I woke screaming.
The sound tore from my throat, raw and desperate, before I could smother it with the pillow. My chest heaved, my arms curled tightly around my ribs as if I could hold myself together through sheer force.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, trembling in the dark. Long enough for the images to fade—but not the feeling. The terror. The loss. The ache.
It lingered.
Eventually, I pulled myself out of bed and limped into the bathroom, dragging the pain with me like a shadow I couldn’t shake. The cast on my leg made everything harder. Every step was a reminder that even my body had been broken lately.
I ran the water and sank into the tub, my injured leg stretched awkwardly over the side. The water wasn’t quite hot enough to numb anything, but I didn’t bother adjusting it. I just needed to feel something other than the emptiness clawing through my chest.
That dream had been different.
Not the usual quiet search, the endless wandering through woods that never ended. No, this one had been worse. More vivid. Real in the kind of way that left a residue.
I’d watched him die.
The fire. The cloaked figures. The finality of it.
It didn’t matter that they’d turned on me next. That part hadn’t even registered. Because once I saw the flames devouring him, I’d stopped wanting to survive.
If he didn’t exist in the world anymore, what was the point?
The ache in my chest flared again, raw and sharp. The hole had widened overnight, clawing deeper until it felt like there was nothing left of me to take. I had woken on the floor, surrounded by the pieces he’d left behind—photographs, the CD, the note.
Why had he hidden them?
What was the point of leaving a note like that after telling me I didn’t matter?
He was always so cryptic. Always half-light, half-shadow.
I rinsed off quickly and drained the tub. Jacob would be here soon. I needed to get out of this house—away from the memories that waited in every room.
Dressing with a broken leg was an exercise in futility. I tugged on a mid-length skirt and a long-sleeved green sweater—the most I could manage without help. Pants were impossible. I made my way downstairs slowly, bracing against the banister as I went.
I didn’t check to see if Charlie was awake. I didn’t care if he was.
This wasn’t a date. It was survival.
I forced down two untoasted Pop-Tarts just as a knock came at the door. Perfect timing. I hobbled over and opened it to find Jacob standing there, grinning—bare-chested and sun-warmed despite the early hour.
He looked… different. Taller, broader, more solid than I remembered. Like he’d been poured into a new body while I was gone.
“Good morning,” I said with a half-smile. “Are you ready to go?”
“Sure thing. Do you need help getting to the car?”
“Probably. If you don’t mind.”
He didn’t hesitate. His arm slid around my waist, warm and steady, guiding me gently toward the car. The physical closeness made my stomach twist—not with attraction, but with guilt. I shouldn’t be leaning on him like this. I shouldn’t be taking comfort from someone who didn’t know what he was walking into.
The day at La Push unfolded easily—too easily. Jacob was light, and warm, and uncomplicated. He made it easy to breathe again. Easy to laugh. Too easy.
And that terrified me.
Because Jacob was real, and kind, and present. And I was a mess of broken promises and unfinished grief. He had no idea what he was trying to carry, and part of me hated myself for letting him try.
When he brushed a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingers soft against my cheek, something in me recoiled.
Not because it was him. But because it wasn’t Edward.
Still, I hadn’t pulled away. I’d let it happen. And afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about the look in Jacob’s eyes—hopeful, unguarded. It made my skin prickle with guilt.
Jacob didn’t deserve this.
He didn’t know he was a bandage over a wound that would never close.
That night, the nightmare returned. The searching. The loss. The bone-deep certainty that what I was looking for was gone, forever.
I woke up screaming.
Muffled it into my pillow. Shook until my body gave out and the sobs took over. I was coming apart again, and there was no one here to put me back together.
Except… Jacob.
And that terrified me too.
Because if I leaned on him too hard, I might break him.
The next morning, he was on my doorstep at seven, just like he’d promised. He was bright and smiling, talking about school and cars and cliff diving. I laughed. I smiled.
It was the first time I’d looked forward to anything in a long time.
Each day passed in a blur of routine—school, Jacob, the beach, laughter. I wasn’t healed. I wasn’t whole. But the pain was quieter when he was around. Not gone, but dulled. Manageable.
That should have made me grateful.
Instead, it made me feel like a liar.
Because even when I smiled at Jacob, part of me was still searching for Edward.
And if I ever found him again—if he called out to me from the trees—I knew I would still run.
No matter who stood beside me.
At first, it was simple.
Jacob made me laugh.
And laughing, even for a moment, felt like cheating on a grief I hadn’t finished burying.
He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t push for answers I wasn’t ready to give. He filled the air with stories about rebuilding engines and teasing Embry, as if silence had never lived in me. And I let him—because it was easier than talking about the way my soul still bled at the sound of a piano.
