Chapter VI
Repulsion
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Theodore Roosevelt
Returning from school, I went on foot to do some shopping in the nearby market. Charlie was supposed to pick me up from the store and drive me straight to the Blacks to pick up my car. I heard familiar voices in the doorway to the store, and ran straight into Jared, Embry, and Seth. They were happy to see me. They had three carts stuffed with food, so I joked that their appetite was good.
Jared looked at me seriously. "Bella, on the contrary, suddenly we all lost our appetite. Something happened."
"What happened?" I was not jokingly scared.
"Billy invited his friend Rob over for the holidays... along with his daughter."
" Daughter?"
"Sarah, the biggest devil to walk this part of the continent. You have to meet her, next to her Leah is Miss Teen Grace."
"But her ass is nice – Embry eagerly completed the psychological outline.
"You're always about one thing." Seth laughed and added "Guys, we're back, Jake needs to be rescued!"
Embry politely explained to me "Well, the princess arrived bored, but when Billy introduced her son, the girl brightened up. Miracle!"
"What the hell" I thought, and furious as hell I went to get the basket.
Ironically, the infamous booty was the first sight I saw in the Blacks' yard as soon as I got out of Charlie's car to pick up my own.
A dark-skinned girl standing next to my sun lounger was bent over a beach bag, showing off her shapely charms in a pink bikini. Well, if you're on vacation, so is sunbathing... I scanned the area and saw the boys sitting on the steps of the house, watching the sunbather with gloomy faces; other than that, there was no Jake on the horizon, no Leah, and no sight of anyone in good spirits except a newly minted camper. She turned as she heard the car door slam shut.
My eyes turned out to be a pretty face with a charming smile of ancient cherubs. She had short, wavy hair that was unrulyly disheveled around a small face, black eyes typical of the Indian race framed by long lashes, a sweet mouth that might have advertised a Lancome lip gloss, and generally was a great aesthetic contrast to my modest and, admittedly, sullen person at the moment. She waved hello and gracefully ran over to introduce herself.
"Are you sure you're Bella? Nice to meet you, my name is Sarah Lee."
"Nice to meet you," I lied.
"Jake is taking a bath, the poor thing has worked so hard today. Wait here with us, she'll probably be out of the shower soon. Make you something to drink?"
"No, don't bother yourself, I'm very good at knowing what's where in their kitchen."
Her face dropped a bit, but my mood improved a bit, especially since out of the corner of my eye I saw a group eavesdropping on our exchange of pleasantries, nodding their heads appreciatively. On the way home, I threw over my shoulder, "Do you want something to drink?"She didn't answer anything. Sometimes it's good to use poison teeth!
As I walked into the kitchen, I nearly collided with Jacob. He just poked his head out of the bathroom, conspiratorially looking around as if looking for an enemy. He beamed at the sight of me.
"Bells, how good it's you."
"What? Paris Hilton is not enough for you?" I asked haughtily.
"Oh, please, don't even kid yourself, this is Marilyn Manson dressed as Paris Hilton. Give her a moment, when she gets going, we'll all be taken away in caftans."
He made me laugh.
"Bells, don't laugh, just think of an escape route. I warn you, the idea must be sophisticated, because Billy has been mad at us all morning for not entertaining the guy and making us look like assholes. Wild assholes from the reservation."
"Well, the fact is, with your ability to entertain guests, Billy could make a fortune building a hotel here. What a pity that she is not given a taste of this talent."
"With your sharp tongue, you could become a spokesman for the Volturi," he retorted with a sweet smile. "Bells, I don't have enough to appease you yet. Believe me, she's only been here for a few hours, and not only does she seldom shut her mouth, but she's clearly on a mission to turn the preserve into the Glamor Capital of the World. Plus, she's not tactful, she's already insulted Emily with remarks about great addresses for plastic surgeons, scared Leah into the store, and she's never left my side! It even got me in the workshop! Bells, it wasn't her chatter that was the worst, I could have put up with it focusing on the aesthetics of this handheld transmitter." I frowned and he smiled. "But ... she, for a moment of my inattention, arranged the tools by the colors of the handles! Would you believe?! Now, to find anything, I have to remember what shade the damn handle was!"
No sooner had he finished his report than Sarah burst into the kitchen, followed by Leah, carrying the groceries for Billy.
"Will someone rub my back?" she chirped with a sweet smile, and without waiting for an answer handed the filter oil to Jacob. He looked at me with a "I told you so" face and started applying the oil. Sarah was beaming with happiness.
