Chapter 1: Discovery

Spring had arrived in the town of Forks, Washington weeks ago. It was now nearly mid-April, but you could only tell that if you were a local. To outsiders the place was still too wet, too cold and too overcast to be considered springtime. It wasn’t too long ago when I was one of those outsiders, hating that I had to move from dry, warm and sunny Phoenix, Arizona.

Now, I didn’t mind the weather of Forks so much anymore. I had gotten used to living there, but I knew it was mostly because I had begun to feel like I had found my place in life. I had begun to fit in. Besides, my pale skin, brown eyes and brown hair seemed to go better with the natural scenery of the area rather than the sunny Phoenix scenery.

Of course, the real reason I didn’t mind where I now lived, was currently in his garage in La Push where he was finishing up reinstalling the radio Emmett had gotten me for my eighteenth birthday. We had traded cars the night before after he had discovered the radio on the floor of my closet and told me he could reinstall it while I did my usual Saturday house chores. I had finally agreed to let him do it, having missed listening to the radio since I’d begun my return to normalcy.

As I made my way up the stairs, I decided to reorganize my closet while I waited for the last load of laundry to finish. I remembered the chaos I saw last night when Jacob had dragged the black bag with my radio out of it. I had avoided the closet enough, which was why Jacob had been retrieving my sweater last night instead of me.

With a deep breath, I opened the closet door and stood there scowling at the mess that seemed to be mocking me. I had managed to keep the rest of the house looking neat and tidy, even during those months of lunacy I had sunk into. Yet my bedroom closet had managed to avoid my OCD tendencies. I knew it was because of that radio mostly, but it was like my mind had decided that the closet was where all my memories of Edward were trapped.

I had avoided opening that closet as much as possible. Keeping that door closed was a symbolic way of keeping the pain of missing him from overwhelming me. In retrospect, I’m still surprised Charlie hadn’t finally committed me, but I was positive that if he knew about my fear of my closet he might have. Granted, after a while the closet had stopped being a part of my supposed dementia and it had simply become a habit for me to avoid it because I didn’t want to deal with the mess.

Today, my OCD had decided that enough was enough, so the closet was going to become as neat as the rest of the house. Squaring my shoulders, I took a deep breath and began pulling things out one by one, setting them aside into neat piles according to my filing system of discard, keep or unsure.

It took me a couple of hours to go through it all. I had stopped only to take the clothes out of the dryer, fold them and put them away before returning to the closet. Once the closet had been emptied, I went over the walls and floor with some fragrant cleaners before putting back the things I knew I was going to keep.

After organizing those things in the closet, I turned to the pile on the floor that I was still unsure about. That pile was what probably took the longest to deal with. I hemmed and hawed about most of it until I got fed up with myself. I gritted my teeth and made myself divide up the items quickly as to whether I really used the items or not. Soon I moved to the last pile after closing the closet door with a satisfied smirk.

I ran downstairs to grab a few garbage bags and separated the last pile into the bags so I could have Charlie take them to the charity store for me. It was while I sat on the floor, picking up an item and placing it into the correct bag that I made a discovery.

I reached out and picked up a pair of dress shoes that I hadn’t worn since the last time I had visited Charlie before I moved back. As I shifted to put them into the correct bag, one of the shoes came out of my hand and I began a juggling act to catch it before it hit the ground.

“Oh…shoot!” I muttered.

Unable to catch it, the heel of it struck the floorboard at one corner and made the other corner lift slightly.

I frowned. “What the…?”

As I leaned over to push the board into place, I felt it wobble. Thinking I was going to have to tell Charlie that we had a loose floorboard in my room, I lifted it all the way off using my fingernails, hoping maybe I could fix it on my own. Before I even had the chance to get a closer look at the board, something caught my eye.

The space beneath the board wasn’t even empty.

Curious, I leaned over to get a closer look only to gasp in surprise as I realized what it was that I was looking at. There, hidden carefully even from the countless steps I must have taken over the floor, were all sorts of memorabilia that would have reminded me of the Cullens. As I began to pull out things such as photographs, the necklace Rosalie had given me for my birthday, the CD Edward had made me and the tickets Carlisle and Esme had gotten me I knew they had all been put there by Edward.

