The Man With Few Words

"Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets." –Paul Tournier


Chapter Four

Jacob Black was by no means a people-person.

Perhaps he used to be. Perhaps he wants to be. Perhaps there's something inside of him that tells him...he should be...he needs to be. But he wasn't and that's the truth and that's that.

He didn't mean for all of this to happen. The sadness and the loneliness. It's like having ants under your skin or sleeping next to someone who snored. You're acutely aware of it, yet you can do nothing to stop it. That feeling of being helpless. It's almost as bad as the loneliness itself.

Jacob Black tries sometimes. He tries to be normal. He tries to make himself run home and actually say something to Billy. He tries to act like none of this ever happened. Act like...she never existed. Because then, he wouldn't be in this situation; stuck with this problem.

She gave him the pain and the loneliness. She dug out a hole in his heart and planted her own seeds of regrets and sorrow in him. He hated her for it. He hates the way she made him feel.

Impulsive. Sentimental. Weak.

But perhaps anything, any sort of emotion at all—even that weakness he used to feel—was better than this permanent numbness. Inwardly, he's exhausted and wary from fighting all the monsters inside his mind.

Though on the outside, Jacob Black was stoic. A man who needed no help. Who wanted no help. A man with few words. A man who looked like that a single crease in his handsome face would force him to fall apart.

Jacob Black never told anyone but sometimes...he wishes he could fall apart too.


Jacob Black cannot—and did not, understand why in the world Seth Clearwater was following him.

Well...not really. He has a clue but...all right. He knows exactly why. Embry or Quil or Sam or whoever the fuck that's trying to stick their nose into his business. They sent poor innocent Seth with his youthful attitude and wide smile because the last time they did this, they had made the mistake of asking Paul and thus spent the next week nursing Paul back to health because Jacob had managed to punch his face into his skull.

Quite literally. And without phasing.

Good news: They laid off the spying for a good few months after that. Bad news: Paul made a full recovery.

"What's going on with you, Jacob? I mean...usually, we see you brooding around and throttling people's faces in but it's differently lately..." Seth is rambling in that usual way he does whenever he's nervous and trying to skirt around the main point.

Jacob pretends that Seth is part of the scenery. A buzzing mosquito. Or...a little piece of bark splintered into his foot. Persistent but nothing he can't ignore.

The two werewolves trudge through the woods with a steady stream of one-sided conversation and a sheen of steady rain. Bare-foot and bare-chested, Jacob is reminded of the day he met Janie.

"...It's like...I don't know how to explain it. Like you're—better somehow." Seth doesn't use the word 'happier' because it didn't fit. "Billy says that when you come home sometimes, you go to him. You don't really say anything but, like you know...pop your head in. And everybody sees you a lot more, running around doing God knows what. Which reminds me, what have you been doing, Jake?"

January Jansen never called him Jake.

He sticks his hands in his pocket and shrugs. Why was he here? They should know that they're not going to get anything out of him. Especially not when that 'anything' is Janie. He wouldn't give her up like that. She was special to him.

He didn't know why. She just is.

"You just go on missing, sometimes. Like...fall off the grid. You're clearly not phasing because we can't hear you and nobody seems to be able to find you." Seth raises a suspicious brow.

Jacob doesn't respond. Is there even a purpose to all this? Is he being interrogated? Is he a prisoner now? No...at least a prisoner has privacy. He's more like a handicapped child that required supervision at all times. At least, that's how they treat him.

"We can't hear you but...we can feel it, you know..." Seth rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Like—you know, your emotions. Everything. When you go missing...it's just like, you're...better." Seth's never had a wonderful vocabulary capacity. "I can feel it...in you..."

Jacob wishes Seth would say 'I' more. Instead of replacing all of the 'I' with 'We' like he usually does. He also wishes that Seth would stop feeling him.

"It's kind of like a buzz." Seth rolls his shoulder and squirms, looking flustered. "A quiver or something. Not like you're happy," He struggles for the right word. A problem Janie never had. "Contented. As if you were fine being where you were and how you were."

