Disclaimer: I definitely do not own Twilight.


Chapter 2

For the next week, Jared had complained about soreness in his body. He stopped with his working outs because of it, but he still said that the pain feels 'motherfucking bad as fuck.'

"I don't know what's wrong with him," I said one day to Peyton while we were at lunch break.

"Who cares?" Was Peyton's response. Upon seeing my frown she added, "It's probably nothing. He'll get over it soon enough."

I had a bad feeling, but all I said was, "Yeah. Maybe."

"Or maybe he's gonna die," Peyton said seriously.

I threw my apple at her.

"Hey, don't waste food!" Xander Daniels, a good friend of Jared, said as he approached where Peyton and I were sitting with Jared, Paul and Lucas Mitchell. He grabbed the apple from the floor and took a bite.

"Ew, Daniels, that's disgusting," Peyton said, making a face.

"It was barely on the floor for even ten seconds," Xander said as he took another bite from the apple.

"Yes, but in the ten seconds that it was on the floor, it already managed to roll onto old pizza sauce, mud and a lot of dust."

Xander just shrugged his shoulders. "I'm a growing boy who needs all the food he can get."

While Peyton and Xander were arguing on whether the apple was still edible after the horrors it's been through ("The Pizza sauce was smeared there for more than a week!"), I hugged Jared lightly. "Still sore?"

"It's actually getting worse," He said. "It's annoying the crap out of me."

I rubbed his back comfortingly. "Anything I could do to make it better?"

"Well, there is this one thing…"

"I'm not giving you a blow job."

"Then why did you even suggest your help?"

I continued rubbing his back, and he leaned into me.

"Paul, don't you think it's disgusting to eat a tainted apple?" Peyton suddenly asked loudly, annoyed with Xander's lack of caring over the quality of his food.

Paul, who was up until then just sitting next to Jared with two legs on the table and looking at the four girls who were sitting at the table next to us, turned to look at Peyton and Xander. He smirked. "She's right, man. No girl is ever going to kiss you now. You're tainted for life."

Xander rolled his eyes and kept eating the apple.

Peyton looked pleased with Paul. "At least one guy here knows that you need to keep some sort of good hygiene," She said with a smile.

"Gotta keep clean for the ladies," Paul said with a wink in her direction. Peyton's smile grew wider.

I could feel from the way Peyton acted around Paul that she was interested; it showed in the way she twirled her hair around her finger and the way she smiled a whole lot more when he was around. I knew that Paul enjoyed the amount of attention he was getting from Peyton – after all, she was one of the prettiest girls in school – but so far he didn't try to sleep with her.

That's not to say he won't try to in the future.

I already told Peyton my opinion on the matter and that Paul wasn't good for her. It's not that I disliked Paul – he was a good friend of mine, and I believed that he's a good person, deep, deep inside – but he lacked a few serious traits that every decent boyfriend had to have. Such as, the ability to stay faithful to a girl, or be sensitive.

But Peyton, apparently, didn't care much about any of that, and only said, "Whatever. He's hot."

I really hoped that she won't try anything with him. She'd be the one getting hurt in the end.

~oOo~

My mom greeted me when I got home that day with a smile and a bowl filled with mash potatoes.

"How was school?" She asked while stirring the mash potatoes.

"Decent," I replied as I put my school bag on the floor next to the staircase.

"Can you take your bag up to your room, Emma?" Mom said, eyeing the school bag on the floor while knitting her brows. "I don't like it when you put it right there on the floor."

I really didn't understand what's so bad about the bag being next to the stairs, but it had always bothered my mom immensely, so instead of picking up a fight with her like I sometimes do, I just said, "Fine." I grabbed the bag and walked up the stairs to my room.

My room was very small and very colorful. That's the problem with bedrooms that you live in since you were a little kid; as a kid, I loved very bright, colorful colors. The result of that was that my room looked like the gay pride flag.

It's kinda hard to look at the walls without feelings a bit unbalanced by all the colors.

I returned back to the first floor after the hard task of relocating my bag, and saw that my mom was already organizing the table.

I decided to be a good daughter and helped her with putting the dishes on the table.

She looked at me with surprise and appreciation written all over her face. "Emma Stevens, willingly helping her poor mother to set the table?"

I nodded my head seriously while putting a fork and a knife next to each plate on the table. "After long years of painfully looking at you putting dishes on the table in such disarray, I've finally decided to put you out of your misery and show you how it's supposed to be done."

Mom just shook her head at me. "Well, thank God then."

From a young age I realized something very important that followed me for years to come – when you don't do anything around the house and just act like a lazy asshole, then when you actually contribute and help – that's when your help is greatly appreciated.

That's why I preferred not to help out around the house. Because when I did help, I felt like an angel.