This had been his way of making sure it would seem as if he had never existed. The irony of it all was that I never had forgotten him nor the things that had been buried right beneath my feet. I shook my head at Edward’s skewered thinking as I continued to look through the things I had found.

Looking through the pictures, I realized that there was no longer any pain left inside of me at the sight of Edward or even of the rest of the Cullens. A wistful sadness, maybe, but it wasn’t because I wanted him back. The feeling I had was more like one has when looking at photos, reminiscing about the past and thinking “Oh man, those were the days, huh?”

I knew I would probably revisit the memories of my time with Edward again, but I refused to dwell on the things that had gone so wrong with us anymore. Instead, I found myself remembering the talks we used to have and the similar tastes we had shared. They may have been few, but they were there. Mostly, I just thought of the way the majority of his family had been so willing to welcome me with open arms despite the danger my knowing them had posed.

As I gathered up the rest of the things, I decided I would put them away for safe keeping. I saw no reason to hide them or throw them away because I had let Edward go. So I tucked the photographs into the photo album on my bookshelf to organize them later and dropped Rosalie’s necklace into a desk drawer where I had a tray for most of my other pieces of jewelry.

I finished putting away the rest of the things I’d found until I was left with the airline tickets Carlisle and Esme had given me. Pulling them out of the envelope, I wondered if they even had an expiration date on them. I was still looking at them when Charlie came to my door.

“Hey Bell…” he stopped when he saw the puzzlement on my face. “What you got there?”

I looked up and shrugged. “I was cleaning out my closet and found these flight tickets Dr. and Mrs. Cullen got me for my birthday, so I could go see mom. I was just trying to see if they had expired or not.”

“Huh, wouldn’t it say on the tickets?”

I nodded. “That’s what I thought, but I don’t see anything.”

He walked over to me and looked down at them. “Maybe you could call the airline and find out?”

“True,” I replied, but I knew it would be easiest just to shoot an email to Alice to ask the Cullens that way. “Oh hey, I’ve got some stuff I want to give to charity and since there’s a store right by your job I thought…”

Charlie grinned. “Sure Bella, I’ll take them with me when I go to work tomorrow. Just leave them near the front door so I won’t forget them.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Good. Well, I just came up to tell you that I’m heading over to Sue’s to help her with a few things Harry used to do, you going to see Jake later?”

I nodded. “Yeah, he’s supposed to bring my truck back when he’s done with it.”

Charlie chuckled. “It’s great to know someone who can fix cars, isn’t it? Saves you a ton of money.”

I shrugged. It may be great, but I still felt a little strange always having to ask Jacob for a favor. He was just too nice sometimes and I couldn’t think of any other way to repay him for the things he did for me. Every time I told him that, he just replied with a “You don’t have to repay me, Bells. We’re friends and that’s what friends do, help each other out. All I need is your company and I’m good.”

“Okay, well I’m out of here. Don’t worry about making dinner and remember, no closed doors.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay dad.”

He winked at me before leaving me to finish up my cleaning. First, I went to my laptop and composed a quick email telling Alice that I found the tickets that Carlisle and Esme had given me for my birthday and wanted to know if they had expired or not. I sent it off then went back to cleaning up my room, leaving the envelope with the tickets on the desk next to my laptop.

I was just about ready to start taking the bags down to leave by the front door when my cell phone rang. Picking it up from my desk I looked at the ID and noticed it was Alice calling.

“Hello Alice,” I said as I answered it.

“Bella! I got your email and Esme wanted me to call you right away to tell you that they haven’t expired yet, so you can use them if you want. She hopes that you do!”

“Okay, tell her I will try to use them soon and tell both her and Carlisle thank you for the gift.”

“I will….but we are curious….where did you find them? We thought….”

“He hid all the things under a loose floorboard which I discovered by accident today. I dropped a shoe and the heel hit the corner just right to make the other corner pop up. I pulled it up completely and discovered treasure,” I joked.

I heard her tinkling laughter. “Well, I’m glad you’re taking this better than he thought you would.”

“I told you Alice, I’ve moved on. And thinking of him doesn’t send me to a bad place anymore. I was actually able to look at the photographs from my party which made me think about some of the good times I had with you, him and the rest of your family.”

