A/N: I own no part of Twilight, but if this chapter looks somewhat familiar, then that's because part of it was lifted from one of my fics, Injustices of the Worst Kind. Listen, Static has been in the works for a while now.

This chapter was inspired by Halsey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and a little bit of Paper Towns even though I don't like John Green. So here is chapter 24. It has more Jacob x Bella like the last chapter, just not in the same way.

XXIV.

oh, baby, beggin' you to save me
though lately, i like 'em crazy

A long time ago, when she had thought she was just sad and would only be sad, Bella would read. On good days—or worse days, when she thought back on them—she would go to the public library just down the street from her home in Phoenix and stay forever. She would stay until someone—either Renee or Phil—would notice she was gone. She hadn't hidden in the library since she was fifteen, but that might change today.

The public library of Forks was pitiful. Bella had only visited once in the past, and it had been more than enough. It made her want to cry. It was small, and not in a positive way. Small libraries usually had a lot of heart put into them, but not this one. It was not cared for at all; it was just there. It was just another attraction in the big, fake amusement park that the world was.

Bella needed to infuse some care, though. It was the only place she had left to do that. It was too late for Jacob, since she had been so deceiving the entire time, and far too late for her.

It was a luminous Sunday morning in June, but Bella felt like a stormy night in November. After entering the public library right as it opened, she hid in the stacks. Nobody noticed her or the fact that she didn't have a card. She loved libraries so damn much for that reason alone: you don't have to have a pass to enter. You come as you are, and leave just a little smarter if you're lucky. That wasn't her point, though—not today. She couldn't fix anything about her broken mind, as hard as she tried.

The previous week had been a hurricane. It had been beautifully chaotic for Jacob, but for Bella? Not so much.

You're just a fucking idiot, she told herself. You can't just give yourself over and over to someone you hardly even like to get over your piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend and constant feeling of self-hatred. That's not how things are supposed to work. You were born to be alone and you don't belong to anybody.

The only thing worse than what she had done was that she would have to now break off everything with Jacob. And even worse, it was like Leah had made her do it, even though that wasn't the truth. Bella didn't know or even like Leah that much, so the pathetic threat last weekend hadn't meant anything, but it might as well mean something now.

Bella didn't like Jacob the way he liked her; she didn't see him in whatever future she'd have when she looked in his eyes. She didn't want to give him a future that dim, either. She didn't want to hurt him, though—she had never wanted to hurt anybody. Ever since she had been sixteen, just getting in touch with her level of fuckedupness, she had known that she would never want to harm anyone close to her because she had understood. Being so far from the inside of things, she had often watched people, and she had understood them. She had understood—and still understood—that everyone was just trying to get through what they had to get through in order to move on the better and brighter things in life, and for her to make that any more difficult for anyone else would be the worst thing she did.

Jacob could do far, far better than her. He had to know that he couldn't live through her and her wild-eyed ways when she was hardly living herself. Everyone loved Bella's crazy ass until her ass was actually crazy, and Jacob was just another guy to do that.

But he was such a nice guy. He would never get it as long as he saw the best in people, and the best in Bella.

Bella tried to not be a bad person; she truly did, at least to others. She tried to remind herself of all that, but things never clicked in time.

Maybe that was just what she hated about herself the most: she had the right intentions when it came to other people, but they never come off the right way. What was the point of even trying, then?

In La Push, Jacob woke up alone, the scent of Bella on his body (the odd combination of honey and lavender), the taste of her on his lips (strawberry and the shame of marijuana), the sound of her in his ears (God, Jake, that's so funny and you're so funny). He supposed that was the second best thing, since Bella wasn't the kind of girl one would wake up with on a daily basis. Aside from the lucky times he'd seen her wake up, he was more familiar with the girl who he'd soar through the sky with at one in the morning but see her again only five short hours later. But she was not the kind of girl to wake up with. She was a wanderer.

Sadly enough, Jacob loved her. He loved everything about her, but only selectively. He loved the crazy side of her, the side he had just spent a week with in its entity. That side got him to go camping on the beach, smoke weed (and not die from coughing fits), discover the importance of sex playlists, have deep conversations on top of a cliff, and blow some time off at the movies.

Jacob didn't prefer the other side—the side that had recently admitted how much she didn't want to live anymore or how much of an idiot she thought she was—but he found it beautiful. He couldn't ignore it like her ex had, so he thought of it like something awesome, something worth being proud of. He truly thought he was being a good boyfriend when he did this.

