Chapter 23: Lacrymosa

Warning: This chapter contains what may be offensive language to some people.

(Song: Pink - I Don’t Believe You)

Jacob slowly sank onto the bed, eyes still trained on the engagement ring that Bella had left on the dresser that was across the room. He had been vaguely aware of the slamming of the front door, then the squeal of tires as Bella drove away from the house. The only thing that kept running through his mind was how could he have been that stupid to say the things he had said.

Why couldn’t he have told her the truth? About his fears, about Vanessa, about everything. Instead, he had to be an ass by blurting out nonsense or agreeing with whatever she had falsely accused him of.

He couldn’t believe he let his panic overcome him enough that he had lit into her about the things she was planning for their future wedding. The truth was, he could understand why it was good to have made a decision on the theme and colors of the wedding. After all, you needed to keep those things in mind when gathering everything to produce the finalized product.

So what if she had gone to look at invitations and venues and the like? All she had been doing was research and there was nothing wrong with that. After spending years in college, even he knew the benefits of doing your research, no matter what it was for. He knew it would pay to be prepared in the long run.

No, he really couldn’t fault Bella for planning their wedding, he knew he wanted to marry her. He even knew he’d like to get married soon, not ten or fifteen years down the road like he had told her. He couldn’t blame Bella for giving into the pressure from their parents to start planning it. Heck, he’d been on the verge of suggesting it himself before she had called him to tell him that his mother had found a potential home for them.

As for the house itself, he didn’t really hate it. Sure, he’d wanted a smaller, starter home for the two of them, but Bella’s insight was right. This house was perfect for the family they could have down the road and it had been available right now. Why pass up that kind of opportunity when you had the choice? Even he knew better than to have turned the house down.

So what if it was only him and Bella right now? It would give them time to make the house into a home while they worked a few years until they were ready to fill the house with children.

And he did want children. He wanted to share the raising of them with Bella. To have little girls that looked like her and little boys whom he could play football and other sports with. He wanted to be able to protect his girls from harm and teach the boys how to treat and respect others. He wanted to kiss skinned knees and hug their fears away. He wanted it all.

So why had he gone and accused her of springing an unwanted pregnancy on him, then proclaimed that he didn’t want kids because they messed up people’s lives? How could he have been so foolish as to say something like that to the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with?

But the worst part was what he’d done right before she had left the living room. When Bella had asked him if the only reason he had asked her to marry him was so that he could keep her in his bed, he hadn’t denied it at all. It wasn’t true, but like a brainless idiot he had let her believe it.

After everything they had shared, not just as a couple, but as best friends while growing up, he had let her believe that the only thing he had ever wanted from her was her body. God, he wouldn’t blame her if she never talked to him again, but he knew he’d never let that happen. He had to talk to her again. Had to make her understand why he’d acted the fool tonight.

He had to come clean with her once and for all, that way he could begin to fix the mess he’d made out of their life. Glancing at the alarm by the bed, he noticed that it had been a little over an hour since she had left. Hoping that she would talk to him, he went downstairs to retrieve his cell phone from his briefcase.

He dialed her number, then listened as the phone rang. When it went to voicemail, he sighed and waited to leave his message.

When the beep sounded, he rushed to get his message out. “Bella listen, I know I said some really stupid things tonight. I really need you to know that I didn’t mean any of it. Please tell me we can talk about this. I want to apologize to you and tell you what really was bothering me, okay? Call me, honey. I love you.”

He hung up the phone, then walked into the living room to sit forlornly on the couch. He knew he was going to have to spend that night alone. Sure, he deserved it after the way he had treated her, but it was still going to be hard. He had gotten used to coming home to her, to going to sleep in her arms and waking up with her besides him.

Yet he knew despite the fact that he had left the message for her, she probably wouldn’t be answering him at all tonight, even if he tried to call her again. Resigned to spend the night alone, he began to make his way back to the bedroom.

(Song: Within Temptation - The Cross)

As soon as he stepped onto the first stair, his cell phone began to ring. Without even looking at the ID, he answered it quickly.

“Hello, Be…”

“Jacob! Oh I’m so glad this is still your number!” came Vanessa’s elated voice.

Jacob cringed as he berated himself for not looking at his phone before answering it. Outwardly, he spoke in what he hoped was a calm voice.

“Vanessa, is something wrong?”

“I’m sorry for bothering you, but I just needed to hear your voice. I miss you so much, Jacob.”

