Chapter Text
‘The mirror cracks, but it is not glass — it is me. Splintered, jagged, impossible to hold.’
Sunday, June 11th, 2006
I didn’t mean for it to happen the way it did. I didn’t plan any of it. And maybe that’s the worst part. If I could say it was a choice – a deliberate, calculated one – at least that’d be something. But it wasn’t. It was a freefall. One moment of hurt crashing into the next, until I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.
It started last Tuesday, the 6th. Edward had promised we would try again. After what happened on the side of the road the weekend before, coming back from Sea-Tac. I was mortified, yes, but hopeful too. I thought he was finally seeing me: wanting me. He even used the word “pleasure” when he apologized. I hadn’t heard him say anything that vulnerable since he came back in March. When he said we’d have the house to ourselves, I got excited. Not just about the sex, but about being close. Really close.
We barely walked in the house. I think I was walking into the living room when the door flew open and Jasper and Anya stumbled in, rumpled, giddy, barely clothed. Her hair was tangled, lips swollen, cheeks flushed. She was wearing only a coat and boots. Jasper? In jeans, his shirt missing. I think he still had boots on. And Anya looked at me – me standing there in my sweater – and said with this smug, glowy little smirk:
“I have reached Nirvana. Bella, someday I hope you too walk its hallowed halls.”
And before I could even form a response, before Edward could do anything, Jasper carried her up the stairs to their room. Big goofy grin on his face, her completely blissed out.
That was it. That was the end of my perfect afternoon.
Edward didn’t explain. He looked lost in his thoughts; I had to yell his name three times before he even noticed I was still there. Even then he refused to explain what the hell just happened. So, I said ‘fuck it’, the mood was ruined, I was going home.
Only to realize Edward had driven me. I had no way home. FUCK!!! I found myself racing up the stairs, to demand that Jasper drive me home because I did NOT want Edward to do it. He would just make excuses or worst, tell me it’s nothing. When clearly it is NOT nothing.
I wanted to know what the hell was going on.
And what I walked in on…
I’ll never forget it. Anya, sprawled naked, on the bed. Jasper shirtless, in boxers, leaning over her with tweezers. She’d apparently gotten bark stuck in her skin from whatever Olympic-level outdoor sex marathon they’d been having. She didn’t even cover herself when I walked in. Just looked bored, waved a hand, and said, “It’s 2006. Don’t depend on a man to drive you places.”
I didn’t even find out about La Push until later that week. That she’d arranged it. That Jacob had agreed. Edward told me about the hunting trip like it was a minor detail, no big deal. But it wasn’t. It meant the house would be empty. That he’d be gone. That the Cullens would be off the grid, unreachable, and he knew what that meant. Knew I’d be stranded, cut off, and having to seek protection from the pack.
But then he picked me up on a motorcycle. And God. For a second, just a second, everything felt okay. He looked like something out of a magazine — impossibly beautiful, sleek, and irrevocably mine. He was all leather and restraint and focus, and when I wrapped my arms around him, felt the engine purring beneath me, it reminded me of... Jake. Earlier in the year. Riding with him. And riding him.
The kiss he gave me before leaving — hot, intense, real — it nearly melted my spine. I didn’t want it to stop. I almost asked him to take me with him. I wanted to see him hunt. See what he really was. I could handle it. I wanted to understand all of him, not just the polite, self-denying version that Anya seemed to openly mock.
But then she had to open her mouth. “Edward! You’re supposed to be hunting, not treating Bella like an amuse-bouche. Now run along like a good vampire.”
And he left.
Because she said so.
So yeah, I told her to screw off.
That drive in Jacob’s truck was unbearable. I was shoved in the middle like I was a toddler in a booster seat, and neither of them would talk to me directly. They just sort of talked around me, like I didn’t matter. Like I wasn’t even there. And when she called Edward a corpse — I snapped. She says it like it’s a joke. Like she gets to mock him because she’s smarter, older, better. She and Jasper throw it around like it’s their inside thing. They don’t even call each other boyfriend or girlfriend; no, Anya’s too high and mighty for that. She calls Jasper her “mate.”
Mate. What does that even mean? Just say partner like a normal person.
At Sam & Emily’s, I thought I’d find one ally: Leah. She hates Anya. Everyone knows it. Dad had the Clearwaters over for dinner earlier in the week, and I caught on pretty quick that he likes Sue. And yeah, it’s a little fast – Harry hasn’t even been gone three months – but I get it. Grief scrambles the timeline. If Charlie finds comfort with Sue, I’m okay with that. Especially since I won’t be around forever.
