Author's note: This is the first 2023 upload after abandoning the fic. I've added an explanation to chapter 1, and I'm really sorry to anyone I left hanging. If anyone does still want to go on this journey with me, I've got the rest of the story planned and much of it written, and I'm committed to seeing it through.
Jake's lips were so warm, and he smelled so good. Without thinking, my right hand was moving up to cup his neck. For a moment I braced myself for him to pull back. I realized dimly that was a reflex trained in me from Edward's reticence in my previous kisses.
The thought of previous kisses distracted me for a split second, but I didn't let myself dwell on the past. Instead, I focused my full thoughts on the revelation that Jake wouldn't have to pull back. Jake didn't have to worry about hurting me. And that meant I didn't have to brace myself against this growing feeling of desire. I let my tongue sneak out to find his. The inside of his lips was still cool and sweet from the soda he'd been drinking, and the distinct taste of the Coke mingled with the pizza and something else – the taste of him.
Jake lifted his hand to my arm and I felt the heat of a thousand suns spreading out from that point.
Experimentally, I allowed myself to lean in, to press my right leg in the space between his thighs. Anticipation built as my hips closed the final distance to rest against his.
But at the moment my jeans pressed against his, I felt us both stiffen. I stepped back quickly, my heart sinking as I wondered what damage I might have done.
"Jake," I began, but he held up a hand to stop me.
"Hold on," he said. His eyes were still closed from the kiss. "I need a second to… just, give me a second."
I waited, sorting through my own feelings. I counted at least fifteen breaths before he opened his own eyes. We both opened our mouths to speak at the same moment, and then gestured to the other awkwardly.
"You first," I whispered.
Jacob pursed his lips and sucked in air. His words came out in a rush.
"Bells, you're beautiful, but I gotta be honest, that felt like kissing my sister."
I felt my whole body relax. "Oh! Thank god. I was worried it was just me."
A wide grin spread across his face. "No, definitely not. I mean the kiss was fine but, um, when you leaned in…" His face pulled into a grimace.
"Yes!" I exclaimed, moving to the other side of the bike, away from him. "It was so weird!" I made the same wincing face, and I couldn't help but laugh. He joined in.
"Oh man," he said. "I feel so stupid. I mean, I'm glad we tried, obviously. I had been wondering, these past few days… I would have kept wondering, but now we know."
"You make it sound like a school lesson," I joked. I put on a shrill voice like I was imitating my least favorite teacher. "What did we learn today, class?"
He answered in a deep, mock-chastised voice. "We learned that we should never kiss our sisters, no matter how pretty we think they are."
I laughed again, buoyed by my newfound revelation. It felt like a huge existential question had been lifted from my shoulders. But then I remembered my other existential question…
Where was Edward now? What was he doing? Could I trust him not to come on the reservation? Was he running away? Waiting by the phone for me to call? Waiting for my choice?
My choice.
"Oh fuck. Edward." I said, looking up at Jake with panic in my eyes. "What the hell am I going to tell Edward?"
I'd not only run away from Edward, I'd run into the arms of someone else. Temporarily, of course, but still – how was Edward going to react when he found out I'd kissed Jacob?
Jake winced. "I don't know, but I'm going to stay safely on the rez when you do."
"Oh my god, I'm a cheater!" I said, the realization dawning on me. "Oh my god! Fuck!"
I had to fight the urge to vomit. I felt disgusted. The deepest shame spread through me. But next to it, just the smallest bloom, was a tiny bit of satisfaction. With shock, I realized a small part of me wanted to hurt him.
I was the monster.
Why was this so goddamn hard? I didn't know how to trust Edward again. And here I was, making myself into someone who he couldn't trust. He hurts me. I hurt him. Our love had always felt so right, so why did it have to be so hard?
I turned away from Jake and kicked the first thing I saw – an empty paint can from when Jake and I had repainted the barn.
"UGH!" I found myself screaming as I kicked. "FUCK!" My hands balled up. My vision tightened to a pinhole, the rest out of focus as I looked for an outlet for my rage. I kicked the can again. "AHHHHHH!"
"Woah, woah, Bella!" Jake came up to me and gripped my wrists with both hands.
