The next morning, I woke up alone. I sat up and looked around the room. The sunlight came in through the window but the hallway outside of Jake's door was dark.

"Jacob?" I muttered.

Then he poked his head around the corner, "Yes, love?"

"What are you doing?"

He didn't reply. He just smiled and then walked back down the hallway. I got out the bed and followed behind him, my bare feet against the cold floor. The top few buttons on the shirt were undone so it was practically falling off my shoulders. I went into the kitchen. He was sitting at the table with his dad.

"Jake what's wrong?"

He looked up at me. He extended his hand out to me. I walked over and took it. He pulled onto his lap.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing at all."

"Jacob we can't let her do this. It's not safe for her or for us."

I cocked my head to the side. Jacob shook his head at me and then looked at his dad, "She's old enough to make her own decisions. If you want I'll talk to her but that's all I can do."

"What's going on? Is this about me?"

"No, it's about Bella." Billy said coldly.

"Bella? What about Bella?"

"Dad, stop it. It's nothing."

"Yeah sure," I stood up and walked to the end of the hall, "it's nothing."

I walked down the hall and back to Jake's room. I found my clothes and pulled on my jeans first. I was just changing into my shirt when Jake walked in.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"Why?"

"Because you apparently have to go see Bella, I don't want to stand in your way."

"You've never been in the way. Come with me."

"No, I'm going to go home."

He sighed. I pulled on my shirt. I turned to see him staring down at my arms.

"What?" I said softly.

"What happened to your arms?"

I looked down. I hadn't told him. Up and down my arms were dark lines. Over the past week, while Jake and I were apart, I had been scratching at my arms. Only the marks were more than mere scratches. I had dug into my skin leaving behind what looked like cut marks.

"Nothing." I pulled on my jacket and tried to walk past him. He put his arm out, blocking me.

"Tell me, Aria."

"It's nothing, Jacob, just some scratches."

"Please tell me you're not lying."

"I'm not lying."

"Let me rephrase that. Did you do them on purpose?"

"I don't know. Do you want me to lie to you?"

"Aria!"

"I'm not doing this right now Jake."

I moved his arm and left him standing there. This time, he didn't watch me leave. He followed me. I went through the door. He was right behind me. Eventually I was far enough away but when he yelled out for me, I had to stop to look at him.

"Aria, tell me the truth!"

"You want to hear the truth? That's what you want? Fine, here it is! I did it on purpose Jacob! I was alone! I was hurting! I watched myself bleed over and over again hoping one day you would just come through the door and stop me! But you didn't Jacob. You never came!"

"You didn't want me to! I tried to bring you back to me the day you ran away! You didn't want to come back! I called after you!" he walked closer to me with every word and his voice turned to whispers, "Do you honestly think I didn't want to chase after you?"

"Then why didn't you?"

"You wouldn't let me. By the time it had really registered with me that you were gone, it was too late. You were long gone."

"You knew I would go home. You should have come there."

"I would have had Embry not called me and cussed me out."

"Why does everything always come back to him?"

"It doesn't matter. What does matter is that I love you. What does matter is that I will never let you run from me again. What does matter is that you and I are going to be together no matter who may come into my life."

"Bella didn't just come into your life. She's been there since the beginning."

"So you're going to leave me again?"

I had felt like I was going to cry until he asked that. Then I just started laughing.

"What are you, on crack?"

He laughed with me, "I'll take that as a no."

"You're right. Jake, I'm not going to leave you because of something like this."

He let out a relieved sigh before taking my face in his hands and putting his forehead to mine, "How did we get here?"

"We fought Jacob. It was a battle that we may have won but there's still a war to come."

"What makes you say that?"

"I start school on Monday."

'Which means?"

"I'll be seeing Bella every day."

"It's all my fault."

"Now, Jake, will you stop that? It's no more your fault than it is mine. If I hadn't been so quick to switch schools…"

"Then we never would have had last night. If you were still in school with me, you and I both know it would've only been a matter of time before someone knocked your books out of your hands and I would've been the only person that stopped to help you. Then I could've walked you to class and by the time the day was out you and I would've been making out behind the lockers somewhere."

He smiled. I laughed a little bit because he was right. That was probably how it would've happened.