So maybe he didn't truly love her; he only loved bits and pieces of her, and claimed he loved the rest (though it was for the wrong reasons), but he loved the idea of loving all of her, and there didn't seem to really be a difference. He loved everything physical about her from the paleness of her skin to the pools of chocolate that were her eyes to her ski-slope nose to her rare but beautiful smile to her uneven lips to her legs that stretched for miles to the wideness of her lovely hips, and if he could love that, he could love the hurricane going on inside. It was bound to be as beautiful as everything else.

He didn't know why, but he felt as if she had changed his life for the better and the worse. Before he had met her for the second time, for that awfully strange date, he had woken up expecting nothing but the same mediocrity he had lived in for his entire life. He used to wake up with no hope or enthusiasm for his day, for no one to make his day a little better. Now he woke up with confidence, excitement, and fear all at the same time, and there was something good about that. He knew it. He hoped Bella knew it, too.

After he had dropped her off at home last night from their movie date in which they hadn't really paid attention to the movie, Bella had seemed… off. Even though being off all of a sudden was her thing, her trademark, Jacob had felt it. He would have called and asked later, but he had known that would get him nowhere. It never had before. She lived on her own terms; that was one of the two things they have in common. The other thing was that they weren't supposed to want much or dream big because of who they were and where they lived, and it was one of the most depressing things he had ever heard.

Jacob got out of bed and decided to go see her. They had never established "visiting hours," but they never had to; even when they didn't completely understand each other, they still did. He was going to be the surprising one this time. With a little pep in his step, Jake threw on jeans and a t-shirt and made his way to his car, which also had Bella, Bella, Bella signed in it, as well as on it. She couldn't not leave her signature wherever she went, even if she tried.

In the library, Bella strolled through the young adult section. She used to live here, back when she had been ten. She had felt like a rebel for reading material for the younger set of adults before she had even been a teenager, but now she couldn't help but feel and accept her age. And she hated it, too. She really did. Her mother, Renee, recently got into these kinds of books—Bella recognized most of the titles. Renee practically demolished these books, which put a weird taste in Bella's mouth. These specific books were meant for her. These books had been written by some middle-aged authors with the idea of Bella in mind, and for Bella to have that taken away by her mother hurt. When Renee didn't completely ignore her daughter, she took away what was rightfully hers and made her grow up instead, which Bella viewed as an injustice of the worst kind.

Then again, as Bella looked at the summaries of these books, she must admit that Renee could have them. She could have all of them since they sounded like bullshit. Back when Bella was a kid, she had read everything. Now she chose books with caution—often with so much caution that she never finished them. She now picked up a book with a cover that intrigued her, but after reading about it (and flipping to the last page), she wanted to cry. She'd had that feeling a lot these days.

That girl is me.

Based on what she read in the summary, the story was about an incredibly plain guy whose life was so utterly lifeless until he met some otherworldly lunatic of a girl who lived life on the edge and made his life take a turn for the better and the worse only for something horrible to happen to her and leave him completely static again.

Maybe Bella had a stalker who managed to see into the future, too, because this sounded a little bit too much like her and Jacob and where they were headed if she didn't break things off quickly, and that was just a little bit too unpleasant.

Shaking her head and flipping through the book's pages, Bella couldn't keep herself away. The book had Post-It notes with thoughts in different handwriting and folded pages throughout it—it was examined. It was loved. This horrible book was adored by so many people, and Bella couldn't see why. She suddenly slammed the book shut before its secrets and messages could fly out like bats out of hell, but she couldn't bring herself to set it down. That was kind of her life she was holding, as much as she hated to admit it.

She must not have noticed anyone behind her, but when she turned around, she saw Jacob. As much as she didn't like him as much as she could, she could never get sick of looking at him. His russet skin and short black hair were lovely. They made her feel somewhat warm. His height and size made her feel secure. Her heart made her feel lonely. The universe could really suck ass sometimes.

"Bella," he said, relieved in a way.

"Jacob," she said, not able to determine how she felt to see him here.

"What are you doing here?" they asked each other at the same time. Jacob chuckled; Bella fakes a laugh because her nerves were in the way.

"I like books," she said, gesturing to the horrible one in her hand. "You?"

"I was gonna go to your house," he admitted, "but I saw your truck here and, well, you can see it from anywhere." He chuckled again.