After dinner, Dad and Sue are watching the game and I’m cleaning up and Leah helped out. Just us, quiet, loading the dishwasher. And she said it, barely above a whisper: “That girl’s a bitch.” About Anya. And I relished it. It felt good to hear someone say it. To know I wasn’t the only one who saw through the perfect act.
And when I got to Sam’s place, I looked for her. Leah. She wasn’t there. I asked. No one answered. I asked again, louder. Still nothing. Everyone just kinda looked away, like they all knew something I didn’t.
And Anya? She just stood there, like she always does, acting like she wasn’t the common denominator in all of this. No, instead it was like I was the problem. Like I was the child who didn’t understand grown-up things. I swear to God, the way she looks at me sometimes, it’s like she’s daring me to act out. Like she wants to catch me being immature so she can feel superior.
I was so done. Just — over it. The whole charade of pretending to get along, pretending I belonged. The pack left to go patrol, and Jacob — sweet, ever-loyal Jacob — tilted his head in that way he does when he’s trying to be diplomatic and said, “You should head to my place. It’ll be quieter.”
And I got it. The subtext was clear. You shouldn’t be alone with her. It’s not good for either of you.
I left when he did to start their patrol. And when I got to Jacob’s house, I went upstairs without a second thought. His bed was unmade, his pillow still smelled like cedar and whatever cheap shampoo he used. And I… I just laid down. Like muscle memory. I think part of me had been waiting for this….this excuse to slip back into something familiar.
I napped.
And yeah, I dreamed.
Not the romantic kind. The real kind. That last night we spent together before everything imploded. Before I told Jacob I felt hollow inside, void of feeling. Before I screamed at him that I didn’t want a replacement, I wanted Edward. Before I jumped off a cliff just to hear Edward’s voice in my head. God. That night in Jacob’s bed – it was wild. Messy. Sweet. I didn’t want it to end. But it always did. The ache came back. The hole inside me reopened, no matter how many times we touched.
Still, I drifted off thinking about it, about how Jacob had held me afterward, his chest against my back, steady and warm. I remembered whispering I love you—but not to him. To the phantom at the foot of the bed. To Edward.
When I woke up, I wandered back to Emily and Sam’s, pretending nothing was wrong. The kitchen smelled like home cooking – meat and spice and something warm – and Emily and Anya were standing there, aprons on, chatting like old friends. I tried. I really did. I asked about what it was like living with the Cullens. Figured it was practical. I mean, I’ll be one of them soon, right? Might as well get the roommate lowdown.
Anya told me Jasper cooks. That he learned to cook, just for her. I thought that was sweet, and for a second, I actually let myself think we were having a normal conversation. Like maybe we could co-exist.
What a joke.
Because when I asked again what aren’t you telling me she just did that thing she always does. That blank, diplomatic tone. “I can’t tell you,” she said. “You have to talk to Edward.”
I reminded her that Charlie grounded me for going to Italy to save Edward’s life. That I was being punished for doing the right thing. You’d think someone like her, who’s supposed to understand things, might back me up.
But no.
She said, “Your father was within his rights.”
Like I was a child again. Like she was the adult. Like she had any right to weigh in on my relationship with Charlie. I wanted to scream I’m eighteen! I’m not a kid! But instead, I kept pushing, told her I’d a right to know. That I deserved answers. That she wasn’t the only one dating a vampire.
And then she said it again. That same patronizing tone. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Speak to Edward. Stop asking me.”
I’d had enough; that’s when I snapped. “You think you won the lottery, but you’re just a librarian who screws a vampire.”
And she smiled. I swear she smiled. Like she knew what was coming. She tilted her head, cool as ice, and said, “I may be a librarian, but I can read a room.”
I didn’t even know what that meant, but it felt like a slap. So, I gave her one. “Fuck you, Anya,” I said, and slapped her across the face. I wish I could say I stopped there. But I didn’t. I hit her again. And again.
And then the porch got crowded, the pack had returned. Sam took one look at me and said, “Get the hell out of my house.”
Fine, want me out?! I’ll go! I ran into the woods. Just like I did before the cliff. Just like I always do when I’ve fucked everything up. Only this time, Jake followed.
