All characters contained herein are not, in fact, my creations, but belong to Stephanie Meyer. If they were mine, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

Jacob

The glare from the sun beating down on my shoulders all but blinded me. Standing on the corner of the street I cursed myself and the nameless, faceless, masochistic need that had driven me from the silence of my solitude to stand on the periphery of this moment. Loathing the weakness that had driven me to run for days, until my legs ached and my chest burned with every step, for one last glimpse of her beautiful, pale face, those turbulent chocolate eyes, the pale blush that rode her cheeks before the heart that created that blush grew still and cold, I squinted to find a familiar face in the Cullens' back yard.

There were ribbons dancing on the breeze, and metal folding chairs that still carried the light scent of City Hall lined up on either side of a white runner that rippled with the air currents passing overhead. Some kind of archway stood at the end, exploding with satin and lace and white roses in full bloom. My nose caught the scents of cake and pastries and some kind of meat I'd never smelled before but made my mouth water. Probably some fancy gourmet dish from Paris or Rome or something equally ridiculous.

Friends and family were speaking in hushed tones, too softly for even my inhuman ears to hear. But their joy and laughter wafted through the air, wrapping around my throat and squeezing until my chest heaved with the effort to draw a solid breath. A car drove down the dirt road, spraying stones that nipped and stung the exposed flesh beneath my ragged denim shorts, and the driver flung curses that my buzzing ears barely heard before racing away.

Neither the burning in my legs or the voice floating in my head could penetrate the fog of despair that had me wrapped in its grip, making my knees weak with the horrible words that echoed in an endless, taunting litany in my mind. I was damned. Nothing, no torments of Tantalus, no trials of Hercules, no fires of eternal condemnation could have damned my soul as truly as it was at this moment.

She was there. Inside the mansion of a house, somewhere, she was running lotion over that smooth skin, pulling a brush through her miles of dark hair, laughing breathlessly and stepping into a dress that would show off her exquisite figure to perfection. Somewhere she was smiling dreamily into a mirror and contemplating the wonders of her new life, the future waiting just over the horizon. Somewhere she was making herself beautiful for a moment she was determined to remember, the moment she would place her warm hand in his cold one and make a promise that would last for eternity. The eternity she was going to share with another man.

'Not a man,' a soft voice in my head whispered.

Lips curled back in a soundless snarl while the reality of those words washed over me for the thousandth time since I'd read the words that had ripped the rug out from under me. The agony was unbearable. No, not a man. That, I could have endured. It would have eaten me alive, grew, festered, blistered with infection while she shared another man's bed, made another man's home and, eventually, had another man's children, but I would have endured it.

But this, this…abomination was intolerable. In that same mansion of a house was a groom who didn't give a shit about the wonders of his wedding night. He just wanted to sink his teeth into her soft, warm flesh while it grew cold and hard, while her breath stopped in her lungs and her heart gave its last, stuttering beat. Then he wanted her to burn while the rest of the life he'd stolen from her seeped away through her pores, until there was nothing left but an empty shell that lived by stealing the life from the people she loved.

Bella, my Bella, would hate what she would become. The girl that had laughed in my garage would hate the mindless, ravening beast that would be left when she disappeared. Dedward didn't care about that, or about how she would feel when the unhealthy, unnatural ties that blinded her to what he really was were stripped away and she realized what she had lost. How long would that take? A year? A decade? A century, until all her friends and family were dead and she looked back with aching regret at all the moments she'd missed?

Music filled the air now, something sweet and dripping with promise that drove the nails deeper into my already bleeding heart. Without my knowledge or consent my feet began to move, slowly at first, then more quickly, ducking through the trees and staying downwind in a race against time to stop the woman I loved, the only woman I'd ever love, from marrying the wrong man.

A/N: So, I'm not a fan of songfics, but as you probably already guessed this fic IS based on a song. Tell me none of you thought of Jake and Bella the first time you heard Taylor Swift's "Speak Now". This (very short) fic is my version of how Bella's wedding SHOULD have gone down at the beginning of "The Book that Shall Not Be Named Because It Doesn't Exist in My Little World." Thanks for reading!