I tried to brush him off, but he held on.
"Jesus, Bella, what's gotten into you?" He ducked his head and bent down to force me to look in his eyes. I thought I saw some fear there. What was he afraid of? Surely not of me.
"I don't know!" I shouted, torn between wanting to cry and wanting to kick some more things. "I don't know, I feel like I don't recognize myself. I'm just so… I'm so mad. What is this? I never felt this way during… that time." I swallowed.
Jake kept his hands gripping each shoulder, stopping me from turning or walking away. He chewed his bottom lip before nodding.
"When Sarah... my mom. When she died," he started. That surprised me. Jake never spoke about his mom. I looked up, but he was staring at something behind me. "When she died, I felt really angry. It was confusing, because I knew anger probably wasn't the right response, but I felt like a different person. I didn't recognize myself. I couldn't control it. But I had to put my anger somewhere."
"It was like my body didn't know what to do with the grief, so it was forcing it out as anger. As hatred."
Grief. That struck a chord. Was that what this was? No one had died, but I did feel like I had lost something… or someone. My old self? The old Edward? The trust between us?
Something was gone.
I nodded slowly and cleared my throat. "What did you do?" I asked. My voice sounded shaky.
Jake broke into a grin, although his eyes still looked sad.
"Come on. Let me show you."
"HUAHHHHHHH" I shouted as I hurled what was probably my fortieth clay clump against the cliff. It didn't dislodge much from the cliff, but the clump I had thrown exploded into a thousand little pieces.
Beside me, Jake's long arm whipped forward. The impact of his weapon was even more explosive, sending a mini avalanche of clay and mud careening down the small face.
We were standing on the rocky beach, facing a cliff maybe six times as high as Jake. Jake had told me the cliff separating this stretch of the beach from the forest was made of clay, which meant any chunks we picked up – and any spots we hurled them at – were soft and easily broken. "A healthy place to channel your anger," he had promised. And it was.
I had worried that if anyone walked up we would look crazy, but Jake promised that small kids did this all time. "Not the adults so much," he conceded with a broad grin, "so we'll look a little crazy to any of them, but there are rarely any people this far from the parking areas anyway."
At first I threw without thinking, just getting my emotion out. But after a dozen or so wild tosses, I found that the exercise gave an outlet for my emotions that let my brain work quietly without interruption.
Did I have a choice with Edward at all? Part of me thought I didn't feel anything with Jake because I didn't have a choice. My fate was sealed - I would never love anyone like I loved Edward. We were bound together.
Part of me was overjoyed by this confirmation; of course I didn't want to be separated from Edward. Wasn't that what the whole last year had been about? I wanted him more than anything. This whole afternoon, I'd been fighting the urge to go back and pretend nothing was wrong, just so I could look into his eyes and feel his arms around me and kiss his lips and feel that everything was right.
But those same lips that kissed me so tenderly had lied to me, over and over. And so another part of me, the motorcycle riding, self-determined part that had grown up during our time apart, was livid at the idea of having yet another choice taken from me. Of falling back into the arms of a man who seemed determined to take all my choices from me. I could see only two paths ahead of us: he got his way and never changed me, or I got myself changed and spent an eternity with someone who found it acceptable to lie to me and decide what was best on my behalf. [Right idea but can improve]
I longed to explain all this to Edward, to have him understand. If he would just trust me long enough to stop suffocating me… If I could just get him to listen.
[Would rather see her trying to do the wrong thing here lol]
Maybe, a quiet voice in my head said, the fact that you are bound together means you have more power than you think. Maybe he'll have to listen.
But no - that was wrong. That would be taking advantage of Edward's love, wouldn't it? Who was I to impose my will on him?
And so my thoughts spiraled. But as I made throw after throw, my anger dissipated. The jagged edges of my thoughts smoothed and took on a shiny edge, and my breathing evened out. I was turning over my options in my head, planning how I would take the rest of the weekend for myself and then go back to Edward, explain the kiss, beg for his forgiveness and insist that we would tell each other the truth from now on, that we would trust each other.