Juh-co-bee thinks about Janie. He thinks about her colors and her silly long hair and even about her fascination with ducks. He suddenly craved for her presence. He craved for how she made him feel. Like what Seth said...contented. And warm. And—better.


"Why are we at the Shop Mart?" Seth crinkles his nose in confusion. "Do you need eggs or something?"

Jacob was very, very close to telling him to get the hell out of his sight. Didn't he have anything better to do? Some party he can go to? Some popular blonde he's trying to charm instead of a 6-foot-9 angst-ridden teenager? What does kids his age do these days?

He was busy these days. The doors in the house needed oiling. The backyard fences needed to be replaced. And Janie had informed him that she had dropped a ring into the kitchen sink garbage disposal.

"...Guessing you're not coming to the bonfire this weekend, then? You never come anymore, which is really a shame. There are a lot of new kids coming in lately, you know. I like messing with them," Seth's going on about something he'll probably forget the moment he turns around, "...should come. It'll be fun to have—"

Jacob couldn't take it anymore. Good God. Seth was even worse than Paul.

"Go home, Seth." His speech is clearer but his voice's still husky, like how it's always been. He's talking to Janie a lot. And sometimes, when he's feeling wild, like really wild, he'll crack a joke or two.

He doesn't tell the pack this. He doesn't tell anyone this. Maybe that's why Seth looks so stunned right now. His mouth hanging half-open while his eyes sported that attractive 'deer-caught-in-headlights' look.

Jacob has the overwhelming urge to pull out his hair, if only it didn't hurt so much. Inwardly, he's frustrated and angry and he just wanted to be left alone. God, couldn't anyone understand that? Although to everyone else, Jacob was the epitome of iciness. Cool and composed, with his fists clenched and his phasers set to 'scowl'.

"Go home." He drawls out, a little firmer. The muscle in his jaw worked furiously as he strolled leisurely down the cereal aisle. He grabs Cocoa Puffs to avoid suspicion.

Seth, finally recovering from his little coma, huffs in annoyance. "It's not like I want to be here, you know." Here comes the complaining; the whining. "You don't think I have better things to do? But Sam says that he's worried about you. Can't imagine why though—you're obviously still alive."

Ouch. Since when did little Seth Clearwater become so sardonic?

Jacob just shrugs the insult off. It's easy for him. Letting words roll off his shoulder as if they never touched him at all. He was good at that.

"Tell Sam I'm fine." His lip curls, involuntarily almost, into a sneer. "And tell him to stop sending watchdogs after me."

Seth roars, vindicated.

And Jacob just walks away. And he grins to himself.


Jacob Black is not sure what the difference is between redwood and cedar.

He means, yeah, they look sorta alike. And well, yeah, the color's different. But, oh wait. What's this? Standard? Premium? Pressure-treated to limit rotting. Why, isn't that wonderful.

Shadowbox. Spaced-Picket. Lattice Top—now that sounds a little dirty. Jacob Black didn't trust a fence with a stripper name. He sets that one back onto the shelf then picks up another. Stockade. That sounds promising.

He looks back at the other ones. Redwood. Cedar. Spaced-Picket.

Then he takes one, lays it horizontally and cracks it loud against his knee. The board snaps in half, swinging up so that it almost catches him straight in the face.

He didn't mean to break it. Honestly. It was just a little test. He...he didn't even hit it that hard!

Jacob stands there for a few moments. Then he looks to his right. Then he looks to his left. Then at the broken board in his hands. The sharp end had splintered into his palm but he doesn't notice until now. Then he hears footsteps, coming towards his aisle.

And he panics.

He hurriedly stuffs the jagged pieces towards the back of the shelf. He takes a few steps back and strikes a thoughtful, pensive pose just as a sturdy man whom he recalls as one of Janie's neighbor come around the corner. The sturdy man nods his chin in recognition.

Jacob nods back.

