.

Chapter 4

Best Friends

Bella

Breathe in ... breathe out ... breathe in ... breathe out. I had to concentrate, I had to make it to the reservation. There I was allowed to collapse. My right hand must have been broken when I tried to knock Edward's hands away.

I clutched the steering wheel even tighter.

The pain in my hand distracted me from a much much worse pain.

Breathe Bella, breathe. Don't think about it. Not thinking about your heart breaking into shards right now. It wasn't the end of the world. It was just my world coming to an end. And Emmett's world. When I looked into his eyes, it hurt that much more. Not thinking, not ...

A loud crash on the passenger side.

"Get out of my car!" I yelled at Edward.

Don't cry, Bella, breathe!

"Bella, please don't be mad ..."

He said it in the softest voice he had. I had to ignore him; I couldn't look at him! Once we were on Quileute land, he had to disappear anyway.

He reached out his hand to reassure me.

Once again I hit his rock-hard hand with all the strength I had as a small fragile human being.

I heard more bones crack in my hand.

"GO!", I screeched now more hysterically than ever before.

But he stayed, he talked at me.

I did not understand a word. I concentrated and began to count.

758 seconds later, he suddenly jumped out of the door.

I had made it, here he could not come.

I pulled up to Jake's house and stopped, exhausted. I pulled my legs up on the seat and clutched myself with my arms. I started crying hysterically and hyperventilating.

"BELLA!"

Jacob yanked open the car door, took me in his arms and carried me into the house to his room. There he sat down on the bed and held me in his arms like a toddler.

Luckily, Billy was still at work. If he saw me like this, I'm sure he'd tell my dad right away.

"Bella ... honey, please tell me what's wrong?"

His voice sounded desperate. I couldn't speak, I clung tighter to his warm bare chest.

He understood what I needed.

Jacob took me tighter in his arms and gently stroked my head.

"Sh ... sh ... Bella honey."

His big warm hands stroked up and down my spine.

I was able to slowly calm down. I felt so warm with Jake. My breathing slowed down again and after two hours I had cried on his chest.

"Do you want to tell me what happened, honey? You don't have to if you don't want to," he said softly as his head rested on mine.

"Edward." My breath caught in my throat; I couldn't start crying again. "Edward has ... he has ..."

The tears dripped right back out of my eyes, and I began to breathe in faster, forgetting to breathe out.

"Oh Jake!"

I pressed my head harder into the indentation between his neck and shoulder.

I took a deep breath.

"... cheated on me. Edward cheated on me with his brother's girlfriend!"

I could say no more. His muscles tensed and I felt his whole body begin to shake. I knew it was incredibly dangerous to be so close to a werewolf when he was about to turn. But Jake had already gotten himself back under control. He breathed in and out heavily and said nothing. Maybe he wasn't completely under control after all.

"That ... that rotten dirty bloodsucker!"

I felt him cramp his hands on my back.

I had always hated it when Jacob used words like that, but now I just didn't care. I let him rant on. Somehow it also felt good to have Jacob say all the things that were going around in my head. I adjusted my breathing rhythm to Jake's and slowly my body calmed down.

"Do you have ice, Jake?", I asked suddenly as I felt the sharp pain in my hand.

At his questioning look, I looked down at my hand.

"Did HE do that to you? She's already covered in bruises!"

Again, his body began to shake a little, but only briefly.

"No, not directly. I knocked his hand away twice. And it cracked in the process."

Jacob was almost bursting with laughter.

"You're really tough, Bella Swan. Beating up vampires! Can you move your fingers?", Jacob asked.

I tried to stretch it and bend them again. To my amazement, it worked without any major pain. I tried to circle my wrist, but I winced as I did so.

"I think it's something on the wrist," I guessed.

Jake got me ice to cool down, then put an improvised splint on me so that nothing else could get damaged until tomorrow. Jacob said that maybe it was just cracked, and nothing was broken.

"Jake, when is Billy coming home?", I asked as I leaned quietly against his warm chest.

He looked at the wall opposite his small bed.

"Umm ... about half an hour from now, why?"

"I don't want Billy to see me like this, or Charlie will know within two minutes, too."

"Yes, our fathers are the worst coffee gossips in the world!", he said encouragingly.

I even had to smile a little at that because I pictured Billy and Charlie in old lace dresses sitting at a little white table enjoying coffee and cake. When Jake realized he had made me laugh a little, he gave me a big hug and laughed uproariously at the same image.

"Oh Bella, you are so beautiful when you smile."

I gave him a big smile.

Wow ... how did he make me feel so free with him.

"Would you like me to come to you?" He faltered for a moment. "I mean, so you won't be alone tonight?" he asked, blushing a little under his bronze skin.

"No, Jake, I'll be fine. You just cheered me up so much! You're the best. Thanks!"

I turned my head slightly and gave him a little kiss on the collarbone.

He took my head between his hands and gave me a sweet kiss on the forehead.

"I'm always here for you, Bella honey."

As we walked out to my rusty truck, Jacob held my hand tightly in his.

He said he didn't want me to fall over yet. It actually didn't bother me at all, it had just always been like that between us.

I sat down in the truck, and he hugged me again. He detached himself from me a little, still leaning down to me, so that we were at eye level.

His hands were tender against my face, and he gave me a sweet kiss on the mouth. With the incomparable Jacob smile he straightened up and said goodbye to me.

As I drove home down the road, I couldn't help but think about the kiss.

I didn't know what the kiss meant to him, and I didn't know exactly what it meant to me either. It was not a kiss full of passion, it was just such a sweet little kiss.

Charlie wasn't home yet, so I was in the kitchen making dinner. I had to keep myself busy as long as possible, because the feeling of freedom I had with Jake was slowly disappearing.

At the latest, when I would lie alone in bed upstairs, the memories would stab at my heart like knife wounds.

I took some shrimp and fried them with garlic and onions. Meanwhile, I put on hot water for the pasta and poured in half the package of pasta. I put both on a medium heat so I could go to the bathroom.

I didn't look as bad as I would have expected. My eyes were no longer so red from crying and after I had splashed cold water on my face and combed my hair, I was of the opinion that I looked quite presentable again.

The pasta was already almost 'al dente', so I poured some cream sauce to go with the chopped and sautéed shrimp.

"Bella?" called Charlie from the front door.

"Hi Dad, I'm in the kitchen."

Charlie came home just as I had pulled the pasta out of the water and poured the shrimp cream sauce over it. He inhaled the delicious smell and immediately sat down at the table.

"Hello, Bella, that smells amazing!"

We ate together, but didn't talk much.

One of my dad's best habits.

He seemed to really like it because he polished off three servings.

After he was done, I cleared everything away and started doing the dishes.

In my head I tried to find any things that could distract me further. Watching TV with Charlie or reading something were both not really interesting enough to displace the bad thoughts. I had only done the laundry three days ago. I didn't have any homework, since we were on vacation at the moment.

I finished the dishes and shuffled to the stairs.

"Good night, Dad."

"I'd better get to bed, too. Lots to do at the station. Sleep tight, Bells," Charlie said.

When I had put on some short gray cloth pants and a white T-shirt as pajamas, I lay down in bed.

Over there, I could already hear Charlie snoring softly.

I closed my eyes and the last bit of normalcy I had felt with Jacob fizzled out.

I saw Edward and Rosalie's faces in front of me, hugging and kissing ...

I curled my fingers into the pillow and suppressed a cry. But the tears ran down my cheeks again and dripped onto my arm and my bed.

Suddenly I felt an ice-cold hand on my arm, and I turned around, startled.

"Emmett?"