*A/N: Thanks to my new reviewers and alerts. It helps when writing, it really does. Stay tuned for my short author's note at the bottom.

I want to thank one special reviewer actually, mcc3564. Reviews like these actually make me pay closer attention to my Twi-facts and spell checking before I even send it out to my betas. I am posting this chapter early because of that. So you can thank the selfless reviewing by reviewing yourself. Thanks!

Chapter Summary: Bella fights for control and her freedom to choose who she wants to be with. An unexpected break with a classmate and Jacob's stubbornness to not be only a friend to Bella leaves her taking drastic measures to make Jacob see just where her heart lies. But will that be enough to sway Jacob away?

*Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, but writing about Jacob is easy.

Chapter XI Title: 'Easier,' by Radford

"Bella? Bella?"

"Jake, don't leave."

"I'm here."

I looked up at him. "Jacob…mine Jacob."

"Yeah, Bells. Your Jacob."

And then he disappeared.

(BPOV)

Something fell from a great length from the tree outside and the small animal chattering ensued thereafter. Was that a squirrel? Where was I?

I sat up too quickly and my head spun though I had made no attempt to move out of the bed or open my eyes to more than a squint. The unfamiliar, dark-blue sheets and heavy quilt further added to my confusion. I dared to open my eyes a little more and saw three simple white walls, and one wall covered with wood paneling. Some jeans and various shirts were casted aside on the small desk, chair, and floor. The sun shined too brightly in the room, making the enclosed space seem more welcoming than it should have been, but still not bright enough to blind you to the room's actual small size. This isn't my room.

I fought the dizziness to look at myself. All clothes still on. Check. Okay, I wasn't violated I don't think. Nothing was hurting except my head. Wait! I pulled up my shirt. There were no handprints, bruises, or surgical scars on my clear, pale skin. It's still Bella. I sighed in relief.

After the fear and light tremors subsided as I looked harder around the room. I knew this room. I wasn't sure why I hadn't known it right away. I figured the reason was the massive head pounding. I almost felt like throwing up, but I couldn't do that in Jacob's room. I would at least find a bathroom to be sick in.

I gingerly felt through to the door since I didn't trust myself not to get vertigo by simply walking. I was surprised when I didn't fall. Maybe I walked better after waking up from a binge. A binge? How much did I drink last night? I was eighteen, experiencing my first binge? Oh great! Wait, where was Jake? I had complained about him not being old enough or mature enough and here I was, practically passed out for the rest of the party. What if he were hurt? What if he passed out drunk and was taken advantage of? What if he—

A snore interrupted my next horrible thoughts of what could have happened to the poor boy. I turned my neck too quick and immediately got dizzy. I held onto the wall as my vision finally focused on the huge figure sprawled out almost half on the sofa while the other half lay on the floor. Jacob didn't look too comfortable on that small couch, but he sure didn't look like he cared. How could a still growing boy (well, werewolf I guess) be so tired that he could fall asleep on that small sofa? The sofa had been barely comfortable for us when we sat upright.

Jacob's eyes were twitching. He was sprawled out on his back, with one arm under his head while the other hung down to the floor. I had to smile. I didn't think anything would mess up that face.

I walked over to him. I knew I looked a mess. I knew I most likely had morning breath. Hell, I usually had morning breath without all the drinking I had accomplished last night. The anger and hurt that had existed melted when I saw how sweet Jacob looked while being uncomfortable. He had given up his bed for me.

I kissed the side of his mouth that I could reach without waking him. He stirred slightly. I laughed a little and then decided to risk it; I kissed the other side of his mouth too. This time he didn't move.

I thought about it. I held myself over his angelic face and contemplated kissing his lips even for only a second. I was determined to find out if it was a dream. I was desperately seeking the answer to know if Jacob really did find kissing me to be "no big deal." It had meant so much to me and I thought it did to him. I asked myself a thousand questions when his eyes fluttered open suddenly and he answered for me: Jacob pulled me on top of him, kissing my lips roughly, without tongue.

"Ah! Morning, beautiful!"

My face contorted in anger. "Darn it, Jacob Black!" I pushed away from him and got dizzy.

"Easy, honey. I am sure you're still a bit hungover." He grabbed my wrists trying to steady me and I fell down anyway. My butt bounced on the hard floor and his smile grew wider.

"Wow. What a backside. You know, there's a really great way to—"

"Shut up, Jacob! And you better help me up."

"Sure, sure." He got off the couch and pulled me almost into his lap.

My skin tingled when it made contact with his chest and then I did the worse thing; I actually put my hand on his stomach trying to push him away. It felt like he had burned me and my hands broke out into an immediate, hot sweat as he reached out to gently touch my ear with his enflamed finger. His lips started to move closer toward me when my hand shot up to cover my mouth as he was less than an inch away.

"Morning breath," was my muffled excuse.

