When Sophie was a baby, she couldn't drink out of a bottle right.

My mom took her to the doctor right away, and he said Sophie had development problems. He was right, but Mom didn't want to believe that. The truth was, Sophie was just about the dumbest-seeming baby I'd ever seen. You'd put a toy in front of her face, and she'd just stare at it, making no response or reaction. But the bottle-issue was what really had everyone worried. She would start sucking for a second or two and then let the bottle's nipple drop from her mouth like she got tired and couldn't hold on. Sophie was real small and skinny, and she needed nutrients or else she wasn't going to grow.

It didn't help that Sophie was a fussy baby, just short of being colicky. For all that she could scream her lungs out, you'd think she'd be able to drink, but I guess it doesn't work like that. I used to think of Sophie screamed so much because she was upset that she couldn't do anything else. Maybe that was true.

Back then, I would wake up in the middle of the night to Sophie's cries and it seemed like it took Mom forever to get around to doing anything. Sometimes I'd get up and check on her before anyone else did. My parents complained about Sophie a whole lot, because Chris and I had never given them so much problems, and I don't think they ever got over their irritation with her.

Though nobody knows about it really, the reason Sophie got over her "development problems" was at least somewhat because of Jared. I remember one day when my mom took us kids to Paul's house so that she could have a chat with his mother, Jared was over playing with Paul. They were eleven and I was eight, so mostly I hung around with the mom's. But Jared wandered over eventually, and I remember exactly how he looked – cute, mischievous, charming even as a kid. He took a look into Sophie's stroller and made a few faces and then turned to me and said, "How come she doesn't do anything?"

"She's got development issues," I told him, blushing. I still had a slight lisp, and the way I said "issues" sounded funny.

Jared looked back to Sophie and held a hand in front of her face, moving it around quickly. Sophie's eyes darted wherever they went at lightning-speed. "No she doesn't. She's smart, can't you tell?"

"The doctor says she might be slow," I told him. I felt embarrassed at having a little sister who didn't work right. "She can't even drink out of her bottle."

Jared looked skeptical at that. "All babies can drink," he said.

"Not this one," I said. I glanced up at my mom who wasn't paying us the slightest attention and took the bottle out of her hands. She looked at me for a second and smiled a little bit, that aw-shucks-go-away-cutie smile. I put the bottle of warm milk in front of Sophie's mouth, and nothing happened, so I put the nipple inside of her mouth. She did what she always did – small suck, release.

"See?" I said.

"She's trying to do it right," Jared insisted. "She just doesn't know how."

"Exactly," I said. "Most babies just know how, in-stink-tiv-lee."

Jared took the bottle from my hands and put it back in Sophie's mouth. When nothing happened, he brought it back to his fingers and squeezed the mouth piece, demonstrating what needed to be done. Sophie watched him intently, unblinkingly, and when he put the bottle back to her she sucked for longer - not much, but enough to make a noticeable difference.

"See? She was just confused, that was all," Jared said.

I guess you could say that was the day I fell in love with him, but then I fell in love with Jared Thail lots of times, on lots of different days.

But from then on, Sophie did drink better. It was a slow process, but soon she was drinking and acting normally for her age. Mom and Dad were thanking the heavens, but I knew better.


"He's got mono, my mom heard it from his mom."

"It's an STD, like one of the deadly ones – you can't hook up with that many girls and still expect to be clean."

"I bet he dropped out, and they just haven't told us because everyone else would follow his lead."

"I swear I saw him Monday, hanging out by the cliffs with that Sam Uley guy."

The rumors that were floating around were plentiful and every time it seemed like one was set in stone, ten more knocked it out of the way. When it came down to it, no one knew where he was. Not Paul, his best friend, or Tia, the girl he'd been dating until just a few days ago. Not even the teachers, who were tight-lipped when the subject of Jared arose, to mask the fact that they were just as clueless as we were.

