Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended

A/N: Suggested Listening:

Casey's Song by City and Colour,

In The Water, I Am Beautiful by City and Colour,

Stupid Kid by Alkaline Trio

Chapter Eight: Already Lost

With you on my mind
And my heart held in your hands
Screaming
"Break me"

I made it to the bathroom again in time to wretch up the lining of my stomach. I guess there was nothing left in me, which felt pretty accurate. I had nothing. I felt empty and weak and for the first time in my life, I wanted to call my Mom and ask what the hell I should do. How exactly would one phrase something like that?

"Mom, I made a mistake.. I went back in time to dump my fiance in order to save my father's life and be with my best friend, but now I'm back in the present and Dad's alive, but I'm alone and whoring myself out to the guy I once likened to a Labrador. Any suggestions?"

I froze as I studied my reflection in the mirror. Wait... was I whoring myself out? I thought back over both sets of memories, old ones and brand new, and in none of them did I recall ever losing my virginity.. but things were still filtering through the abyss and settling in. Still, I was pretty sure it was something I would remember, since all the latest images were inconsequential days at work or conversations with school-friends or members of the Pack. In each of them, I was bitter and sarcastic but I couldn't find it in me to care much. In fact, I was starting to remind myself of someone who was appearing in my recollection more and more. Leah.

It appeared as though Leah and I had found some sort of common ground. It made sense. From the looks of things, we had a lot to talk about, now. At least one relationship had improved in this mess. I doubted we were much more than passing acquaintances, but at least she didn't appear to hate me.

I sighed with weariness, taking in the changes in my face. I seemed thinner, somehow, and a little more tired-looking, but overall I appeared to be pretty much the same, save for the shorter hair style and dark make-up smudged around my eyes. I looked like a freakin' racoon.

Letting out a bitter snort, I pulled back the shower curtain, flicking the spray on and waiting for the water to turn hot enough to wash the self-loathing I had for myself away. Something told me taking a swan-dive into Mount Doom wouldn't quite do it. I threw my clothes in a heap on the floor – I didn't recognise them and they certainly weren't very comfortable; the jeans turned inside out when I tried to get them off, sending the contents of my pockets skittering across the tiles as I sighed in frustration – the last of my nerves was being worn down and I crouched to pick up the coins. Knowing my luck, I'd probably slip on one and break my arm before the night was over.

My hand froze over a small object resting in the join between the tiled floor and the bottom of the bath tub. It was small, and wooden, and it took a second or two for me to register what it actually was. Both scenarios came at me full force, showing me what I did and didn't have simultaneously. The tiny russet wolf dangled from its shortened links, the rest of the bracelet missing as I'd ripped it off the chain, throwing it at the nearest wall in despair before thinking better of it and retrieving it. I remembered a graduation party at the Cullens', Jacob showing up with an apology and the bracelet, made especially for me by his own hands. I remembered how I'd come to have it now – and the air was torn from my lungs as I sat on the edge of the tub, the cold porcelain biting into my thighs as the tiny figurine dangling from my thumb and forefinger arrested my attention.

"It was meant to be a first-date present. Something to commemorate the day," he said sadly. "Now... well, I guess the date didn't work out like we thought, but I made it for you, Bells. No matter what you think right now, I couldn't let anyone else have it. It's yours."

He pressed it into my hand and closed my fist over it. I was so awestruck by the fact he was actually on my porch, talking to me and calling me 'Bells', that I was pliable and posable for his actions. It took several beats for my mind to catch up, and my hand bloomed open, slowly revealing the gift. The image of it blurred as I stared through it, not quite able to let the image sear itself into my mind. I looked away, unwilling to show him what it meant to me.

My eyes trailed higher on his chest, up over his clavicle, to that strong jaw and full lips to his eyes, where he looked at me kindly, pleadingly, waiting for my answer. The air left my lungs when I reached his gaze. I hadn't looked him in the eye since that day. What was the point when it had just taken a single glance from her to do the one thing I would have stared at him for hours to achieve?

I'd slammed the door in his face and practised my Hail Mary pass straight after. It was three days before I hunted the offending carving down, finding the charm lodged between the floor-boards and turning it over and over endlessly in my fingers, memorising the shape, cursing Jake's name, and her name, and hoping it would have some kind of voodoo-doll quality to it. It didn't. Jake's life just got better as mine spun slowly but surely down the drain.

I'd put the charm in my pocket before my date with Mike. I needed the reminder of why I was subjecting myself to giving in, finally admitting to myself that Jacob and I were over, and squeezing that tiny wolf was enough. Jacob's and my friendship had pretty much disintegrated after he imprinted on Melanie; I had never even tried to build a relationship with her. It's not as if you went to see the people who burgled your house in prison, hoping that you could maybe become friends. Melanie stole my life. I had no desire to get to know her better or to watch her live it.

Jacob, of course, had tried to remain friends. He let me curse him out at the start, feeling guilty that I'd been hurt so badly, but wanting me to share in his happiness, flashing that sunny smile that had lost all its meaning since he'd given it away, and almost requesting my approval of her.

"You promised, Jake! You told me it would never happen, that you wouldn't let it happen. Was that a load of crap to get me to start seeing you?"

"Bella, I didn't know what I was saying... I didn't grasp how huge it is, the all-encompassing feeling. I couldn't fight it, even if I tried. I'd never win."

"That's the whole point, though, isn't it? You didn't try."