"I'll risk it." Jacob tried to move my hand away.

"I won't."

He looked hurt. He raked through his short hair with his other hand. "Bella—"

"Not now." I rushed to get up, spun around twice, and then stumbled to the bathroom.

I leaned up against the bathroom's door, covered my mouth with a clean looking towel, and screamed into it. It did not make me feel any less insecure. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a wreck. My skin was all red around my brown eyes, my nose looked oily, and my hair was sticking in three different directions. One side was weighed with sweat, another with grit, and the other was immersed with even more sweat. I couldn't believe Jacob, looking as beautiful as he did, still wanted to kiss me looking like this. What was wrong with him?

"Bella? Bella, sweetie, Charlie called. I gotta take you home."

Crap! I had forgotten about Charlie. Is he mad?

As if reading my mind, Jacob answered through the door, "Don't worry. He's not mad. He knew where you were."

Again, I had underestimated how much Charlie liked Jacob. But of course, I also underestimated just how much I liked Jacob as well.

"Bella, can we please talk?"

Oh no. Not now. "Jake, I can't. Okay? We will later. I promise." I had no intention of bringing it up ever, but I knew that he would. I would have to find a way around that.

"Bella, I really care about you—"

"Not now, Jake!" I turned on the water from the sink full blast and began splashing my face. I was hoping to block out anything that might have lingered after that last statement, in case Jacob didn't want to listen to me.

Since I still felt a little dizzy, Jake offered to drive my truck back.

"How are you going to get home?"

"I'll phase and run back. It's a nice morning. See if the pack picked up any new scents or trails."

I didn't argue. I really didn't think I could see straight enough to be able to drive and the last thing I needed for my nerves was to hit somebody. Anybody. Or hit one of Jacob's brothers. The trip was short and over too quickly as I hesitantly put my hand on the door to escape into my house before Jacob could say anything. No such luck.

"Bella."

Oh no. Please don't ask me what I think you're going to ask me.

"Can I come over sometime this week? I want to today, but I have patrol—"

I was so relieved that I cut him off with a hug. Jacob was surprised for half a second before his hands and arms heated my skin through my dress shirt from last night. Tiny pools of sweat concealed themselves in my hair and I feared that once again my body betrayed just how much I cared for him. I knew Jacob could feel me. I even thought he could smell my fear and anxiety of being this close to him.

"Sure, sure. Okay." I agreed and dropped my arms around him. He smiled a little and wordlessly exited the car. He was usually chattier. Thank God this morning wasn't one of those days.

I was doing Lit homework when the doorbell rang unexpectedly a few hours later. Charlie was at work and I knew Jacob had meant what he said about his pack responsibilities so I didn't know who that could be. I looked down quickly to make sure I had on enough clothes.

Okay. Baggy shirt and sleep shorts. Clothes on. Check. I walked to the door and froze in confusion for a second. Tyler was at the door. Correction; Tyler was at the door with flowers in his hand.

Oh no.

I pulled the door open.

I am not seeing this. I am not seeing this. It is only a dream. I'll just close my eyes and shut the door before he says anything—

"Bella. Hey Bella, wait!"

Crap. That really was Tyler's voice. In all of my confusion with Jacob, I had forgotten that Tyler was planning to ask me out. Oh no. How was I going to blow him off this time? How was I going to avoid him? How was I going to?

"Bella," Tyler whistled. "Anyone home in there?"

I stared back at him, recognition unenthusiastically clouding my eyes. Tyler looked confident and puffed out his chest before saying in one breath, "Hi, Bella. How are you? That's great. I'm fine too. Listen; want to go out with me this weekend?"

No, no, no.

I looked at him. I felt a strong sense of déjà vu as I looked at Tyler. I hesitated. Not for myself, but I instinctively thought of Jacob. I doubted that he would be ecstatic to share how my date would go with Tyler, but I also wanted to show Jake that we just could not be any more than what we already were. I felt that I would have to reinforce our boundaries constantly by doing small acts such as this, to keep him from doing exactly what Tyler was in front of me doing now.

That doesn't mean that Jacob would like it though.

Tyler's arm had started to lower and then he looked unsure of himself. I glanced at the flowers and noticed that they were daisies.

I didn't like daisies. I liked wildflowers; wildflowers and orchids. Jacob would have known that. Even though I had never said it, I knew that he would know. He would have seen me stop countless times to look at the various flowers on our walks by the beach or have noticed me picking a petal here and there from a random flower patch. He would have waited patiently and smiled, seeing my face light up as I inhaled the fragrance of summer and of him as he came closer to grab my arm to gently nudge me back in reality.