"You should also watch out for the sun, it is so damaging to the skin ... The fact that the effects are visible after years, but then the changes are irreversible, right, Leah?" Jake and I looked at each other and had to turn our heads quickly to keep from laughing. Leah looked at Sarah impassively, as if she were measuring a medium-sized eggplant, and said to herself, "Someone should film this thing!" She turned on her heel and left the house, unaware of Sarah's delight.
"Damn, so many people tell me that, maybe I'll actually apply for a casting?"
We didn't comment because what was there to comment on...
Sarah leaned back in the chair and said, "Don't disturb each other, feel as if I'm not there."At these words, Jacob with an air of desperation, without warning, turned towards me, pulled me passionately to him, with a cinematic gesture knocked the bag left by Leah off the table, pressed his whole body against me and in a second we were lying kissing right in front of Sarah's shocked face.
He worked hard to make the right impression. And everything would have gone perfectly according to plan if Billy and Rob hadn't walked into the kitchen at that second. The boy's father already had tangible proof that his son was a stupid asshole from the reservation after all. As it turned out later, he did not stay angry for long, because Miss Lee left the same evening, having allegedly received an urgent invitation from a cousin in Florida. Well, no wonder, who wouldn't rather sunbathe in Florida?
With stupid faces, we got up from the kitchen table and, following the scandalized Sarah, left the front of the house. We wanted to laugh terribly at all this improvisation, but our bliss was interrupted by a phone call from Charlie.
"Bells, I forgot to tell you this morning that Alice Cullen called yesterday. She asked me to tell you that her family was coming to Forks from Italy, some actually Italian-sounding name. Lompuri or something. Anyway, she asked you to watch out for her, and that she'd try to come by herself for the weekend to see her relatives."
I don't know why I didn't tell Jacob right away. I may be a complete idiot, but I figured I needed to talk to Alice first. If it arrives on time of course. Jacob saw that the call changed my mood, but I lied, saying that Renee just got sick and we were all worried. I don't know if he believed me, but after a few minutes of negotiation, he let me go home.
I wanted to cry. I don't know, maybe those few days of being a sample of normal life got me so off balance. Less than three days had turned everything upside down, brought it into a different state, and I felt almost happy. I'm sorry to say, but lately my starting state has been one of alternating anxiety for the lives of others and myself, the ticking off of the calendar days left to change, and the subsequent soul-rending bitterness of betraying Edward. Because yes, now I can say it out loud: I betrayed him.
We could define it in many ways: as a euphemistic trial of life, maturation, cognitive process, necessary knowledge of other perspectives, but I was the most normal infidelity in the world, and the only argument in my defense was that I gave myself to the person I loved. I loved Jacob. At that moment, the wave of truth hit me like a tsunami. I loved him with a difficult love, which matured slowly to, probably under the influence of bodily closeness, explode with great force and consume me. From the very beginning, I clipped this feeling's wings, smothering them, because it was easier not to love. I preferred to call it friendship, kinship, preferred to project my longing for him onto my loneliness, anything to keep from admitting it, even though he probably KNEW a long time ago, jokingly reminding me of it from time to time. And suddenly I overcame my fear of naming things.
I wanted to be with him and look into his smiling eyes, to joke and argue alternately. I wanted to be one with him even for a moment, and the closest we were when we felt shared pleasure. I needed him greedily and more and more. I felt incomplete without him. It was a thought I didn't let myself in. It was the epiphany. It hurt like a punch to the stomach. And Edward? He was the first love, pure, girlish, composed of delicate dreams, unfulfillment, insatiability (due to his decision), doomed to difficulties, and thus so attractive. Edward was a relief for me, his calmness and prudence, his understanding, almost unreal, incompatible with his youthful physicality, gave me CONFIDENCE that he loves me, that I am his meaning, that this love gave him a new soul. Yet the passivity of that wisdom, the calmness with which he allowed me to experience LIFE, allowed Jacob to steal me away from him.
If it was a test for me, of course I failed it, if for Jacob - he proved his strength. I longed for the lost innocence because my wings fell off, I felt naked and ordinary now. Unfaithful. It was hard in this world to persevere with your own beliefs, if the heart didn't know what to choose and the mind was pushing towards life. I loved them both, one as an old man loves his past youth, painfully aware that nothing will be like yesterday, the other as a young man loves the present, wanting to draw from it with both hands, everything to the very bottom, even if he dies of thirst tomorrow. But I think most of all I loved Bella, who would never come back. This Bella, who hadn't even come to the crossroads yet, hadn't seen the forked paths before her, hadn't made a choice. She was ignorant and therefore innocent. And the strange thing is that just when death was about to invite me again, I wanted to live so much.