He was persistent as ever, and part of me hoped that on some level he was still in love with me, needing me in his life because a part of him wasn't happy about what had happened. He admitted to Leah, after about two weeks, that he'd been horrified when he realised what happened. That was before he realised she was the best thing that ever happened to him. I'm pretty sure I'd broken a hairbrush in two when Leah shared that titbit with me.

"Bells, please don't hang up. I really think if you gave her a chance... you could really get along," he said encouragingly, waiting for the inevitable dial tone. "She's into books, just like you. And music, like you used to be. She can even cook, although she prefers baking," he said lovingly, proudly, like these were characteristics which would endear me towards the life-stealer. It made me hate her more. "It's not like it's her fault. If you're going to be mad at anyone, take it out on me, not her."

I ignored both of his requests and hung up anyway.

The calls still came, and still I ignored them. This went on for two weeks until I finally agreed to meet her properly, only because of Charlie's not-so-subtle hints that my absence around La Push was noted, if only by Billy. That visit had started off okay. She did look like me, but prettier. She greeted me nervously, confiding that she was more nervous meeting me than Billy or the twins. She was polite, and her voice was gentle and sweet and it grated on my ears. I kept the seething resentment to a minimal coldness, until Jake left us alone. The words spewed forth before I could reign them in, and I'd laid into her, citing Jacob's love for me as the only reason he'd approached her.

I was asked to leave after that, and Jacob had been ignoring my calls ever since.

It had been three months now, though, and Melanie was pretty much becoming Billy's third daughter. There wasn't much room for me in their home anymore, and the increasingly hostile attitude I displayed didn't help much. Jacob's father had been sympathetic at first, but the sense of betrayal I felt after he, too, fell for Melanie's charms tipped me over the edge. Practically family, my ass. I was being replaced, and the angrier I felt, the more I'd encouraged it.

I stepped under the hot spray, letting it run over my pounding head, the knotted muscles in my back contracting and relaxing as I stretched and cracked my joints. I felt tired, and lost, and for the first time in three months, I had an answer for why this had happened to me.

I'd done it to myself.

The realisation took the air from my lungs as the first of the sobs came. All this time, I'd been so angry, so betrayed and bitter that I was the victim of Jacob's happiness and I never knew until now that there had been another way – the convergence of both realities had shown me both possible outcomes and I honestly didn't know which would have been better. In another world, Edward had come back, I'd hurt and played with Jacob's emotions at every turn and would inevitably have ended up breaking his heart. This was the alternative – where it was my heart that was broken and my life in pieces as I drove all those who loved me away. Edward's abandonment had left me a shell of a person, but what Jacob did to me, what I had perceived as betrayal, had hardened that shell, and it had grown prickled spines all over. No-one was getting close because every time they did, I got hurt.

My eyes stung under the force of my tears, and my hiccups echoed through the tiled walls, sending everything I was feeling right back to me, rubbing salt in the wound. I realised that not once since Jacob met Melanie had I cried. I'd been so consumed by anger at him, at her, and at everyone else in my life that I never let it happen. What was the point in crying when being a bitch got me a much better reaction? I'd take disgust over sympathy any day. I was done being anyone's project, and no-one could make me face what I was feeling unless I wanted to.

Even the date with Mike had been an exercise in distraction. It didn't work; I spent the whole time watching the door because we were in the restaurant Jake and I had reservations at the night of our first date. It was the three month anniversary of that night and I had both hoped and dreaded that he'd bring Melanie there while I was around to spy. He hadn't, and I'd asked Mike to take me home once I realised it was a lost cause.

I wanted to ask myself how I'd become this way. How I'd managed to make everything so difficult for myself, but I didn't need to. I had more answers now than I ever did, and only two options lay in front of me. Either I could go back and fix this, or I could make the best of it. I sniffled softly, opening my eyes and knowing this would be the first and last I'd cry over this. It didn't take much thought – if this power of mine had done this much damage, inflicted this much pain on me, I wasn't going to go dabbling in it again. I should have listened to Edward, to Alice and Jake. I should have known how wrongly everything could go, but it was too late now. Neither of the realities seemed to be ideal, but at least Charlie was alive in this one.

I shut off the shower, stepping out from the rapidly cooling water draining away, and wrapped a towel around myself. My resolution was clear, as the resentment simmered down to a dull ache in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't have Jake, so I'd do what I'd never felt strong enough to do before. Maybe I'd been a class-one bitch lately, but I'd learned a hell of a lot about myself – I was stronger than I thought, and I could put up one hell of a front. I'd get through this alone, and I'd fight for myself if no-one else would. Fuck Jake, he'd still lied to me, and still led me to believe his love for me was stronger than monsters and magic. He could have his happiness, it was none of my business, and I'd find my own – alone.

My days of falling in love were over, and it was about time Bella Swan started living in the world rather than wallowing in it and waiting for a prince to come rescue her. Mine had already come by, had a good look at me, and decided he'd be better off with someone else.

That was the conclusion I was reaching as I entered the room, and almost screamed at the sight of the scantily-dressed werewolf sitting very comfortably on my bed.

A/N: Phew. This was a tough one to write, and I'm not completely sure I write angst to any kind of passable standard, but this was my effort. Eek.

Bella has a lot going on with her right now. She's not the same person who jumped back to save Charlie, nor is she the same person who was abandoned by Edward. She's been burned twice, and it shows. I have to say though, I do prefer writing her with a little guts. It'll take someone extra special to get through that tough exterior. Any ideas? ;)

I would love to know your thoughts, and if you're thoroughly bummed after reading, I feel your pain.