Dazed and Abused

It had began raining just a few seconds after I had left the cafeteria, enough to calm and keep me sane. I chewed the first bite of my sandwich and then wrapped it back up in the paper towel. I felt utterly sick to my stomach now that I had time and quiet to process everything. My first moment back in his presence and I was already shaking with anger, enough that I’d sacrifice morals and even good karma to make it go away. But I knew I had more since then that, and why waste it on a boy who had broken my heart when everything was already falling apart?

I pulled my Sansa, Sweeney is his name, from my pocket and put my headphones into my ear. I turned my sweet baby on and watched the welcome screen, afterwards letting the acoustic version of Falls Apart by Hurt flow into my ears. Just what I needed.

I began eating my sandwich, realizing it was pointless to ignore what would keep me occupied as my mind kept drifting back and fourth from memories that hurt me to memories that made that hole in the pit of my stomach disappear. I can’t take him back into my life, even if I miss Quil and Embry so much I’d rather be alone…and is that a risk I’d take to try and fix myself back up again? Go back on my promise to my father that I’d stay in school this time, that I wouldn’t try what my mother had dared to do?

That’s when I felt like a fucking monster for all the reasons I felt like doing what she did, and I knew what a mistake it would be, to break the hearts of so many because I couldn’t stand strong. I’m better then that, I’m better then her.

**

“I have to go talk to her.” He stood from where he sat, but Quil grabbed his forearm quickly.

“No, don’t.” Did he listen?

**

“Because everything just falls apart for me.
I cracked my head and broke my..
when I cracked my head and broke my.
I cracked my head and broke my head.” I whispered with him as he sang into my ears, then ended the song and I bowed my head as I took another bite and chewed. I remembered just two weeks after he had told me about his feelings for her that I grabbed the can of compressed air, laid on my side, and froze the inside of my cheek. It was burning, I was poisoned and I knew it was stupid but maybe if I was hurt enough that it got around he would feel guilty. He wouldn’t though, he found his distraction. I could feel the scar of tissue that didn’t heal properly on the inside, but my cheek on the outside was perfectly normal. A scar no one would be able to see.

I heard feet shuffling through the beautiful, green wet grass in a quick pace, and thinking it was Quil I let my head lift to great him. Instead it was him, that very person who did this to me. Truth I did it to myself, but I blamed him with every ounce of my soul.

“Elaine?”

“No. She died.”

“Then who am I speaking to?”

“The remains…” I watched his face fall so hard, from the smirk/smile to a frown that resembled the exact face he played two years from today.

“I’m so sorry for what I did.”

“It doesn’t matter, Jacob. I’ve picked up those pieces…” I wrapped the remains of my sandwich and sat it beside me, letting my fingers entwine themselves in my lap as I watched him intently.

“I made a mistake.”

“Humans do that.” His eyes shifted uncomfortably, and with my skill at reading people, I knew he was hiding something rather big.

“I guess you don’t know what we have until its gone, right?”

“Shut up.” His eyes hardened as I snapped at him, and I stood, “Fuck that. What are you trying to get? Closure? Because I’ve already gotten mine.”

“What are you talking about?” He asked, his hands high to his shoulders in defense as I kicked my sandwich at him.

“You know what I’m fucking talking about. If it weren’t for that bitch I wouldn’t be in this position…no that’s a lie..."

“Bella isn’t a bitch.” His voice had risen in anger, but I didn’t whimper nor did I want to take back what I said, and I wasn’t about to feel guilty for what was now to leave my lips.

“Your a fucking liar, Jacob Black, and I don’t want you fucking near me ever again. Go eat her face. I’m out of here.” I’m sorry daddy, I know I promised but when acting through anger, I act in impulse.

I was out the front door of the building before I could have finished inhaling the tears hot from the fire of what I thought to be hatred. I clambered in my car with weak knees and even weaker arms and burnt my tires on the pavement before I turned on the street…I was done.

**

There was a big hole in the center of his loving heart, growing as the anger began to disintegrate, and lucky for him he had enough control not to change before her. Quil and Embry had joined him shortly after the bell rang, their faces held sympathy yet a smoldering flame of regret. Shouldn’t they have tried harder?

They could’ve have saved her, they could have saved him from making the second biggest mistake in his life. Yet all Quil could do was let him go as he had wiggled his arm out of Quil’s grasp. And Embry was too engrossed in his baked potato to really know the situation, but he still felt it was partly his fault.

Tension was high in the air as they stood beside him, watching his face go from stiff to relaxed, sadness hard evidence of their argument.

“Did I really do that to her?”

**

I slammed through the front door, my father looking out the kitchen door as I ran past him up the stairs.

“Elaine? What happened?”

I ignored him, slamming the bathroom door shut and falling to the hard, tile floor as a scream escaped my throat, burning the scar that went from my tonsils to the corner of my lips. It was loud, it reverberated through the house, I could hear it. My eyes were shut tight as I pealed away the skin on my arms to keep myself from punching the floor, that's all I wanted was to beat the tiles until my wrist broke.