Then he picks up a stack of the first fencing material he sees and rushes out to the register. He feels like a felon, almost. As if he's just done something incredibly teenager-ish. And he feels proud for it.

But it's not until he's halfway to Waterside Estates he notices that he did end up purchasing Lattice Top after all.


Jacob Black felt wild. Particularly wild after his little stunt. And he donned it an appropriate time to crack a joke.

"Honey! I'm homeee!" His voice is still void of emotions from years of solitude but still, he thought it was a valiant as he nudges the double doors open with his shoulder before stepping into the tea-cozy house. He makes sure to clean his dirty feet on the 'welcome' mat because it just seemed...wrong to be so unkempt in such an elfin house. As if he's going to end up on the naughty list or something.

Janie had been shuffling about, unpacking and organizing, in a pair of candy-cane colored knee-highs and scarlet shorts. She wore an oversized pullover sweater branded with the 'NYU' insignia. It was purple. And Jacob thought that her entire ensemble made her resemble an Oompa-Loompa.

He kinda liked it.

"Well, aren't we in a good mood today?" Her crisp words are comforting and familiar. It made him feel like he's been holding his breath this entire time and coming here—being here, felt right. He settles the Lattice Top against a wall in the foyer.

He liked how Janie doesn't need him to be happy and full of smiles. He liked how she doesn't understand him, yet she accepts him. He liked being with her.

"I got the fences." He announces simply, strolling towards the kitchen and peering down at the garbage disposal. He closes one eye, spotting a small speck glittering near the bottom. He reaches for a pair of tongs.

"That's great. I was actually just thinking about painting them. Maybe yellow, a really pale one, to match the house, maybe?" She's stacking up empty boxes in the living room. Her usually free-flowing river of black hair is knotted into a messy bun by the nape of her neck, held together by a pen, and when she angles her head, Jacob can see a red colored pencil tucked behind her ear. A roll of measuring tape hanging around her neck.

He attempts to wrestle out her ring from the depths of the sink. This is proving to be difficult indeed. Perhaps he should just unhinge the whole thing. He yanks open the bottom cabinet and starts tugging at the pipes.

"—said that the delivery's gonna be made sometime around 2-5. What do you think that means, Juh-co-bee? Does that mean 2 or 5? Is it like a pizza delivery? If it's later than 5, that bed-frame better be free. My back hurts from sleeping on just a mattress." She hoists herself atop a chair to take the width of her window. "I'm starving." She declares ceremoniously.

Jacob pops his head up and juts his chin towards the foyer. "I brought you Cocoa Puffs."

She jots some numbers down on a notepad before leaping off her stool. She staggers for a moment in the usual clumsy grace he's learned to embrace, shuffling out of his sight. When she returns, she's got her hand stuck in the cereal bag and is drifting to rummage through another box.

Then, she's jumping into some elaborate story of how she got her hands on the clock she's currently unpacking. He caught bits and pieces of how there was an argument, some nasty things were said, and also about something that made somebody's ass look like an oil painting.

"What did you do today?" Jacob asks after a lull of silence. He always lets Janie finish her little stories even if he's not really interested in them. He might not know what the hell she's going on about sometimes, but he liked the way she talked.

It's velvety and playful and mellifluous. Not sad and awkward like how it was with her. He didn't have to make an effort with January. Make an effort to make her happy or make her laugh. She does that all by herself.

To Jacob Black, that's pretty goddamn miraculous.

"Oh, I slept in today. The rain and the waves help...woke up, blended myself a milkshake then fell asleep again on the couch."

Jacob gives up on disengaging the garbage disposal. Instead, he concentrates on shoving his hand down the drain. It proves to be a difficult task. His hands are too big.

"But I did manage to get a few boxes down. Mostly clothes and bed-sheets and stuff. Nothing of great consequence." He found it comical that she actually phrased her words like that. Like some character out of a Jane Austen movie. When he first discovered she had this little quirk, he told her that he didn't believe people actually spoke like that in real life.