“We did have some good times, didn’t we?”

I chuckled. “Yes we did, when I wasn’t being smothered by Edward.”

We both laughed at that. Both Alice and I had already had several conversations over the phone about how I now felt about some of the things Edward had done during our relationship. Now that I could look back on it without experiencing pain, we had talked about what I didn’t like about the way he had treated me.

Of course, all of these things only came to me now that he was far away and no longer a direct part of my life. Without him there, I could have a clear head to look back on certain things and see how some of the ways he or I had behaved hadn’t been good for our relationship. I didn’t entirely blame him even though I knew about the effects of vampires on us humans.

I knew a lot of it had to do with my sudden need to feel like I belonged to something I had believed was good for me. Yeah, as if becoming a member of a vampire family was a good thing. Shows how much I was really in the right mind then. I could plead temporary insanity, but that would be the easy way out and I had decided that was something I would no longer do. Nor would I dwell on the past, if I could help it.

“True. In any case, we are glad you found your gifts, just be sure to let us know when you’ve used the tickets okay? We want to hear all about your trip to see your mom.”

“Okay, I will. Thanks for calling Alice. I miss you!”

“I miss you too Bella, but hopefully I’ll see you in a few months for graduation.”

I smiled at the thought of seeing her again, even if it was only for a day or two. “That will be great!” I replied. “Looking forward to it!”

“Me too! Oh, I’ve got to go now Bella, Jasper is waiting for me. Remember to let us know how your trip went. You know I can’t see anything that happens to you anymore.”

“I know Alice, I’ll tell all about it once I’ve done it. Tell the others thanks again. I love you! Talk to you soon!”

“Love you too Bella! Bye!”

As soon as Alice hung up, the doorbell rang. Talk about perfect timing! I tossed my phone on the desk and made my way down the stairs being careful not to trip over my own feet as usual. Though lately I had noticed I was becoming less clumsy, which seemed to coincide with the way I was taking charge of my life lately.

Reaching the front door, I peered out of the window to see Jacob standing there with a huge grin on his face. My own face broke out into a matching grin as I threw open the door.

“Hi Jake,” I managed before he pulled me into his arms and gave me one of his kisses. The kind that always left me breathless and a little disoriented.

Finally, he came up for air still wearing his sunny smile as he said, “Hey Bells.”

Even through the thudding of my heart in my ears, I could hear how out of breath he was, but all I could do was smile stupidly at him.

He chuckled as he took my hand, “Come see what I did to the truck.”

I let him lead me outside where he helped me into the driver’s side before he jogged around to the passenger’s side. As he slid in and closed the door, he seemed to eagerly bounce in the seat.

“Go ahead, turn on the truck.”

I did as he asked and was greeted by a smoother sounding roar, if that’s what you could call it. The truck was still loud, it just wasn’t as unpleasant to the ears as it was before.

I looked at Jacob in surprise. I had only been expecting him to put the radio back in, nothing more.

He shrugged in response to my look. “Figured since I had the truck for the day, I would do what I could. So I changed the oil and the brakes and fixed a few other things besides the radio. The ride should feel a little smoother, but not much really. Sorry I couldn’t do more.”

I shook my head as I leaned closer to give his hand a squeeze. “No Jake, that’s all right. You’ve done more than enough. Honestly, I just thought you would put the radio in, that’s all. You really didn’t have to do anything else.”

Jacob nodded as his gaze shifted down to our hands. “Just wanted to make sure the truck was running good for my girl, you know?”

I smiled at the soft, bashful way he said that and gave his hand another grateful squeeze. He really was too good to be true.

We sat there in silence for a few more moments before Jacob cleared his throat. “Okay, well try the radio.”

I let go of his hand to turn on the radio, fiddling with it until I found a good station and adjusted the volume a bit. Jacob chuckled as he watched me.

“Next gift you should ask for is better speakers to go with the radio. Oh and you know you can plug your MP3 player into this if you don’t want to listen to the radio.” He indicated the jack with his hand.

I nodded, “Cool and the speakers are fine. It’s not like I’m driving this thing across the country.”

“Sure, sure.” Came his chuckled response.