The door hit me in the back as my father managed to make his way before me, taking me in his arms to keep me from further damaging myself. This is what it felt like to feel again, after two years of letting my emotion’s slide into a tiny little box that was locked and put away, for what I thought to be forever.

**

“What’s wrong Jacob?” Bella asked as he stepped onto her front porch, his face dull but sad. She could see it in his eyes, the biggest windows to a person’s soul that she’d ever seen.

“She came back to school today.” He began to explain as she sat him down on her couch, Edward just a few feet away. “I imprinted…and I wanted to talk to her, but we fought and she ran…Quil said she was off to kill herself.”

Bella’s eyebrows furrowed, not with anger, but with question.

“Who?”

“Elaine.” A gasped escaped from Bella’s lips, the story was old but she knew the background behind Elaine all to well. A great friend of Jacob’s, but a heartbroken girl after he tried to devote himself to Bella. She felt guilt edge its way into her heart, giving Edward a single shocked look before embracing Jacob’s warm body into her arms.

It had been a year he was on the run before he came back home, and now for the first time in along while had he come to spill what was hurting him. Bella was too understanding now, having met Elaine and having heard Elaine’s troubles through Jacob’s lips. She understood them both, and realized what a tough situation…wait, didn’t he say imprinted…on Elaine?

**

Mike was friend’s with Carlisle, had been since the Doctor had began living here nearly three years back, and thus my father made the long drive to the Forks hospital instead, because Mike, my father, trusted him more then anybody else.

I was still screaming when Carlisle carried me into a private room, one of two the hospital had, and he began to coo and sing as he wrapped my arms tightly. I felt so ashamed of myself, and I hated even moving my arms, because feeling them attached to my body reminded me of all the reasons I hated my mother…

“It must be Jacob again.” I heard my father whispered to Carlisle from the corner of the room, the corner farthest from me. “I knew I shouldn’t have sent her back to school.” My father was running his hands through her dark, long hair.

“If she’s anything like her mother, I’d be worried, Mike. She’s pulled through this far…give her another chance, I expected this to happen, surely you should have seen this coming too.” Carlisle spoke, contradicting himself. Stupid doctor…it was painfully obvious that this was to happen, yet again.

“How long is she going to hurt?”

“I can’t decide.”

**

Carlisle came through the door of Bella’s small house, swiftly making his way over to the boy sitting on her couch. He had to ask one question that would determine the outcome of Elaine’s progressive bitterness.

“Jacob, answer me this. What are you feeling right now?” Carlisle asked, putting away the thought of the bitter scent of werewolf. He saw the look of hurt and shame in Jacob’s eyes as he lifted his head to look Carlisle dead straight.

“I…”

“He imprinted…Carlisle why are you here?” Edward asked, unfolding his arms as he walked closer to his ‘father’.

“I just bandaged Elaine at the hospital…she’s never been so distraught. Today was her first day of public school at the La Push reservation since, two years ago?” Jacob nodded his head as if the question was directed to him, most likely it was, but his eyes were closed tightly as if he was trying to push away a memory. His body was shaking…

“Oh my God…” Bella was beyond surprised, as everything happened so quickly but now that she could soak it in with the silence that followed Jacob’s nod, she realized it was bound to happen. Elaine loved Jacob like no one has ever loved before, maybe even stronger the connection she felt with Edward, and she never understood quit well why Jacob had fallen for her instead of Elaine.

“What do we do?” Edward asked, looking at Bella, his face contorted in what she interpreted as pain, then she remembered. He could hear Jake’s thoughts…

**

“I’m so sorry, Daddy. I promised and I broke that promise.” I mumbled idly to myself as I laid in the backseat of my father’s Toyota Tacoma. It was rather uncomfortable, keeping in mind it wasn’t exactly a back seat, but hard pads of some material connected perhaps glued to hard, gray plastic.

“Don’t worry about it, Hun. I believe in you, your stronger then I ever gave you credit for. But your going back to that school.” My face went from the smile at the beginning of his words to a frown at the end of his last sentence. Had he gone completely flipping nuts, or was he punishing me, but either way I felt good about this. And I absolutely hated it, just as much as I hate…

I hated my mother’s choice, no doubt but could I bring myself to hate her any longer. Sure enough, she went through so much and even my father’s company couldn’t bring her to stay but leaving me behind? Wasn’t that enough, shouldn’t that have been enough? Clearly it wasn’t, and now that I’ve stuck myself in a situation I felt compelled to do just what she’d done, could I go back on what I disliked and do the same thing. Could I break my father’s heart?

That’s when I was fueled with anger, once again today, but this time it wasn’t at myself, it wasn’t at my mother, it was, and it should be, at Jacob fucking Black. I will once again blame him for all the hurt he put me through, I will, once again blame him for my mother’s death and blame him for how dirt poor we became after her funeral, even though it wasn’t that expensive. I’ll blame him for all the abuse I went through in school because of everything else. It wasn’t fair but that’s how I felt it should be, that he should be the bad guy because he was what made me finally crack.

My father lead me through our two bedroom, one bath trailer to my room at the end of the hall. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and a tearful sorry before closing my door and sliding down it. I hugged my knees close to my chest, feeling ashamed of myself for my poor mistake.