High School Sweetheart [Jacob & Edward]

seven.

Jacob makes it upstairs, intent on slamming his bedroom door in Bella's face and brooding for the rest of the night. It's been his way of handling things lately and Bella's tired. She's tired of having to pretend that he'll open up eventually, that if she gives him space, he'll come to her. So, she juts her foot out, ignoring the pain as she forces her way in. She can see the explosion waiting to happen, the buildup of all that anger Jacob's been holding in for months, all that sadness, waiting to spill out. She can see it boiling over as he glares at her, but she can tell he's holding back tears. She gets it. Nothing seems to be going right for him these days. The one distraction he'd found was now gone. She would rather he let it out. Yell, cry, something — instead of crawling back into himself and being depressed. She waits for the outburst, shields herself for the tirade, only to watch as Jacob's lower lip begins to tremble.

She hadn't seen him like this since they were kids. She hadn't seen him this confused and hurt since he'd mastered balance. Since he'd stopped falling down in the mulch, lip jutting out before he can even really process what happened. Just like all of those times, he looks at Bella like she has all of the answers. 

"Why?" he whispers, voice cracking on the word, tears in his eyes as his shoulders slump.

He looks so defeated. 

She pulls him over into a hug, relieved when the wall finally crumbles as he sobs into her shoulder. 

The boys are inside today. It's a rare occurrence considering that the reason that they come to this place is to stretch their legs, run off some energy, but Jacob's inside. He's curled up on a blanket sleeping so, the boys are also piled up around him on top of blankets. It'd be adorable if she couldn't tell that they were worried about him. They were trying their best to keep him company, watch over him, but there wasn't a lot to be done. They couldn't make his problems go away. 

Rain is in the forecast and she can see the sky somehow becoming even darker, gloomier as the clouds go from a dull blue to a gloomy gray.  

Leah's in the kitchen making lunch for the group, but Bella can feel her eyes watching. She's waiting for something. Whatever it is, Bella doesn't put any thought into it, instead mindlessly helping her. Though, once the boys are distracted with eating lunch, her eyes are back on the side of Bella's head. She wants to say something. Whatever it is seems to trump whatever subtlety she may have intended to have. Bella pretends not to notice, instead beginning to clean up the mess they'd made. 

"Can we talk?" she eventually blurts out, capturing the attention of almost everyone.

She can see the way it takes everything in Seth to not whip his head around, instead turning it ever so slightly, attention clearly no longer on the TV. Embry and Quil glance at one another before they go back to watching Scooby-Doo. Jacob has yet to crack an eye open. 

Bella glances over at her, giving a stiff nod before turning to follow her outside onto the porch. It's not ideal, the wind whipping rain at them, but that's not seemingly enough as Leah grabs her hand and tugs Bella out towards her truck. Leah seems unfazed by the fact that they're drenched, head tilting up towards the sky as if she's thoroughly enjoying herself, giggling when she catches sight of Bella's confused gaze. She eventually let go of Bella's hand, allowing her to climb into the driver's seat before getting in on the passenger side. 

She's beaming, smile wider than Bella's ever seen it, despite her hair sticking to her face and water droplets dripping down her chin. And, for the moment, Bella is distracted.

She'd clearly been so caught up in Jacob's woes that she'd missed more than a few things and she'd yet to sit down and think about that. Leah liked her. Leah looks at Bella like she'd hung the moon.