Her reply was, "You obviously don't know many people, then." Which, he supposes is true. So, he just comes to accept that this was part of her. And after a while, he found it endearing, just like the rest of her.

He hooks his index finger around the ring and just then, the garbage disposal turns on. The sharp grinds dug into his skin and Jacob flinches but he doesn't react. He wiggles his hand free and runs it under cold water for a few seconds, watching as the angry wound attempts to knit back together. By the time he's walking towards Janie with her ring in his fist, there's already no evidence of his injury except a red imprint.

"Oh! Come look! I put up the pictures today!" January flies over in a blur of colors and silky hair. Her silvery eyes gleaming like the rain. She motions to him with a wave of her arm, towards a tall wooden cabinet.

Jacob crosses over in one step.

Photos set in crystal frames; in plastic; in macaroni and glitter. They're all there. Ones that are tall as a notebook and there are ones shaped like little seashells. She hung a board on the wall above the cabinet, pinned with Polariods and cropped pictures.

January Jansen introduces him to her family portrait.

"That's mama and daddy." She looks like her dad, Jacob notices. They have the same smile, and the same eyes. The same dimple on their left cheek.

"These are my sisters. This is June..." June is pretty in that conventional way. She had long dark hair and bright blue eyes. June reminded Jacob of his own sister, Rachel.

"April." April was blonde. Her eyes are gray like January's and her smile is electric. She reminded him of those women that had a law degree from Harvard and spend their days working for some government office and their nights screwing governors.

"And that's May, right there." May looked a lot like January. Or rather, January looked a lot like May. But it's different...somehow. Jacob doesn't quite know how to explain it. It's like...like if somebody threw May into the washer then dumps her in a dryer and when she comes out two sizes smaller, it would be January.

"Oh, and Jude. That's him, next to me." She taps to a blonde young man with a cunning smile and misty gray eyes. In the picture, he has his arm slung around her. Jacob feels his chest tighten uncomfortably, as if somebody's put their fist inside of him. "He's my brother," She clarifies, lips curling. And Jacob breathes. "But I'm older than him by two minutes." She boasts.

Jacob Black supposes you can tell a lot by a person's pictures. Where they were in life. What kind of life they lived. How they were feeling at the time.

Jacob Black supposes that January Jansen used to be different. From the picture of her and her parents at some amusement park, he can tell they're close. Close enough that it should've hurt her to go all the way up to New York for college. From the stiff posture between April and Janie, he can guess they're not the best of friends. Then there's one of her and her brother—Jude, not too long ago. Perhaps half a year. His arm is still draped over her shoulder but there was a...profound depression in January. One that he couldn't really imagine being in her right now. One that he recognizes within himself.

He points to it. He doesn't quite now how to phrase his question. He says simply, "You were sad."

Janie gazes at him through her long, curly lashes, her storm-pale irises flickering for a moment, "Yeah." She agrees, smiling softly. "I can't remember why though."

"That's not true." Jacob blurts. And he feels bad, his tongue is bitter, the odd lingering taste of remorse piercing through his numb senses.

Janie drifts away from him, towards the unopened boxes. She hooks a piece of inky tress behind her ear. She shrugs and grins. "We're all allowed to have secrets, right?"

Jacob blinks, he doesn't press the matter anymore. He turns back to study the board which consists mainly of her time in college. And he frowns as he notices a pattern. A boy. The same boy. Sometimes, it's just him alone, taken in a fond light. Sometimes, him and Janie are together. Smiling. Looking all...happy.

"Who's this?" He demands at once.

January doesn't catch the menacing tone in his throaty voice. Or if she notices, she pretends it's not there. She straightens and tilts her head to catch whom he's referring to. Jacob can't help but disapprove of the shorts she's wearing. They were, well...they were...short. He wishes she wouldn't bend over like that.

"Oh!" Her beam seems to stretch, her pretty elfin face lighting up. "That's Peter."

