27It was the soundlessness that told me there was something wrong. These days the feeling of being watched was accompanied by the thump of feet on my windowsill, the squeak of the window slides as they first began moving. But as I sat at my desk that evening, reading through the trashy detective novel my English professor had assigned as "comparative literature" and waiting for my email to load, I felt a cold breeze raise goosebumps on my arm, and I was suddenly certain that someone had come in through my window and was standing nearby watching me.
But who was it? I wasn't sure.
It could be Jake. Maybe he was trying to scare me. I'd asked him months ago to make as much noise as possible around me so that he didn't keep taking me by surprise all the time, and he'd complied beautifully. He was always walking heavily and making floorboards squeak now. He might just be trying to freak me out, but as big of a jerk as he could be sometimes, he didn't usually mess around with truly scary things. Like making me think there was a vampire in the room.
Like there was right now.
I stayed still, keeping my eyes on the page in front of me and trying to act naturally. Only a second or so had passed since I'd realized I wasn't alone, and my body had always been slow to process abnormal things, so I was still breathing normally. I knew logically that it wouldn't matter if I ignored the vampire—it wouldn't just go away—but I didn't even consider another reaction yet. I needed to think.
It could be a vampire here to attack me. Maybe Victoria had friends. Maybe word had gotten around in the community that I smelled nice, "floral" like he had always said. Or maybe I was just exceptionally unlucky.
It could be Alice or one of the Cullens coming to visit me. But no—Alice would have already jumped at me, hugging the life out of me from behind and demanding to know why I insisted on doing homework in dark red flannel pajama pants and a hunter-orange sweatshirt ten sizes too big for me. Emmett would have bear-hugged me, too, and probably lifted me several feet off the ground. Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper would have been polite and knocked at the door, as if they were humans. Rosalie… well, Rosalie would never have come in the first place. But if she had to for some reason, she would probably arrive this way, malevolently silent just to remind me of my own humanity.
Or maybe it was him.
I realized suddenly that I'd saved that possibility to consider last, rolling it around in my mind like a wine expert tasting a hundred-year-old bottle of chardonnay. Could he be here? Would I finally get to see that dazzling face again, the one he had ripped away from me and stolen every possible memento of? Had my hallucinations been correct in imagining him, or had they fallen short of the mark?
And would he look happy to see me? Would he wear that smile that had always instantly sent me into a complete-and-utter-meltdown? Or would he look troubled, unhappy to be forced to see me again for some reason? I wasn't sure it would matter to me. Seeing him again would be like reviving a man who'd dropped dead of thirst in the middle of the desert with nectar from Mt. Olympus.
Of course, it would be worse when he left. I might not survive it this time. But no—I could steel myself here and now, before I ever saw his face, so I could remember he wasn't mine and that he didn't love me. I wouldn't fall apart again because I wouldn't let seeing him fix me.
Oh, who was I kidding? I was a heroin addict, like he'd described himself to me so many, many months ago, an addict who'd been forced into rehab against her will and was finally about to get her first new hit. My heart might just explode on the spot from the pleasure of it. But it would be worth it, worth dying just to see that beautiful face, those golden eyes looking back at me again.
In the split second before I moved to turn around in my chair, a little voice in my head that sounded surprisingly like Jacob's said, An angry Rosalie might be less dangerous.
What? I thought. The idea-from-nowhere shocked me into staying still. The idea was practically blasphemous, but… well, maybe the Jacob-voice had a point. After all, I had just been thinking that it was worth dying in order to see His face again. That wasn't exactly a safe thought.
Maybe, before I got any crazier, I should make sure it was actually him. But how… oh, of course. If it was any other vampire than a Cullen, I would already have been eaten, so that possibility was already counted out, thankfully. And if it was Rosalie…
Without turning around, in my quietest voice possible, I murmured, "Would you mind closing the window? It's a cold night."
Without a sound, the breeze suddenly stopped.
Rosalie would have ignored me.
It was him.
"Bella."
His voice was nearly the same as I had remembered. It was deep and full, but musical, practically harmonizing with itself. It was beautiful. But there was something different about it, perhaps just the uncertainty it was riddled with. And the relief. He was relieved to see me.