He called my name — loud, urgent — and I whipped around, my breath ragged in my chest. “Don’t you dare defend her!” I snapped. It came out sharper than I’d intended, but I meant it. God, I meant it. I couldn’t bear the thought of Jacob — my Jacob — sweet and warm and loyal, his loyalty, even for a second, leaning toward her. Her smug little quips. Her secrets. Her knowing smirks like she’s playing chess and I’m the pawn she’s already sacrificed.
Jacob stopped short, palms out like I’d come at him with claws. “I’m not,” he said, tone measured, eyes searching my face. “I just want to know what the hell that was. What happened in there?”
And the thing was … I didn’t know how to explain it. Not in a way that made sense. Not without sounding unhinged. “It’s like…” I started, then dropped my hands helplessly to my sides. “It’s like they all know the rules to some ancient, immortal game. They speak in code and sidelong glances, and they won’t tell me anything. Not Edward, not Anya, not Jasper. Even you—” I looked at him, and my throat tightened. “Even you keep things from me.”
He didn’t answer. Just stared at me, lips slightly parted, hair sticking to his forehead. His chest rose and fell with effort. He was shirtless, still glistening from the run, and something in me just…. snapped.
I remembered the last time I saw him like that. Sweaty. Strong. Leaning over me with that wild look in his eyes as we clawed our way toward each other in the dark of his bedroom. That night, we’d barely slept. That night, I hadn’t felt hollow.
I stepped forward. He didn’t move. I pressed my mouth to his, furious, needy, and when he kissed me back, I threw myself into his arms. He caught me. He always caught me. My legs wrapped around his waist, my fingers in his hair, and he carried me. Back pressed against a pine, the bark rough against my shoulder blades—but I didn’t care. Not even a little.
He always carried condoms. Of course he did. Folded in his wallet or tucked in his jeans. Jacob was prepared. For this. For me. For the moment I stopped pretending I didn’t still want him.
And it wasn’t like I got bark in my back or anything. He lowered me to the forest floor. It was —God — it was us. Urgent and hungry. My fingers curled into his shoulders, and all I could think was: Finally. This — this — was what I’d wanted Sunday night with Edward. An orgasm. A yes. Not more delays, excuses, or God forbid fucking shame! Just someone wanting me.
Jacob knew how to want me.
And afterward? We didn’t even talk about it. We just looked at each other, dazed and slightly stunned. And then I panicked. Because Edward would smell it on me. Because I’d just blown up every bridge and I needed to wash this off — fast. We hurried back to Jacob’s. I headed for the bathroom, but when I passed his bedroom, I hesitated. The memory of that night crashed over me like a wave. The sheets. The soft noises. The way he whispered my name.
I turned. I grabbed his hand. I pulled him into the bedroom.
And we did it again.
God help me, we did it again.
I’d nearly three months of pent-up frustration, and Jacob was the only person in my life who didn’t make me feel like I needed permission to want. He was warm, solid, real. There were no lectures, no cryptic silences, no metaphors about fire and ice. Just yes. Just now. Wolves had stamina. I knew this. That night back in February or March, whenever it was, I remembered that fire. That greedy, breathless, insatiable night. We’d gone three times then. Maybe four. He didn’t stop until I begged him to.
And I wanted that again. I wanted to forget everything – Anya, Edward, the cold distance of the Cullen coven, the rules no one would explain to me. I wanted to be touched. I wanted someone to want me.
That first time, we didn’t waste a second. I didn’t even get all my clothes off. Jacob’s hands were everywhere, tugging at my jeans, sliding under my shirt, kissing me like he’d been starving. He grabbed a condom from — God knows where, the kid could be a damn magician with those things — and the moment he was inside me, I almost lost it. I wasn’t quiet. I wanted to be loud. I wanted to scream. To let the walls shake with it. With us.
I wanted hands on me. Kisses. Real kisses, the kind that start on your mouth and move lower and lower until you’re not even sure where your skin ends and theirs begins. I wanted to feel his mouth between my thighs. I wanted my fingers in his hair, gripping hard, keeping him there, until I was shaking and gasping and forgetting my own name.
And when he came — groaning my name like it hurt to let go — he collapsed over me, still panting, face buried in my neck. He always did that. Then he rolled off, knotted up the condom, and tossed it in the little trash can that was still next to the bed from all those months ago, like nothing had changed. Like this was just who we were. What we did.
And he’d barely caught his breath before I was on him again.