"Oh. Did you want to talk to me about something?" she asked, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. She hated her big ears, but she hated a lot of things about herself and Jacob was already aware of them. As much as she didn't exactly love him, he knew her, and she had never meant for that to happen because it complicated everything. Then again, him not knowing her would have complicated everything, too. They had been made to be difficult. Wasn't that easy to see?

"Uh," he said, struggling to find a decent way to tell her no. He could easily just say no, but he didn't want it to come off that way. "Not really." Smooth as hell.

"Jake," she began, "why do you like me?"

Jacob found himself at a loss for words. "What—what do you mean?"

"I mean what I said," she replied. "Why do you like me?" She held her tongue from asking cutting questions that would only lead to his heart breaking at the wrong thing, and if she was going to break him, she was going to break him the right way: with honesty.

"Bella, I like you—I love you—because you're amazing. And the thing with that word—amazing—is that people use it on stupid shit. People describe a stupid-ass cat video on the internet as amazing, or some action-packed trailer for some stupid-ass movie as amazing, or the homeless guy doing stupid-ass standup comedy down the street as amazing. The word is so overused that when people finally get married or hold their newborn baby in their arms for the first time, they can't use that word because they've already wasted it on some stupid-ass cat video on the internet. But, Blue, I don't use that word for just anything—I really don't. I reserved it for you because you are amazing in the entire sense of the word. You define amazing. You changed my life—"

"Jacob, don't," Bella whispered, but he kept going.

His eyes were nearly animated as continued his spew, and from here, there's no way to stop it. "You changed my life, and I need you to know that. Just before the time we started dating, and especially week we spent together, I felt so dead inside. I did, and I didn't know why, but goddamn. I saw the light when I first spent time with you and it lasted all through the times I spent without you—"

"Please—"

"—And there's nothing more I want to do than be with you all the time. I hate to say it like this, but I'm going to be honest: you're almost an addiction." His voice grows louder. "You know that? I can't stay away from you, and even as I know for a fucking fact that you want almost nothing to do with me since I'm so boring compared to you, I acknowledge the almost. I acknowledge the part of you that does want to be with me, and that's what's keeping me hanging on. That's literally it and I—"

Her voice was as loud as the pages of a book flipping. "Stop."

"I love you, Bella Swan," he said, loud enough for the entire library to hear. "I love you and all your craziness."

"Stop it!" she exclaimed.

His rant was over and he hung high and dry, just realizing what he said, but before he could apologize, Bella went on a tangent of her own. She certainly had enough time to think about it, and the novel she continued to grip gave her some sort of power because she was not going to be that girl for Jacob. She refused.

"I can't believe you're making me tell you this," she said with furrowed brows, "but I'm not your manic pixie dream girl, Jake, and I thought you were smart enough to see this. You know that, right?"

His eyes remained glued to hers, listening, absorbing.

"Damn, Jacob…" She trailed off. Then she got the courage to keep going because if she never explained herself, he'd never know the truth.

"I mean," she said, "I'm not here to complete you or take you on some cliché, whirlwind adventure that you'll find in some romance novel today, like this likely piece-of-shit book I'm holding in my hand right now. I'm not here to make you feel… alive or appreciate life a little more, if that's what you've been trying to get me to do. My goal isn't to specifically change your life, all right? All right? I already have a hard enough time trying to live my own, and I can't be your only source of happiness. I can't.

"Guys like you, Jake, they never learn shit about girls like me. I don't know why I thought you were different—probably because you're so damn nice and you'll follow me anywhere—but you're really no different from any other guy. I'm just looking for my own peace of mind, and my own reason to live, and you living through me makes you look fucking selfish. More than that, it makes you look stupid as hell because my problems aren't anything beautiful or fun or adventurous like you've been seeing it as based on the little time you've actually spent with me. You don't fucking know me, Jacob. You don't know the first damn thing about me. I told you my story last night, but you didn't listen to what I was saying. You're just as bad as my ex because you hear what you wanna hear and you see what you wanna see all through some fucking filter to make yourself feel better, like you're doing me any favors by seeing me as an idea or a project rather than a person. So listen close. I'm just here to walk the sidewalks and smell the roses and breathe the air. So please… please don't make me the reason for every step you walk or every scent you intake or every breath you breathe, just because you think it'll liven you up. That's not my job—that's yours."

Before he could say respond, Bella—running on fumes—turned and left the young adult section, the library, and possibly his life. All that was left of her was a trail he couldn't seem to follow this time.

A/N: I'll see y'all Friday.

Up next: the aftermath of Jacob x Bella (the first movement) and the dawn of true feminine camaraderie.

HS