From another point of view (Outtakes from 'Trust me')

Outtake #1: Because ice would melt

Thankfully it didn’t take Jacob long to realise that forcing his ideas on me would be fruitless; he knew me well enough by this stage to know I would keep persisting.

Bloody vampires have to test everything. Haven’t they learnt by now that their theories are always right? He mumbled bitterly to himself.

I smirked at his thoughts, but decided not to inform him that despite our (especially my father’s) tendency to be correct, the consequences that would arise if we were wrong, outweighed the small precautionary measures we require Jacob to adhere to.

Resigning to the inevitable, Jacob grabbed the thermometer out of my palm, and placed it carelessly under his tongue. The force with which he took it from me had me worried that he would break the delicate glass, but thankfully it remained in tact.

As Jacob and I waited for thirty seconds to pass (I decided to increase the waiting time as the mercury would have been affected by my freezing skin), I observed his thoughts carefully. I saw his tongue move over the thermometer slightly, and I knew he didn’t like the hard, foreign stick inside his mouth. But thankfully he kept it under his tongue, and didn’t complain. Instead he thought about my father and brother- the two members of my family who he thought could help him far better than I could at the present moment.

I wonder why the doc’s not here explaining all this to me. Surely Jasper could help cool me down using his gift. Perhaps they’ve given up on me; I wouldn’t blame them. Problems just follow me around everywhere, one thing after another after another, Jacob thought bitterly to himself. In addition to his bitterness towards Victoria, without whom none of this would be happening to him, he also felt abandoned and useless. All-or-nothing thoughts began to fill his mind, and before long, I was overcome with his helplessness: What if this never stops? Just when things settle down, something else makes me feel like shit. Perhaps this is what vampire venom does to us wolves: makes us eternally ill. I’m going to have to rely on the Cullens forever.

Jacob had had enough; he had made himself upset and didn’t want to risk breaking the thermometer. I felt for the boy, I truly did; the effects of the venom were definitely trialling on him, physically and emotionally. But he was getting better, even if he couldn’t see it. Seeing his intention to remove the thermometer from his mouth, I knew I needed to stop him; undoubtedly he would forget to check his temperature before throwing it away, by which time the thermometer would be broken and useless.

I reached out to place my hand over Jacob’s, which momentarily halted his intention to go through with his plan.

Knowing that Jacob was about to defy my instructions to him, not out of anger, but hopeless frustration, I wanted my gesture to be of some comfort to him. And in doing so, I wished to emphasise to Jacob, however silently that he was not a burden to my family (or most of us anyway).

The moment Jacob felt my skin on his own, he froze staring into my face clearly surprised that I had intervened. And in those couple of seconds, he saw that I was sad for him- that I was there for him, that he was not alone in his frustration, his confusion, and his sadness.

“Once you remove the thermometer, tell me what your temperature is, and then you can hand it back to me. I cannot touch it because my skin will affect the reading. Then we can compare your current temperature to what it should be. Do you know what that is?” I instructed him gently, pushing aside my emotions and his, for the sake of efficiency.

108.

I removed my hand from Jacob’s so he could extract the thermometer from his mouth, hoping against all hope that the reading would be 110 at most. I should have known I was wishing for too much.