When You Love Someone

Chapter 7

Isabella Renee

I don't know where the courage came from, but I concocted a plan.

I asked Mason to drop me off at the library on his way to work Saturday, claiming I wanted to cross reference another edition of something for school. He agreed, of course, and told me he would come back to get me on his lunch break in four hours. He doesn't know I'm not spending those four hours anywhere near the library.

I'm at the Stanford Boarding House instead.

Looking for Jacob Black.

It's easy to find him because his is the only door in the place without a nametag stuck to it, perfectly matching what he told me about lying low for some reason and not wanting to be bothered.

So I knock. I knock again. He's either stupefied at the idea of having actual company come to call, or he has overdosed and passed out somewhere beyond, but he is definitely home. I know because I saw his motorcycle parked downstairs. So, I keep knocking –insistently, irritatingly. Eventually, whether he wants to or not, he's going to have to –

"WHAT?"

He growls. He actually growls. The force of his sudden ripping open of the door to blast down whoever dared to disturb him (me, I guess) knocks me down on my butt, hitting my head on the corner of a wall, and falling against the hard carpet dotted with mysterious stains.

Huh. I never noticed how kind of sleazy this boarding house is…

"Hi!" I greet him past the grunts of pulling myself back to my feet. "You may not remember me, but…"

I can't finish my thought because I'm finally upright again and noticing that he has on no shirt whatsoever. None. He's wearing only a pair of gym shorts rising not quite high enough to cover the rim of his black boxers. He's so gorgeous. It's the first time I have ever thought that about a guy in my entire life. I've seen my share of cute and adorable boys, but Jacob Black somehow is different than all of them. He's something I feel like I've been missing for all my life.

"What do you want?" he asks again, softer this time and not with an unspoken threat to rip my head off.

"You're sort of beautiful."

I blurt it out like an idiot, and his face goes completely blank as he whispers almost to himself, "How hard did you hit your head?"

"Pretty hard, I guess," I shrug, trying to be a good sport about it. "Sorry. I get clumsy at awkward moments, like when I'm really nervous or something. Um, like I was saying, you might not remember me but my name is Isabella. Isabella Swan."

"I remember."

He sounds like he doesn't want to…

"Okay, then. Great because I remember your name, too. You're Jacob Black."

"Why are you here?"

My resolve slips away and I can feel it, the desperate need to be close to him, pressing against that sore, empty, aching space between my ribs.

"Jacob, can I talk to you?"

"Jake?"

It's a girl calling him.

From inside his room.

She comes up beside him, pushing back the door so she can see me, and now I see where his shirt ran away to –falling all over her, a leggy brunette with eyelashes for days and I hope they're fake. It'll hurt her less that way when I rip them off her face.

"Who is she?" I demand to know.

"Who are you?" she returns the sass, clearly unaware who she's messing with.

Panty-less whore.

"Jacob!" I snap his name and he takes me seriously. I can see it in the guilty shadow falling on his face. "Who is she?"

"She's…she's nobody, okay?" he shrugs, and then admits embarrassedly. "I actually don't remember her name right now."

"What do you mean you don't remember my name? We've been together for days now! Hey!" The Brunette shrieks at me as I burst into the room and grab the first couple things I see: a bag I stuff with a rag and a toothbrush, the two Poptarts I spy on the counter, and a bar of soap perched on the edge of the bathroom sink because heaven knows she'll need that.

"Here," I shove the care-bag at her and then shove her out the door. "He doesn't remember your name because he doesn't belong to you. Take a bath, buy some underwear, and you might be able to find someone else. What?" I demand from Jacob when I slam the door and catch him smirking at me, badly hiding his amusement with the side of his hand.

"You sure do act like a she-wolf, I'll give you that."

"I act like a what?"

"A she-wolf," he shrugs sort of as if he hates he said that or, at least, hates I heard. "Territorial, you know?"

"Is this funny to you? I come to see you and find you with some prostitute!"

"She's not a prostitute, and my life is none of your business."

"How can you say that? You know what lies between us."

"Yeah, age," he fixes me with a glare and I feel stupid all of a sudden for not thinking about asking him how old he is. Sure, I'll be sixteen in a few weeks, but I still had to be a minor compared to him. "Isn't someone supposed to be watching you today? I just know you have a keeper with the bad decisions you make."

"Don't do that," I beg him. "Don't treat me like a child. Please."

