Hands on Me (A Twilight Fanfiction written by IndependentIndividuality)

Chapter Five: In Which No One Plays X-Box

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Chapter Five: In Which No One Plays X-Box

and then you feel so low you can't feel nothing at all

- taylor swift, forever & always

I stared at it for a long moment, studying it in detail. It was taken a few months ago at my seventh birthday. I took in my face and Jacob's and remembered that day and how everything was so easy. The picture was taken in front of the house by Aunt Alice - I remember spending the whole day trying to dodge her and her camera as she chased me, clicking away madly.

She finally caught up to me, and Jake snatched me up into the air, holding me around the stomach so my head was almost parallel with his. My hands gripped at his forearms and my bare toes dangled feet from the ground. I was laughing and Jacob was smiling sun. Our cheeks touched.

Jacob's voice is what broke me out of my reverie.

"What're you staring at?"

I hurried away from the dresser, my face hot. He looked back and forth from me to the dresser twice, and caught on.

"Oh," he said, "It's a good picture, isn't it? We had fun that day."

"Sure, sure," I agreed, using his words and smiling despite myself. Then I mumbled, "Your mom was really pretty."

He looked back at the picture, and I could see his expression softening in the reflection of the mirror.

"Yeah . . . she was."

I kneeled down beside the bed, resting my forearms on the comforter and my head on my arms.

"Do you miss her?"

He looked at me for a second like he was trying to see me more clearly. After a long time, he said, "Sometimes."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "If it's hard for you to talk about . . . I was just wondering."

"No, no," he said quickly, pulling at my arm until I crawled up to sit beside him on the too-small bed. "I don't mind talking to you. I do miss her, sometimes. But my life is full now, you know? I mean, nothing could take her place, but there's not a gap anymore, you know?"

I nodded yes, but I guess he didn't believe me, because he continued.

"Before, back when I was younger, it was like there was this big hole in everything. Like nothing could ever be normal. Like . . . " he cast around for words and I sat in rapture, unable to believe he was sharing such a thing with me. ". . . like I'd never be able to get up in the morning and not feel empty when I didn't hear her voice in the next room, or I'd never be able to go into Billy's room and not feel the space where she used to be like an ache . . ."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Jacob!" I cried, and threw my arms around his neck. I was so close to tears it was ridiculous.

"Hey, now," he said, pulling me back, reciting his line for when I got too close to tears for his comfort. "No need for that. Like I said, I don't feel like that anymore." He lay back on the bed and pulled me with him and I curled into his chest, forgetting for a moment that I shouldn't, that things weren't easy like this anymore.

He kissed my hair and my stomach good-ached. "I love my life."

This time, when I inhaled, I did it with full knowledge of what my body's reaction would be. I'm not sure what that meant. But I did it anyway, inhaled deeply and clenched my legs together in a preemptive strike against the feeling I knew would come. It did come, but I was ready, and held myself tightly. I kept my hips firmly in place when they seemed to want to stretch forward, reach out.