"So do you think your aunt will let you just finish out the semester there and if you don't like it switch back?"

"We can ask. Hopefully she'll go for it. If not, I'll just tell her I miss all my old friends at the Rez School and maybe she'll take that."

So he walked me home. My aunt was sitting at the kitchen table with Embry.

"Mom, just calm down. Everything will be fine."

"What's happened?"

"Some mill guard was killed by some animal last night in the next county over. She's bugging out, scared it's gonna get closer to town."

"Yeah Mrs. Call, we'll all be fine."

"Not helping Jake. We'll be fine, though. Don't worry." I assured her.

She nodded, "Did you feed her like I told you to?"

"Didn't get the chance. She ran out on me."

Embry sighed, "What for this time?"

"My dad wants me to go see Bella."

"Jeez, Aria calm down. His dad wants him to go see her it's not like he wants to."

"It's the principle of the thing. I know Jake wants to go to. I'm not stupid."

Embry stuck his tongue out at me. I stuck mine out at him too.

"Will you two grow up?" his mom scolded, "Would you like to eat something?"

"Nah, I wanna go down to the beach for a little while."

My stomach growled; she rolled her eyes before picking up an apple. She held it out to me and I took it with a smile. I walked back out of the kitchen, taking Jake's hand as I passed him. I took him to my room where I changed clothes. I switched my jeans for a short red and black cloth skirt and a black cami. I put on a pair of red flip flops.

"You sure you don't want to put on something more? It might get cold later."

"Nope, it's supposed to be sunny out today."

He nodded. I pulled him from the house, although pulled may be the wrong word. He happily followed me but I was walked in front of him the whole time. We walked down to the beach hand in hand. I carried the apple with me, unbitten. As we stepped onto the sand, I took my shoes off. I left them there.

"Are you actually going to eat the apple?"

"I don't know."

"She'll be mad if you don't."

I took a bite, wrinkled my nose and spit it out.

"What's wrong?" he asked concerned.

"It tastes weird, like it's been sitting in hard liquor."

He took the fruit from me and sniffed it. He took a small bite then shrugged.

"It tastes fine."

"Hm."

"Maybe you're too stressed out. A beach day is exactly what you need."

I smiled. He tried to give me that wretched fruit back but I just shook my head.

"Come on, maybe the second bite won't be so bad."

I sighed and took the apple from him. I took another bite and he was right. It was fine. I finished it off as he found a stick and wrote something in the sand. I dropped the apple core at the base of a tree and watched him. When he was finished, I looked at it and wanted to start crying.

R & J

4-EVER

**Imagine it written inside of a big heart ")**

"Oh my gosh, Jake you are such a girl."

"Why would say that?"

"Only girls do this kind of thing."

"But you love it anyway."

"Yeah, I do. And I love you, so much. But you're not going to see Bella."

"But what if she really does need me?"

I thought about it, "Okay, you can go, but not without me. I'll wait in the car if you want but you're not leaving me here."

"Okay, I won't. Plus, that was the deal from the beginning."

I stuck my tongue out at him and he chased me down to the water. My legs were wet and so were his jeans. He caught me after a very short time. We stood there in the water kissing like there was no tomorrow.

"Hey, this a family beach." Someone yelled.

We looked over to see Quil and Embry.

"Well no one told you to watch."

"It's kind of hard to miss. I mean look at you, wrapped around each other like you're glued together."

I grabbed Jacob's hand and pulled him out of the water, "Jealous much?"

"Just a little."

"Then you're really gonna hate this."

I pulled Jacob to me and kissed him again. Embry cleared his throat. We looked at him.

"Do you need anything from the store? Quil and I were just on our way there."

"Pop-tarts? Or do we have some at home?"

"None at all. I'll pick you up some. Same kind as usual?"

I nodded.

As they walked away I could hear Quil whisper, "How did Jake get so lucky?"

I laughed a little bit and looked at Jake, "Did you hear that?"

"What Quil said? Yeah, that's not the first time either. He hates he didn't get to you first."

"Well, I'm too happy with you to even think of another person."

"Me too, which is why this feud between you and Bella has to end."

"We'll see how my first day at her school goes first."

He shook his head then kissed my forehead. We went back to playing in the sand until the sun went down.