meant to be together. Forever.

But how? The small, insignificant voice broke through my happiness, the only thing that could right now because, when I finally fought through the haze in my mind to think about it, I frowned. How had this happened?

It was clear from the first moment when I had opened my eyes that I had imprinted, but on Leah? I had seen her a thousand times already as a wolf.

How the hell had this happened?