November is when Bella decided she was over Edward enough to talk to me.
"Tell me the truth, why are you here, and why did Edward leave?"
I walked past Bella as she attempted to talk to me. I had decided ignoring her would probably be best.
"Emma, just answer my question; I know you can hear me." Bella attempted to follow me, but I started walking slightly faster than normal, causing her to fall behind.
"Why did Edward leave?!"
Something in me snapped as she asked that question for the second time, and I spun around to face her. "You know Edward isn't the only one who left, right?" When she didn't answer, I continued. "Cause my whole family left me because Edward was too scared of hurting you."
"Why did they leave you if you're like them?"
"Because Edward somehow convinced the whole family to. Because of him, Jasper left."
"Or maybe Jasper didn't love you anymore."
The empty feeling in my chest worsened as my anger resurfaced. "I'm done," I said, turning around to leave. "And don't talk to me ever again."
A few weeks later, however, Bella decided to befriend Jacob, meaning she was over on the Rez a lot. I tried my best to avoid her at all costs.
The month continued on uneventfully. There were rumors that Bella was building bikes with Jacob in his garage, but I never checked on them to see it. Even though I was pretty sure she might die if she rode a motorcycle, I never told her that. So, when through the grapevine I heard she crashed a bike, I was not surprised.
Jacob and Bella kept getting closer, which worried Sam and me. Whenever Jacob would finally phase, Bella would either be ignored by him or find out the truth. No matter how much Sam told me Bella would never know, I knew she would figure it out. She's too persistent to take 'no' for an answer.
December came, and that's when everything started to go wrong.
"Jacob's phasing." Those two words caused our whole world to be flipped upside down.
The day after Jacob phased for the first time and calmed down, Sam brought him back to the house to talk about everything.
"So let me get this straight," Jacob said as we all sat around the diner table. "You're a wolf from a different pack, but you lived with the vampires this whole time?"
"Pretty much, yeah," I told him.
"So why are you here now and not with the bloodsuckers?"
"Because Edward flipped out about Bella and somehow convinced my family to leave me behind."
"They're not your family, Emma."
I don't know what the rest of that conversation entailed because I left the house entirely. I didn't talk to Jacob until a week later when the whole pack was hanging out on La Push beach.
I was sitting down reading Dracula while the rest of the guys were playing some Frisbee game with each other when Sam decided to confront me on something.
"Emma," he said, drawing my attention away from my book. "When was the last time you phased?"
Uncomfortable with the question, I looked back down at my book, not wanting to answer. "Why does that matter?" I asked him back.
"It doesn't," he responded. "You just look different. So, when was the last time you phased?"
"Before they left," I said, looking up at Sam.
"Emma," Embry said, sitting next to me. "That's not a good thing."
"Well," I told him, setting my book down. "If they don't want to be with me, I don't want to wait all eternity for them to never come back."
"So you decided to stop phasing to start aging." Jacob didn't ask this as a question; he stated it as a fact. Even though I was mad at Jacob, I was glad he wasn't fighting me about this idea.
"Yes," I told him. "It's easier this way, and nothing you say will change my mind."
"I wasn't going to," he told me. Hearing him say that made my anger toward Jacob lessen, but the ache in my heart worsened.
But I still wanted to tease him. "I do think you should call Bella back, though; I don't want that girl asking me more questions."
Then, two days before Christmas, Jacob somehow told Bella about the pack. This caused her to come over and talk to the pack about everything, including the fact that I was a wolf, not a vampire.
"Why would you lie to me?" she asked me.
"Because it was easier than telling you the truth," I told her. I was sitting on the couch with Embry while she stood with Jacob. "And it was none of your business."
"I'm offended. You told me we were friends and then you lied to me."
Embry laughed beside me. "I'm pretty sure she just said it was none of your business."
Bella glared at the two of us before relaxing slightly. "At least that makes sense why they left you. No one would want to live with their mortal enemies."
"Uncool Bella!" Embry yelled at her as I got up and left the room.
I was angry at Bella, I was mad at Edward, and I was mad at Jasper. I didn't understand why none of them had reached out even once to make sure I was okay. We went from being a family to them completely pretending like I didn't exist.