But his absences must have been excused; if they hadn't been, the police would have knocked down his door a long time ago, because it's been two weeks and no one's heard from him. At this point, no one would be shocked if he turned out to be dead, because the student body's already mourning his absence.

"Sheesh," my old friend, Ella, said in fourth period AP Psychology. Ella and I had been friends since middle school, but lately we'd lost touch. Every time she looked at me you could tell she was just a little angry, but also guilty for feeling angry, all things considered. "I don't want to find out would happen if he were dead."

I agreed. "They'd probably cancel classes for weeks."

Jared's blinds remained closed too. This made me feel slightly worried and also extremely embarrassed, considering the reason they might be closed is because of my snooping. I flushed every time I thought about it. Or maybe he was just dead in there, and his mom was some kind of sadist performing rituals on the body – this came from a kid in third period AP World History.

With all the homework I was getting – which was a lot, at least compared with last year – it wasn't hard to find ways to occupy my thoughts. But everything I thought about kept coming back to Jared somehow. I was worried about him, legitimately worried, probably more worried than stupid Tia or anyone of his other girlfriends.

It's not like I could tell anyone. Chris and Penelope were out of the question for obvious reasons, Sophie was too little, I didn't have many friends and certainly not any close ones now, and Mr. Stark would just advise me against liking him at all. It was times like these that I wished I wrote in a diary, but that was something I'd never gotten into, and it seemed so childish to start that now.

A few times I tried, on scrap of paper I'd ripped out from my math notebook. Jared's missing, I wrote. Missingmissingmissing. After I while the words evolved into useless sketches and swirls, so I crumbled it up and threw it away. I tried to read. My Lit teacher had assigned a new book, Romeo and Juliet, but I just wasn't a Shakespeare person. The TV seemed like a good option, but I didn't have cable up here and I'd watched all my DVD's tons of times.

Basically, my life without Jared was pitiful, which was even more pitiful because it's not like anything happened when he was around. But at least then I had something to think about; a smile thrown my way that I'd save for weeks, a gentle touching of hands as we exchanged papers to grade. Jared always wrote in no-nonsense blue pen, his handwriting slanted to the right. When he was really concentrating, a little crease formed in his forehead and he hunched over with his head close to the paper he was scribbling on, making his shaggy black hair fall into his eyes.

I sighed loudly. I was useless.

At school, I kept an eye out in the hallways and every time a door opened I got excited. But Jared never came.

Halfway through the second week, Paul stopped coming to school too. Not quite as many people noticed this, but a good portion in the school as intrigued. Jared and Paul, the two most popular boys in school, drop-outs? Perpetual skippers? Dying of kidney failure?

"Paul's mom came to get his work yesterday," Mr. Stark told me on Thursday. "I was getting my mail and this lady barges in – you know how Mrs. Renner is, real small with all that red lipstick – and she said she's picking up all of her son's work, because he's going to be out for a few weeks. Said he was sick."

"With what?" I asked.

"Didn't say," shrugged Mr. Stark.

"Hmmm."

Color me curious.

The thing is, La Push is a small town. Really small. It doesn't take much to get the tiny population excited, and that was exactly the case now. Jared and Paul's mysterious disappearance was the most interesting thing since Rina Patterson had gotten pregnant last year and moved to Seattle. It's pathetic, but that's how it is.

Even Penny knew about it. "So some lady from my work said her son saw that Jared boy with Sam Uley and Paul, too, I think. I'd put my money on a gang, maybe a cult-type thing."

Penny, for all that she seemed a reasonable and mature person, was obsessed with conspiracies. Nothing was black and white. We never went to the moon, 9/11 was a government operation, the Holocaust never happened. I don't know if she truly believed all of it, but she sure had her facts all jumbled up.

"I bet they're sick," I said.

"Hmph. Well, we'll see." Penny raised her eyebrows and popped a piece of pork into her mouth. Chris sighed and grinned indulgently, like she was just so cute, when really what she was was annoying.

"Where's the baby?" I asked.

