like a dream like a sigh
chapter one.
A/N: This story is rated T, mainly for language and implications (teenage boys are prevalent in the wolf pack, let's be realistic). Some chapters may be more M-rated, but warnings will be present and they will be optional reading.
"Feel so warm, sun fire, sun fire..."
I love this song: Not so tough found out by Copeland. I am lying in my bed, letting the crooning words wash over me, willing the gentle, majestic song to chill me the fuck out.
Danielle and Liza and Katie and all the other girls who I hang out with would despise it. It's too slow, too boring, not popular enough. Cliché as it is, that's how we operate. Gotta be cool, gotta be "in." C'est la vie. I don't care. We might not have blonde hair or ever look good with it like them white girls do, but dammit we are popular. All my life that's all I've wanted to be. There are girls who are popular because they are naturally sweet and funny and gorgeous, but not everyone has that natural magnetism. Some of us, myself and most of my friends included, have to work to maintain a good rep. We ain't perfect, but we sure as hell try to be.
I'm sweating like a pig. But I'm not. I just feel like I am. My skin is on fire. Again, not literally, but it sure feels like it. It's a rainy day, per usual, La Push isn't known for white sand beaches and sunshine but it'd be pretty damned nice if it was. My window is wide open. I decide that today I don't mind the dampness outside, the cool air is pure heaven. I want to drown myself in it. I need to style my hair. Usually on the weekends I give my hair and skin a break, go all natural and hide from the outside world, but if I wimp out this time on Katie and Melissa I'm quite sure that I won't be held in as high of esteem as usual. I need to do something. Fever or not, I need to suck it up and deal. Good friends mean good connections. Katie's dad has friends at an auto dealership in Seattle. She says she can hook us all up with good prices on some of their cars. Melissa's mom is an attorney. She's always helped us girls out when we weren't so straight-and-narrow and we're still on track for good educations with our good grades and squeaky-clean records... she's good.
Acquaintances can't ask for favors. Trusted friends can. But you don't get to trusted friend status without actually seeing your so-called trusted friend.
Within an hour, my hair is perfectly straight and my clothing is immaculate. While I lack designer clothes, I consider myself thrifty. I get enough compliments to feel some confidence, though I would kill for a good Abercrombie & Fitch ensemble. Again, cliché, but every stereotype has some truth in it, no?
Knocking on the door.
One thing about living in rural-ish areas means that you won't find many mansions (although I've heard rumors there's one in Forks, but I don't go there much so I wouldn't know for sure. I think it's an exaggeration. It's probably just a house a teeny bit bigger than average.) and so I can easily hear if someone's at the door.
I walk into the "hall," which would be our kitchen, dining room, and living room area.
"I'll get it!" My mom's gravelly voice calls from the couch. She isn't fooling anyone. She only gets up to look in the fridge for another beer or Mike's Hard Lemonade, or to phone my older brother to pick up a few six-packs for her to replenish her stock. She always says she'll pay him back. She never does. When I reach for the door handle, I realize my hands are shaking. I run them through my hair, instantly regretting it for fear of mussing it too much, before taking a deep breath and opening the door.
"Shoshana!" Katie's bubbly voice greets me. Of course her hair is flawlessly straight, shimmering and luxurious. Her dark skin is lovely, her even darker eyes more so. It's hard to be envious, though, with her big, naïve smile.
"Katie!" I don't call her "Kate" as I sometimes do, since she didn't call me "Sho."
"Hey, Sho." Melissa calls, sitting in the driver's seat of the old station wagon that her mom has. Usually Katie uses her small pickup, but I guess Mel is trying to get more trust from her mother after a recent incident at a bonfire that I swore never to speak of again.
"Mel!" Katie drags me by the sleeve of my denim coat all the way down our dirt driveway, chattering about the movie that we are going to see.
"Brrr," Katie says, half-jokingly, clutching her bare arms and gesturing to my coat. "I'm so jealous. I wish I would've thought to do that. It's getting colder!"
"Cold? It's not cold," I say, only half-paying attention. I shrug out of the "vintage" denim, holding the thin jacket to her. "Here. You can borrow it, if you want." It's a simple thing, but I feel Melissa's eyes on me, feel some kind of strange anxiety. It's like a test. Have we drifted apart since I haven't been doing as much as I should be? Friendship is work in our world.