"Bell…I mean," he starts to say something –maybe even something thoughtful –but he trips up over my name, and I frown. Again, he's acting bizarre just because of my name.

"Say my name," I challenge him, and his face loses the remorse it held a second ago to make room for suspicion.

"Why?"

"Why not? Why is it that after I told you my name in the café, you got up and left? Did you know a girl named Isabella before?"

"You have no idea."

"So what happened? Did she break your heart?"

"No. She ate it for breakfast."

"Ha!" I laugh before I can think better of it, and feel totally heartless when he glares incredulously at me. "Sorry."

"Unbelievable."

"No, Jacob, I'm sorry! Please!" I catch his arm to keep him from walking away from me. At the touch of his skin, my own goes cold and tingly as if it's awake for the first time ever. He feels it, too. I know he does. That's why he pulls away immediately and goes to sit on the opposite side of the room, putting distance between us.

"I'm sorry I laughed. I don't think it's funny that someone hurt you, it's just funny the way you said it."

"So bloodshed is amusing to you?"

"Don't be so dramatic!" I swipe away his theatrics. "It's not like this girl actually reached inside your chest and took your heart out because you would be dead if she had done that! No one can live without a heart."

"So, you don't believe in the living dead? Interesting."

"Why is it interesting?"

"No reason," he shrugs and plays with the fire of a lighter I never saw him take out. Does he smoke? I'm about to ask when he speaks again. "I loved her."

"Who? The other Isabella?"

"Yeah," he's growling again, peeved. "Her. I gave her everything I had. I risked my life for her."

"Doing what?"

"It doesn't matter now. I fought for her. I protected her, but, after everything, I still meant nothing to her."

"Was there someone else, then?" I carefully probe, wanting to know just how deep his pain went.

"Yeah, some other guy," he leads me down his rabbit hole. "He said he loved her."

"Didn't he?"

"He had a funny way of showing it since he got her pregnant and left her for everybody in town to gossip about. I never left her. I swore to her I would never hurt her, never treat her the way he did. She still chose him. I never meant a thing to her."

"I'm so sorry, Jacob. But I can tell you that girl suffered for her choice. I know because my mom had me and my twin brother when she was young and unmarried, too, and she suffered. She suffered so badly, she gave me and my brother up. We haven't seen her in years."

"You haven't?"

"No. We don't even know if she's still alive. See? Harsh. So, maybe you should stop hauling Isabella's baggage around and move onto a new phase in your life…with a new Isabella, maybe? Come on," I skip over to where he sits and plant myself in his lap before he can stop me. "Come on, Jacob!" I poke him in the side, somehow knowing he's ticklish there though that makes no sense. And he smiles. He actually smiles. "Come on, Jacob! Give me a kiss."

"You need to go!"

"A quick kiss! Okay, okay, on my cheek, then. No? Not even on my cheek? Jacob, you're just playing hard to get!"

"You're a crazy person!"

"Give me a kiss!"

"Here! Now hush."

But we both fall silent because his kiss lands right on my lips, a quick brush of contact, but so many things are translated in that moment. I feel branded, like everyone who looks at me now will know with a glance that I belong to him, and that he belongs to me. We are tied together and no one –no skanky girl, no over-protective brother –and nothing, not even an age gap (whatever it is, I still don't know) can separate us.

"Isn't it lovely?" I ask him past a huge smile, filled with the euphoria of it, but he has a lock of my bronze hair between his fingers, looking at it and at me as if it makes me someone else, someone he hates…

"I can't do this."

"Jacob, please!"

"Leave. Now."

"Get away from me, Bella!"

"Oh, my God," I freeze in my tracks, staring at him slack-jawed. "You said my name."

"Yes," he's breathing heavily, unsettled, "but I'm not sure it's you I was talking to, if you know what I mean. Listen, someday you'll find a guy who really loves you for you and not for…anything else. Wait for that guy, okay? I'm sorry, but I'm not the one."

How can he do this? How can he stand here and lie to my face like this? It makes me furiously stomp over to the door and wrench it open, turn once, and bellow at him.

"You are the one! At least, you could be the one! It's just that for some reason I'll NEVER know, you don't want to be! Well, fine! I'll make it without you! I don't need you to want me!"

"If you knew who I really," he sears into me with those huge brown eyes melting me and my resolve again, and I flinch. How is he doing this? "If you knew the truth about me, you wouldn't want me either. Goodbye, Isabella Renee. Don't come to see me anymore."