That made me feel warm. He wasn't here because something had forced his hand. Maybe he was just dropping in to say hello? Like an old friend?
Yes, I told myself. Like an old friend. He is not here to sweep me away from my drab little life back into his glorious, sparkling eternity. An eternity of joy and youth, of perfection…
No, he wasn't here for that. He was here to say hello.
I took a deep breath, memorizing the blueprint of my soul and labeling it as The Bella-Who-Has-Learned-to-Mostly-Survive-Without-Edward Soul. Then I turned around.
He was magnificent. His bronze locks were perfectly tousled, crying out for fingers to run through them. His skin was pale and perfect, his eyes as golden as afternoon sunlight and full of soulful yearning. He was wearing a dark coat and light pants, but that was as far as my impression of the rest of him went—I didn't want to look away from his face. I was busy partaking, that dehydrated man in the desert overindulging on nectar. He was gorgeous, beautiful, so much more than I had remembered.
I waited for the meltdown, the burning that had always filled me when he returned to my sight, even if we'd only been apart for moments.
I gazed at his perfect ears, his perfect nose, his perfect eyelashes… his perfect neck… his perfect… lips.
Where was the burning? Was my reaction delayed because we'd been apart for so long? Maybe I didn't really believe he was here yet. Or maybe I was stronger than I'd thought and I was protecting myself too hard to feel the reality of his presence. Well, I couldn't hold out for much longer, I was sure. Maybe speaking to him would be my reality check.
"Edward," I finally breathed.
It felt strange to say his name after spending the last several months avoiding even thinking it. It sounded… old fashioned. Had that ever occurred to me before? Probably. I vaguely remembered thinking that once in the early days after I moved to Forks, wondering about an entire family of adopted children with strangely old names: Edward, Alice, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, Carlisle, and Esme. Sure, it was because they were eternally-living vampires, but still. The name felt jarringly ancient upon hearing it come out of my mouth again.
We gazed at each other for a moment, and the moment carried into a minute and straight from a minute into Awkward. I didn't want to sound harsh or unwelcoming by asking why he was here, but it was fairly important to know his reasons before I knew what to say to him.
Finally he fell back on politeness. "How are you, Bella?"
How was I? Depressed? Lonely? Pathetic? Worthlessly Drifting from Moment to Moment of Existence without him?
But actually, as I thought about it, most of those things weren't true anymore, and they hadn't been true for months. That first autumn had been nightmarish, and the following winter and spring had been beyond difficult, but last summer had been… okay. Fun, even. And these last few months had been, well, great. I liked school. My classes at Peninsula College in Port Angeles weren't ultra-challenging, but I was learning a lot, and taking classes there meant that I could live at home. I'd been promoted to assistant manager at Newton's when Mike moved to Seattle to go to UW, and I was having fun there, too. I was still cooking and cleaning for Charlie, and both of us were still happy with that. And I was only ten miles away from La Push.
I pushed that thought away.
"I'm good," I answered honestly. "How are you?"
He looked surprised. Then he thought for a moment, and I remembered how cute it always was when his forehead wrinkled down as he thought really hard. It was still endearing. He looked so… sweet? When had Edward ever looked sweet?
"Better now," he said quietly, his eyes suddenly burning with earnestness, "seeing you."
What? I thought.
"Bella, I don't know how else to say this," he said, pacing restlessly to look out the window and then turning back around and moving toward my closet. "I've spent the last six months trying to think of the best way to explain to you… to apologize to you… to beg you to…"
He stopped right in front of me and knelt down so our faces were even. It was only then that I remembered I was still sitting in my desk chair. He reached out slowly to take my hands, which were resting in my lap. Did I want him to touch me? Always before when he touched me it made my brain short-circuit, and I really wanted to be all the way present for this conversation. But he waited for me to pull back and my hands didn't move, so he touched the backs of my fingers very gently and moved to grasp them.
Holy-freaking-cow, those are cold! I thought. But I did a pretty good job of not flinching. I had always loved the feel of his cold skin, the electricity of it, but now it just felt icy and hard, like trying to hold hands with a statue—the shape was right, but there was no flexibility.
