In this moment, it felt as though we were the same person. His pain had always been and would always be my pain — now his joy was my joy. I felt joy, too, and yet his happiness was somehow also pain. Almost tangible — it burned against my skin like acid, a slow torture.

For one brief, never-ending second, an entirely different path expanded behind the lids of my tear-wet eyes. As if I were looking through the filter of Jacob’s thoughts, I could see exactly what I was going to give up, exactly what this new self-knowledge would not save me from losing. I could see Charlie and Renée mixed into a strange collage with Billy and Sam and La Push. I could see years passing, and meaning something as they passed, changing me. I could see the enormous red-brown wolf that I loved, always standing as protector if I needed him. For the tiniest fragment of that second, I saw the bobbing heads of two small, black-haired children, running away from me into the familiar forest. When they disappeared, they took the rest of the vision with them.

And then, quite distinctly, I felt the splintering along the fissure line in my heart as the smaller part wrenched itself away from the whole.

Jacob’s lips were still before mine were. I opened my eyes and he was staring at me with wonder and elation.

“I have to leave,” he whispered.

“No.”

He smiled, pleased by my response. “I won’t be long,” he promised. “But one thing first . . .”

He bent to kiss me again, and there was no reason to resist. What would be the point?

This time was different. His hands were soft on my face and his warm lips were gentle, unexpectedly hesitant. It was brief, and very, very sweet.

His arms curled around me, and he hugged me securely while he whispered in my ear.

“That should have been our first kiss. Better late than never.”

Against his chest, where he couldn’t see, the tears welled up and spilled over.