Jacob never asked what was wrong if he saw me space out. He would only worry at the correct time. He would worry when he could see the lines in my forehead knit together or my hands shift to cover my chest as if I had been hit by an imaginary force. Only then would he have known that it was okay to go beyond the "friendship boundaries" that I had set and hold me; rocking me in his warmth until I could stop shaking. He'd gently close his eyes and sleep only for a few moments while resting on top of my head, and blow gently on my eyelids as I fell asleep against him on really chilled nights. I could see him doing all of this, as if he were the one standing in front of me. Except it was not an over-friendly teen werewolf; it was a hormonal, teenage American boy.

Tyler didn't know shit.

But I knew I wouldn't want Tyler the same way I wanted Jacob. Tyler would never be mine nor did I want him to be. The choice seemed safe and it was just easier.

"Sure! Sure, I'd love to go out on a date with you!" Okay, there Bella. Maybe "love" wasn't the right word to have used. Stop overdoing it. That's how you got in trouble at the carnival with Mike and Jacob, fighting over which one would take you home. Shoot! I mentally cursed.

Tyler seemed satisfied with my answer, though; extremely satisfied.

And later that week, Jacob was pissed. And visibly so.

Thank God he didn't phase when I had told him, I thought gladly. But he may as well have.

My Jacob had made it a point to glare at me across the dinner table for two nights in a row and when I asked if he wanted to do some more of his homework with me upstairs, he merely glared some more.

Yes, my Jacob had a temper.

His nostrils flared. His warm brown eyes focused on everything else, but my eyes; I hated when he didn't look directly at me when he had to address me. Yes, I did say had to address me. Jacob wasn't talking too much to me either.

Charlie noticed the abrupt change, but didn't say anything. Jacob huffed and turned sharply every which way and he even gripped the handlebars of poor Billy's wheelchair earlier this week, nearly turning the chair so fast that Billy barely had time to hang on to the sides in time.

Jacob had started mumbling too. It sounded worse than his stomach when he was hungry.

His sullen mood did not enhance mine, but I couldn't even blame him for the recent shift. I hated that he had responded less than warmly to my date with Tyler this Friday night, but I wasn't going to change my mind and Jacob surely didn't dare ask me to.

With just Thursday night left to get through, I figured that Jacob's anger had run its course and that his wrath wouldn't get any worse.

I was wrong.

Thursday night, Jacob picked up stomping and grinding his teeth. I think he even threw in a few curse words just to get Charlie's attention.

I saw the look in my father's face and realized that Jacob had come dangerously close to being asked to leave. Charlie probably thought that Jacob was just now going through a rough patch of puberty and bad mood swings. I knew that Jacob was not.

I moved to get up from the kitchen table, with a sour-looking Jacob watching me." Jake? Jake! Let me walk you outside."

Jacob slammed his textbooks closed and swept them into the bag that he had brought with him. The plan was for me to help him with a science project that was due on Monday. I was just supposed to get him started. But for the past two hours all he had done was sigh very loudly, look crossly at me, and kick the poor dinner table's leg every couple of minutes.

In his defense, Jacob always looked down to make sure that my leg was never in his path to the table leg.

Jacob got up with the same look he had been wearing since I first told him about the date. I couldn't believe I had dealt with him almost a whole week. Sun (and werewolf) or not, he was burning my last nerve.

He got outside and turned to me, sharply, again. He had been practically spinning on his angry, but imaginary Earth axis for just as long and I felt a very enormous tremor of annoyance.

"Bella—"

"Stop. Just stop. I realize what the problem is and I am sorry that you don't agree with me going out with Tyler tomorrow, but I am going and you can't stop me. You are supposed to be my best friend and right now you are acting like—like an overprotective mutt!"

That hit a nerve. He looked as though I had slapped him soundlessly awake from a dream that he had been having. His mouth parted and began trembling.

I continued, not willing to be moved by his "puppy-dog" eyes or his "sort-of-beautiful" face. "If you can't respect my decisions, then you don't respect me. Don't come back or visit me until you learn what kind of friend you can be to me—AND THAT'S ALL you can be to me!"

Without waiting for his reply, I turned away from him and walked back into the house, slamming the door noisily behind me. Charlie had noticeably winced; afraid I had broken the glass with my track record, but didn't say anything. He might not be so much "in the dark" now if he had heard me screaming at Jacob.

Or if he still hadn't heard, one of the neighbors could fill him in.

*A/N: Ugh, I want J&B together. You guys are slacking with the reviews again. I just can't post again until I know that you guys want them together as much as I do. Now my next chapter is already written. If you want them together, send me a note in a review and scream "YES, I want them together!" If I can get at least seven 'yes's in the next day or so, I will post the next chapter, no matter what shift my job has me working this week. Count 'em, seven different 'yes's.' Or if you want to review me on just my story period, that's cool too. 8-)

Come on. I know you guys have it in you. You can do it. Don't let my two favorite reviewers be the only two people I thank in this story. Just click the review button at the bottom. Only seven 'yes's will make me spit out the next chapter faster. Just click it. It'd be so much easier.