And beg for him to change me. Yes, maybe that would fix things - if we could just be on even footing, playing on the same field. But the sneaky voice in my head came creeping back; would Edward really treat me differently as a vampire? Or would we forever using his compass?
"Bella?" Jake's voice was casual, almost too casual.
"Yeah?" I said.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Jake ventured.
Did I? Maybe. But this was the problem with having a vampire/human relationship - I never felt like anyone I was talking to actually had the context to understand.
I was silent, and Jake didn't press it. Minutes passed, the only sounds the slowing cadence of our missiles lobbed against the dirt and the uneven roll of the waves on the beach.
"That's ok, but I have something I need to talk about," Jake said eventually. I nodded, bracing myself for a lecture about how my vampire boyfriend was bad for me. Everyone loved to lecture me about the dangers in my life. I didn't turn to look at him, just continued searching for a larger clump of clay. Maybe one with some rocks in it.
"I'm really sorry for how I reacted when you came back from Italy," Jake said. I looked up, surprised, but Jake was searching the beach for something, head bowed and shoulders tight.
"Not just bringing the bike to Charlie, but ignoring your calls for weeks after. I've been thinking about it for the last few weeks, but after your calls stopped and you didn't come… I realized I'd been wrong to brush you aside, but I wasn't sure how to reach back out. I didn't know if you'd want me to. And I didn't know," Jake's voice caught, and I heard anger seep in, "I didn't know how he would react. I wasn't sure when I could come around."
"You could have called," I said, as though we were talking about practical options for how to approach a homework problem. Thwack went the missile, as I lobbed it at the bank with all my strength. It was my first throw where the destruction it caused felt pitiful, small compared to the throws Jake had sent.
I turned; Jake had his eyebrow raised. "Would a phone call really have been the right way to talk about this?"
"I guess not," I admitted. I thought about why I hadn't been out here. At first it was because Jake was ignoring my calls.. And then, when I'd decided enough was enough and Jake couldn't ignore me forever and decided to come out here myself, Edward had intervened.
I remembered the little black piece of metal Edward had twirled in his hands the first night I decided to come out here, ripped from my truck to stop me from driving it. It's too dangerous, he'd insisted. I can't let you go.
I shook myself out of the memory. I was here now. Jake was speaking. I should listen.
"Yeah, well, now's my chance. I owe you an apology, Bells. I was so mad that he basically broke you and then you took him back like that," Jake illustrated with a snap of his fingers. I opened my mouth, driven by an instinct to defend, but he held up his hand. "Let me finish. I was mad, and I still don't understand that. But I also realize now that getting mad at you was not the way to support you. All it did was make you feel like you had to choose." I closed my mouth, surprised.
Jake continued, "And I was also angry – I am angry – that you still want to be a vampire. I don't understand it. It makes me feel sick to my stomach, when I think about you cold… with those teeth."
Jake shivered, staring out at the rocks abutting from the calm ocean. I was only staring at him. "But then I realized, again… if I do believe that it's the wrong decision, or if I'm so shocked that you're thinking about going through with it… then you need a friend more than ever. And as much as I want to get angry and make you see it from my perspective, all that will do is push you further towards that future."
"You deserve someone in your corner, Bells," Jake said, finally turning to look at me. His expression was tender, but I also saw resignation and sadness. "And I also realized… I just like you too much to waste whatever times we could hang out before you… you know. Like when someone has a terminal diagnosis, you don't push them away during their final years."
It was an earnest apology, and I could see the shift in his attitude. Gone was the anger and darkness that had been so close to the surface when he'd first phased.
"I forgive you," I said, and I meant it.
"Besides," I continued, his ominous words on his perception of my impending doom demanding a response, "it wouldn't be like that, Jake. I wouldn't be dead." I said the words, but I barely cared about them; it was hard to focus on or care about the vampire-future part of our discussion, given my choice to fight with Edward had put up yet another roadblock between me and becoming a vampire.
Jake braced his shoulders again. "It would feel that way for me. I'm sorry, but I don't… there's a lot I can accept, but I don't think I could accept that. Please don't ask me to, Bells," he said. The pain in his eyes made my own eyes sting with the beginnings of tears, and I forced myself to swallow.