Closing his eyes, he prayed he could handle this and get her off the phone before they both said anything that could set her off. “Look, it’s late and I haven’t eaten yet, so…”

“You haven’t eaten? I could come over and cook something for you, if you wanted.”

Her offer threw him off. “What?”

“Please?” she begged. “I have plenty of stuff here that I could take with me. It wouldn’t take long to throw something simple together. It would give us some time to catch up with each other again.”

He ran an agitated hand through his hair. “Vanessa, it’s too late to come over and you know I can’t get involved with you.”

“But why not?” she whined.

“You know why.” He paused, but when she didn’t answer he continued. “You know I’m seeing someone else now and I care about her a lot. You and I both had moved on Vanessa, it was only natural for that to happen.”

“No!” she snapped. “I didn’t move on! You did! But then again…you’d already made your choice before you met me, didn’t you?”

A chill went down his spine at her words. He tried to placate her as he calmly replied, “Look, you know we tried to make it work. Several times. But it just didn’t happen. Then you met Riley and I thought he was good for you. He was what you needed, so I didn’t interfere and let you go, then I moved on. I’m sorry, Vanessa, but that’s just how it is.”

“Don’t lie to me! Do you really think I’m that stupid? That I haven’t figured out that the tramp you’ve moved on with is the one and only Bella Swan? Come on Jacob Black! I know how hard you kept chasing that tail! I know how badly you wanted between her legs!”

“Vanessa,” he warned with a slight edge to his voice, “You don’t want to go there.”

“Don’t I?” she snarled. “You probably thought you had me played for a fool all along, didn’t you? Let me just hand Vanessa off to Riley so I can go play with the swan! Fine! You’ve had your fun now! It’s time to dig yourself out of that bitch’s cunt and come back to the real world, Jacob! It’s time you finally admitted that this little baby girl suckling at my tits is your daughter!”

Jacob’s entire body had gone stiff the moment Vanessa had begun to use such crass words. Now when she was done, he tried to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make her thirsty for anyone’s blood. He briefly wondered if the baby really was in her arms right now since that wasn’t the ideal situation at the moment.

His hesitation cost him. “You can deny it all you want, but I know the truth! The stupid doctor and his tests lied! They all lied! And if you saw the baby, you would know it too! Even Riley knew it! She looks nothing like him! Nothing! I wasn’t kidding when I told you she has your smile! But that’s not all she has that makes her yours! She even has your eyes and her hair matches the color of yours more than it does mine!”

“Vanessa! We had the doctor run the test multiple times! The results were the same every time!”

“So he says! Come on! It’s not hard to fake tests these days! I say we take another one and this time we both be there for the whole thing! I’ll prove to you that this baby is yours!”

He yanked at his hair, he’d had enough of her crazy ways. That on top of his problems with Bella just pushed him over the edge. “It doesn’t matter if it’s mine or not, Vanessa! Get it through your head! I’m not going back to you! I don’t love you and I never will!”

“Oh, but you love that tramp you’re supposedly engaged to? She must be a great fuck if you went through all that trouble to ask her to marry you. We all know just how much you preferred to sleep around without a care in the world until you met that bitch!”

The fact that Vanessa echoed Bella’s assumption that he was such a man whore really set him off. “Yes I love her, but you’ve got some things wrong! I’ve known her since we were born and she’s always been a part of my life. We grew up together and we fell in love long before you and I got together, Vanessa!”

He couldn’t stop his voice from rising as he continued to yell into the phone. “You want to know the real reason why I never committed to any of the other girls I dated? Why not even you could tie me down? It’s because I was waiting for her all along! I was waiting for her to finally admit that she loved me as much as I’ve always loved her!”

There was silence for a long time before he could hear the beginnings of soft crying. “No,” came her strangled cry. “No, you’re lying. You…you love me.”

Through gritted teeth he snarled. “No. I. Don’t!”

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, Jacob. Just give me a chance.”

“I can’t. I won’t. Listen to me, Vanessa! Listen closely because this is the last time we are ever having this conversation! I’m in love with Bella Swan and I am going to marry her if she’ll have me. So if I were you, I’d give up trying to get me back because it’s never going to happen.”

He paused for a moment before finishing with, “Oh and one more thing, I wouldn’t try anything stupid either. Not only are you being watched, but there have been implements put into place to keep you from coming after me or anyone else. You got that? Stay the hell away from me, my family and Bella’s family! You try anything and you will pay for it! Don’t call me! Don’t write to me! And if you see me on the street leave me the hell alone! For the last time, goodbye Vanessa!”

