I wasn't sure, when I woke in the dark, if I'd just begun crying, or if my tears had run while I slept and simply continued now. I stared at my dark ceiling. I could feel that it was the middle of the night–I was still half-asleep, maybe more than half. I closed my eyes wearily and prayed for a dreamless sleep.
That's when I heard the noise that must have wakened me in the first place. Something sharp scraped along the length of my window with a high-pitched squeal, like fingernails against the glass.
12. INTRUDER
MY EYES FLEW WIDE OPEN WITH FRIGHT, THOUGH I WAS so exhausted and muddled that I was not yet positive whether I was awake or asleep.
Something scratched against my window again with the same thin, high-pitched sound. Confused and clumsy with sleep, I stumbled out of my bed and to the window, blinking the lingering tears from my eyes on the way.
A huge, dark shape wobbled erratically on the other side of the glass, lurching toward me like it was going to smash right through. I staggered back, terrified, my throat closing around a scream.
Victoria.
She'd come for me.
I was dead.
Not Charlie, too!
I choked back the building scream. I would have to keep quiet through this. Somehow. I had to keep Charlie from coming to investigate…
And then a familiar, husky voice called from the dark shape.
"Bella!" it hissed. "Ouch! Damn it, open the window! OUCH!"
I needed two seconds to shake off the horror before I could move, but then I hurried to the window and shoved the glass out of the way. The clouds were dimly lit from behind, enough for me to make sense of the shapes.
"What are you doing?" I gasped.
Jacob was clinging precariously to the top of the spruce that grew in the middle of Charlie's little front yard. His weight had bowed the tree toward the house and he now swung–his legs dangling twenty feet above the ground–not a yard away from me. The thin branches at the tip of the tree scraped against the side of the house again with a grating squeal.
"I'm trying to keep"–he huffed, shifting his weight as the treetop bounced him–"my promise!" I blinked my wet blurry eyes, suddenly sure that I was dreaming.
"When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie's tree?"
He snorted, unamused, swinging his legs to improve his balance. "Get out of the way," he ordered.
"What?" He swung his legs again, backwards and forward, increasing his momentum. I realized what he was ttying to do.
"No, Jake!" But I ducked to the side, aecause it was too late. With a grunt, he launched himself toward my open window.
Another scream built in my throat as I waited for him to fall to his death–or at least maim himself against the wooden siding. To my shock, he swung agilely into my room, landing on the balls of his feet with a low thud.
We both looked to the door automatically, holding our breath, waiting to see if the noise had woken Charlie. A short moment of silence passed, and then we heard the muffled sound of Charlie's snore.
A wide grin spread slowly across Jacob's face; he seemed extremely pleased with himself. It wasn't the grin that I knew and loved–it was a new grin, one that was a bitter mockery of his old sincerity, on the new face that belonged to Sam.
That was a bit much for me.
I'd cried myself to sleep over this boy. His harsh rejection had punched a painful new hole in what was left of my chest. He'd left a new nightmare behind him, like an infection in a sore–the insult after the injury. And now he was here in my room, smirking at me as if none of that had passed. Worse than that, even though his arrival had been noisy and awkward, it reminded me of when Edward used to sneak in through my window at night, and the reminder picked viciously at the unhealed wounds.
All of this, coupled with the fact that I was dog-tired, did not put me in a friendly mood. "Get out!" I hissed, putting as much venom into the whisper as I could.
He blinked, his face going blank with surprise.
"No," he protested. "I came to apologize."
"I don't accept!"
I tried to shove him back out the window–after all, if this was a dream, it wouldn't really hurt him. It was useless, though. I didn't budge him an inch. I dropped my hands quickly, and stepped away from him.
He wasn't wearing a shirt, though the air blowing in the window was cold enough to make me shiver, and it made me uncomfortable to have my hands on his bare chest. His skin was burning hot, like his head had been the last time I'd touched him. Like he was still sick with the fever.
He didn't look sick. He looked huge. He leaned over me, so big that he blacked out the window, tongue-tied by my furious reaction.