Hello everybody. This story is going to start out ike all my other Cat/Embry's. But something shall happen. It's going to get *ominous pause* darker.
I figured, why not make it as heartstring-pulling as possible, since it is the last we're gonna hear from them, right?
Embry's POV
You know what I hate? Like, more than anything else? More than dumb refs and snobby car owners and vampires? More than Quil barging into my house without so much as knocking, more than injunctions, more than Drew trying to get me to talk about the issues between our imprints even though said imprints had recently gotten completely over them?
Washington State University.
Why, you ask? Why would I hate such a large and nice and populated building than exists purely for the purpose of brightening people's futures? It's actually very reasonable, in my opinion. Me and that college have never gotten along. Like when I had just turned fifteen, Rachel got a scholarship and left La Push. I had kind of had a crush on her at the time, and we'd gotten to be pretty good friends. I had been thisclose to letting Jake know I liked her and asking her out and having my first real girlfriend. She was the only girl I'd ever really liked.
Since I was so crazy in love with Cathryn that liking her couldn't be farther from the truth and all the other girls I had dated were just blech.
Then, three years later, I was eighteen. I'd managed to convince Jacob and Sam that a werewolf could go to college and all that without messing everything up. I had made…ahem…decent grades and my soccer skills could have taken me to the pro's-my superhuman speed and strength had nothing to do with it, nope, not at all, just raw hard talent-and I sent in my application almost positive I'd make it in.
And then I didn't.
Don't ask me why. I know plenty of other guys who went there on a soccer scholarship and I could have kicked their butts any day of the week. How I ended up at some dinky tech school was completely beyond me. Do you people have any idea how much easier it would have been for me to get a job had I went there?
And now this.
When Cat had gone to college there last fall, it had been awful. I spent literally every moment thinking of her, wanting to be with her. Everything somebody said to me I had a ready-made response of what Cat would say back. I'd see somebody and think to myself, Cathryn would hate him. Or, Cat had prettier eyes. She became my main characteristic. It was like I'd forgotten how to do anything else.
Not that I hadn't been like that anyway. But its amazing what big of a difference it can make knowing that your girlfriend could be crying in a bathroom somewhere and you won't be able to go check on her until that night. I was permanently scarred from it.
And now after the three glorious, wonderful, perfect, beautiful, peaceful months of pure happiness and contentment that was summer, I was going to have to do it again.
Term started for her in September. It was early August.
Meaning that I had exactly three weeks, two days, and seven hours to figure out how to set the place on fire without the pack finding out.
Cathryn's POV
My left breast was vibrating. Or rather, not my boob, but the phone inside its bra cup.
I groaned loudly and rolled over, sitting up from the splayed out staring-at-the-ceiling position I'd been in and pulled it out.
"Hello?" I mumbled, running my fingers through my newly poofy hair. Leslie had convinced me to sleep in a million tiny braids the night before and, I had to say, I wasn't loving the look.
"Cathryn!" Claire said. Only it was more like a hiss. Or a moan. A really weird combination.
I sat up straighter. "You okay, Clairedy-Cat?" I asked. Besides her freakish tone, she hadn't called me by the pet-name she'd given me at the ripe old age of five. That in itself was a big red flag that something was wrong.
"I got it." She whispered, so silently I had to strain to hear the words.
"Got what?" I demanded.
"IT." Claire repeated, her voice full of some secret meaning I was obviously supposed to comprehend.
"Um…what?" But of course I didn't. I never did. Knowing secret meanings involves actually paying attention to your surroundings, and that is something I am just not willing to do.
"It!" Claire's voice was beginning to tinge with panick.
An awkward silence filled the phone cords. Why'd she have to be so danged cryptic?
"Oh." I said, suddenly understanding. "Your period? Ask one of your friends for a pad."
"None of them have gotten it yet." Her voice remained tense and quiet.
"Go to the nurse."
"I'm not telling her!"
"Call your mom."
"I'd rather ask the nurse."
"Emily?"
"Wouldn't answer her phone."
I sighed. Really, this was the school's fault. If it would start later, like colleges, Claire would not be having this problem. She'd be at home and all she'd have to do is sneak into her mother's bathroom. But no. She had to feel all self conscious and embarrassed and call her…well, in all honesty, all I was to her was her best friend's best friend's girlfriend. We were just a lot closer than a relationship like that would entail.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"The bathroom. I just barfed." She did sound kind of sickened.
I had to say, I wasn't surprised. Claire was what people called an 'early bloomer'. Meaning that while other girls were getting all exited over training bras, Claire was already in a c-cup, which was my size. She was also my height, which was unnerving, considering it didn't seem too long ago that I was carrying her around her house piggyback. Not only that, but she was still growing. Both up and out.
"Kay." I said bracingly. "I'll come get you."
"Call Claire Young to the office, please." I told the secretary, signing her out for the orthodontist.
Which probably wasn't the smartest thing, seeing as she didn't have braces.
The secretary gave me a cold, blank stare before spinning around in her wheelie chair and pressing the call-button thingy and doing as told. I didn't blame her for her unfriendliness. I'd have been in a crappy mood too if I was back at school.
Claire showed up a few minutes later, skin sallow, expression fierce, and shoulders hunched.
Hmm…not obvious at all…..
"Hey." I grinned shamelessly at her pain.
She glared, her kinky hair falling over one eye and further adding to her unhappily disheveled manner. Wordlessly, she held out her hand to me. Wordlessly, I placed a white square into her palm.
"Hurry up." I told her. "Embry's at work, it's sunny for once, and I'm bored out of my brains. I have plans for us."
I wouldn't have thought it possible, but Claire's expression turned even more surly.
This time I had to laugh. "What? You aren't getting out of the cookout tonight, I don't care how bloated you are."
Claire looked horrorstruck. "You mean at the beach? Wearing bathing suits?"
"Well," I said thoughtfully. "That is typically what is worn at beaches."
"Uh-uh!" Claire said, taking a literal step back. "You mean I have to where a tampon?"
So. Didja like?
