. . . . .
The morning came too soon, as I knew it would.
Edward pulled up and lightly honked once to let me know he was there. I grabbed my backpack and wheeled out the front door. I couldn't bear having to face him, but I had no excuse for not letting him pick me up after I'd promised him the night before that he could.
He opened my car door and kissed me on the forehead.
"Good morning." His voice was a little tighter than usual.
I could tell he knew what had happened.
The words flooded out before I had a chance to edit them, before he had a chance to accuse or ask for details. "I didn't mean to. I just—I—I mean, I don't know what happened. I mean, I know what happened. I just don't know why it happened. Edward, I love you. I… I'm sorry." It was the world's dumbest-sounding, lamest apology. Stupid me, I can never spit out the right words.
"All is fair in love, Bella," Edward's eyes were soft, and I could see the pain in his face. "Jacob loves you and a part of you loves him. Maybe a growing part of you. He knows that, and he is doing whatever it takes to win your heart. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You have to do what is right for you, regardless of whatever it is you are worried will become of me. Of us. You have to be happy, Bella. It is all I have ever wanted for you."
I broke down. A sob choked out between my closed lips and tears flooded my cheeks.
"Bella," Edward shook his head and put his hand on my arm. "It's fine. I understand. You're human. You're young. You have emotions. A life to live, things to experience. Things happen."
His understanding didn't make it feel any less dirty. I knew I was playing them both. I had to make a decision, but I wanted to keep them both. Edward was the passion, the desire, the force that pulled me like gravity. But Jacob. Jacob was the heat, the excitement, the fun. Why couldn't I smash them up into the same person. One person with everything the both of them were?
I wished I believed in god, then I'd have someone to beg for help. Heck, I wished I could be god. Then I could do it myself—put the two of them together into one magnificent, perfect man and I'd have everything I needed, everything I wanted without having to break one of their hearts.
Without having to break mine.
. . . . .
"You know I can give you more than him, right?" Jake looked up at me from underneath his thick black lashes.
I stared back, my mouth open slightly, unsure of what to say, or if I wanted to say anything at all. My gut told me to run, but my feet were stuck to the floor of the shop. Half of my heart wanted to hear what he had to say. The other half wanted to argue with him. Edward already was giving me everything I wanted, everything I needed. Everything I'd asked for—except for one thing—and he had agreed to give me even that, in time.
He lowered his head and went back to wrenching on something underneath the hood of my truck.
I watched the tendons in his forearms rise and fall. A sheen of sweat glistened on his biceps; his arms flexed and relaxed as he worked in silence, with only quiet metallic sounds interrupting the ticking of the shop clock.
He lifted his head again and gave me that sideways grin that always melts my heart. I swallowed nervously and pulled my bottom lip between my teeth.
His eyes traveled from my eyes to my lips and back up again. He took a breath, set down his wrench and walked towards me, wiping his hands on an old shop rag. I shifted on my stool and stared him down, daring him to continue the conversation he'd started.
He did.
"You know I can give you more than he can." It wasn't a question this time. "There's nothing you'll ever want, nothing you'll ever need when you're with me. I won't make you choose between me and your family. I won't make you choose between me and living."
His hands were broad and hot on the thighs of my jeans as he leaned over me. I realized I wasn't breathing and sucked in a scorching breath as I opened my mouth to argue.
He shook his head to silence me and continued. "Being with me will be as easy as breathing, Bella. You already feel it. It's right. You and me. We're right. If you didn't feel it, you wouldn't keep coming over here to be with me. Your heart is just waiting for your head to catch up to what it already knows. That I'm perfect for you. That you love me."
He said the last three words slowly, emphasizing each one. Then he grabbed my hand and placed it over his heart, half-smiling. "I'm not rich like him, and you won't drive fancy cars if you choose me. But I can keep your truck running. Maybe I won't be able to jet you all over the world for expensive vacations or dress you in designer clothes. But you'll never question my love for you. You'll know every day that you're all I need. That I'm all you need. I'll give you a full life—full of me and of anything else you could ever want."
I felt the heat of his skin on my palm, felt his heart beat sure and strong in his chest.
He leaned in to kiss me, and I half-scooted, half-fell off the back of the stool. He didn't let go of my hand, so I pulled him over to the couch. No more avoiding it—we needed to talk about this. He sat down and I tucked in next to him sideways, folding my legs between us.
"Jake, it isn't his money. It isn't the cars or the vacations or the clothes. Especially not the clothes." I looked down at my tee-shirt and jeans and he smiled. "It isn't any of that. It's him. From the second I saw him, I knew it was him. It's always been him."
His smile disappeared and he looked down at our hands, clasped together and resting on my sneakers, crossed in front of me on the couch.
"Is it really him, Bella? Are you sure?"
He looked up at me again, his eyes pulling at me. I had no words.
I thought it was him—was Edward. At least, that's what I always had thought. Right?
I shook my head and tried to focus on what I was doing here: telling Jacob that I was in love with Edward.
But he pushed on, pushed back against my wavering steadfastness.
"Because I could be wrong here, but it wasn't him last night when we were looking at the stars." He raised his eyebrow and looked at me suggestively. My stomach flipped in circles and I looked down at the couch. "It wasn't him who rescued you from that flour explosion in your truck, or eats cookies with you on the couch. It's not him who comforts you in the night when you're crying. And it's not him who lives and dies for you. Bella, you know my heart beats for you. You have to know that by now."
