Jacob Running

A/N: Was originally a project for English class. Jacob reflecting on his time with Bella right up to when he runs. The ending is a lot like the Epilogue in Eclipse

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

I walked along the beach where I first met Bella. When I walked by the piece of driftwood, I remembered telling her about them, the vampires… the Cullens. Our conversations, in this spot, was our special place where we would go to talk. Bella never came here anymore, not since Edward came back. How I hated him. I knew I loved Bella when I first saw her on the beach all those times ago. I remember it so perfectly. I looked across the fire and saw her sitting with that Jessica girl. At first I did not realise that she was the same girl who used to come up to visit her father every year. When Jessica finally left I got up to go talk to her.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?" I asked.

"Bella," she corrected with a sigh.

"I'm Jacob Black. You bought my dad's truck"

"Oh," she said. "You're Billy's son. I probably should remember you."

"No, I'm the youngest son -- you would remember my older sisters."

"Rachel and Rebecca," she said remembering. She scanned the beach, "Are they here?"

"No," I shook my head. "Rachel got a scholarship to Washington State, and Rebecca married a Samoan surfer -- she lives in Hawaii now."

"Married. Wow." she sounded surprised.

"So how do you like the truck?" I asked.

"I love it, it runs great."

"Yea, but its really slow," I laughed. "I was so relieved when Charlie bought it. My dad wouldn't let me work on building a new car when we had a perfectly good vehicle right there." We continued to joke about her truck for a while. When we talked about the car I was building she sounded impressed. Soon some Lauren girl came to talk to us. I knew I didn't like her just by how she talked to Bella. She tried to provoke Bella by saying something about the an Edward Cullen. She asked Sam if he knew them.

"They don't come here," was his response.

Sensing there was more to the story she asked me to go for a walk with her. I knew we weren't supposed to tell the legends about the werewolves and the cold ones but when she looked up at me through her long lashes I could not say no to her. As we walked back a blond kid walked up to us.

"There you are, Bella," he called with a slight jealous edge to his voice.

"Is that your boyfriend?" I asked, hoping she could not hear the disappointment in my voice as clearly as I could.

"No, definitely not." she whispered, winking. I couldn't help but smile.

"Come on, Bella. We're packing up. It looks like its going to rain," he said.

"It was nice to see you again," I said to Bella putting emphasis on again to bother the blond guy.

I knew that she would be picked up soon by one of the guys at her school. So I was not surprised when I saw her in a car with a guy when my dad and I went up to visit her and Charlie. I was kind of surprised when I found out it was Edward Cullen. From what I heard he never dated anyone. But Bella was happy, so I was too.

I did not see her for a long time until one day I thought I heard her truck drive up. I looked out the window to make sure and saw the old red truck driving up our drive way. I ran outside and met her halfway towards the house.

"Bella!" I called excitedly, smiling widely.

That's when I finally looked at her. Although she was still beautiful, she did not look good. She was way too thin, like she hasn't eaten properly in days. Her skin was sallow and she looked like she hadn't slept in months. But that was not the most disturbing thing about her. She had her arms wrapped around her like she was holding herself together. She was like a shadow of the girl that I had seen on the beach that day. I knew it was Edward who had done it to her. I knew it was because he left her. She was destroyed and it was his fault. I hated him already. How could he hurt Bella.

"Hey, Jacob!" even she seemed surprised by the smile that spread on her face. "You grew again!" she accused me.

"6'5." I laughed

"Is it ever going to stop?" she shook her head in disbelief. "You're huge."

"Still a bean pole though," I grimaced unhappily. "Come inside you're getting all wet." I led the way, tying my long black hair into a ponytail as I walked. My dad seemed more surprised then I was to see Bella at our door. They exchanged some small talk about why she was here. She said it was to see me. I was hardly able to contain my excitement at that statement.

"So, Bella, what do you want to do?" I asked.

"Whatever, what were you doing before I interrupted." She seemed comfortable here.

I hesitated. I didn't think she would have fun in the garage. I started to tell her but she seemed okay with staying there. She asked me a few questions about my car. She asked me what I knew about motorcycles. She told me about how she had some and wanted me to help her fix them. I was thrilled that meant she would be spending more time with me. After that day she same over almost every night. I loved spending time with her and the more I did the more I fell in love with her.

She invited me to go with a movie with a group of her friends but in the end it was only me and that blond kid from the beach that day. He got sick sp we left the movie early while he went to the bathroom. I sat down on a bench and gestured for Bella to sit beside me. I told her that I loved her that night. She said she couldn't. It was because of him. In a strange rush of courage I told her how much she meant to me.

"I know your unhappy a lot. And, maybe it doesn't help anything, but I wanted you to know that I'm always here. I won't ever let you down--I promise that you can always count on me. You know that right? That I would never hurt you?"

"Yea Jake. I know that. And I already do count on you, probably more then you know." I couldn't stop the huge smile that spread across my face at her words. I felt kind of weird so I went home fast. When I did finally get home my dad told me I looked strange.

I knew the anger I was feeling was irrational but I could not seem to calm myself down. My whole body was shaking until I burst. That was the first time I phased into a giant wolf. While I was panicking and howling my dad did not seem surprised. He got on the phone and called someone. I soon heard voices in my head. I finally listened to them when I heard Embry's voice. They explained what had happened and the reason for it. Although I was pretty terrified about what I had become the thought that Bella could help me through it made me feel better. Then they told me that I couldn't see Bella anymore. I was too unstable. When I didn't believe them, Sam showed me what happened to Emily. One little mistake and he nearly killed her. He lost control once and phased when she was around. His claws cut all the way down the left side of her face, completely deforming it. I could never let that happen to Bella so I agreed. Besides she would never love me if she knew I was a monster. But they told me that that was probably not true, she loved Edward and she knew he was a Vampire. At first I did not believe them, but how could she not know. They told me that it was because of the vampires that we existed. It was our job to defend the tribe from the leaches. That was my next reason to hate Edward Cullen. It was because of him that I had to break my promise to Bella. Because of him I could not see her. It would have been too dangerous. It was with those thoughts that I went home that night. When I got home there was a wedding invitation on the counter. I looked closer the first thing I saw was the paper, it was to formal for La Push and Forks. I picked up the card and read it.

Your Invited to
The Wedding Of…

Isabella Marie Swan
&
Edward Anthony Masen Cullen

I looked at my dad and all he could say was 'I'm sorry'. I told him I was going out for a while. He just nodded in response.

And so I ran. Running was always calming for me. I would run for fun. Now I do it to escape. No matter how far I run, how fast, I can not escape the thoughts of Bella and that bloodsucker, Edward. To me it didn't matter so much that she chose him over me. I could live with that agony for the rest of my stretched out life. But what did matter to me was that she was giving everything up. She was going to let him change her. She will be a shadow of the person she was -- her heart will stop, her skin ice over and her mind will twist in to the mind of a predator. She will become a monster. A stranger. She wont be the person I loved. Nothing could be more painful then that. She will be lost to me forever. So as I pushed my legs further I left Jacob Black behind me.