Jacob stared at his dinner. The camp cook had a repertoire of exactly twenty-one meals that she rotated with a precision that would impress the most fastidious engineer. Some of the loggers swore she had a spreadsheet of her God-awful concoctions.

"You gonna eat that, Black?"

"Yes." He barely glanced at Stuart. Or maybe it was Stanley. He was almost twenty-six, but he was the only other logger near Jacob's age. Still, they always sat together at meals and the rest of the crew called them 'the kids'. Never mind that Jacob towered over Stuart—Stanley?— at six feet and six inches.

"Those pancakes won't eat themselves."

Stanley—definitely Stanley—tried again, his focus on Jacob's plate. Like the Quileute pack, loggers were always hungry, and nothing, no matter how distasteful, was ever thrown out. Jacob was no different, eating anything and everything set in front of him. He'd even eaten Billy's attempts at a fish fry. Nothing about that had changed, except—

"Do you not like pancakes or what?" Stanley again.

"I like them," Jacob growled, shooting him a dark look. "They're my favorite."

"Okay," Stanley stared at him, frowning. "But you never eat them."

Jacob was glaring at his plate again, his fork poking patterns into the edible flat flour discs the cook called pancakes. They weren't her pancakes but why did it matter? Pancakes were food and he was starving. Still, he hadn't eaten pancakes since she'd made them for his father's birthday, a year and a half ago. The memory was sharp and unwelcome, but it came anyway. It was one of those days.

"So I made dinner," He remembered that shy nervous smile, the one she always wore when she was hoping for approval. Charlie had been raving nonstop to Billy and Jacob about his daughter's cooking. Naturally Billy dared her to impress him for his birthday. It was one of their many lame-sauce attempts to pull her out of the blackhole of herself after the leech had abandoned her. To everyone's surprise, and delight, she'd taken Billy up on his request and banished them all outside while she cooked. Bella loved celebrating birthdays, except her own. She loved to give to the people she cared about. It reminded him of his mother. If he closed his eyes he could still see how Bella presented the loaded rickety table to Billy and her dad, wiping her hands nervously on the large red t-shirt she'd thrown over herself as an apron. It was his old gym shirt. "Thought I'd keep it simple. Pancakes, bacon, sausage, and scones. Oh and coffee. I know it's late but you can't have breakfast food without coffee, right?"

They'd all quietly stared at her long enough that she clutched her arms around herself, a gesture of self preservation Jacob hated. "Do you," she swallowed, "not like breakfast food, Billy?"

Breakfast for dinner had been Sarah Black's special treat, every holiday, before she died. Bella hadn't known. How could she when everyone avoided mentioning his mother? It was so long ago not even Jacob really remembered her. But the smell of those pancakes had dug down into his gut and yanked out his heart in a terrible, awful, beautiful way. He'd glanced at his father, who's face had gone a shade paler than normal. Charlie coughed awkwardly. Jacob saw Bella's trembling fingers twisting in his flour-dusted red shirt. He lifted his chin, smiled, and took her hand.

"They're my favorite. Dad's too."

Her face had lit up, "Really? You're not," she hesitated, "I mean, you're not just being nice, are you?"

"Mom would make them for us before," he'd told her, diving head first into the pain with a smile. He hated burying things away and this shit had been buried too long. "She loved breakfast for dinner, especially at Christmas or Easter."

Bella's eyes had widened, her hand tightening in his, "Jake." It was a whispered 'I'm sorry'.

"Don't, honey," He pulled her towards the table and they sat. "I'm starving."

Bella's pancakes had ruined all other breakfast food for him, then and now. Just like she'd ruined everything else. Jacob swore silently at himself. This was a pain worse than the memory of his mother, and he couldn't face it today. Jacob pushed his plate towards Stanley. "Here."

He had moose jerky hidden under his mattress for days like this, when everything was a ghost of her, making breathing almost too much; where he would swear he could smell a hint of her on the wind, and it always always always smelled slightly like him instead of the undercurrent of leech he remembered; when she felt close enough to touch if only he could catch her memory and make her real again; when her voice echoed in his head and he thought maybe, just maybe, she could hear him too.

Bells.

He marched back to his bunk and threw himself down on the too-short mattress. He pulled out the black pocket notebook and carefully counted the tally marks again. 268 days. He didn't know why she was still alive and his wolf was growing impatient. "One year," he muttered. "We wait a year, and if she's still alive, then we find out why." His wolf growled at him, shaking the cage of his skin. Jacob rolled over and tried to sleep. Night was coming, and that would help. He closed his eyes, knowing he would probably dream of her if he slept at all.

Jake.

It was one of those days.