Jacob's sunken eyes land on a framed photograph of the two of them. Janie glides over to join him, picking it up and handing it to him carefully. Jacob was afraid to touch it. Afraid of what he would do once he's got his grip on it.

The picture was the two of them at some beach. The ocean behind them is sky blue, and the sky is white with the blinding sun. There were seagulls there. And Janie had on a frilly white sundress.

She might've been running. Or walking. Or skipping. Then the bastard—whoever he is, and Jacob already has a feeling that he's gonna hate him, had caught her around the waist. And she lets him. She had thread her fingers through his, her hair dancing in the breeze, pretty mouth wide with laughter.

Peter had made her laugh. Jacob fumed. She never laughed like that around him. What was he doing wrong?

"This is when we first started dating." When did Janie start talking? Jacob didn't realize. "We were...17, I think? Yeah. Peter snuck us down to the beach in his dad's truck and we had to drive all night to get there. But of course, we were caught when we got home and daddy grounded me for a whole month. It was okay though, Peter threw rocks at my window."

What does this mean? Were they still dating? If they weren't, why does she still keep pictures of him, then? Should he ask? Would that be rude?

Jacob Black hated the sound of this Peter. This Peter that wore his dark hair in an almost girlish manner, with a floppy piece of bangs that always hung beside his eye. Like it's too long so that it's vision-disturbing, but too short to be kept out of the way. This Peter is what comes to the mind when someone mutters 'pretty-boy'. This Peter with his puppy-dog brown eyes and—God. Dear God.

Jacob very nearly pukes.

Peter...Peter with a crooked smile. It made Jacob think of him. How she always talked about how much she loved his crooked smile. Jacob's arms shook. He tries to focus on how their smiles were different. His smile always yanked up on one side, almost like a comma in a joke, just before the punch line. And when he smiled, he always gave Jacob that superior look like he's so much goddamn better than he is.

When Peter smiled, there was something weird with his bottom lip. More lopsided than crooked. Like how the rest of his mouth curved except for that bottom left corner so that the right side kind of juts out in this little loop to balance it out. Jacob thought it made him look like he was pouting all the time.

But they were both the same to him. Deceitful and wicked.

All right sure, so this Peter looks more like a puppy-dog than an immortal vampire but—Jacob can still see how he can easily become a rabid puppy-dog.

Jacob glares at the photo, willing it to go up in flames. His chest is burning and it's not that bubbly, comforting feel Janie usually fills him up with. It's angry and rushed, like how your head feels when all your thoughts suddenly crash together. And he must've gripped the picture just a little harder than he should've and it cracks. Right down the middle of the what's-his-name's face.

And January Jansen gives a little holler, looking as if he had just kicked her puppy. He just shrugs.

Jacob Black was by no means a people-person.


End Note:

Thank you all for the wonderful feedback! I mean, really, it's incredibly flattering. And it's just great to see so many of ya'll giving this story a chance! I would give shout-outs to all of you but I'm working hard to churn this out and it's nearly 3 AM and I'm half-asleep so we must keep this short and sweet, like our Janie, no?

Anyways, I've decided to get the ball rolling on this and...really just get the action started. As you can see, the pair is blossoming into a beautiful friendship. Sure, we can already spot the bumps and bruises along the way, but I guess you'll already by prepared then.

Lots of you have questions and comments that I would like to touch on since we're discussing the story here:

January is in actuality NOT 3 feet to the wonderful reviewer who asked, who also made me giggle really hard, because that would just be unreal. I mean, she would have to be like a 3rd grader. January's just very small in Jacob's eyes because that's the perspective we see from. I always imagined her to be maybe just exactly at 5 feet, maybe an inch or two higher.

As for the timeline issue: yes, Bella and Edward are married but the whole pregnancy-fiasco has been avoided.

Reviews and feedback are always much appreciated. I love hearing thoughts about characters, what you'd like to see next, what you think is gonna happen, and I think my favorite part is when readers list in their favorite quotes.

Now, question of the day: What do you think of our puppy-dog Peter?

--Kitty