𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟒

 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖 𝙬𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙨 

𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙣

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𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧'𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐯

╰┈˚ · ° .   I didn't know how I ended up standing in front of the door of the Black's house hold. I only knew that I was there, and I wished that that morning I had gotten up from my bed.

I was angry. I was sad.

I missed my best friend.

The last time Jacob had accepted my invite to hang out together had happened a month ago. The last time he answered one of my calls was two weeks ago.

Sorry, I can't today. I'm busy. His last message that morning had been almost the exact same copy of all the other ones starting from January. He was always busy, and with what, I had no idea.

For some people that might have been normal to not hear your best friend for three days or not hang out for almost a month. For us, well, it wasn't. It had never been like this. We used to see each other a few times a week, and that is without counting the weekends.

We went to different schools but that had never stopped us. He had his friends, they had never been a problem, but once I made some of my own, he suddenly disappeared. He was angry, he had never liked them, and I wasn't even sure he had a motivation for it.

I mean, now he kinda had since Embry had cut ties with him to 'hang out' with them.

I missed my best friend.

And so that Thursday afternoon I drove to his house, and I wished I had let it go. He was right, he was busy with something. Someone, actually.

Bella.

I could see them from the window. They were hanging out together, in the kitchen, cooking something, laughing at whatever, together.

My heart did a painful beat in my chest and I would have been surprised if anyone hadn't heard it.

He was busy.

Friday rolled around and I sent another message. I'm sorry, I can't. Maybe tomorrow? And when I heard Bella's truck leave the driveway, I followed her to the familiar home of Jacob's family.

My breath was stolen and I thought I wasn't breathing. It hurted.

I tried again on Saturday, and then on Sunday and Monday until I was back home with tears streaming down my cheeks.

Tuesday arrived, and I smiled because he had sent me a message himself asking me if I wanted to go to First Beach. I was happy.

And then I wasn't because he had spent the majority of our time together talking about Bella.

And so I cried once I was back home, my pillow drenching with tears but I wasn't alone. How they were there, I didn't know. Maybe I had called them, maybe it was a spell of some kind that alerted them, I had no answer for it, but Amelia and Beatrice were lying beside me and they didn't leave until they were sure I was asleep.

══════ 🜂🜁🜃🜄 ══════

╰┈˚ · ° .  School was, as always, boring and endless. I had never had many friends growing up, only Jacob, and we never went to the same school. It had been hard in the beginning of high school when I knew everyone but I was friends with no one, but I did it, and it didn't bother me much after that.

When I met the girls, things started to feel once again strained at school. I had new friends, more than I had ever had in my life. They had accepted me so easily, that had never happened before. Amelia and Beatrice had been the first friends that I had made not because we had grown up together because of our parents, sure, I had found out their secret but that wasn't why we were friends.

They were my friends— more, they were like my sisters.

It wasn't a secret that I had missed Bella growing up, I missed having a sister. I had idolized her so much that nothing could have ever come close to my imagination— maybe that was why I was so disappointed when Bella moved here. We were sisters, sure, but we would mostly just acknowledge each other and spend a few times together. In the beginning we tried more, we used to cook together and spend some evenings watching movies. It was rather awkward, but we tried, and then she fell in love, and barely tried anymore.

She was busy with the Cullens, I made myself busy with the pack, after all, we were very different from each other. We didn't mesh well together.

I don't know how— when it happened, but if I thought of the word sister nowadays the girls of the coven would come to my mind. And I couldn't be mad about it.

School became harder to attend knowing that I was alone, this time, I had something to look forward to— not only Jacob.

Maybe I didn't have Jacob anymore. That made my chest hurt.

Had I done something wrong? Did I deserve this because I was still friends with the pack even if he hated them? Was this my fault?

I let out a sigh, the wind sweeped my hair away, I was sure that at the end of the day, I would find a knotted mess. The waves crashed against my legs, drenching the pants that I had tried to roll up. It was a cold day, winter not having left yet, but the beach was empty of any other person and I needed to think.

Think about how I had lost my best friend, the person that had stolen my heart years ago and never gave it back. It was painful to be in love with your best friend, even more so when you knew that there was no chance of him loving you back. But seeing him falling in love with his decades-long crush, I had no words to describe how much it hurt. Bella, my own sister being that girl, well, that made me want to crash down and not get up.

"Maddison?" I was startled when a hand touched my shoulder, so much so that I screeched loudly, nearly falling into the ocean completely. "Oh shit, sorry."

I pressed a hand on my chest, feeling my heartbeat onto my ears. Paul was there, shirtless and barefoot. There was no cocky grin or a challenging look that usually was etched like tattoos in his expression. Just pure concern.

"Maddi, are you okay?"

"Uhh, yeah, yeah." I cleared my throat, moving my eyes back to the sea.

I couldn't lie and say that Paul was a bit intimidating to talk to. Half of the time I had no idea how Beatrice had so much guts to challenge him right and left even before she knew he had imprinted on her. It wasn't that he was a bad guy, he was just... scary. Sure, he was charming, if he wanted I was sure that Paul could have a crowd of people around him— he had once, all his friends from before had been a sort of groopie fanbase— he was funny, joking around with Jared a lot, but he was angry a lot too, even if hidden away.

