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for this fool's errand. But those precious moments when I could hear him again were an irresistible lure. I
had to find some way to repeat the experience& or maybe the better word wasepisode .
I was hoping that déjà vu was the key. So I was going to his home, a place I hadn't been since my
ill-fated birthday party, so many months ago.
The thick, almost jungle-like growth crawled slowly past my windows. The drive wound on and on. I
started to go faster, getting edgy. How long had I been driving? Shouldn't I have reached the house yet?
The lane was so overgrown that it did not look familiar.
What if I couldn't find it? I shivered. What if there was no tangible proof at all?
Then there was the break in the trees that I was looking for, only it was not so pronounced as before.
The flora here did not wait long to reclaim any land that was left unguarded. The tall ferns had infiltrated
the meadow around the house, crowding against the trunks of the cedars, even the wide porch. It was
like the lawn had been flooded waist-high with green, feathery waves.
And the housewas there, but it was not the same. Though nothing had changed on the outside, the
emptiness screamed from the blank windows. It was creepy. For the first time since I'd seen the beautiful
house, it looked like a fitting haunt for vampires.
I hit the brakes, looking away. I was afraid to go farther.
But nothing happened. No voice in my head.
So I left the engine running and jumped out into the fern sea. Maybe, like Friday night, if I walked
forward&
I approached the barren, vacant face slowly, my truck rumbling out a comforting roar behind me. I
stopped when I got to the porch stairs, because there was nothing here. No lingering sense of their
presence& of his presence. The house was solidly here, but it meant little. Its concrete reality would not
counteract the nothingness of the nightmares.
I didn't go any closer. I didn't want to look in the windows. I wasn't sure which would be harder to see.
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If the rooms were bare, echoing empty from floor to ceiling, that would certainly hurt. Like my
grandmother's funeral, when my mother had insisted that I stay outside during the viewing. She had said
that I didn't need to see Gran that way, to remember her that way, rather than alive.
But wouldn't it be worse if there were no change? If the couches sat just as I'd last seen them, the
paintings on the walls worse still, the piano on its low platform? It would be second only to the house
disappearing all together, to see that there was no physical possession that tied them in anyway. That
everything remained, untouched and forgotten, behind them.
Just like me.
I turned my back on the gaping emptiness and hurried to my truck. I nearly ran. I was anxious to be
gone, to get back to the human world. I felt hideously empty, and I wanted to see Jacob. Maybe I was
developing a new kind of sickness, another addiction, like the numbness before. I didn't care. I pushed
my truck as fast as it would go as I barreled toward my fix.
Jacob was waiting for me. My chest seemed to relax as soon as I saw him, making it easier to breathe.
"Hey, Bella," he called.
I smiled in relief. "Hey, Jacob," I waved at Billy, who was looking out the window.
"Let's get to work," Jacob said in a low but eager voice.
I was somehow able to laugh. "You seriously aren't sick of me yet?" I wondered. He must be starting to
ask himself how desperate I was for company.
Jacob led the way around the house to his garage.
"Nope. Not yet."
"Please let me know when I start getting on your nerves. I don't want to be a pain."
"Okay." He laughed, a throaty sound. "I wouldn't hold your breath for that, though."
When I walked into the garage, I was shocked to see the red bike standing up, looking like a
motorcycle rather than a pile of jagged metal.
"Jake, you're amazing," I breathed.
He laughed again. "I get obsessive when I have a project." He shrugged. "If I had any brains I'd drag it
out a little bit."
"Why?"
He looked down, pausing for so long that I wondered if he hadn't heard my question. Finally, he asked
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