"I suppose," Bella said. "Still, I'll have to meet him before I really understand my feelings."
But it was enough for her to risk her life to sit here with me. To do so gladly.
Enough to cause her pain if I did the right thing and left her.
Bella groaned at that.
Was there anything I could do now that would not hurt her? Anything at all?
I should have stayed away. I should never have come back to Forks. I would cause her nothing but pain.
Would that stop me from staying now? From making it worse?
Bella grimaced, but now she was determined... she was going to have to make it clear to him that leaving wasn't an option. Of course how she was going to do that was the more difficult problem.
The way I felt right now, feeling her warmth against my skin...
No. Nothing would stop me.
"Ah," I groaned to myself. "This is wrong."
"What did I say?" she asked, quick to take the blame on herself.
"Don't you see, Bella? It's one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved. I don't want to hear that you feel that way."
It was the truth, it was a lie. The most selfish part of me was flying with the knowledge that she wanted me as I wanted her. "It's wrong. It's not safe. I'm dangerous, Bella - please, grasp that."
"No." Her lips pouted out petulantly.
Jacob laughed at that, "Sorry man...but you're not going to get through that thick skull of hers."
Bella rolled her eyes, though Jacob was right about that statement.
"I'm serious." I was battling with myself so strongly - half desperate for her to accept, half desperate to keep the warnings from escaping - that the words came through my teeth as a growl.
"So am I," she insisted. "I told you, it doesn't matter what you are. It's too late."
"You probably should have picked better words than too late," Jacob said.
"Whatever," Bella said.
Too late? The world was bleakly black and white for one endless second as I watched the shadows crawl across the sunny lawn toward Bella's sleeping form in my memory. Inevitable, unstoppable. They stole the color from her skin, and plunged her into darkness.
Too late? Alice's vision swirled in my head, Bella's blood red eyes staring back at me impassively. Expressionless - but there was no way that she could not hate me for that future. Hate me for stealing everything from her. Stealing her life and her soul.
Jacob grimaced; he did not like these semi constant reminders of Bella becoming a vampire. It helped that Edward was so dead set against it, but still... it seemed like this was an eventuality that he really didn't want to happen.
Bella, on the other hand, was disagreeing with what Edward thought, believing that if she was a vampire in the future... it would be her choice. She knew better than to voice this thought though, Jacob looked tense enough as it was.
It could not be too late.
"Never say that," I hissed.
She stared out her window, and her teeth bit into her lip again. Her hands were balled into tight fists in her lap. Her breathing hitched and broke.
"What are you thinking?" I had to know.
She shook her head without looking at me. I saw something glisten, like a crystal, on her cheek.
"Y..." Jacob was about to make a comment about this, but stopped himself.
Agony. "Are you crying?" I'd made her cry. I'd hurt her that much.
She scrubbed the tears away with the back of her hand.
"No," she lied, her voice breaking.
Some long buried instinct had me reaching out toward her - in that one second I felt more human than I ever had. And then I remembered that I was...not. And I lowered my hand.
"You're human to me," Bella said, it would be nice if he comforted her there, though she wasn't sure if she was sad or angry... she cried when she's both.
"I'm sorry," I said, my jaw locked. How could I ever tell her how sorry I was?
Sorry for all the stupid mistakes I'd made. Sorry for my never-ending selfishness. Sorry that she was so unfortunate as to have inspired this first, tragic love of mine. Sorry also for the things beyond my control - that I'd been the monster chosen by fate to end her life in the first place.
I took a deep breath - ignoring my wretched reaction to the flavor in the car - and tried to collect myself.
I wanted to change the subject, to think of something else. Lucky for me, my curiosity about the girl was insatiable. I always had a question.
"Tell me something," I said.
"Yes?" she asked huskily, tears still in her voice.
"What were you thinking tonight, just before I came around the corner? I couldn't understand your expression - you didn't look that scared, you looked like you were concentrating very hard on something." I remembered her face - forcing myself to forget whose eyes I was looking through - the look of determination there.
"I was trying to remember how to incapacitate an attacker," she said, her voice more composed. "You know, self defense. I was going to smash his nose into his brain."
Jacob laughed at the comment, though it was a dark laugh, knowing the danger she had been in. "Don't you think running would have been better?"
"I trip when I run," Bella sighed.
"Oh," Jacob grimaced this time. "That does suck... at least you know defense techniques."
Her composure did not last to the end of her explanation. Her tone twisted until it seethed with hate. This was no hyperbole, and her kittenish fury was not humorous now.
I could see her frail figure - just silk over glass - overshadowed by the meaty, heavy fisted human monsters who would have hurt her. The fury boiled in the back of my head.