Jacob was simply a perpetually happy person, and he carried that happiness with him like an aura, sharing it with whoever was near him. Like an earthbound sun, whenever someone was within his gravitational pull, Jacob warmed them. It was natural, a part of who he was. No wonder I was so eager to see him.
~
Like we were connected, the echo of his pain twisted inside me. His pain, my pain.

~
Jacob was waiting for me. My chest seemed to relax as soon as I saw him, making it easier to breathe.

~
"I’m exactly right for you, Bella. It would have been effortless for us — comfortable, easy as breathing. I was the natural path your life would have taken… If the world was the way it was supposed to be, if there were no monsters and no magic…"

~
"I told him you were planning to corrupt my youthful innocence."

~
"I would have been healthier for you. Not a drug; I would have been the air, the sun."

~
It made no difference that Jacob was not human when he cried out. I needed no translation.

~
Jacob was right. He’d been right all along. He was more than just my friend. That’s why it was so impossible to tell him goodbye — because I was in love with him. Too. I loved him, much more than I should, and yet, still nowhere near enough. I was in love with him, but it was not enough to change anything; it was only enough to hurt us both more. To hurt him worse than I ever had.

~
While he slept, every trace of defensiveness and bitterness disappeared and suddenly he was the boy who had been my very best friend before all the werewolf nonsense had gotten in the way. He looked so much younger. He looked like my Jacob.

~
As we walked, I felt myself settling into another version of myself, the self I had been with Jacob. A little younger, a little less responsible. Someone who might, on occasion, do something really stupid for no good reason.

~
"We’re a pretty messed-up pair, aren’t we? Neither one of us can hold our shape together right."

~
It was strange. Even though he was in this bizarre form, this felt more like the way Jake and I used to be – the easy, effortless friendship that was as natural as breathing in and out – than the last few times I’d been with Jacob while he was human. Odd that I should find that again here, when I’d thought this wolf thing was the cause of its loss.

~
'I think it’s easier for you to be near me when I’m not human, because you don’t have to pretend that you’re not attracted to me.”
~
'... If I turned my face to the side - if I pressed my lips against his bare shoulder... I knew without any doubt what would follow. It would be very easy. There would be no need for explanations tonight.
But could I do it? Could I betray my absent heart to save my pathetic life?
Butterflies assaulted my stomach as I thought of turning my head.
An then, as clearly as if I were in immediate danger, Edward's velvet voice whispered in my ear:
'Be happy' he told me.
I froze.
Jacob felt me stiffen and released me automatically, reaching for the door.
Wait, I wanted to say. Just a minute. But I was still locked in place, listening to the echo of Edward's voice in my head.
Storm-cooled air blew though the cab of the truck...'

~
I remembered how it used to be when he was my replacement sun, the warmth that made my empty life livable.
~

“Mostly you said my name as usual. Near the end though, you started mumbling some nonsense about ‘Jacob, my Jacob’.” I could hear the pain, even in the whisper. “Your Jacob enjoyed that quite a lot.”

~
“Kiss me, Jacob. Kiss me, and then come back.”

~
“The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight with an eclipse.”

~
I realized that I’d been wrong all along about the magnets. It had not been Edward and Jacob that I’d been trying to force together, it was the two parts of myself, Edward’s Bella and Jacob’s Bella. But they could not exist together, and I never should have tried.
~

'You can do better than this, Bella,' - he whispered huskily.
'For once, just let yourself feel what you feel.'
~
The jolt of anger unbalanced my tenuous hold on self-control; his unexpected, ecstatic response
overthrew it entirely. If there had been only triumph, I might have been able to resist him. But the utter
defenselessness of his sudden joy cracked my determination, disabled it. My brain disconnected from my
body, and I was kissing him back. Against all reason, my lips were moving with his in strange, confusing
ways they’d never moved before — because I didn’t have to be careful with Jacob, and he certainly
wasn’t being careful with me.
My fingers tightened in his hair, but I was pulling him closer now.
He was everywhere. The piercing sunlight turned my eyelids red, and the color fit, matched the heat. The
heat was everywhere. I couldn’t see or hear or feel anything that wasn’t Jacob.
The tiny piece of my brain that retained sanity screamed questions at me.
Why wasn’t I stopping this? Worse than that, why couldn’t I find in myself even the desire to want to
stop? What did it mean that I didn’t want him to stop? That my hands clung to his shoulders, and liked
that they were wide and strong? That his hands pulled me too tight against his body, and yet it was not
tight enough for me?

For one brief, never-ending second, an entirely different path expanded behind the lids of my tear-wet
eyes. As if I were looking through the filter of Jacob’s thoughts, I could see exactly what I was going to
give up, exactly what this new self-knowledge would not save me from losing. I could see Charlie and
Renée mixed into a strange collage with Billy and Sam and La Push. I could see years passing, and
meaning something as they passed, changing me. I could see the enormous red-brown wolf that I loved,
always standing as protector if I needed him. For the tiniest fragment of that second, I saw the bobbing
heads of two small, black-haired children, running away from me into the familiar forest. When they
disappeared, they took the rest of the vision with them.
And then, quite distinctly, I felt the splintering along the fissure line in my heart as the smaller part
wrenched itself away from the whole.
Jacob’s lips were still before mine were...
~