I thought about what Jacob had said early this morning, about hypocrisy. I thought about that for a long time. I didn't like to think that I was a hypocrite, only what was the point of lying to myself?
I curled into a tight ball. No, Edward wasn't a killer. Even in his darker past, he'd never been a murderer of innocents, at least.
But what if he had been? What if, during the time I that I'd known him, he'd been just like any other vampire? What if people had been disappearing from the woods, just like now? Would that have kept me away from him?
I shook my head sadly. Love is irrational, I reminded myself. The more you loved someone, the less sense anything made.
I rolled over and tried to think of something else–and I thought of Jacob and his brothers, out running in the darkness. I fell asleep imagining the wolves, invisible in the night, guarding me from danger. When I dreamed, I stood in the forest again, but I didn't wander. I was holding Emily's scarred hand as we faced into the shadows and waited anxiously for our werewolves to come home.
15 PRESSURE
IT WAS SPRING BREAK IN FORKS AGAIN. WHEN I WOKE UP on Monday morning, I lay in bed for a few seconds absorbing that. Last spring break, I'd been hunted by a vampire, too. I hoped this wasn't some kind of tradition forming.
Already I was falling into the pattern of things in La Push. I'd spent Sunday mostly on the beach, while Charlie hung out with Billy at the Blacks' house. I was supposed to be with Jacob, but Jacob had other things to do, so I wandered alone, keeping the secret from Charlie.
When Jacob dropped in to check on me, he apologized for ditching me so much. He told me his schedule wasn't always this crazy, but until Victoria was stopped, the wolves were on red alert.
When we walked along the beach now, he always held my hand.
This made me brood over what Jared had said, about Jacob involving his "girlfriend." I supposed that that was exactly what it looked like from the outside. As long as Jake and I knew how it really was, I shouldn't let those kinds of assumptions bother me. And maybe they wouldn't, if I hadn't known that Jacob would have loved for things to be what they appeared. But his hand felt nice as it warmed mine, and I didn't protest.
I worked Tuesday afternoon–Jacob followed me on his bike to make sure I arrived safely–and Mike noticed.
"Are you dating that kid from La Push? The sophomore?" He asked, poorly disguising the resentment in his tone.
I shrugged. "Not in the technical sense of the word. I do spent most of my time with Jacob, though. He's my best friend."
Mike's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Don't kid yourself, Bella. The guy's head over heels for you."
"I know," I sighed. "Life is complicated."
"And girls are cruel," Mike said under his breath.
I supposed that was an easy assumption to make, too.
That night, Sam and Emily joined Charlie and me for dessert at Billy's house. Emily brought a cake that would have won over a harder man than Charlie. I could see, as the conversation flowed naturally through a range of casual subjects, that any worries Charlie might have harbored about gangs in La Push were being dissolved.
Jake and I skipped out early, to get some privacy. We went out to his garage and sat in the Rabbit. Jacob leaned his head back, his face drawn with exhaustion. "You need some sleep, Jake." "I'll get around to it." He reached over and took my hand. His skin was blazing on mine. "Is that one of those wolf things?" I asked him. "The heat, I mean."
"Yeah. We run a little warmer than the normal people. About one-oh-eight, one-oh-nine. I never get cold anymore. I could stand like this"–he gestured to his bare torso–"in a snowstorm and it wouldn't bother me. The flakes would turn to rain where I stood."
"And you all heal fast–that's a wolf thing, too?"
"Yeah, wanna see? It's pretty cool." His eyes flipped open and he grinned. He reached around me to the glove compartment and dug around for a minute. His hand came out with a pocketknife.
"No, I do not want to see!" I shouted as soon as I realized what he was thinking. "Put that away!"
Jacob chuckled, but shoved the knife back where it belonged. "Fine. It's a good thing we heal, though. You can't go see just any doctor when you're running a temperature that should mean you're dead."
"No, I guess not." I thought about that for a minute. "… And being so big–that's part of it? Is that why you're all worried about Quil?"
"That and the fact that Quil's grandfather says the kid could fry an egg on his forehead." Jacob's face turned hopeless. "It won't be long now. There's no exact age… it just builds and builds and then suddenly–" He broke off, and it was a moment before he could speak again. "Sometimes, if you get really upset or something, that can trigger it early. But I wasn't upset about anything–I was happy." He laughed bitterly. "Because of you, mostly. That's why it didn't happen to me sooner. Instead it just kept on building up inside me–I was like a time bomb. You know what set me off? I got back from that movie and Billy said I looked weird. That was all, but I just snapped. And then I–I exploded. I almost ripped his face off–my own father!" He shuddered, and his face paled.