Outside the house, I practiced all possible variations of a normal face and decided to finally get out of the car. I was afraid that when I saw Charlie I would compulsively throw myself around his neck and start saying goodbye. However, I had to control myself, because, taught by previous experiences, I had the right to hope that this time none of my loved ones would suffer. I wasn't alone.
Fortunately, Charlie was engrossed in the match on TV and had no intention of asking me what was going on. I could safely hide in my room and analyze the current situation.
The Volturi had already announced that they would return to see if the Cullens had kept their promise to change me, but their decision to claim me so quickly must have been the result of their separation from Edward. I did not doubt their good sources of information. If I had any doubts about the transformation, it was now irrelevant, because it was the one that could somehow save me. Whether I loved Jacob or not, I had to cease to exist for him. Either death will consume me, or life in the altered form that is its natural enemy. I felt the whole situation was a vicious circle. Edward, knowing that my feelings are not at all clear, will never condemn me to exist in eternal disarray, on the other hand, the Volturi will not let me live. Not only because I know about their existence, but because I want to set an example for others entering into any kind of relationship with people. In the vampire world, humans weren't partners, only food.
I wanted to talk to Alice or Edward. I wanted to know what our options were, what exactly Alice had seen, and most of all, how much time I had left. Meanwhile, none of them called, and I didn't know where they were or what they were doing.
It was already dark when I decided to drag myself into the shower, change into a nightgown and wait until it was light. I took my time in the bathroom, the warm water made it easier for me to forget about my fear for a moment. I washed my hair, scrubbed my whole body, prolonged the moment of returning to my room indefinitely, and when I finally got there, Jacob lay half-naked on my bed, calmly reading the newspaper I had left on the nightstand.
"Oh ! I didn't know you could bathe for so long. Although, maybe I can imagine a situation where the bath is so absorbing that time passes more slowly."
I couldn't even smile, so I sat down in the chair across from him and was silent.
"Bells, what's going on?"
I sighed, not knowing where to start.
"Jake, you didn't manage to take me out of my vampire context for long. The Volturi family took care of me… I don't have the strength to be afraid anymore."
He didn't seem particularly surprised.
"Bells, we've known for several days. You see, after the Cullens left our wolf transformations became less and less frequent during those weeks. Remember I told you once that when there are no vampires, there are no us. This, of course, does not mean that we stop being able to turn into wolves, but if there is no need, it becomes difficult. Without danger, we become like normal people, even our body temperature drops a bit, but now... touch." He came closer to me, I touched his bare chest and found him hot. "Someone will surely come back for you, but the welcome procession will be waiting. Stop worrying so much."
"Jake, you sound like you don't know they can't just be annihilated." The clan is too powerful! Besides, I don't think everyone will bother to come here, only one or two will come. Even if those who come are discouraged or even killed, someone will come back for me, if only to take revenge. You know, recently I wanted life to choose for me, and it did! Now it is no longer a dream, but a necessity!"
"Over my dead body!"
He got up suddenly, went to the window, threw over his shoulder, "Pack up, I'm waiting in the car," and jumped out neatly. All Jacob...
I guess he was right, in the heart of the reservation, I was the safest, I could theoretically take some time off from school, because I could take sick leave for those two days, and Charlie could collect my diploma for me. But I didn't know how to convince him. The matter was not so difficult, because, as it turned out, Billy had already suggested to Charlie that I stay with them. He argued it with the fresh air, proximity to the sea and the daily bonfires that I liked so much. When I went downstairs to tell my dad that Jacob had called, invited me to an impromptu party, and was waiting outside, Charlie just smiled, patted his head, and wished me a good time. I went back to my room to pack the most important things when the long-awaited phone rang. Alice.
"Bella, La Push idea is a very good one." Of course she already knew. "The Volturi haven't left yet, they don't know who to send for you yet." She fell silent for a moment. "Bella... Edward is missing, I think he will try to stop them himself."
She hung up before I could say anything.
God, where is Edward? I felt that he knew how much my feelings had changed and that we were no longer destined for a common future. And if he knew that, he probably didn't care if he lived himself. He once told me that if he lost me, he would do anything to provoke the Volturi. Well, now was the perfect opportunity. It was more important to Edward that I lived than who I would spend my life with. Therein was his maturity and love.