I laughed with him, shoving his shoulder even though I knew he was too strong for me to even budge. Still, he leaned towards the door as if I had really managed to shove him. We continued to sit in the truck for a while, playing with the radio and finding songs that we knew the words to. We laughed as we tried to sing along to them, sometimes failing to stay in tune and sometimes purposefully changing the words.

After a while we got out of the truck and went inside where Jacob helped me lug my charity bags to the front door for Charlie to take in the morning. Then I told him that he could watch television in the living room while I took a quick shower before I would make us something to eat. He chuckled and asked why he couldn’t just stay in my room while I showered.

I rolled my eyes as my blush surpassed the one on his face. “Really Jake? You know why!”

He laughed some more as I began trying to push him out of my room, first with my hands and then with my shoulders.

“Come on Jacob,” I pleaded.

His laughter suddenly died down as he noticed the envelope on my desk. I watched as he picked up the envelope and sniffed it before wrinkling his nose. I couldn’t help the automatic reaction of rolling my eyes.

“It’s a couple of airline tickets that Carlisle and Esme gave me for my last birthday. So I can go see my mom.”

Jacob’s eyebrow rose. “Really? Can you still use them?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I talked to Alice earlier and she confirmed that I could still use them.”

“Oh,” he said as he fingered the two tickets inside of the envelope. “Um, when are you thinking of going?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know really. Mom said she was going to come to my graduation, but there’s always that three day weekend I have coming up. You know, the one that falls on Easter weekend.”

He nodded. “Yeah, my school has the same holiday.”

I perked up. “Really? Do you think you could come with me? I mean, can you leave for a few days?”

His eyes went wide. “You….you want me to go with you?”

“Sure,” I nodded enthusiastically, “why not? It would be fun Jake! We could get to see what Florida beaches are like and mom would finally get to meet you. I know she wants to because I’ve told her about you and she keeps saying in her emails that she can’t wait to meet you since she remembers your parents.”

“Wow, um, okay. I could ask Sam to see if I can go.”

I chuckled. “Great! But don’t forget to ask Billy too, he’s your dad you know.”

Jacob rolled his eyes. “I know Bells, as if I’d forget that.”

I laughed. “Right, okay.” I tugged the envelope out of his hand and put it back on my desk. “Now go watch TV or we aren’t going to have any dinner.”

He chuckled as he wrapped his arms around my waist, leaning down to give me a quick kiss before he left me alone to my shower.

I was in and out in fifteen minutes, only towel drying my hair before slipping into a pair of fuzzy blue PJ pants and an old sweatshirt from my Phoenix days. I went downstairs and peeked into the living room to see Jacob sprawled out on the couch watching some program about cars on the Discovery Channel.

Shaking my head at his nearly one track mind, I made my way into the kitchen to start dinner for us. Since we had gone out the night before, we opted to stay in Saturday night. Jacob said there was going to be a Simpsons marathon on television and since we both liked that show, we decided it would be fun to watch a few episodes together.

I was already in the midst of making the grilled chicken when Jacob came to the door wearing a pout with his arms crossed over his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to start cooking, you know I was going to help tonight.”

I shrugged. “You looked like you were enjoying the show you were watching. Besides, I’m not cooking anything complicated this time.”

He sighed as he walked to stand besides me where he played with a few strands of my hair. “I’ve seen that show before and since I have to leave in a few hours, I wanted to spend as much time with you as I could.”

I looked up at his face, noticing that it looked like there were still things he left unsaid. He didn’t have to say anything though. I knew what was on his mind. We had already talked about our new relationship a few times. Besides that, it was already well known that we were now boyfriend and girlfriend, but even that knowledge was still relatively new.

I wasn’t trying to handle it as if I were wearing kid gloves, but I wasn’t trying to rush things either. I knew that for Jacob, the pace was still slower than he would have liked. He was a hormonal, seventeen year old after all. Most of the time when we were together, there were lots of hand-holding and kisses, but not much else. At least for my part, that is.

There had been a few times when we’d been alone in his garage or somewhere else when he had tried to go a little further, but I always stopped him before that happened. He never asked why I did that and I found that I couldn’t really explain it to him anyway. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get closer to him, it was that I was afraid. He meant so much to me already, that I didn’t want to mess up what we already had.

