Chapter 19

“Nessie!”, he blurted.

I smiled. His deep, unforgettable voice rang in my head over and over again until I remembered how to answer back.

“I’ve missed you”, I managed, my voice half choked up but strangely still sounding perfectly clear.

He embraced me in a tight hug, his long, warm arms overlapping.

I leaned in for a kiss. But where our lips should have touched, it felt empty.

I stared up, confused.

He put a finger to my partly opened mouth.

“Sorry Nessie, that’s not going to work here.”

“What does that mean?”, I asked, looking around me.

We were in the forest, right near my family’s cottage in Forks.

“How did we get here? Did I sleep through the whole plane trip?”

He continued to talk, as if I hadn’t spoken.

“I was thinking today I could run you up to La Push and we could hang out at my place”, he suggested.

“What are you waiting for?”, I asked, climbing onto his back. He quickly phased, metamorphosing into the giant russet wolf.

Excitement held to my face as I clutched tightly to his blowing fur. My curls, sprung up by the wind, bounced forward into my face. I laughed, putting my cheek down against Jacob; his slightly warmer temperature the perfect antidote to revive my memories. As we neared La Push, suddenly everything started to turn to fog, the greens and the reds of the forest became a thick mist, and started to evaporate.

I clutched Jake even tighter, afraid. But there was no fur under my palm. Just air. I looked down, startled. Jake had disappeared. I stood alone in the center of this melting world, until at last I felt something very real, a comfortable but icy, very familiar feeling brush my arm.

My eyes opened wide, body trembling.

Mama sat at the edge of my bed. The vivid green of Forks had disappeared with my dream. Eerily dark, gloomy and gray took its place.

“Mama!”, I cried, rushing into her arms, sobbing.

At the sound of my yell, my whole family came into my room, which looked more like a stone prison with a bed stuck by the side.

Everyone crowded around me, comforting me with a hug.

My face flushed, embarrassed.

“What’s wrong?’, Mama asked, alarmed.

“I-I had a dream about Jacob. It was so real…and then I woke up”, I said sheepishly.

Daddy came to sit beside me.

“We all hate to see you so upset, Renesmee. Perhaps we can reason with Sam, persuade him to let Jacob come back”, he suggested.

I sighed. The more involved Jake and I were, the more longing we felt when we were away from one another.

“I’m so sorry I startled everyone over a stupid dream”, I said quietly.

“Don’t blame yourself Nessie. It’s hard to be away from the one you love”, Mama said soothingly.

Daddy became stiff at my side, his face slightly pained.

I knew all too well of my parents’ own love story. How difficult it had once been, one a vampire, the other a human. Yet here we all were, sitting side by side, fussing over my silly dream.