I didn’t care. I didn’t care that it was reckless. I didn’t care that Edward would know the second I saw him. I didn’t care that Anya would probably smirk and chalk it up to my “fragile teenage hormones.” I wanted to burn. And Jacob? Jacob was gasoline and kindling and a box of matches I lit myself.
We went again.
I took control that time. I rode him. Hard. God, I needed that. I needed to feel my thighs burn, to feel the ache in my core, to feel something that wasn’t confusion or shame, or the gnawing emptiness Edward left behind when he walked away last fall. I needed the sweat, the contact, the grounding reality of skin against skin. I needed Jacob’s hands tangled in my hair, his mouth on my neck, my breasts pressed against his chest, his arms like iron bars around me, pulling me close as I moved. I bit his shoulder when the pleasure became too much. I scraped my nails down his back when he hit that one perfect angle that made my whole body tighten like a drawn bow.
And the last time?
God.
Our rhythm was desperate. Sloppy. Beautiful. I think I drew blood on his biceps when I gripped too hard — saw half-moons forming under my fingernails. I came so hard I saw stars. My thighs were shaking, my voice hoarse from crying out. Everything ached, but in the best, most broken way. I collapsed against him, panting like I’d run a marathon, and he — Jake, being Jake — just laughed into my hair and said, “I mean, if we go for round five, I’m gonna need a Gatorade and some serious stretch time.”
Round five.
That was when the bottom fell out of everything. When the world suddenly tilted on its axis, and I saw what I hadn’t let myself see for hours. I sat up. I looked at the tangle of sheets. At Jacob’s grin. At the condom wrappers scattered around like confetti. And then, just beyond him, I saw it:
The ghost of Edward, at the foot of the bed, judging me with silent disappointment. He didn’t need to say a word; his face said it all.
I swung my legs off the bed. Found my shirt. My jeans. Jacob asked what was wrong, but I didn’t answer. I just grabbed the rest of my clothes and walked down the hall to Rachel’s old room. I shut the door. Locked it. Pressed my back against it and slid to the floor.
I cheated on Edward.
Not emotionally. Not theoretically. Not in some angsty, poetic way. No — physically. Repeatedly. With abandon. I hadn’t thought about Edward, not once, for hours. Hours. I hadn’t pictured his face. Hadn’t imagined his voice in my ear. Hadn’t mourned his absence. I hadn’t even missed him.
All I could think about was how good Jacob felt — on me, in me, against me, underneath me.
What does that say about me?
What kind of person forgets their soulmate for the feel of someone else’s mouth on their thighs?
What kind of person whispers yes, yes, yes and doesn’t think of the man they claimed they couldn’t live without?
Me.
I’m that kind of person.
I heard the shower running.
Jake’s shower.
I just stood there in Rachel’s room, naked, staring at myself in her smudged mirror, arms crossed over my chest like it would help hide the damage. The marks.
God.
There were hickeys on my thighs. Huge ones — like he wanted to brand me. Finger-shaped bruises blooming along my hips, my ass. How the hell did that even happen? I hadn’t noticed in the moment. Too caught up in the heat and the sweat and the friction and the yes. But now? I couldn’t unsee them. Couldn’t ignore the way my body looked like it had been taken. And worse? I liked it. Part of me liked it.
The thought made my face burn.
Because while I was here cataloguing evidence of three — no, four — times with Jacob, my boyfriend, the man I was supposed to be saving myself for, couldn’t even look at me naked without guilt seizing him by the throat.
Edward flinched when I touched his chest. Shuddered when I kissed his neck. He whispered about purity and control and how I was too breakable, too good, too fragile. Like the very sight of me might ruin everything sacred he thought he was.
And I? I ruined myself.
Not because I slept with Jacob.
But because I wanted too again.
Because even standing there in the aftermath, covered in evidence of what I’d done, all I could think about was the sound of Jake moaning my name when he’d come and how easy it’d be to cross the distance to that bathroom. To slip inside. To step into the shower behind him and let him wrap those strong arms around me, water sluicing down both of us, steam hiding everything but the want.
My body betrayed me.
It still wanted him.
And that scared me more than any vampire ever could.
Jake left. I heard the front door close and his footsteps fade, and I didn’t move. Not once. I stayed curled up in Rachel’s room, the door locked, the covers pulled up like I could somehow bury what I’d done. I was grateful I’d tossed my bag on the floor earlier — inside was a bottle of water, a couple of granola bars, an apple and a bag of chips. That was all I deserved.