What if in the end, we didn’t work out? Would I lose my best friend? Would I be disappointed in our relationship? In him? Or worse, would I be disappointing him? What if I wasn’t enough for him?

Those questions and more often slipped through my mind when I least expected it, even when I kept trying to tell myself not to let it get to me. I was supposed to be living my life, letting it just happen instead of freezing up into a standstill like I used to do.

Guess old habits died hard.

I turned away under the pretense of checking the grilled chicken. “Okay, you can start the salad then.”

He nodded before kissing my temple then moved to the opposite counter where I had already set out the things I was going to use for the salad. Jacob had helped me make the salad before, so I knew he could do it without my help. We worked in comfortable silence until the grilled chicken, rice and salad were all done.

Then we made our plates, grabbed a couple of sodas from the fridge and plopped ourselves on the floor in front of the television. The Simpsons marathon had already started, but we went ahead and watched it anyway. Jacob went back for seconds while I washed my plate and cleaned up the rest of the mess we’d made.

Once he was finished eating, he set his plate on the coffee table and leaned back against the couch, pulling me into his side. We watched a couple of more episodes before I could feel Jacob’s face nuzzling the top of my head.

“I have to go Bells,” he whispered.

I sighed against his chest. “I know.”

It was his night to patrol since he had asked for Friday night off to go out with me. It also meant I probably wouldn’t see him on Sunday since he would be patrolling most of Saturday night before going home to get some sleep, then doing his homework for Monday.

His arm tightened around me as he took a deep breath in my hair. “I’ll try to come by tomorrow evening.”

I moved away to look up at him. “Are you sure? I know you have homework, so do I. Maybe we should…”

He stopped me with a kiss. The kind that was more possessive than any he’d given me before. I didn’t even fight him as I leaned into his body and slid my hands into his hair. He deepened the kiss, teasing my tongue with his until I was unable to stop a moan from escaping.

That only seemed to spur him on as he wrapped his arms around my waist, lifted me up and deposited me on his lap. I folded my legs around him as his hands slid up my back in a way that made me feel like he was trying to push me inside of him, to make me a part of him. I responded with a whimper as I tried to press myself even closer to him.

His mouth finally left mine, but he didn’t let go of me, nor did his lips stop moving. Instead, he kissed my cheek, then peppered kisses down my neck until he reached my pulse. There his lips remained pressed against my skin for a few moments as his hands moved back down to my waist.

I sat on his lap, breathing hard with one hand still in his hair, holding him to me. My other arm was around his shoulders and my head was tilted to the side to give him room, yet he didn’t move. Just when I opened my eyes to wonder why he was just sitting there with his lips pressed against my pulse, I felt his hands curl into fists at my waist as a growl bubbled up from his chest.

In the next instant I had been deposited on the floor and he was on his feet pacing. I blinked in confusion before looking up at him. He was scowling and muttering something under his breath that I couldn’t hear.

I rose slowly to my feet. “Jacob?” I asked in a soft voice. “Are you okay?”

He stopped pacing and turned to look at me, the scowl disappearing only to be replaced with an apologetic look. “Sorry Bella, Jared’s outside nagging me that it’s time to go, he’s being an ass.”

My eyes went wide in understanding. So that’s what made him angry and his muttering was him talking to Jared. I knew Jared was one of the wolves who still wasn’t entirely happy about Jacob dating me. Plus, Jared was one of the more vocal ones about it, always making sure Jacob never heard the end of it.

“Are you patrolling with him tonight?”

He nodded.

I winced in sympathy. “Sorry.”

He rolled his eyes as he pulled me into his arms. “It’s okay, I’ll live. He can just get over it and go wait at my house while I say goodnight to my girlfriend.”

The last part was said towards the back door where we both heard an answering growl followed by a snort, then silence.

He turned back to me and lowered his forehead against mine. “I’m still going to try to come see you tomorrow.”

I sighed. “Don’t wear yourself out, Jake. It’s not worth it.”

He lifted my chin with his hand. “You’re worth it, honey.”

Then he was kissing me again, but this time it was short and soft. A goodnight kiss that lingered long after he’d gotten into his car and driven away from my house.