"He's taking a nap," said Penny. "He had a rough day at daycare, poor thing. He missed his daddy."

I glanced at Chris, and it was like he was proud, proud that he had a temper-tantrum-throwing one-year-old that never listened and caused problems because he was so spoiled. Sophie rolled her eyes and I knew she was thinking the same thing.

"Kim, you know you have that appointment tomorrow," Chris told me. "Four o'clock. I can take you."

Chris didn't trust me to go by myself. Smart guy. Probably thought I would make a run for it.

"Thanks, but I can get there fine on my own," I said, knowing I was wasting words.

"No, I'll take you," he insisted. "It's no trouble. I don't want you to get lost."

Bullshit. "Whatever, Chris."

After dinner, I helped clean the dishes and then wandered into Sophie's bedroom to help her with her homework. Sophie's room was supposed to be a guest room, and Penny hadn't gotten around to changing it. The walls were a deep maroon with wood panels and hardwood floor. Sophie's princess comforter, canopy, and Crayon-colored desk didn't look right the way they did at our old house. My mom had finally agreed to let Sophie redo her room just before the accident, and Sophie had chosen pale pink for the walls. We even took a trip to the Ikea in Seattle to purchase a huge Eiffel Tower picture that her new room was too small for.

"It's Parents Appreciation Week, did you know?" Sophie asked me. I was sitting with my hands underneath by bottom on her bed, and she was pulling out papers from a folder at the desk.

"I didn't," I said.

"My teacher said that I could make a card for Penny or Chris or you," she continued, flipping through pages and pages to find the right one. "She said she'd change my papers to say 'Sibling Appreciation Week,' but I told her that was stupid."

I widened my eyes, repressing a chuckle. "What did she say?"

"She said I shouldn't use that word, and also that I could do whatever I wanted for the card." Sophie smiled big, flashing her newly grown front teeth. She had a good smile, and in fact a good everything else. Sophie had walked away with the majority of the looks in the family. Her hair was dark and thick, tumbling down her back in waves, and her eyes were big and light brown, like Dad's. She had a delicate nose and eyebrows that arched perfectly, and her mouth seemed to full for an nine-year-old but would one day be attractive.

"So what did you do?"

"I made one for Mommy, and one for Daddy," Sophie said. She motioned to two cards on her desk, one pink and one blue. "I worked really hard on them. Some kid next to me said it was stupid, but it's not."

I picked up the cards carefully, not wanting to bend the corners or somehow damage them. Sophie's handwriting was neat and big, and read I love you Mommy! and I love you Daddy! in colorful ink. On the inside was a picture of them, drawn to surprising detail with wings coming out of their backs.

"These are really nice," I said, putting them down before they hurt me. My heart ached; Sophie didn't and wouldn't for a long time understand the finality of death.

"I want to put it by them," she said proudly. "Will you take me?"

I hadn't been to the graveyard since the funeral, and until this point I'd had no plans of ever returning. Graveyards had always freaked me out, but it's worse when you know someone there. It's like they're following you, or trying to talk to you, or maybe all they're doing it laying in a box below you, gone forever from this world. The uncertainty of it scared me.

"Maybe one day," I said without much conviction. I wasn't good at talking about my emotions; it made me squeamish and vulnerable. So I changed the subject quickly by saying, "So how about that math?"

Sophie looked disappointed, but she took out her assignment anyway and I helped her for a while.

It didn't occur to me that maybe she needed someone to talk to, because no one ever thought to be there for her.


The psychiatrist's name was Dr. Meadows.

With a name like that, I should have felt more at ease. I should have conjured pictures of streams and cricket noises and shit, Bambi or something. But the classical music that was playing in her office made me feel tense; Beethoven just wasn't doing it for me lately. I thumbed through a magazine in her office – a surprisingly recent edition of People – and tapped my foot while Chris scrolled through messages on his Blackberry.

"You could go," I had told him when we sat down.