"Bella, I lied to you. And I have never been more sorry for anything in my entire life." His voice was full of pain, pain that sounded familiar. "When I left you all those months ago, I told you that I didn't love you anymore, that you were nothing to me. I'm not sure anyone on Earth has ever told such a blatant, all-out lie. A part of me wanted you to see through it, but you didn't. You believed me, believed that I was tired of you. It hurt that you believed me so changeable, but who was I to be offended?
"Oh, my love, I have spent the last months trying to move on, trying to live without you. I have existed, but I have not lived. It was worth it to me to spend eternity that way if it would keep you safe, but I was a fool to believe my absence would protect you. I was moving through Oregon a few days ago, as close as I would ever allow myself to come to Forks, in order to visit our cousins in Alaska, and I caught the scent of… well, of someone dangerous. It was a few months old, but even the fact that she's been here means I've neglected your safety. I've spent the last week trying to track the old scent, but it was only present in a heavy copse of trees that isn't disturbed by wind and rain so it hasn't washed away.
"So now I am here, offering myself to you in whatever capacity you'll have me, because I need you to be safe. Your life is my life, Bella, and without you there is no reason for me to exist at all."
I stared at him, my mind desperately trying to process his beautiful-sounding words. But nothing was coming together—it was all just a jumbled mass. Except for one thing.
"Victoria," I said. My voice sounded breathy, like a distressed-damsel in a fairy-tale movie, and I grimaced internally.
His golden eyes widened. "You know she's after you? Has she made threats against you? Have you seen her?"
I chuckled grimly, surprised at my own calm. "You could say that. She tried to kill me."
He stood instantly, frozen in a state of rage and shock. After several seconds, he finally managed to grind out a few words between his jaws of stone. "When? What happened?"
Poor thing. He seemed so overwhelmed, and I wanted to comfort him. "Don't worry, Edward. She's gone."
"Gone? Bella, you are beyond naïve if you think a vampire who's lost her mate is going to give up a scheme of revenge. Just because you haven't seen her for a while…"
"No, Edward," I interrupted, annoyed with him. Did I used to get annoyed with him? I hardly remembered. "She's gone as in dead. She's dead."
His rage disappeared in a single second, and he dropped to the floor like a rock. For a vampire, he was sometimes amazingly human-like. He sat cross-legged on the rug and stared up at me. "What? How?"
"The pack," I shrugged. "They took her down. It took some time, but I think it was just because they were still sort of young. They've got the system all figured out by now. The patrols are easier now, too, since they've added at least five more since then. Silly Jake still makes them patrol up here, too, even though I told them I'm not a specific target anymore. Anyway, you don't need to worry about her anymore."
He had gone rigid again during my speech, and he went from sitting to standing faster than I could blink. Suddenly he was towering over me, tall and angry. "The pack? As in… the Wolf Pack?"
"Yes," I said quietly, uncertain of his response. Wasn't he a part of that treaty Sam was always talking about? Why was he so angry about them? Well, the wolves all hated the Cullens pretty badly, too, whether or not they were "vegetarian" vampires.
"I should have realized… the smell… I wondered whether you'd gotten a dog… Bella, I leave for a few months and you not only get hunted by a vampire but you start hanging out with a violent, unpredictable bunch of mutts?"
"Well, Edward," I began, cowering in front of him. But then I stopped my voice and straightened my backbone. What right did he have to be angry, with me or anyone? And what's more, what right did he have to act like somehow I was his responsibility?
I stood up, forcing him to back away a few steps. "You are blaming me for this? You are blaming me for some half-cocked witch coming after me because her stupid mate wanted to make you mad? And you are blaming me for getting caught up in the middle of something that people I care about are dealing with, people who did nothing to earn their situation except be born? I don't think so. You have no right to be angry at me."
Surprise seemed to be his new favorite expression, followed by deep, agonizing remorse. "Of course, Bella. Of course it's not your fault. I didn't mean to blame you. I just worry about you so much, and you do tend to involve yourself in some of the world's most dangerous situations."
"Not because I like them," I said.
He sighed. "Well, I am glad they managed to kill Victoria. I am glad you are safe. But it will be much better for all parties concerned to renew the treaty and keep the mutts on their own land. Now that I'm back, I can protect you and you can get rid of the guard dogs." He chuckled a little at his own humor.
I didn't laugh. I was still stuck on four of his other words: Now that I'm back.