I wanted to cry. God, I wanted to sob until my ribs cracked from it. But nothing came. No tears. Just this awful pressure behind my eyes, like my body knew it should grieve but refused to let me have the release. No, I leaked in other places — undeniable, physical proof of what had happened, what I had let happen. What I had wanted to happen.
I smelled like sex. I ached with it. I could feel the soreness in my hips, the bruising at the tops of my thighs. It was hard to lie still. It was harder to close my eyes and not see Edward; his disappointed face at the foot of the bed, his silence more condemning than anything he could say. He didn’t even have to be there. My guilt conjured him on its own.
Eventually, I passed out. I don’t know when. It was after midnight when I woke, drenched in heat and regret. I couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t shift without something twinging or throbbing or reminding me.
I didn’t know how I was going to face him. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
And then I did something stupid. Or maybe it was a cry for help. I reached for my phone and called him. Edward. I didn’t think. I just needed to hear him. I didn’t care where he was — what mountain or forest he was hunting in — I just needed the sound of his voice to calm the storm inside me. I needed it like a drug.
He answered on the second ring.
“Bella,” he said, voice like tinkling bells.
We talked. Just talked. About nothing. I think we even laughed once, and I clung to it like it could wash the guilt away. Like I could be that girl again; the one who whispered promises and held hands, not the one who straddled Jacob in his bed, body slick with sweat, begging for more as he had one hand on my ass and the other cupping my breast.
While I was on the phone with Edward, my boyfriend, I heard Jake come home. Heard the door creak open. The shift of weight in the hallway.
I said nothing.
Kept talking. Kept pretending.
Like I hadn’t spent the whole afternoon using Jacob to feel something.
I woke early this morning. The sun wasn’t even up yet, just a dull gray light filtering through Rachel’s curtains. My body ached in that deep, unmistakable way, and I could feel every movement in the pit of my spine, in the bruises blooming across my hips. I moved slowly. Quietly. Like guilt had weight.
I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Showered. Scoured my skin. Used every ounce of shampoo and body wash I’d packed. As much as I wanted to use Jake’s soap, his scent, that warmth, the safety I always felt around him, I couldn’t risk it. I needed to strip all of it away. I needed to feel clean or at least be able to fake it.
I threw my underwear in the trash. I didn’t even hesitate. I didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to touch it. It was not coming home with me. I stood there wrapped in a towel, staring at the small bathroom cabinet, irrationally wishing Jake’s sister had left behind a douche. Something – anything! – to rinse out the ache between my legs and the memories pressed into the inside of my thighs.
I dried off. Dressed. Pulled on jeans that rubbed all the wrong places. A soft sweatshirt that still somehow felt too thin. Then I crept back to Rachel’s room, not ready to face the house. Not ready to face him.
I didn’t have long.
I heard the pipes groan. The shower again. Jake was up. I curled into the farthest corner of the bed, the same one I’d collapsed into after he — we — had… God. I pressed the heel of my hand to my eye until stars sparked behind the lids.
A knock on the door.
His voice. “Bells. Breakfast. Sam’s orders.”
Fuck.
The walk to Sam’s house felt longer than it ever had. I didn’t speak. Neither did Jacob. I’d grabbed some Advil from the bathroom and took it with the water I’d left in my bottle before we left, but it barely touched the ache. Not just my body — my everything. And Jacob... his eyes were rimmed red. Maybe from crying. Maybe from not sleeping. I didn’t ask. He didn’t offer. We just walked in silence, like strangers who knew each other too well.
The whole pack was already there. Everyone except Leah. Of course. I didn’t even bother asking this time. I already knew I wouldn’t get an answer. They had their own secret language, their own shared world. I wasn’t part of it. Just a visitor. A tolerated outsider with a vampire boyfriend and too many questions.
I sat next to Jake at the table, out of habit. That was our spot; when I came for meals over the winter, when I still had him, before everything got tangled and impossible. The others knew I’d spent time with him. That we built bikes, hung out, ate pizza. But they didn’t know what we’d done. Not really. Jacob told me once that the pack mind was like a shared radio frequency that you had to learn how to build walls in your head. Private rooms for private thoughts. Sam taught them that early, how to not think certain things. How to compartmentalize. I’d asked once, back in March, after I found out he was the russet wolf who’d saved me from Laurent.