"I might as well wait," he said. "By the time I get back, I'd just have to leave again."

He was right, but that wasn't my fault. The psychiatrist him and Penny had picked out for me had an office in Port Angeles, which is a good hour away from the reservation. The drive was awkward, just like every other moment Chris and I spent alone together. It wasn't always like that. Chris was older than me by nine years, so we hadn't seen much of each other growing up, which probably made us closer than we would have been otherwise. I was his cute little sister he liked teasing on the holidays; he was the big brother I hero-worshipped. But it's hard to keep up that sort of attitude toward one another when we live together.

"What am I supposed to tell her?" I hissed to him, when I couldn't take the silence any longer.

"I don't know," Chris said. "Tell her you're brother forced you to come. Tell her whatever you want. Therapists can work off of anything, right?"

"Sure, sure," I said.

But I was nervous. I'd even dressed up nice, in my best cream-colored sweater and dark-wash jeans. My hair was pulled into a sleek and shiny ponytail rather than it's usual messy bun. I wanted to look presentable, because I didn't want Dr. Meadows to judge me. I could just imagine her thought process if I walked in the door looking like I normally did.

"Just be yourself," Chris advised.

Because myself was angsty enough to work its magic on Meadows.

The fact that I was being forced to come here on every Tuesday of every week for God knows how long really grated on my nerves. I treasured my newly found independence, and now that was being taken away too.

Finally my name was called. I glanced at Chris but he barely looked up from his phone, motioning with one hand for me to go back. I did so hesitantly, partly because I didn't want to and partly because I had no idea where I was going. The hallway that adjoined the waiting room had several doors, none of them labeled or opened, so I just stood there.

After a minute or so, someone called, "Kimberly?"

I thought it sounded like it came from the first doorway, so I peeked in that door first. "Yes, yes, come in here, Kimberly," said the same voice.

I pushed open the door wide. Stepped inside. Cautiously examined my surroundings. The room wasn't anything special, low-ceilinged with lots of windows and three bookshelves. There was a big desk and three big chairs, and a sofa. A small woman who looked like she couldn't be older than twenty was sitting on one of the chairs, a notepad and pen in her hands.

"You must be Kimberly," she said warmly, and extended her hand.

For a second I stared, before realizing she must mean for me to go and shake it. "And you're Dr. Meadows?" I asked, hating this already.

"That's me," she said. "I'd tell you to call me by my first name, but it's Eugenia, so we can't have that."

I sat down and smiled slightly. The motion made my jaw hurt. She certainly didn't look like a Eugenia. She looked like an Ashley or Ellie or Jessica. Her hair was light blonde and cut in the trendiest fashion, and her suit managed to be professional and stylish, so different from the lame pantsuits Penny always wore.

"With a name like that, maybe you should be the one in therapy," I said.

Meadows grinned, but I could tell she was watching me closely. She scribbled something in her notepad and I was desperate to know what, but I didn't ask. I didn't know what the proper etiquette was in this kind of situation. I crossed my legs and then uncrossed them, feeling wildly out-of-place.

"Hmmm, so, Kimberly—" she began.

"Call me Kim," I interrupted. "Everyone does."

"Alrighty, Kim then. How are you?" Meadows stared at me like the next words out of my mouth would be the most interesting she'd ever heard.

"Uhm, pretty good," I said. "You?"

I cringed inwardly, realizing how stupid that sounded.

But Meadows smiled. "Very good, thank you. So many people forget that psychiatrists have problems, too."

I could tell she was trying to relate to me somehow, though it was very subtle. I said, "I bet."

"So you're brother sent you here?" she asked curiously, leaning forward.

"Yeah," I said. "Well, him and his wife. They think I'm depressed."

"Do you think you're depressed?"

I frowned at the question. "I don't know. I've never been depressed before, so I don't know what it's like."

Meadows scribbled something down again. It irritated me. I craned my neck to get a look, but there was no way I could see.