"What do you mean, 'back?'" I asked, sitting back down in my chair with a plop. I felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of me again.
"I should have thought that was obvious, Bella, love. I told you I want to protect you, and I told you that I still love you. I can't leave you again, not when there is so much danger in the world."
"You're moving back," I breathed.
I waited for a moment, just one more moment, for the burning, the meltdown, the ecstasy of joy that should come from knowing that the love of my life, the man I wanted to spend eternity with, was still in love with me and was planning on staying around forever. But I didn't wait very long.
Because it suddenly occurred to me that the sickening drop of my stomach into my shoes that had accompanied those words wasn't joy. It was dread.
I didn't want him back.
The girl I had been holding onto, the one who had almost died when he left, was still very much in love with him and always would be. But I wasn't that girl anymore. She was a part of my past as much as he was. That hole in my chest, the one that had sucked the life out of everything during the last year, had closed over without me even noticing it. I had forced myself to stop thinking of him, and it had worked so well that I hadn't even noticed the fact that I didn't want to think of him anymore. True, there was scarring, but it was part of what made me a woman now instead of that girl. It was part of what made me beautiful.
It was a little ironic that the girl who was so dazzled by his beauty eighteen months ago had been so sure she wasn't beautiful herself. And now that I knew I was, after months and months of fighting for that knowledge, he didn't seem that beautiful anymore. Still dazzling and perfect, but no longer beautiful.
As I came to these realizations, standing stock-still in the middle of my bedroom, I didn't realize that Edward was walking toward me with open arms. I didn't even know what was happening until I felt his cold arms wrap around me.
"I have missed you so much, Bella," he sighed into my hair.
"Edward," I said, trying to push out of his arms and step back. I was still familiar with what it felt like to be held by someone who couldn't even feel you press against them. I pushed harder. "Edward, I don't… I'm not ready to… Edward, please!"
He looked down at me, confused. "But Bella…"
"Edward, please let me go!"
"I don't understand…"
"It's fairly simple," said a voice from the windowsill. I felt the cold breeze from the window after the sound this time. "The lady asked you to let go, and if you don't, I will rip your arms out of their sockets."
Before I could draw breath, I found myself behind Edward, pressed between his stone cold body and the bedroom wall. One of his arms was wrapped behind my waist, just for good measure.
"Edward!" I complained. I would have pounded my fists against his back, but my arms were pinned. "Let me go. It's just Jake!"
Edward ignored me until I said Jake's name, at which he made a feral, snarling noise deep in his throat.
Jake stood on the far side of the room, leaning casually back against the window frame with his arms crossed over his chest. He was shirtless and wearing denim cut-offs, possibly his grubbiest pair, complete with oily smears and handprints mixed in with the dirt from the forest. His feet were bare and dirty, and his shaggy, short-ish hair was wild and unkempt. He was smirking at Edward in that way I always hated, like he knew something you didn't.
His dark skin, I realized for the first time, was the same color as Edward's hair, and standing backlit by the grayness from outside, he looked like a bronze statue himself—a forest elf or, with the smirk, Puck the faerie troublemaker. But the color and solidity was the only thing he had in common with a sculpture. Where Edward was cold and rock-hard, Jacob was warm and vibrant and smooth.
He was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen. "Sort of beautiful" didn't even begin to describe him.
And suddenly I felt the burning I had been expecting. The only difference was that it was Jacob making me burn. Just looking at him across the room made my knees feel weak.
But this wasn't the first time, was it? Jacob had made me feel this way for months. I had just controlled it, kept it under wraps because I was ashamed of it, worried that somehow Edward would know I was lusting after someone else, as if it were some kind of betrayal. But having just realized that it wasn't even Edward I wanted anymore had washed all the guilt away. I was free to love Jacob just the way he'd wanted me to, the way I wanted to.
Standing there, trapped between a rock and a hard place (literally), I accepted my new reality. I was in love with Jacob Black. Disgustingly in love, in fact.
"Keep away from her, Mutt," Edward snarled. "You aren't welcome here."
"I think that's Bella's job to decide," Jacob said coolly, cleaning some dirt out from under his fingernails while keeping one eye constantly on Edward. That was the only outward sign that he was concerned. Well, that and the fact that I could see him trembling, right on the verge of phasing at any second.