So maybe no one really knew what Jake and I did the day before. Maybe he didn’t think it. Didn’t share it. But the silence at the table still felt thick, like judgment.
And Anya. God. She was tense, I could feel it. Like she knew. Like she’d figured it out and was just waiting to throw it in my face. I sat there, drinking coffee that tasted like ash, trying not to let her win. Trying not to crumble under her look. That cool, condescending, corpse-screwing bitch look.
So yeah, I pushed.
I asked again. What it was she knew. What it was everyone else seemed to know but wouldn’t tell me. And of course — of fucking course — I got the same answer: Talk to Edward. Like I hadn’t already tried. Like he didn’t just clam up or change the subject or get that guilty look like I was accusing him of murder.
And then I lost it. I threw accusations like grenades. I don’t even remember all of them. Just that I wanted something — anything — more than that infuriating, soft-voiced, smug-as-hell “I’m sorry, talk to Edward.”
She wanted to play dirty? Fine. I could too.
I told the table everything I’d been holding in. How they come back from their “walks in the woods” half-dressed and smug. How Anya once came floating into the house dreamy-eyed and murmured “I’ve reached Nirvana” like she’d just had a religious experience between Jasper’s thighs. How Edward wouldn’t explain any of it. How I walked in on her naked in bed with Jasper pulling bark out of her back. Like that’s normal.
“What the hell am I missing, Anya?!” I shouted across the table.
And her answer? Again? “Talk to Edward. This isn’t the place.”
I saw red.
I wanted something real. Something raw. So yeah, I screamed. I hurled a knife — not at her, next to her — and she washed it and handed it back to me like she was above it all.
“You dropped this.”
Like I was the child. Like I was the one acting out. That was it. The last fucking straw.
I exploded. Launched myself over the table. I don’t even remember what I screamed, but I remember the moment everything cracked open:
“Answer me! What is it that you know that I don’t?! Why do you get to know, and I don’t?! Is it because you and Jasper are screwing?! Is that what this is about?! Like, does he drink from you while he fucks you?! Is that why Edward won’t sleep with me?!”
And that got her. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned around from the stove, like a goddamn horror movie villain winding up for the kill. She said my full name. Like a teacher. Like a disappointed mother. “Isabella Marie Swan. Shut. Your. Damn. Mouth.”
And then she said it physically hurt her not to answer. That she wanted to. That Edward was the reason I didn’t know. That he was a monster for not telling me.
My boyfriend.
My love.
A monster.
She didn’t even yell. Just said it cold and low and then told me to grow a damn backbone and ask him myself. Not to take no for an answer.
Then she walked out.
And I was left in that kitchen with nine wolves staring at me, mouths half-open. The pack wanted to know if it was true. What I said. If Jasper really drank from her. If that was a thing. Sam ordered Jake to go find out; get answers. The others stared at me.
And I …. I told them. Thought to myself, ‘screw it’ and shared what I knew. I said I’d seen her covered in bruises. That she had sex with Jasper. That I walked in on him plucking bark out of her back. So yeah — maybe she liked it rough. Maybe it was some sick vampire thing.
I didn’t even care how it sounded anymore. I just wanted someone to tell me the truth!!
Jacob and Anya were gone for maybe half an hour. Maybe longer. And I sat there, at Sam’s kitchen table, feeling like I was being dissected. The wolves didn’t say much, but they didn’t have to. Their silence was thick. Like judgment made flesh. And that’s when one of them, Jared, I think, muttered something under his breath about how Anya thought they were into bestiality.
WHAT?!
Yeah. Apparently she had told them — them, a group of literal shapeshifters — that sex with their girlfriends was just “state-sanctioned bestiality.” Like that wasn’t the single most insulting, dehumanizing thing anyone could’ve said to them. And Leah? Leah who already hated her? God. No wonder. How could I have ever doubted her instincts?
What kind of monster says that?!?!
And then they come back. Jake and Anya. Walking in through the kitchen door like nothing happened. Like I hadn’t just exploded in that kitchen. Like I hadn’t just laid bare every humiliation I’d been carrying since Italy. And they were laughing. Not quietly. Not uncomfortably. No just laughing, like they’d just shared some private joke, like the rest of us weren’t even in the room.
I snapped.
I don’t even remember standing. I just remember the words flying out of my mouth like they’d been sitting on my tongue, waiting to tear her down.
