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Once you cared about a person, it was impossible to be logical about them anymore.
“Well, I’m so sorry that I can’t be the right kind of monster for you, Bella. I guess I’m just not as great as a bloodsucker, am I?”
“Bella, honey, we only protect people from one thing—our one enemy. It’s the reason we exist—because they do.”
“You… killed… Laurent?” He nodded. “Well, it was a group effort,” he qualified.
“How do you know me so well, Jacob? Sometimes it’s like you can read my mind.” “Naw. I just pay attention.”
“He shouldn’t have brought his girlfriend into this. What did he expect?” “Well, the wolf’s out of the bag now.” Embry sighed. “Way to go, Jake.”
“I bet she’s tougher than that. She runs with vampires.”
Love is irrational, I reminded myself. The more you loved someone, the less sense anything made.
Goodbye, I love you, was my last thought.
“Bells, honey, can you hear me?”
I remembered wishing that Jacob were my brother. I realized now that all I really wanted was a claim on him. It didn’t feel brotherly when he held me like this. It just felt nice—warm and comforting and familiar. Safe. Jacob was a safe harbor.
Would it be so wrong to try to make Jacob happy? Even if the love I felt for him was no more than a weak echo of what I was capable of, even if my heart was far away, wandering and grieving after my fickle Romeo, would it be so very wrong?
It was like someone had died—like I had died. Because it had been more than just losing the truest of true loves, as if that were not enough to kill anyone. It was also losing a whole future, a whole family—the whole life that I’d chosen.…
“My name was Mary Alice Brandon,” she told me quietly. “I had a little sister named Cynthia. Her daughter—my niece—is still alive in Biloxi.”
“It really doesn’t have to be that way, Jake.” He sighed. “Yes, it really does, Bella. You… love her. So I’d better not get anywhere near her. I’m not sure that I’m even-tempered enough to handle that. Sam would be mad if I broke the treaty, and”—his voice turned sarcastic—“you probably wouldn’t like it too much if I killed your friend.”
I stared back at him. He was not my Jacob, but he could be. His face was familiar and beloved. In so many real ways, I did love him. He was my comfort, my safe harbor. Right now, I could choose to have him belong to me.
And the last seven months meant nothing. And his words in the forest meant nothing. And it did not matter if he did not want me. I would never want anything but him, no matter how long I lived.
At least I could be with him again before I died. That was better than a long life.
After all, how many ways can one heart be mangled and still be expected to keep beating?
“Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason.… And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.”