"You are angry, and I will not allow you to stay here when you are so close to hurting her. Leave, Dog, or I will make you leave!"
"Edward!" I yelled.
He spun his head around as if just noticing that I was there. "What?"
I locked my eyes with his, willing him to understand. "Listen to me, Edward. The only reason Jake is angry is because you are holding me against my will. If you let me go to him, he will calm down." I sent a questioning look to Jacob and he nodded slowly.
"You are not going anywhere near him…"
"Fine!" I interrupted. I wanted to rip his head off myself. Stupid, deaf, stubborn vampire! "Just let me walk back over to my chair. I will sit down, you will stay here, and he will stay there, all right?"
"Bella," Jacob said, starting to argue.
"Work with what we get, Jake!" I warned.
"Fine."
Edward stared at Jacob for a few more seconds. "If you hurt her, you will die."
"If I hurt her, you are welcome to kill me," Jake sighed, rolling his eyes.
Finally, slowly, Edward stepped away from the wall just enough for me to slide out from behind him. I was cold and stiff for a moment, so as I walked toward the chair, I shook my limbs out and grabbed the comforter off my bed to wrap around my shoulders.
After sitting down and arranging my blanket, making a show of taking too long so I could buy a few more seconds to think, I turned to Edward. He was staring at my blanket.
Hadn't he always made me cold? I was near to shivering now, but I didn't think that would help the situation. Well, I suppose before I was always so jazzed by being near him that it kept my blood running a little warmer. Now the only thing coursing through me when I saw him was irritation.
"Now," I said, trying to sound reasonable and calm, "we are all going to behave like gentlemen, right?"
Edward stood a little straighter. "Of course."
"Sure, sure," Jake shrugged. But their eyes stayed locked on one another.
I sighed.
"As a gentleman," Edward said with deep emphasis, "I am asking for a few minutes alone with the lady. We were having a personal conversation, and neither of us appreciates the interruption. You know she is safe with me."
"You know," Jake said slowly, "I don't know that. You could have hurt her just now, and I'm really not okay with that. I'm not going anywhere."
"Jake," I said slowly, a hint of a plea in my voice.
"Bella," he said, his eyes still on Edward, "he was half-crushing you just now. Please don't ask me to leave. I can't vouch for my behavior if I can't see that you're okay."
Really, he was right. Edward had frightened me a little with his intensity, and I wanted Jake near me.
"I'm sorry, Edward," I said, feeling guilty. I glanced toward Jacob fondly. "The dog stays."
Jake's answering grin made my heart skip a beat.
Edward's eyes snapped to my chest, but I knew right away that I wasn't being ogled. He had heard the sound of my heart responding to Jacob's smile. My heart had told him what I hadn't been sure how to explain.
He looked into my eyes, his face cautious and uncertain again. "Bella?"
"I'm sorry," I repeated. I wanted to look away from him, to avoid his expression as I said the words that would end every hope I'd thought existed for my future, but he deserved my complete honesty. "I'm not yours anymore."
I rushed on, trying to beat the wave of agony I saw rising in his face. "When you left, when you lied and said you didn't love me anymore, I believed you, and it destroyed me. I spent those months empty, a shell of a person, just getting up and breathing each day because that was the right thing to do."
Edward's eyes suddenly snapped to Jacob's. Jacob's face was pained, but Edward's expression melted into a nothingness of anguish. He fell to his knees and rubbed violently at his face, as if he were trying to escape his own skin. I stared at him, not knowing what was going on.
Finally his misery abated, and Jacob's face cleared. Then I connected: Jacob had been showing him what I had been like during those months, my emptiness. Jacob had remembered what I said about Edward reading minds and used it like a weapon.
"Jacob!" I admonished, shocked. "Why did you…"
"He wanted to know," he said darkly. "He deserved to know what things were like after he left."
"I'm so sorry, Bella," Edward whispered. "I never realized that things would be so hard for you. If I had I would never have left."
"But you did," Jacob said harshly.
Edward nodded despondently. "But I am back now, back to make things right. And I swear, Bella, that I will never leave you again."
