disclaimer: i don't own twilight.
Most people got breakfast in bed on there sweet 16, Claire thought grumpily. Most people got cake. Most people got a huge party. Claire got a box of letters.
Exactly what she was supposed to do with a bunch of letters she wasn't sure of. Read them, she answered herself. Duh. But she had no clue why she'd gotten them. Leah had told her once that her father had left her a box of letters after he died. Nobody in Claire's life had died. She scanned her brain to make sure she hadn't missed anyone. Nope.
She had supposed it was too much to want a car for her birthday. Her parents had made it clear she wasn't getting one. She'd hoped Quil would get her one, Quil always got her what she wanted. Honestly, she would have thought Quil would get her anything other than a box of letters.
Of course, she thought to herself, Quil often knew what she wanted even when she didn't. What could possibly be in those letter that she wanted to hear? She considered this. What did she want? World peace, she decided. That was all she could come up with. She had everything she wanted. Even Quil couldn't achieve world peace, she reminded herself. But she wasn't quite sure she believed that.
"Of course," she could hear Quil saying in her head, "Claire has to try to figure out what the letters are instead of going over and reading them like a normal person would."
"Shut up," she told the Quil in her mind, "I don't even care what's in them." And then she would have walked away and not looked back. But she couldn't bring herself to do that.
"Just read them." urged brain- Quil. "You won't be disappointed."
She almost did too, brain- Quil had almost the same affect on her real- Quil did. Then she reminded herself it wasn't healthy to listen to people's voices in her head.
Really, she asked herself, why was she so afraid of a bunch of stupid letters? She could go over, read them, then go down and throw a hissy-fit over the fact that all she got were a bunch of letters.
Or even, she thought, when she opened them, they'd tell her to go downstairs and there would be the car she wanted. It wouldn't be unlike him to do that. Or it was probably a prank, like she'd go over to read them and they'd all say, "You're almost as old as I am!" or a snake would pop out or something. It was something she could imagine him doing.
The truth was, she was afraid of these letters. She was positive when she read them something would change, something big. She'd probably never be the same. She could only imagine the ghosts Leah had faced when she read her father's letters, and she wondered just how many ghosts of her own there were to face. Putting on a brave face, she reached into the box and pulled out the first one.