He quickly hung up the phone before she could say anything else, then dialed his father’s number even though he was sure his father had already gone to bed. Just when he thought the call was going to voicemail, he heard a mumbled, “Hello?”

“Dad, it’s Jacob, I know it’s late, but something’s come up and I need your help to take care of it right now.”

************************************************
(Song: Amethystium - Autumn Interlude)

Bella tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she made her way down the hall towards her office. It was just after lunch, yet it had been a long, trying day already. She had woken up to the sound of her cell phone ringing, but had chosen to ignore it until she was fully awake. When she’d checked it later, she saw that it had been Jacob that had called. In fact, he had already made three other phone calls before that particular one. Of those three, one of the calls had been made the night before, but the other two had been made within a few minutes of each other that morning.

She had listened to the voicemail from the call of the night before since that was the only one he’d left, but didn’t call him back when she was done. Instead, she had gotten up to take a shower and get ready for work. When the shower didn’t wash away the sorrow and pain from the night before, she had hoped the coffee she intended to retrieve from the kitchen would help bolster her spirits.

Yet when she had finally descended the stairs, dressed sharply for work with her hair in a tidy bun, her father had been waiting for her with an ultimatum she didn’t want to hear. She was going to be tailed by a hired guard to and from work until further notice. Nothing she said could change her father’s mind and he wouldn’t tell her why he had the sudden need to beef up security other than a muttered, “talk to Jacob.”

“Talk to Jacob,” her mother had reiterated when Bella had found her in the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee. “Talk to him and he’ll explain what happened and why you need to be more careful now. Not only that, but you do need to talk to him to clear up whatever happened between you two.”

When Bella had let out a huff of indignation, her mother had kindly patted her arm. “I know you’re upset and maybe even angry with him, but he said he was sorry for what happened and wants to make things right again, sweetheart. Just give him a chance to apologize, okay?”

Once Bella had gotten to work, her father marched right into her office and insisted she go talk to Jacob immediately because that was suddenly more important than anything that had to do with her job. Since she got her stubbornness from him, she had ignored his request and dove right into her work.

So what if her cell phone had rang several times at intervals until she had put it on silent and tossed it into her purse? So what if she had barked at her secretary to tell Mr. Jacob Black that she was not in the office and that she would return his call when she had the chance to? She kept her door locked at all times, making sure her secretary knew that no one was allowed to interrupt her under any circumstances.

Despite avoiding Jacob all morning, she still felt like everyone was breathing down her neck, making her lose her concentration to the point that she’d had to repeat parts of her job that she could normally do in her sleep. It was so bad that by the time lunch rolled around, her tidy bun was now loose with several strands falling into her face and down her neck. She imagined that her body looked just as disorganized and weary as she felt.

Unable to keep anything down due to her circumstances, she had abandoned the granola bar she’d intended to eat for lunch and returned to work, avoiding all areas and paths where there was a chance to run into Jacob. It wasn’t until she stepped into her office upon returning from the file room that she realized how futile all that sneaking around had been. For there, leaning against her desk was the man of the hour.

His hands fiddled with the end of his tie as he gave her a pleading look. “Bella, honey…”

She started to turn around but he leaped up to race past her in time to shut the door before she could escape.

“Wait, just…” he started.

“Not now, Jacob!” she snapped.

“Please?” He begged. “Just hear me out, okay?”

She sighed before turning back to her desk where she fell heavily into her chair and crossed her arms. “I’m listening.”

He fiddled with his tie again as he made his way to one of the chairs in front of her desk. Sitting down, he cleared his throat then looked her square in the eyes.

“I want to apologize for the way I acted last night and for the things I said. I want you to know that I didn’t mean any of it.”

She glared at him. “You know as well as I do that when someone says something in the heat of an argument, it’s because they’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

He shook his head. “No, everything I said just came out all wrong, Bella. You see, I panicked because of something else that had been bothering me. Something I didn’t tell you about and I should have known better than to keep it from you.”

“Really? So, are you going to tell me what it is now?”

He sighed as he sat back in the chair. “Um, about a week and a half ago, the morning after we had just agreed to let our parents put that down payment on the house, I ran into Vanessa when I was getting coffee.”

Bella suddenly sat up straighter in her chair. “What?”

He nodded. “Yeah, at first she seemed just cordial, so I figured I’d just say hi, then go on my way. But when she kept talking to me, it just got worse. I was surprised when she admitted that she was seeing a shrink, but then she went on to say that she wasn’t with Riley anymore because he didn’t have the right to see the baby when it looks so much like me.” He scoffed. “Can you believe it? She claims that the baby has my smile!”