Jacob’s presence dulled the ache. Not in a romantic way, not really—at least not for me. It was like slipping into a warm bath after being in the cold too long. I didn’t feel better, but I stopped shaking.
He became a rhythm. Predictable. Safe.
I clung to that.
But he was changing, too.
There was something in the way his hand would linger on my arm a second too long. In the way his eyes flickered to my mouth when I smiled. In the silence that followed our laughter—stretched and uncertain.
He was falling.
And I was still broken.
Sometimes I’d catch him watching me, his expression soft, hopeful. Like he believed he could fix me. That if he just stayed long enough, stayed patient enough, I’d see him standing there with both hands open.
But I couldn’t give him what he wanted.
Not while I still woke up screaming someone else’s name.
And that guilt… it settled heavy in my chest. Because I needed Jacob. And I used him. Even if I told myself it wasn’t intentional.
I didn’t love him.
But sometimes I wished I could.
Because loving Jacob would be simple. Honest. Human.
But the love I knew—the love that had been carved into my ribs—was sharp, and immortal, and unforgiving. It didn’t leave room for anyone else.
Not even someone as good as Jacob.
Being around Jacob felt like warmth after winter.
Not spring—because that implied something was growing.
More like the heat from a space heater on a freezing day.
Artificial. Temporary. But necessary.
When he was near, I laughed. I smiled without forcing it. The ache in my chest didn’t vanish, but it dulled, like a sound moving behind glass.
It was dangerous how easy it was with him.
With Jacob, there was no pretense. He didn’t look at me like I was broken. He didn’t flinch when I shut down or vanished into myself. He just stayed—solid and uncomplicated.
That constancy was like a drug. Addictive.
Because when everything inside me screamed grief, Jacob was quiet.
And I let him be my silence.
But every time he brushed against my hand or looked at me for a second too long, that comfort turned sharp. Like I was doing something wrong.
Because I wasn’t better. Not really.
I still dreamed of Edward. Still woke reaching for a hand that wasn’t there. Still felt a gut-punch when I passed the corner where he used to wait for me after school. Still carried his voice like a second heartbeat in my chest.
And Jacob… Jacob didn’t deserve that.
He didn’t deserve to be the thing I used to outrun ghosts.
The worst part was that I wanted to lean on him. I wanted to keep laughing. I wanted that lightness, even if it was borrowed. But every time I let my guard down, a voice inside me whispered that I was betraying something sacred.
Something gone, but not dead.
Jacob didn’t ask for much. But I could feel what he wasn’t saying. I saw it in the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching. And I hated myself for not looking away.
I couldn’t love him.
Not fully. Not ever, really.
But I couldn’t let him go, either.
A strange kind of numbness settled over me. Not the blank, frozen kind that had followed him when he left. No, this was softer. Like floating just above the pain.
I found myself looking forward to seeing Jacob. I let him carry the conversations. I laughed at his jokes. I leaned on his strength—sometimes literally, when my cast made walking difficult.
Because the pain never really left. I just shoved it further down.
Every time Jacob smiled at me like he was waiting, like he hoped I’d turn toward him instead of reaching for a ghost—I felt the guilt curl tighter in my gut.
He didn’t know that every time he touched me, I had to work not to flinch. That behind every smile I gave him, there was a memory I was burying. That he wasn’t the person I was thinking about when I laughed. He wasn’t the one I longed for when the dreams returned.
Jacob was comfort. Warmth. Distraction.
But he wasn’t him.
And he never would be.
I knew he saw something in me he thought he could fix. That he believed, deep down, if he stayed long enough, maybe I’d let go of the past and see him standing in front of me.
But what Jacob didn’t understand—what no one seemed to understand—was that I didn’t want to let go. Not ever.
Because if I let go of Edward—even in grief, even in memory—then he really was gone. And I couldn’t survive that.
I needed to believe he was still out there somewhere. That maybe, impossibly, he still loved me. That one day, when I closed my eyes and whispered his name, he’d answer.
So I let Jacob stay.
I leaned on him, knowing it was selfish.
I smiled, knowing it gave him hope.
But in the quiet, in the still spaces between breaths and distraction, I clung to what I had left of Edward with a grip made of bone and blood and desperation.
Jacob was a placeholder.
A pause in the suffering.
A borrowed peace.
But I wasn’t done bleeding yet.
And until I held Edward again—until I looked into his eyes and made him see what he’d left behind—I wasn’t letting go of a damn thing.
Not even the pain.
Because sometimes the only thing more terrifying than holding on… is having nothing left to hold.
1.7562 Billion Miles 