She's gone. She left.

I honestly didn't think she would leave like that.

Not when I was begging her not to, for Charlie, for me.

Oh God. I begged. I actually begged.

I groaned, buried my face in my hands.

I wished I hadn't tried to stop her at all, let alone pleaded the way I did, clinging onto her arm, almost turning on the damn waterworks.

I wished I'd just let her go, nodded and told her I'd take care of Charlie, see her when she got back.

See you later, Bells, have a nice time saving your bloodsucker boyfriend and/or getting yourself killed. Pick me up a snow globe.

If I'd just let her go like that I could still pretend she cared.

I could still pretend she would have stayed for me if I'd asked.

I was not enjoying this new clarity. Knowing for sure that all Bella Swan had for me were looks – grateful, guilty, wistful, sad, sweet, even torn – they were all just a shift of facial muscles, useless thoughts behind her eyes.

Edward Cullen. He got the action.

I shook my head, grinned bitterly at my own thoughts.

Not that kind of action. Well, not just that kind of action.

He got her running after him, little feet flying to the car, like she'd never half-killed herself by tripping over them.

The fucker left her, left her in the woods, alone. She could have been killed. She could have gotten lost, starved to death. The bloodsuckers hadn't known about Sam's abilities, nobody had. There was every chance she would never have been found if he hadn't been able to catch her scent the way only a werewolf could. She would have just stayed where she fell and wasted away and I never would have had the chance to know her, to make her smile again, to fall in –

I punched the ground and Maybe it would have been better that way slid nastily into my mind before I could stop it. Immediately, my hand was pressing against my mouth, knuckles still smarting a little from the contact with the earth, palm tingling hopelessly where she had kissed it…

Shut up. That's not the point.

I inched my hand away, exhaled shakily.

The point was he'd left her for dead, he hadn't even cared enough to make sure she was safe, but now that he'd thrown his sparkly ass on the cross, Bella was off to Europe, arms wide open.

I had to wonder whether maybe I should just try treating her like crap, see where that got me.

I found myself pressing a hand to my mouth again, thinking Whatever, it's too late for games now. It's too late.

I tried to breathe slowly, closed my eyes, let my hand drop, my lips part slightly.

If only.

If only I hadn't answered the goddamn phone.

My fingers tensed as I pictured myself ripping the cord out, throwing the receiver over my shoulder and –

kissing her, bella bella bella, small and tight against my body and she'd be scared at first, confused, but then she'd want me too and she'd sigh, tangle her little hands in my hair and -

I punched the ground again, three times, four, five, felt the earth quiver under me. A flock of dull, gray birds fled screeching from a nearby tree.

Good. Fuck off. Fly to Italy.

I gritted my teeth, whistled out a sigh.

What the hell was I doing, sitting here stark naked in the woods, pining and moping, like the whole thing had been so much more than a stupid crush on a girl who was only ever using me to pass the time while she waited for him?

Screw this.

I phased again, ran.

Someone else was out with me now. Quil.

Great. There was no way I was going to be able to stop him hearing something, which would mean he'd try and talk to me about it later.

I didn't want to talk. There was no point in talking. Besides I was pretty sure that it would only lead to my being subjected to a chorus of I told you so's from the pack - pure torture, however sympathetic they might be.

It was irritating and useless and yeah they had told me so, so I'd heard it all before anyway.

The girl's messed up, Jake, you don't wanna go there.

Yeah, man. She's cute and I like her and all, but she has the hots for a leech. That's just… nuts. Anyway if that's the kind of kinky shit she's into, she's not going to go for a guy like you.

She'd miss the blood breath too much.

I could take all of that. I'd just rolled my eyes, let it roll of me. Water off a duck's back, whatever.

But then there had been Sam, putting on his best Calm and Authoritative voice and saying She's not your imprint, Jacob.

She's not my imprint? Brilliant argument. I'm over it now.

Sam acted like no one had ever been able to love anyone without a little werewolf magic.

Idiot.

Just because Emily worshipped him, he thought he was the big relationship guru, dispensing his infinite wisdom, which basically amounted to Sit around and wait till you imprint.

Idiot.

I realized I was running much faster now that I had been, and not in any particular direction. I was seething and I knew Quil had to be hearing all of it.

Well let him hear it. Maybe if he caught it all now, he wouldn't feel the need to start asking questions later.

No such luck.

I'd been home less than an hour, just the time to shower, scrub the dirt off myself, head back downstairs, eat half a loaf of bread, and most importantly, stare at the wall feeling angry.

I'd been home less than an hour when Quil showed up.

I rolled my eyes when I opened the door.

"Quil, what a surprise."

"Hey Jake," he stood at the threshold, rocking on his heels like he was nervous. "So Bella left? Is that it?"