"Edward," I said. It wasn't until I spoke and heard my voice crack that I realized tears were running down my face. I didn't want to watch Edward suffer anymore, but just as Jacob thought he deserved to see the truth of what happened to me, I knew that he deserved the rest of my honesty. "I got through it. I finally started to wake up, to want to put the pieces of my life back together. I went to Jake, looking for some help with… something…"
"Motorcycles?" Edward gasped, standing back up and starting to stride toward me. Jacob growled at him, and he backed off, clenching his hands at his sides. "What were you…? Bella, that was so foolish!"
"Jacob, would you stop thinking?" I asked, knowing the plea was useless. I forgot how annoying it was the Edward could read everyone else's minds. At least he couldn't read mine.
Jacob shrugged again, chuckling. "Sorry, Bells. Those were good times in some ways."
I couldn't help but smile softly. "True." Then I got back to business. "Anyway, Jake started putting my pieces back together. He showed me that even though things were dark, there was always a sun behind the clouds and that if I waited long enough, the sunlight would come peeking through. Things got hard again when Jake and the guys started phasing—there was so much we didn't understand—but it turned out to be a good thing they could do it. They killed Victoria."
"And kept Bella from killing herself," Jacob added in cheerful emphasis.
"Cliff diving?" Edward choked, seeing Jacob's thoughts again. "Alone?"
"I didn't do it," I said defensively, crossing my arms over my chest.
"'Cuz I stopped you."
"Shut it, Jake!"
"Sorry."
I wanted to hit him. Then hug him. Then hit him again.
"And now, for the last few months, I've been… well, I'm happy," I said. I was still surprised that I hadn't realized it before. It was so easy to take it for granted again. "I'm in college, and I'm working at Newton's, and Charlie has started dating again, and everything is just… really good."
Edward was staring at me, waiting for the punch line, so I gave it to him.
"The point is that I learned to live without you, Edward. Not just to live, but to be happy. I am happy with my life as it is. I don't belong to you anymore, and I am a different person now, one who could never be happy with you."
We were all silent, waiting for Edward to digest my words. Finally, as if waking from a daze, he said, "You did as I asked, Bella. You moved on."
I couldn't argue with him. "I am sorry to hurt you, Edward."
"There are just two questions I would like to ask before I go, and then I swear I will leave. The first is this: if I had never left, would we still be together now?"
"Yes," I said easily. The answer was simple—no force on earth other than Edward himself would have been strong enough to break my addiction to him. "And since it was my plan all along, I probably would have been one of you by now, either because I'd managed to convince you or gotten Carlisle to agree to help me."
I saw Jake cringe, but I ignored him for now. Edward cringed, too, as if I'd just pricked him with a sharp stick. "Then I will try to be grateful for small blessings. I would never have wanted you to be one of us, Bella. You are too vibrant and alive to die so young."
"Here, here," Jake echoed.
"The second question is this: is there any chance that your feelings will change? If I waited, gave you time…"
"Maybe," I said thoughtfully, a little sad, "if things were different. But as they are now, no, my feelings won't change. I don't want us back. I don't want to be that girl again."
Edward nodded. "Then one more question, and I will leave. Bella, is there someone else? Someone you have found to take my place? I truly don't know what I want the answer to be, but I want you to be happy."
I narrowed my eyes. How could he not already know the answer to this? Standing here in the room with Jake, after everything I'd already said... I looked over toward Jacob, who was avoiding my eyes and humming under his breath. Suddenly I realized just how amazing Jacob was. He'd had several months now to practice keeping his thoughts exactly where he wanted them. All the pack members agreed that Jake was the best at keeping secrets from them, especially his own, because he had learned to keep his thoughts away from dangerous topics when he was phased. That's what he was doing for me now—allowing me to share just as much as I wanted and no more.
I was suddenly overwhelmed with my love for him. He could be so frustrating and immature sometimes, but he was growing up, and he was so good and loving and strong in all the right ways. He was everything I had ever wanted without knowing it.
"Yes, Edward," I managed to croak, despite the fact that I was choked up again. "There is someone else."
"And does he take good care of you?"
"When I need it. But he also knows when to leave me alone."
"Are you in love with him?"
"Very much," I whispered reverently.