Bella could see the slight shudder that went through him as she prodded, “So, what happened then?”

“She told me that once she got better things could work out for us. She wanted me to be a part of the baby’s life. Actually, the words she used were, our daughter’s life.”

Bella closed her eyes. “Oh good lord.”

“I know, but she seemed to snap out of it. It was really weird, one minute she was the crazy woman I’ve talked to before and then she was this really sweet woman apologizing for keeping me from my work, telling me that she didn’t mean what she had just said. Then she told me that she’d see me around and left.”

“Is that why I suddenly have a security guard tailing me again?”

Jacob shook his head as he leaned forward to give her a worried stare. “No, the reason you have the guard is because last night, after you went to your parents, she called me again.”

Bella’s breath stilled in her lungs. It took her a few tries before her throat would work so she could ask her next question. “What…what did she say?”

“First, I would have never answered, but I thought it was you since I had just called and left a message on your cell. I didn’t even look at the caller ID, so when I picked up, she said she missed me and asked to go over and cook for me. When I tried to get out of it, she said she wanted me back and like before I told her that we both had moved on.”

He paused for a moment before he slid his hand over the desk towards her. “Bella, she knows it’s you that I’m seeing. I never said your name during that part of the conversation, but she said it and she said she knows we’re engaged. She said I was deluding myself into thinking that I could ever have a relationship with you and that it was time to stop the games. She said it was time for me to go back to her and admit that her baby really is mine.”

He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “God Bella, the things she said…they scared me more than I’ve ever been scared before. I’ve never felt so terrified, plus I was still upset over the things I said to you that made you leave, so I lost it and yelled at her. I told her that nothing she could do could ever make me love her when I’ve loved you since we were kids. I told her to stop with her lies and then told her if she even thinks about trying to harm me or anyone close to me that she would pay for it.”

Bella’s eyes went wide. “You threatened her over the phone? How did she take it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I told her goodbye for the last time then hung up on her and called dad. I knew we had to get security up as soon as possible after that phone call.”

Bella swallowed. “What do you think she’s going to do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Dad has his men watching her right now and so far she’s busy dealing with social services and Riley.” He sighed. “Bella, I know things are so crazy right now, but I just need to know…have I messed up things for us?”

(Song: Evanescence - Lacrymosa)

She stared at him for a few tense moments before he went on. “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t mean any of what I said last night. I love you so much. You know I want forever with you. Please, can we just sit down and talk it all out? You have no idea how hard it was for me to sleep in our bed last night, without you next to me.”

Jacob had to stop long enough to clear his throat of the fear and unshed tears before he continued to beg Bella for the chance to make it all up to her. “God, I wish I could take it all back, Bells. I wish I had just told you about that stupid encounter, but you had been so happy lately and I didn’t want anything to wipe that smile off of your face. You have no idea how much I love seeing you smile, honey. How much I want to always see it and know it’s there because you’re with me.”

A tear slid down Bella’s cheek, making Jacob wish he could just lean over to brush it away with his hand. “Jake…I…”

He held back a sob as he croaked, “I can’t lose you Bells, I can’t. Please, say you’ll come home with me tonight. Say we’ll talk about all of this and work it out together.”

She wiped the tears off of her cheek before nodding. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. We need to talk.” She straightened her top before giving him a stern look. “But Jacob, we have to talk about everything that’s been getting in our way! We have to talk about what each of us wants out of a future as a couple. We have to be honest and make sure there are no more huge misunderstandings again. We have to realize that even though we don’t see things the same way, we can still figure out how we are going to make it work even with those differences.”

He nodded. “I know. I know I have to stop being so childish and be more responsible. I have to stop just living in the now and start thinking about our future and where I want us to go. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you believe that I really do want a future with you, Bella. A future that will include a perfect wedding and beautiful children that we will raise together in that house that we both want.”

Bella gave him a teary smile as she nodded. “I’d like that Jacob. I really would.”

He returned her smile with one of his own. “So? Will I see you at home tonight?”

“Yes.” She stood up to walk around the desk towards him. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

He reached out to take her hands in his. “Thank you Bells. Thank you for meeting me half way.”

She leaned over and pressed her forehead against his chest. “When we get home we have to talk right away. We have to agree to try to make things work, Jacob. I can’t do this again.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I know honey. We’ll make it work, I promise. I love you so much, Bella.”

She hugged him back, “I love you too Jacob. I love you so much.”