Cliff Diver || Paul Lahote•Jacob Black/Twilight Fanfiction

Chapter 51

(Serious question for my readers. I just got a notification from Wattpad telling me to watch ads or whatever to get coins to read... do you have to use coins to read this story or any other of my stories? I honestly use this app to write, not to read, so I don't know how this works. I want to know because if readers have to pay for my stories, I might migrate my work to Ao3, please let me know)

Renata fell asleep crying in the forest, and Paul had carried her home. He placed her on his inflatable mattress, as Neza was asleep in her bed, and he went to sleep on the couch. He couldn't shake off the painful feeling Renata had felt earlier. If that was just a reflection of what Renata had felt, he didn't want to know in how much pain Renata was. He certainly didn't want Renata to be in any sort of pain ever again. Eventually, Paul fell asleep.

Renata was woken by the memory of Nina's lifeless eyes. She sat up to find she was at home, in her room. For a moment she believed everything had been nothing but an awful nightmare, but Neza's sleeping form in the bed next to her told her it had been very much real. There was no way she could go back to bed, so she quickly changed into her training clothes, clipped her hair away from her face, and went out of the house.

"Renata, you've been out here for  hours, and it's time for lunch" Paul called from behind her as he watched her shake from the effort she was doing, staying in that plank position he hated so at training.

"Go ahead and start without me" Renata said with shaky breath. Paul could outline with his eyes the shape of the muscles in her back, legs and arms, but he could also clearly see the bones of her shoulder, collarbone and each individual vertebrae.

"Renata, you need to eat" Paul said firmly. He thought Renata would go with him as she came down from the plank, but she only stood up, grabbed her water bottle and took three big glups of water before she started doing lunges, "Renata-"

"I'm fine, Paul!" Renata snapped, she hadn't turned to look at him once, "I'm not hungry" almost on cue, her stomach rumbled, "- That's just because I drank the water too quickly"

"Renata, you've been working out until exhaustion for the past three weeks. And last night was really hard, please, talk to me" Paul wanted to walk up to her and physically stop her from exercising, but he stopped himself, Renata didn't like being touched.

"I need to be stronger" Renata said almost out of breath. 

"You are strong, you are as strong as any of us, stronger even, you have always been"

Not enough. Renata though of the events of last night. If she had been fast enough, strong enough, her friends would still be alive. And that was besides the whole Jacob ordeal.

Renata looked down at her hands as she prepared to do push-ups. Her hands were shaking, there was an echo in her ears as Paul talked, and her head felt cloudy. She dried the sweat of her hands on her shorts, trying to hide the shaking from Paul.

"I'm just not hungry" Renata repeated.

"And I don't buy it, Renata. I haven't seen you eat anything but an apple in the past week, and I know that your metabolism has the same rate as ours, besides, using your powers constantly leaves you exhausted, and you used them all night yesterday to try to track the redheaded leech" Paul couldn't understand Renata's refusal to eat.

Renata knew that everything Paul was telling her was true, but she was finally starting to lose weight, Jacob had told her how much better she looked now that she had started to loose the extra pounds she had on her. Yet he had also complained that her boobs seemed to be smaller. She had to keep going, or Jacob could start looking at other girls.