I wasn't scared of him going ballistics— maybe a bit— but it was the anger that I saw that made me weary. Because it was so similar to what I felt on a daily basis.

Now thought, Paul wasn't scary. He wasn't angry. He looked tired and concerned.

"What are you doing here?" I decided to ask.

"I was on patrol and I caught your scent." He replied. He looked at water, at the goosebumps and shivers that my body created to alert me of the cold and that I continued to ignore, "Maybe we should get out of the water, what do you think?"

"I'm good, thank you." I said stubbornly, I needed to think, here it was a good place.

"You are shivering, and I'm sure, a step away from hypothermia. I can just throw you on my shoulder to get you out of the water, you know?"

I snorted a laugh, the corner of my lips involuntarily twitching. "Alright." I said after a beat, stepping back onto the shore and sitting down on the sand.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked as he too sat down. Even in this cold and in only short sweatpants, Paul didn't look bothered, like this was another summer day.

I wished I could have that type of temperature.

"I don't know." I said in complete honesty, before adding with a slight look at him, "And I'm sure you wouldn't like it."

"Jacob." He groaned, biting the name out.

"Yes."

"Is he still treating you like crap?" he asked without any filter, not like he was known for subtleness and sensitivity.

I snapped my body towards him all of a sudden, "How do you even know that?"

"Beatrice spent 20 minutes straight ranting about how much Jacob Black sucks yesterday before I shut her up." he bitterly rolled his eyes, "Apart from you, she has no contact with him, and no reason to hate him, so I just put everything together."

"Oh." I simply said, slightly surprised at how much worked up she had gotten on my behalf. She was angry for me. Then I backtracked to his words, "How the hell did you manage to shut her up and still have all your limbs attached?"

I wished I hadn't asked that a second later when Paul smirked widely, suggestively raising an eyebrow. "Oh fuck, gross, Paul!" Then I remembered something that Beatrice liked to complain about even if it had been entirely her decision, "Wait, didn't she put you on sex ban because you didn't tell her about the imprint?"

Paul quickly lost his smirk, lips turning into a pout. He looked like a kid on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum, "How the hell do you even know that?!"

"She told me?" I replied unsurely, how would I even know otherwise.

"She told you? You girls are weird."

This time I raised an eyebrow, "Do you want me to tell her what you say?"

"Don't you–" he cut himself off, replacing the pout once again with a smirk, "Actually, yes, please do it." he cackled, "You might want to do it anywhere but near the house, well or someone."

"You know what? Let's change the subject, shall we?" Those two had a weird relationship.

"We were talking about why you were standing in the water and almost freezing to death."

I rolled my eyes, letting out a breathy chuckle, "I think Jacob hates me." I said under my breath.

"Why?"

"Or maybe he is just too busy with my sister to even reply to my messages anymore." I couldn't help but be bitter about it. It hurt so bad. I can't unsee the way he had smiled so broadly when he had talked about Bella.

"You love him." Paul said.

"Of course I do, he is my best friend." I replied anxiously, not meeting his eyes.

"We both know that that is not what I meant." I sighed at his words, "You deserve better than someone who can't see you, Maddison. And not just romantically. He is being a bad friend too."

"I mean, in his mind you guys have brainwashed his best friend and stole him from him, and I'm still hanging around with you." I tried to rationalize.

"This was happening even before Embry so you can't use that excuse." He stated, which was the truth, but now at least I could give a reason to why he hated the pack so much.

"I don't know what to do." I breathed out.

"Nothing. Stop running after him like you have been doing for the past months. He is hanging around Bella all the time so it's not like he couldn't extend the invite to you too. If he cares about you then he will come back, maybe it will be too late then but then you'll know."

"How do you know what he is doing?"

"We pass in front of his house for patrol."

"Maybe you are right." I said, "Maybe it's time for him to try now." I was going to try this, try and see if Jacob cared. I was sure that he would have at least sent me a message— maybe I was so sure only because I really wanted it to be real. That I wasn't in love with someone that didn't even care about my friendship.

Then I made myself don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I continued to say in my mind.

But then why when a week later there was still no message from him, or call or anything, I was crying and soaking my pillow with tears once again?

What a wretched thing is to have your heart broken.

✎

˗ˏˋ 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ˊˎ˗

Hello everyone! 

New POV unlocked guys!! 

This chapter is so sad omg, but at least we have a bit of Paul and Maddison together here. I wasn't expecting this friendship, it wasn't planned, but I'm all here for it. 

So I have a question. Do we like Jacob, are we keeping Jacob, are we giving our girl Maddi someone else that treats her better? I would love to know your opinion on this so we can decide all together! I had started this fic with the idea of Jacob and Maddi together as a couple, but I hate Jacob in this fic guys. He is treating her like shit. So I'm not so sure anymore. So pls let me know!

Thank you for reading this chapter, I'll see you on Tuesday!

˚ · ° . 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞 . ° · ˚

𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞!

– 𝐋𝐨𝐥𝐚 ☾