Mom and I sat down next to the square table to eat. Dad almost never joined us for lunch. He was always at work till late, and so it was mostly just Mom and I. Mom didn't like the fact that we didn't have a lot of family meals, but there was nothing she could really do about it.

Still, she liked to complain.

"I know that he needs to work," She always said when it was just her and I together, "I get that. But work is not the only thing that matters. Family matters."

My Dad was working in a big company, and was getting paid rather well. He was a man of few words with a quiet demeanor, which was exactly why his coworkers respected him so much. I always saw my Dad as this serious, quiet man, but Mom kept assuring me that this wasn't always the case.

"He was so passionate when we first started dating," She loved to tell me over and over again. "So different than he is now. I bet he's still passionate inside, though. One day, he's going to explode. He can't be this serious forever. He's going to break, be who he really is. You'll see."

I knew that my Mom preferred the way my Dad was before he started working in this company. She always said it changed him. Still, she never actually said any of that to his face. She preferred to say those things to me, behind his back.

Guess there's no need to wonder from who I inherited my love for gossiping.

~oOo~

I found Jared sitting alone on a rock at the school's parking lot at the end of the school's day. His elbows were on his knees and his face was buried in his hands. I approached him slowly, not knowing if he would appreciate me coming over when he obviously felt so bad.

He didn't notice my presence when I stood right in front of him. I cleared my throat quietly before saying, "Hey," to make sure that I won't startle him.

He raised his head to look at me, and I saw that he really looked absolutely terrible. He was sweating and his eyes were red, like he barely slept.

"Hi," He said, his voice slightly hoarse.

I sat down on the rock next to him. "Feeling any better?"

Jared shook his head. "No."

I bit my lip. "Maybe you should go to a doctor or something. See if it's something serious."

Jared took a deep breath and rubbed his tired eyes. "I don't know… I probably should just let it pass by itself. It's just that, most times, when I have a headache, it passes quickly, and it's kinda… I don't know… less intense. Just feels like I've got a jackhammer in my head."

I raised my eyebrow at him. "And you don't think that's reason enough to go to the doctor?"

Jared shrugged his shoulders. "Time heals all, isn't that the saying?"

I smiled faintly at him.

Jared rubbed his eyes again, then wiped his sweaty brow. "I'm also very hot."

"And humble," I added.

Jared actually chuckled at that. "No, I mean, I'm hot. Like my skin is on fire."

I tentatively reached out to touch his arm. Saying he was hot was an understatement. "Yeah. I can feel that. You're burning."

He let his head drop into his hands again. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

I let my hand rub his back. "You were probably right before. It's probably going to pass on its own. Maybe it's just a serious fever."

"Maybe," Was all he said as a reply.

I kept rubbing his back, not knowing what else to do or say. I just hoped that this comforted him slightly.

I was so focused on Jared, that I didn't notice the guy who was approaching us until he was right in front of us. Of course, when he was standing a meter from us, I couldn't help but notice him – he was too huge to not be noticeable.

Sam Uley looked at Jared intently. "Hey Jared." He then looked at me briefly. "Emma."

I met Sam through Jared. Even though there were four years separating between Jared and Sam, they were always casual friends. I was never with Sam alone, because frankly, he kinda intimidated me. He was a big man – muscles even bigger than Paul's, which I knew aggravated Paul greatly. And Sam was always just kind of a quiet mystery to me, never sharing much about himself, which made me feel unsure on how to talk to him. I was sarcastic most of the time, and he didn't seem like the guy to appreciate sarcasm. I always felt like my behavior was beneath him.

Jared raised his head again to look at Sam. "What's up man."

Sam's look was intense. "I was thinking, we haven't talked to each other for a long time now. How 'bout a walk or something?"

Jared ran a hand through his short hair. "I don't know. I feel pretty sick."

"I don't ask you to do something physical that will exhaust you," Sam said reasonably. "All I want is to talk to you."

Jared seemed to think about it for a moment, then said, "…alright. Let's talk."

Sam shot a blank look at me. "I actually prefer to speak in private."

Ouch.

Jared just looked confused for a moment. He turned to look at me with question in his eyes, as if asking me if it was okay for him to leave me here to talk to his buddy. I managed a small smile, to show him that I didn't care, but fuck, Sam could've at least tried not to make it so obvious that my presence was not welcomed.

Jared turned to Sam again. "Fine."

He got to his feet slowly, and I knew that this sickness made him feel exhausted. Before he left with Sam, he caressed my cheek lightly with his knuckles, because a goodbye kiss was obviously out of the question. Jared didn't want to pass his disease to me.

I looked at their backs as they walked away from me, and couldn't help but feel a bit bothered by that. I didn't like the look Sam gave Jared; he looked... intense. Excited. Eager.

I just stared at his back until he disappeared from sight and muttered, "Creep."


Thanks for reading :)