"Really? Thanks! You're the best, fo Sho." I crack a grin at that, before sliding in to the seat next to her. It's got a back, but we usually never sit back there because of all the debris –
"Sho, meet David. He's that guy I was telling you about the other day." I don't remember that, but I nod all the same and peek over Katie's shoulder at the guy. He has too wide a nose for my taste, too small of eyes. His gaze is appraising, which bothers me, especially because of the adoring look on Melissa's face. He just wants in her pants. A shiver, a bad kind of shiver, runs through my spine.
"Whoa, Shoshana, you okay?"
"Yeah," I say, automatically, nodding my head at David and then Thomas, Kate's boyfriend, before leaning against the door to give the other two girls their space again. "I'm fine." And I come up with a convincing smile, and that was that.
The movie is so stupid! I'm fuming by the time the credits roll, struggling so damned hard to keep the irritation from my face. Kate was focused wholeheartedly on the film, obviously having a much different opinion on it than me, much to her boyfriend's dismay. Meanwhile, Melissa and David are too busy swapping spit to know what's going on.
"Movie's over, lovebirds." I say to them as I make my way out of the aisle, not waiting for anyone. I feel wild, I feel out of control. I feel like I just ran twenty miles and am still ready for more.
When we go to the parking lot and are searching for where we parked, God, I hate how many cars are in Seattle, Melissa looks at me, seemingly struggling to find the words for a second. Or two. Well, more like five.
"Do you... do you think..."
"You want me to drive?"
She flushes and I want to gag. Instead, I shrug. Get a grip of yourself, Shoshana Marie. I just want to curl up in bed, I just want to punch someone in the face. I don't even know. "Okay. As long as I can turn the radio up. Full volume." She nods, before sidling back up to David after she tosses me the keys.
This is gonna be a fun ride. Not.
It's not that bad once I have the radio on (only the most mainstream of songs, of course, with thumping bass beats and breathy noises and meaningless lyrics), so at least I don't have to hear them.
Except... I kind of do.
Even at full volume, when my hair is practically moving with each blast of sound and the car is trembling (not unlike my hands and arms and legs and being) on its tires, I can hear them making out in the back seat. Really. Had they no class? If I had a boyfriend... I'd want some fucking privacy. My knuckles are white, the steering wheel feels like it's on the verge of breaking.
A shudder rips through me and we go careening to the right, prompting shrieks from the back seat of kisses interrupted.
"SORRY!" I shout, heart pounding as I narrowly avoid sending us in a ditch. "THERE WAS A DOG!" I lie, but it's not like they would have been watching the road enough to know that. Fuck, fuck, FUCK! What is wrong with me?
I'm breathing hard, feeling like I'm on the verge of crying and screeching and shouting and...
I need to pull over. I need to pull over. I don't know if I'm going to puke or if I'm going to die, all I know is I can't do this for one more second.
Slamming on the brakes, thank God there's not much traffic, I swerve into a pull-out. I press the mute button. It's way too quiet, I wish I kept it on. I open the door, my knees are quaking, my ankles feel like jelly.
"What's going on?" Both of my friends ask. Katie sounds worried and Melissa sounds annoyed.
"I need... I think... I think I'm gonna puke."
"What?"
I stumble over into the grass, suddenly desperate to get away, to get out of sight. A thousand things swirl in my mind, a thousand sensations, thoughts, feelings. Some I know well, some are confusing and foreign and I don't know anything about them. My knees buckle and I fall forward, my palms scraping against the bark of a tree.
"Ha ha, did she get knocked up? Don't chicks puke when they're preggo?" One of the guys... David... He jokes to Melissa. Red-hot fury invades my vision, invades my mind. Her giggle is pure fuel to an already burning flame. I want to sleep. I want to cry. I want to hit, I want to kill. I'm screaming inside.
Instead, I run. I jump to my feet, much quicker than I ever would have thought myself capable of, and sprint into the woods, pushing them out of my mind.
I trip on a fallen log.
As I fall into a big puddle, globs of dirt and mud and God-knows-what-else flying everywhere and spraying my not-perfect-enough clothes, everything falls apart.
Including me.
I scream, for real this time, but the sound is cut off, if only for a second.
Later, I'd realize it was a howl.
A/N: I like to read fanfiction. I figured it was time to write some. :)