He was the one looking down at the couch now, a faint blush on his cheeks. I knew that feeling—the one of knowing you'd said too much even though you wanted more than anything to say it. I smiled and leaned forward, pressing my forehead to his bare shoulder. I couldn't help it. He kissed my forehead and nuzzled into my hair.
I pulled back, trying again to maintain my resolve. "I do, Jake. I know. But you have to know that I've promised Edward that I'm with him, and I'm going to stay with him. I love him. And I like to keep my promises."
"I know you love him. But it's possible to love two people at once, Bells. And that's what I see here. I see that you love him, that he was your first love. But I see the way you look at me, and I can feel the way you react to me. I know that you love me, too, and it's more than just best friends. A lot more." His hand came up to my cheek and brushed a stray hair behind my ear. "And you do keep your promises. But maybe you just got a little too eager when you were making them."
I sat back and glared at him. "I know what I'm doing, Jake. I knew then and I know now." I was lying again, but I was too ticked off to care. "I want to be like Edward, like the Cullens. I want to live with him—with them—forever."
"Forever. Ah." He nodded, a touch of bitterness in his voice. "That's the one thing I can't give you, isn't it?"
My anger blazed. He wasn't getting it. "It has nothing to do with you not being able to give me forever, Jacob. I only want forever because that's how long Edward has. It makes no sense for him to be young forever and for me to be with him for 60 or so years—maybe less—and then get old and die. If I'm going to be with him—and I am—it only makes sense that we're both here forever. Or what's the point?"
"What's the point?" He was incredulous, leaning a little too close and talking a little too loud. "The point, Bella, is that once you make this decision, it's permanent. You can't undo what you're asking him to do. No one can. Once you make that choice, it's made forever. What if you change your mind? What if you decide one day that the forever you want with him isn't actually forever but just a few years? What if you realize you've made a mistake? You'll be stuck like that."
He practically spit out the last word and I cringed. It hurt to hear him say that, yet I knew every word was true. But I still felt compelled to fight back. To prove my love for Edward, and my intentions toward him.
"The point of promising forever is to actually mean forever, Jake. So whether or not he changes me isn't the issue. I've already decided. What good is it to say forever if I only mean five or ten years? That makes no sense. Then I may as well just vow to be with him for five years and renew my contract after that if I still decide I love him. Jeez. Is that how you think love works?"
"No, Bella. Not at all." He was calmer now, almost cowed. "I understand forever. It's what I want for you and me. I'm just afraid that if you promise to be with him forever and let him change you, you won't have the chance to decide differently. I'm holding out hope that you'll change your mind and promise me forever instead."
I didn't know what to say, so I grabbed his hands again in mine and just started talking. "Jake, I love Edward. I've never felt about anyone else like I feel about him. He fills a hole inside of me that I didn't even know was there. I had no idea what love was until I met him. And he loves me; he takes care of me. I know that you want it to be you, but it isn't. I can't help the way I feel. I know you love me, and I know you'd be good to me. But that doesn't change my decision. I can't live without him."
"No, you're wrong. You can't live with him."
Jacob's statement hit my heart and I sat there, stunned. He got up off of the couch and walked to the door of the shop. But instead of leaving, he just stood there, staring at the back of the door.
I got up and walked to him, put my hands on his hips and rested my forehead against his broad back. "You're right, though, Jake."
He turned and pressed me to him, sighing with frustration or love or maybe both.
I spoke into his warm chest. "I do love you. You're my best friend. You have a place in my heart that no one else can have. You make me feel… alive. I hope you always do."
He grabbed my upper arms and pushed me away a few inches. I looked up at him, into his fiery black eyes. I saw love, anger, hate, betrayal, kindness, honesty. I saw my Jacob.
"Bells, I'll always love you. And I'll be waiting here until you change your mind. Because you're going to." He shook me slightly with emphasis. "You're going to realize how much that matters—that feeling of being alive. You're going to decide to be with me forever. I just hope you do before you make a big mistake."
I inhaled the scent of him, his words, and a tiny slice of my heart hoped he was right.
. . . . .
Edward's hand seemed colder in mine than usual. I pulled my hand away and tucked it under my thigh.
"Something wrong, Bella?"
His eyes looked sad and I had to look away.
"No. Just a little chilly."
He turned up the heat and put both hands on the wheel. I stared out the window. I hated these awkward silences.
. . . . .
Sometimes I was sure I was in love with Edward, but then an overwhelming wave of something would pass over me and I would question what I really felt. Was this love? Or was I too young to really know?
Then, I'd see Jacob and feel that same rush that I used to feel when I saw Edward. That stomach-gripping, heart-fluttering, dizzying rush. I didn't know what to make of it.
I was in love with Edward. Right? Maybe it was just that we'd been together long enough that the initial attraction, that unstoppable driving force that had pulled us together in the first place, was weakening. Maybe it was just that it was being replaced by something more stable, more permanent.
After all, I'd made up my mind that I wanted to be with him. That I would be changed and live with him for all of eternity. He'd asked me to marry him, I'd asked him to turn me. And if that wasn't a forever commitment either way, I didn't know what was.
So maybe this was natural. The toned-down feelings of the grown-up love that replaced the crush, puppy love, love-at-first-sight, love-at-first-sniff, love-at-whatever-it-was that Edward and I shared. But something about it just didn't feel right. And try as I might to shake that feeling, it stuck.
. . . . .