"But you're still in my corner, even if that's where I'm heading?" I asked.
Jake sucked in a breath, clenching his hands at his side. "Human Bella, even if she's hanging out with the vamps… I'm always in her corner. Whatever she needs me for, as long as she's human, she's my best friend. I can't promise I won't push for her to stay human, maybe just point out some of the things you're missing but I'll be in her corner – your corner – however she needs me. I'm going to be a better friend." Jake said it like a vow, squaring his shoulders and meeting my eyes.
Guilt hit me at his declaration, and the implication that he had been a poor friend. I didn't deserve Jake. All I had done was take from him, until there was nothing left. I opened my mouth to thank him, but what came out instead surprised me.
"Why are you friends with me?" I asked.
Jake stiffened at the words. "What do you mean?" He asked cautiously. I realized he was expecting a rejection, and I laughed bitterly.
"Our whole friendship has been about what Bella needs. Bella is sad, Weak Bella needs protection, Pathetic Bella needs cheering up. I don't ask you about yourself or do anything for you. I've never been a good friend to you."
Jake bent his knees, bringing our eyes to nearly the same height. I felt like a child whose parent was coming down to their eye level. I expected gentle encouragement and soft reassurances the way Edward so often managed these moods of mine, and I prepared my words to dismiss them. But Jake was nothing like Edward.
"Don't you dare talk about yourself that way," Jake's commanding voice reminded me of when I'd heard Sam give a pack command, and it scared me a little. I started back, but he put one hand on my shoulder.
"You have been an amazing friend to me. When we first became friends, would you agree you were in the lowest place of your life?" Jake asked, tone still steely. I swallowed and nodded. That was an understatement.
Jake returned my nod and continued. "You could barely talk about yourself or care for yourself. And yet when you came here, you treated me like your younger brother, asking question after question, focusing all your energy on my life and my problems. You even encouraged me to get more serious about school and what I was studying.
"You encouraged me to talk about my friends, Sam and other things that were weighing on me, anything. No one had talked to me like that since my mom… Billy and Quil and Emory, none of the men in my life really ask questions like that. You taught me how to think through my feelings and problems. I saw what an effort just existing was for you at that time, yet you never made me feel that being friends with me was any effort at all."
"And then when I transformed, and you wouldn't let me push you away… Bella, that's real friendship. You stood by me, connected me to who I was before. You are the only person outside the tribe who knows my deepest secret."
Jake's earnestness washed over me, and I found myself genuinely touched by his words. I could even see some truth to them, because I felt the same way about Jake's friendship. We were back to back, against the world, always understanding each other so easily. Like family.
"That was selfish, though. I wanted someone to fix the bikes and then… then I wanted friendship, just someone happy to distract me. I can't imagine I was any fun to hang out with during that time."
Jake shook his head. "Yeah, you're right, I must have been torturing myself for months for no reason."
I blanched, breaking eye contact. Jake shifted around me so he was back in my line of sight. "Bella," he laughed, looking incredulous. "Is that what you really worry about? That you're not… what, fun?"
I blanched. Ding ding ding. In a world of beautiful vampires and powerful werewolves who had literal superpowers, I was just Bella.
"You're joking," Jake said. There was genuine mirth in his eyes, like this idea was hilarious to him.
"It's hard to measure up, when you're the only human," I admitted. "Everyone else has a passion, a duty, a talent…" I shrugged.
"You have passions – you're fun!" Jake said. "I just told you, you're a really passionate friend. My most loyal friend." I raised an eyebrow at that.
"I'm fun because I know the power of friendship? Really, Jake?" I rolled my eyes.
Jake laughed, but I appreciated that he seemed to be taking this at least semi-seriously instead of brushing aside my concerns like Alice and Edward so often did.
"Ok, but you have hobbies! You ride motorcycles, that's pretty badass. And you had that hiking project we worked on, we hiked every weekend for that. That was a fun project, and that was your own."
I sucked in a breath. It wasn't rational to feel hurt. Jake was being earnest; he didn't know those weren't my hobbies. They had both been all about Edward, part of my campaign to see visions of him. But I couldn't bring myself to tell Jake that, not when they had been part of the basis of our friendship.
