I gasped. “Emily is Leah’s cousin?”

“Second cousins. They’re close, though. They were like sisters when they were kids.”

“That’s . . . horrible. How could Sam . . . ?” I trailed off, shaking my head.

“Don’t judge him just yet. Did anyone ever tell you . . . Have you ever heard of imprinting?”

“Imprinting?” I repeated the unfamiliar word. “No. What’s that mean?”

“It’s one of those bizarre things we have to deal with. It doesn’t happen to everyone. In fact, it’s the rare exception, not the rule. Sam had heard all the stories by then, the stories we all used to think were legends. He’d heard of imprinting, but he never dreamed . . .”

“What is it?” I prodded.

Jacob’s eyes strayed to the ocean. “Sam did love Leah. But when he saw Emily, that didn’t matter anymore. Sometimes . . . we don’t exactly know why . . . we find our mates that way.” His eyes flashed back to me, his face reddening. “I mean . . . our soul mates.”

“What way? Love at first sight?” I snickered.

Jacob wasn’t smiling. His dark eyes were critical of my reaction. “It’s a little bit more powerful than that. More absolute.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Love at first sight? But more powerful?” My voice still sounded dubious, and he could hear that.

“It’s not easy to explain. It doesn’t matter, anyway.” He shrugged indifferently. “You wanted to know what happened to Sam to make him hate the vampires for changing him, to make him hate himself. And that’s what happened. He broke Leah’s heart. He went back on every promise he’d ever made her. Every day he has to see the accusation in her eyes, and know that she’s right.”

He stopped talking abruptly, as if he’d said something he hadn’t meant to.

“How did Emily deal with this? If she was so close to Leah . . . ?” Sam and Emily were utterly right together, two puzzle pieces, shaped for each other exactly. Still . . . how had Emily gotten past the fact that he’d belonged to someone else? Her sister, almost.

“She was real angry, in the beginning. But it’s hard to resist that level of commitment and adoration.” Jacob sighed. “And then, Sam could tell her everything. There are no rules that can bind you when you find your other half. You know how she got hurt?”

“Yeah.” The story in Forks was that she was mauled by a bear, but I was in on the secret.

Werewolves are unstable, Edward had said. The people near them get hurt.

“Well, weirdly enough, that was sort of how they resolved things. Sam was so horrified, so sickened by himself, so full of hate for what he’d done. . . . He would have thrown himself under a bus if it would have made her feel better. He might have anyway, just to escape what he’d done. He was shattered. . . . Then, somehow, she was the one comforting him, and after that. . . .”

Jacob didn’t finish his thought, and I sensed the story had gotten too personal to share.

“Poor Emily,” I whispered. “Poor Sam. Poor Leah. . . .”

“Yeah, Leah got the worst end of the stick,” he agreed. “She puts on a brave face. She’s going to be a bridesmaid.”

I gazed away, toward the jagged rocks that rose from the ocean like stubby broken-off fingers on the south rim of the harbor, while I tried to make sense of it all. I could feel his eyes on my face, waiting for me to say something.

“Did it happen to you?” I finally asked, still looking away. “This love-at-first-sight thing?”

“No,” he answered briskly. “Sam and Jared are the only ones.”

“Hmm,” I said, trying to sound only politely interested. I was relieved, and I tried to explain my reaction to myself. I decided I was just glad he didn’t claim there was some mystical, wolfy connection between the two of us. Our relationship was confusing enough as it was. I didn’t need any more of the supernatural than I already had to deal with.

He was quiet, too, and the silence felt a little awkward. My intuition told me that I didn’t want to hear what he was thinking.

“How did that work out for Jared?” I asked to break the silence.

“No drama there. It was just a girl he’d sat next to in school every day for a year and never looked at twice. And then, after he changed, he saw her again and never looked away. Kim was thrilled. She’d had a huge crush on him. She’d had his last name tacked on to the end of hers all over in her diary.” He laughed mockingly.