“Oh, what’s so funny?” I sneered. “Was it Jacob’s turn this time? Do you spread your legs for him the way you do for Jasper? Whore.”
Silence.
Not the righteous kind of silence. The kind that echoes.
She didn’t say anything. Just froze. And then, slowly, she turned and walked upstairs to the guest room. Closed the door behind her without a word.
But I saw it.
I saw the glassiness in her eyes. The crack in her mask. I’d drawn blood, emotionally speaking. I broke her.
And God help me, in that moment — I felt satisfied. Like I finally got in a punch after all the jabs she’d landed with her smirks and her cool detachment and her ‘speak to Edward’ broken record. I wanted to shatter her calm. To make her feel something.
She deserved it.
Didn’t she?
Jacob apparently didn’t think she deserved it. Because when Jared turned to him and asked flat-out if it was true, if Jasper drank from her, if there was a treaty violation, Sam practically growling for confirmation, you know what my Jake said?
He slammed his hand down on the kitchen counter. Hard. So hard one of the coffee mugs rattled and tipped over. “No, Sam. We don’t. There’s no treaty violation. Do you know how many times I’ve said that in the last twenty-four hours? I lost count. You want the truth? Jasper bit her once. A year ago. To save her goddamn life. It didn’t happen here. It didn’t happen now. And it damn sure didn’t happen while he was screwing her!”
And he wasn’t done.
“Jesus Christ, the woman can’t even walk properly without pain right now, and all you assholes want to know is if she’s getting off on neck bites? Are you serious?” He turned on Paul first, pointing like he was about to deck him. “And you, you think this is funny? A fucking punchline? You want to talk about sexual politics while she’s locked herself in the guest room and trying not to sob loud enough for the rest of us to hear?”
“She was humiliated,” Jake said, and his voice cracked, just for a second, into something guttural and raw. “She had to walk me — a nineteen-year-old with only a high school diploma through how to keep her alive while she was choking on her own breath, and you’re all still obsessing over what she does while screwing Jasper? Are you kidding me right now? She could’ve died. You get that? Died.”
And just like that, the bottom dropped out of my stomach.
What the hell?
Another thing Edward never told me. Another massive, world-shattering, emotionally loaded fact that somehow everyone knew — Jacob, Sam, the whole damn pack, apparently — and not me.
I turned to Jacob, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “She almost died? From what?”
He looked at me. Long. Hard. And then he gave me the same line I’d been hearing all weekend. “Ask Edward.”
But I had some vindication. Because when it was time to go home — finally, finally — Jacob drove all three of us to the boundary in his truck. Me in the middle again, arms folded tight, body still sore from the day before, the tension in the cab so thick it felt like a fourth person.
We got out and—
Jasper and Edward were fighting.
FIGHTING.
Vampire-speed, vampire-violent, and I was barely out of the truck before I heard Edward snarl something that rattled in my brain like a pinball machine: “You bit her? You fucking mated her?”
There it was. Right there. Vindication. I knew it. Jasper did bite her. There was something going on. I turned to Jacob, triumphant, like see? but his face was thunder. Because he’d heard it too and he didn’t like it.
He demanded, voice sharp and almost trembling, “What the hell??? Biting??? UMMM LEECH you swore up and down you were not going to violate the treaty!”
No one answered him.
Not Edward. Not Jasper.
Not even Anya who was the cause of this whole damn mess.
Carlisle stepped in, cool, composed, like always, and physically separated them. Just... stepped between them and announced they needed a family meeting. “All of us,” he said. “Now.”
I was already moving toward Edward, expecting him to take my hand, to hold me, to finally let me in, maybe even speed-run me home in that romantic over-the-shoulder way he did when he was trying to impress me.
But Carlisle cut in again. “Your father is expecting you,” he said—to me.
Dismissed. Just like that. Like a child being sent back upstairs so the adults could talk. I stood there, stunned, while Edward turned away.
Jacob held the truck door open.
He drove me home. Again. Like he always did. Like he always would. And we didn’t speak the whole ride back, not until we reached my driveway and sat in silence with the engine ticking. I don’t remember who moved first. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was him. But one glance, one exhale, one flash of mutual frustration and grief and resentment and —
Well. What the hell, right?
What was one more time?
We’d already done it in his bed. On the forest floor. Against the wall. But not in the truck. Not mine, not his. And Edward sure as hell wasn’t going to fuck me in his precious Volvo, so yeah. Screw it.
One last fuck.