Besides, even if it was true that I loved riding the bike now, even without hallucination-Edward as a motivation, it didn't matter. "The hiking project was a one time thing, not really a hobby. And Charlie would kill me if I rode the bike," I replied. Not to mention how Edward would react.
"Cooking! You like to cook, right? You're a great cook, and you make dinner almost every night," Jake looked so proud at the rebuttal, almost victorious. His words only made my heart sink lower, though, because…
"I do that for Charlie," I confessed. "I just like to cook because I like to make sure he's taken care of. It was the same with Renee. If it was just me, I'd be happy with a grilled cheese or a salad every night."
Jake blinked at that, looking a bit surprised. He furrowed his brow in concentration. I stared idly at the waves, which were calming now as the night grew later. I should probably call Charlie soon; he had softened the grounding recently, but I was still pretty sure he wouldn't take kindly to coming home and not knowing where I was.
"Oh! Reading!" Jake declared, his tone identical to one who had just shouted Eureka! "You love to read, don't you, Bells?"
That was true. I had always loved reading. But what was the last new book I had read? I thought back… it was for English class. The Catcher in the Rye. I hadn't exactly been drawn in by Holden Caulfield.
I thought back further… every new book I could recall reading since moving to Forks was for school, and thanks to the lagging curriculum of Forks High, even most of our assigned reading were books I'd already read in my classes in Phoenix. Everything else I'd read recently was a re-read, drawn either from the limited selection of the Forks library or my own battered collection of well-loved books. The only book I'd added to the collection since moving was one on vampire myths that I'd bought that night in Port Angeles, when Edward –
"Bells?" Jake prompted.
"Yeah," I replied quietly, forcing a slight smile to my face. "You're right, I like to read."
Jake nodded, but I saw some of my own sadness mirrored in his empathetic eyes. He was worried about me. I should put on a brave face.
"How about you?" I nudged. "What are your favorite things to do?"
"Oh, you know that." Jake said practically. "Fixing the cars and bikes. Actually, I've been meaning to tell you, I've picked up some work thanks to you."
"Thanks to me?" I asked, surprised.
"Yeah, one of your friends – Ben – is friends with a cousin of mine on the rez. Apparently they were hanging out, and Ben mentioned he'd heard from you that your friend Jake out here was good with cars. Ben said his dad told him to change his oil, but he didn't know how, and my cousin gave ben my number. Ben offered me twenty bucks to show him how to change his oil – easiest 20 I've ever made."
"You taught Ben Cheney how to change his oil?" I sputtered, straining to imagine wiry Ben and big Jacob bent over Ben's old Saab together.
"Yeah," Jake laughed. "I felt bad for the kid, if his dad was making him do it but never even showed him how. I didn't want to take his money, but he insisted. And he's sent a few more of your classmates my way since then."
"Woah - how have I not heard about this?" I wondered. I felt mystified that I had missed this, and also a surprising pang of jealousy. Jake may bemoan not having a partner, but he had a pack of brothers and an understanding community, purpose in his role as a wolf – not to mention literal superpowers – and a passion and talent for building cars. I could easily see that the story Jake had just told was the beginning of a future career and business built on his passion. In comparison, I had Charlie, Jake, and Edward and his family, the last of which I had pushed away just this afternoon. I had nothing just for me.
"Do you hang out much with your human classmates?" Jake asked pointedly. I started, thinking he'd been answering my thoughts, but then realized he was merely answering the question I'd already forgotten asking: how have I not heard about this.
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but closed it when I realized I had no retort. Shame crept through me. I really was a terrible friend.
"No, I know that look! Don't feel bad. It's like you said - they're normies. It's hard when you have to lie to them. Don't feel bad for not knowing, or hanging with them more. So long as you're hanging with people, and you're doing ok, you're fine. And like we said, you have your books," Jake teased. I nodded, but there was still a bruise where his words had accidentally landed.
I thought again of the small stack of dog eared books on the side of my bed.
I wondered: if I continued to push away Edward, was Charlie and that well-worn stack of books all I had to go home to?