I sort of laughed, more snorted. "Ah, it's no big deal. She's just gone to pick up her boyfriend, she'll be back." I cocked my head to one side. "Unless she dies. Want a soda?"

Quil raised his eyebrows a little. "Uh, sure."

I ambled over to the fridge and pulled out two cans.

Cold soda. That's the way it's meant to be, okay?

Quil opened his can slowly, gingerly, like he was trying to minimize the cracking sound.

"So she's… the Cullens are coming back? Cos Sam's really not gonna like that."

"Well Sam can just deal with it." I growled, lashing out before I realized I should really be on his side about that.

I shook my head, rubbed at my eyes. "Look, I don't even know what's gonna happen. Edward's in Italy getting himself killed because he thinks Bella's dead. She's gone to find him because apparently a phone call won't do. Maybe they'll come back, maybe they'll go somewhere else. Maybe they'll go out together in a blaze of glory and people will write songs about them and shit. The possibilities are endless."

Quil sipped his soda, nodded thoughtfully. "You don't think maybe she'll find him and say 'Hey, I'm alive, see you later' and just, you know, come home?"

I had to chuckle at that little idea. "She's not over him. How many times did you guys tell me that?"

Quil nodded again. "Right, but he's over her, isn't he? I mean, he left, so - "

I scoffed. "Yeah, he's so over her that he can't live in a world without her in it. I think when you're committing suicide over a girl, you haven't moved on."

Quil wasn't going to let it go. "I see what you mean, sure, okay. But there's still gotta be a reason he left."

I thought about that for a moment. Quil was right. Even if the bloodsucker was still into Bella, there had to have been a reason why he'd left her. Maybe the same reason would keep him away now, maybe he'd just send her home and go on his merry way and she'd just –

Shut up. That's not the point.

The point was that she still wanted him. After everything, after all this time, everything we'd lived together. Bella still wanted the bloodsucker more than anything. Way more than me. Hell she'd probably stumble over my corpse to get to him.

Of course if I was lucky I might get a pitying glance along the way.

I gave the fridge a swift kick, looked around guiltily for Billy even though I knew he wasn't home.

"Jake?" Quil asked quietly. "Are you gonna be okay? Cos one of us needs to go tell Sam what we know, even if it isn't much."

I kicked the fridge again in defiance to my own guilty conscience. There was a nice little dent in the side now. I muttered "Sure, sure. I'll go," while I admired my handiwork.

Or you know, feetiwork. What-the-fuck-ever.

I sort of hated Emily Young-soon-to-be-Uley.

It was unfair really, because she'd never been anything but relentlessly sweet to me - to everyone really, unless you counted the whole debacle with Leah.

I'd tried to tell myself that that was where the attitude came from – that I had issues with her because she'd shacked up with the love of her cousin's life. But that wasn't it, that couldn't be it. Leah and I weren't exactly close and well, karma had already done a nice – or heinous, depending on which way you looked at it – job of making Emily pay for that.

Scars. Leah's were all bitterness and bitchiness. Emily wore hers on the outside.

I was watching her while we waited for Sam and she brought out a tray of muffins and lemonade, gave me a smile that would have been beautiful.

The tragedy of her face didn't move me, neither did her absolute sincerity or her lemonade or her freaking muffins. For some reason she just pissed me off.

The weird thing was that I hadn't always felt this way about her. Back when she and Sam first got together and everyone talked about how Leah was broken and wouldn't come out of her room, before I knew anything about werewolves and the whole imprinting excuse and just figured Sam was an asshole and Emily was a bit of a bitch, I didn't hate her like this. I kind of used to think she was the ideal woman actually, mostly on account of her mad baking skills.

But now there was something about the image of her in this kitchen, wiping floury hands on her apron and humming in that contented way people who have what they want hum, that made me want to trash the place.

It was ironic that it was only since the whole wolf thing had sunk in, since I'd understood why Sam was the way he was and why he and Emily had betrayed Leah like that, that I'd started to develop this weird, simmering resentment.

And it was worse now that Bella was gone, now that I could feel myself losing her.

The stupid little crumbs you had anyway.

It was worse because they were so fucking happy and cute and made-for-each-other and that was how Bella and I… screw imprinting, that was how we should be.

And it was worse because Sam was smug and Emily was smug even if she didn't know it. They were both so smug and our-love-is-better and it pissed me off that maybe they were right. Maybe it didn't matter how much I adored Bella, how much I craved her, it didn't matter that I would live and die for her… that wasn't irresistible for her like it had been for Emily.

It wasn't irresistible like Cullen.

My love was nothing compared to his. Hell, my love was nothing compared to the lack of his.