That did it. Jacob's eyes snapped to me. I had broken his concentration, and the quick glimpse I got of Edward's face before Jake's eyes swallowed me told me that Jake's thought-dam had broken and he was seeing all the images of the two of us from the last few months. Now Edward knew that Jake and I now spent nearly every moment together that we could manage, that nights when we'd been busy in the day he came and stole a few hours of sleep in my room, that a few months ago I had finally given into Jake's insistence that we try dating and that I had discovered quickly that I liked it very much.
Now Edward knew that it was Jake I was kissing. He knew that it was Jake's name I muttered in my sleep and Jake's name that I moaned when we'd gotten too carried away in the cab of my truck and both needed to stand in the freezing rain just to cool back off.
He knew all of it, but as I looked into Jake's eyes that night, I barely gave Edward's knowledge a second thought. Because a knowing of my own sort was hitting me. When Jacob had stepped into my room a few minutes before, I had realized that my feelings for Edward had changed the way I felt about Jake, but standing there, staring into his eyes, having him know it, too, was completely overwhelming. I was burning and melting and singing and coming alive all at once.
Somehow, through all the waiting and the uncertainty Jake had suffered during the last year, he had been patient with me, never pressuring me to answer back when he whispered, "I love you," into my hair before saying goodbye. Even after all the kissing, he knew I was uncertain.
But there was no more uncertainty now. I loved him, and he loved me, and we both knew it and trusted it and reveled in it. "I love you, Jake," I whispered .
Then his arms were around me, further igniting the burning. "Oh, Bella. Bella, Bella, Bella." He said my name over and over again, like a prayer.
Finally he pulled back from me just enough to cup my face in his hands and bring my eyes up to his. "How did this happen, Bells?"
My eyes roved over his face, the thirsty, dying man finally getting just the right amount of water. "What, Jake?"
"I just imprinted on you," he breathed.
I noticed that his face was wet with tears. Then I registered what he'd said.
"How? I mean, why now?"
"Because your heart is ready for him," Edward said miserably.
Our heads both snapped to look at him where he'd slid down against the far wall of the bedroom. He was still here? I felt a little guilty, but really, what did he expect?
He laughed darkly at our shocked expressions. "Have any of the other wolves imprinted on someone who was in love with someone else? Your memories—Sam's heart changed, but Emily's didn't. She was free to love him back. Kim's heart was Jared's already. Rachel was unattached. Now that Bella is… freed of me, you could…" he stumbled, then pressed on determinedly, "claim her heart."
I was suffused with warmth. One of the hardest parts about being with Jacob had always been that I knew he might leave me at any moment, not of his own volition but it would have ended the same way, with me losing him. Only tonight, when I had seen Edward, had I forgotten about the imprint long enough to let myself love him without reserve.
Jacob's only answer was to pull me tighter against him and bury his head against my neck. I wanted to do the same, but there was one thing left to do.
"Edward, I'm sorry, but… thank you. Thank you for everything, for loving me, and for being honest with me. And thank you for letting me grow up."
Edward smiled sadly again. "That's my cue, isn't it?"
In a flash he was on the windowsill with the window open. Jake's head was up again, watching him.
"Be happy, Bella."
He turned away.
"You can be happy, too, Edward."
He didn't look back at me. "You really think so?"
"I do. I believe you are still human enough to want to be happy. Your heart will allow that, too. I think it may just take… longer."
"Perhaps forever."
"No." I shook my head emphatically. "Not forever."
He was silent for a moment, and then he moved to jump. "Goodbye, Bella."
One moment he was there, and the next he was gone, and the window was closed behind him.
"Goodbye, Edward," I whispered.
For just a moment, I felt a darkness, an uncertainty about whether I had made the right choice. I thought of my eternity with Edward, the two of us beautiful and young and graceful forever, surrounded by his family, seeing the world changing around us but always staying the same, together. I felt a longing for that future I had desired so much before.
But as I gazed at the beautiful picture in my head, I realized how empty it seemed. Eight people, spending eternity together. Only eight. No Charlie, no Renee, no Jacob. No Jacob. No Billy and Quil and Embry and Seth and Sam and… No one else, not ever.