Jacob was waiting for me sitting on the hood of his car. Dressed in denim shorts and a loose shirt, with a small backpack that I had only managed to put in underwear and a few change of clothes, I approached him and said "Charlie agreed. Alice called but she still doesn't know the details."
Jacob opened the door for me, got behind the wheel himself, and off we went.
"Bells, you care too much, trust me," he tried to calm me down.
"Jacob, understand, where I am, there is always a risk that someone will lose their life."
"When you fell in love with a vampire, you couldn't have predicted what the consequences would be, and I know you enough to know that you can love no matter what, right? By the way, where is the lucky guy who started it all?"
"I don't know. Alice has no idea either."
I could feel Jacob getting angry. He didn't say it directly, but his anger was palpable. Even the slightest mention of Edward annoyed him. And I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, fearing for both, and having absolutely no one to tell, because now Jacob couldn't be my confidante.
We drove home in silence. It was quite late, but all the members of the pack were waiting for us. Looking at their smiling faces it struck me that for them this situation was not scary but... exciting. Quil and Embry almost shuffled their feet to transform immediately and run to patrol the forest. Only Leah was focused and sad, I don't know, maybe women, even those with wolf genes, see each battle not through the prism of exciting adrenaline, but through the prism of victims.
"Okay," began Sam, who, because of his age, still held the leadership role Jacob had temporarily relinquished. "We will start with the guard system as before. The forest is to be guarded by three wolves at the same time, we will change. So far, we have not noticed anything disturbing, but each of us feels that sooner or later guests will appear. Leah, Jared and Jacob will start their watch immediately."
"Sleep, you're safe in my bed," Jacob said looking at me, and I could have sworn that a twinkle lit up in his eyes as he said those words.
They must have been regaining their wolf abilities, because everyone in the room burst out laughing. Well, Jacob wasn't the only one who was so excited about a possible fight.
The company dispersed, the patrol went into the woods, and I went to Jacob's house, which was to be mine for an indefinite period, and decided to go to sleep immediately.
However, my mind had other plans. Unfortunately, I started dreaming.
The dream consisted of tiny snapshots, as if the three images wanted to overlap. I saw Jacob the wolf biting some dark figure writhing in pain on the grass, Leah turning into a she-wolf in the air like in her previous dream and running straight at me and Edward smiling lovingly at me and then as if in another scene, he falls from the blow of an attacker whom I am unable to recognize. Why these three?
I was awakened by my sobs and my own words "Edward, Edward...", and Jacob's calm voice "Bella, it's a dream... just a dream."
I opened my eyes and saw his face. He was sitting on the bed holding my hand, and it looked like he had just returned from patrolling the woods. I snuggled into his arms and burst into tears.
He stroked my hair and tried to calm me down, and as if I couldn't shake the vision, I whispered, "Edward, no...Edward..." Jacob froze and asked "Bells, what exactly did you dream about?"
I told him the three scenes I had seen. A grimace of anger ran across his face.
"Am I to understand that you were most interested in Edward's fate in this dream? Not Leah attacking you, not me, just HIM? Then why don't we set up a special committee to rescue stray vampires, find him, and escort him down the aisle, and then your poor heart will finally be soothed?! Maybe I'm making a mistake in trying to snatch you from death and convince you to live... with me. Maybe it's time to understand where I belong? In bed, yes, as a personal bodyguard, yes, as a laugh buddy, why not, but as love? Not a sausage for a dog, right?" He smiled bitterly.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"Jacob, you are unfair, how can you expect me to just forget about him and stop being afraid of him in the most normal way."
"Yeah, I'm a fool, because after what we've been through together, I thought you'd say my name for once in your sleep. Although it may be better to prepare for war knowing that my beloved woman's heart will not break when I die. Thanks for this crash course in maturation."
"Jake, why are you saying that? Why do you want to hurt me?"
"I've had enough, Bella," he said, no longer angry, but more tired. "I'm starting to understand what the game is all about, and that whether he's with you or not, he's going to win anyway." I've had enough.
He got up and left. Judging by the slamming of the door, he entered the bathroom and then the shower. I was furious now that he didn't understand me, and it hurt so much that I... felt guilty. What could I say so he wouldn't see it that way? Because it would be appropriate to tell him that I love him, but in this situation it would sound like nonsense. I got out of bed, determined that even if I had to break down that bathroom door, I would talk to him. The door, however, was not locked from the inside. Jacob, you're being unfair, how can you expect me to just forget about him and stop worrying about him in the most normal way.