Had I just consigned Edward to an eternity of loneliness? I didn't know, and even the possibility broke my heart, but I knew that unlike him, I had a choice, and my choice could never be that. I wanted the change and the shift and the sprawling network of friends and family and co-workers and enemies and acquaintances that made up a normal human life. I wanted to live and age and die.
And I wanted to do it with Jacob.
I turned back to face him, our arms still around each other. He gazed at me with so much emotion that my tears started rolling again without conscious thought. He was adoring and relieved and flabbergasted and overwhelmed, and seeing those feelings on his face brought them home to me. I leaned into him and cried into his chest as he wrapped his arms tightly around me and rested his chin on top of my head.
"It'll be all right, Bells," he said quietly into my ear. "You'll heal again."
I looked up at him sharply, drying my tears on my sleeve—well, technically his sleeve, since the gigantic orange sweatshirt was his. "Jake, I'm not crying because I'm sad! I'm just too happy. I feel guilty about it because Edward is so sad, but I just can't stop feeling happy! I love you! I love you, and it's okay, and everyone knows everything, and Edward isn't coming back again to take me away, so I can stay here for always and be happy with you!"
I'd watched Jake's smile grow with every word I said, and as I finished, he was beaming like the sunshine I knew he was. "You really want me, Bells? You really chose me over your bloodsucker?"
I ignored the insult. Now was not the time to nitpick. And honestly, Edward had been kind of a jerk tonight. And before. And back when we were together, honestly, always bossing me around and telling me what was good for me…
Anyway, I ignored the insult. "Are you an idiot, Jake? Isn't it obvious? I'm in love with you! I'm so in love with you that even while I'm breaking up with my ex-boyfriend I need to feel you beside me! I just chose a measly eighty or so years of getting old and fat with you over an eternity of perfect vampirehood! I'm not going anywhere!"
"Good," he grinned. "Because you're my imprint now, and it means that if you leave, I'll just follow you around like a lost puppy."
I rolled my eyes, and then I gave him my best sultry look. "I know just the thing to do with lost puppies, you know."
I hadn't thought he could get more intense, more focused on me, but he zeroed in like a targeting computer and kept my eyes locked in his. "Do you now?"
I blushed at the thought of what I wanted to say, but everything had changed tonight, and I wanted him to know it. Always before, it had been him making the advances, him kissing me, him telling me how beautiful or tempting he thought I was. Now I wanted it to be my turn.
"Of course." I ran my hands up the sides of his face and twisted my fingers into his hair. "First you scratch him behind the ears, so he knows you're friendly."
Jake closed his eyes and cocked his head to the side, limp with pleasure.
"Then you give him the best food you've got, make sure he's got a full belly."
Jake sniffed the air, then opened his eyes with a grin. "Your lasagna's almost done, I think."
I nodded, smiling. "Then you make a bed for him in your room…"
He eyed my bed hopefully.
"On the floor in the corner."
He pouted adorably, but his eyes were sparkling with laughter. "Then you take him outside and let him pee."
I snorted, then blushed, and we both laughed joyfully. After a few moments, we calmed.
"And then you settle him in," I said quietly, "make sure he's warm and fed and cozy, and just as he's looking really sleepy, you pet his head softly and whisper, 'Don't worry, little pup. Your home is here now. With me."
The look he gave me set fire to the burning in my chest again. I raised his hand between us and rested his palm on my heart.
"Home," he whispered, gazing at his hand.
"Home."
Then his lips were on mine, and there was warmth and fire and vibrancy and life all inside us, and it was a good thing he was so agile because only a supernatural creature could have made it all the way down the stairs to turn off the beeping oven timer while his girlfriend was kissing him with complete abandon.
Later, when I was alone, I would think of Edward, of his pain and emptiness, of the agonizing misery of never forgetting, being unable to move past your pain because it is as present every moment as it was the moment it began. I would cry for his regret, for his knowledge that in trying to do what he had thought was best for me, he had removed himself from my life forever. I would cry for his half-humanity, and for his could-have-been's.
And I would cry for the fact that even in my deepest suffering for Edward's pain, Jake would sneak into my room in the dead of night, wrap his arms around me and snore in my ear, and deaden my misery.
But Edward had said he wanted me to be happy, and in this last thing, I would do what he had told me. I would be happy. And all I could do was hope that someday he would be, too.