"How do I tell if I'm depressed?" I asked. "Is there an at-home test? A stick I need to pee on?"

I could tell Meadows was surprised. Maybe she thought I was going to be some quiet, teary little girl with no sense of humor. I felt an odd sense of victory. I wished that Meadows would go up to Chris and Penny and say, "Why on Earth did you think this girl needs therapy? She's absolutely fine. She doesn't need help."

But I guess Meadows would like to be paid.

She said, "No, but you could make a lot of money if you invented something like that."

I shrugged.

There was silence. I decided then that being a psychiatrist must be the best job in the world. Sit and let someone talk to you for an hour – or not talk, whichever – and get paid a hundred bucks. I wondered what classes I'd have to take to become one, and if some type of med school was required.

"I just want you to know that everything you say to me is completely confidential," Meadows said. "By law, I can't repeat anything you say. It's doctor-patient confidentiality."

"I don't have anything to say," I told her. It was true. I didn't know how to do this. I wasn't Penny, who could make a conversation out of anything, or my mother, who had been so in touch with her emotions she could have been a psychiatrist for herself. I hid away from all the bad things in my life, and that was okay with me. I didn't need to resurface all that pain from so long ago. I didn't want to feel it again.

I didn't want to feel it ever again.

"How's school?" she asked.

"School's fine," I replied.

"Do you do anything after school? A sport, a club?"

"I used to do track, but I quit," I told her, feeling ashamed, like always, to admit that more or less I sat around my room and stared at the walls.

"Why'd you quit?"

I thought about that. Turned it over in my head. Running was something I'd always loved to do, even before it became a sport to me. I wasn't good at many things, but I was fast, really fast, and it felt good to be good for once. But last year, I'd told Coach I was quitting. I didn't give an explanation to him or myself. I don't know why I did it.

"I just didn't feel like doing it anymore," I said nonchalantly, no big deal. But already this damn psychiatrist was making me feel like there had been some hidden, ulterior motive for my quitting track, a metaphor of sorts. I was tired of running. Running from…?

I shook my head. It was like English class, when we dissected books so thoroughly you had to wonder if that was really the author's intention or if it just turned out that way.

"Did your brother or sister-in-law encourage you to continue?" asked Meadows.

I snapped back into attention. "No. I mean," I tacked on quickly, "I don't think they even knew I ran. It's not a big sport at my school, which is stupid, because it's the best team we've got. We were really good, we won every meet and made it to Regionals."

"You never told them about it?"

"We weren't close before I moved in with them," I defended myself. "There was never any reason to tell them."

"Mhm," Meadows said absently.

"They're busy enough without me," I added. "They're got their baby, Ethan, and their jobs. Sophie and I complicated things too much as it is. I try to stay quiet."

"Right." She looked at me then, pushing a piece of light hair behind her ears. "Are you close with your sister Sophie?"

"I love her," I said. "She's annoying, but she's my baby sister. She's all I…she can be a brat, but she's eight, you know."

"How is Sophie?"

This surprised me. Not that I minded talking about Sophie, but I had been expecting to be forced to talk about my life and problems for the duration of the hour. But then, I didn't know how psychiatrists operated. Maybe this was a technique of some kind.

"She's…" I trailed off, thinking about the pictures she'd showed me yesterday, the request she'd made. "Eight."

"Is she going through a Hannah Montana stage? Or has that not come yet?" Meadows chuckled.

"Jonas Brothers," I reported. "Not Hannah Montana, but I think that's only because she dated the brother Sophie likes. She was pissed."

"It must be nice to be nine," mused Meadows. "Don't you think?"

"I don't know," I said thoughtfully. "I narrowly dodged the Hannah Montana craze. It's hard to see that as a drawback in the long-run."

Meadows smile was slow this time, spreading from the corners of her mouth until it became a full-on grin.

"You're not what I thought you'd be," she told me.

"Are you allowed to say that?" I asked. "I mean, can psychiatrists openly make judgments?"

That made her frown. She thought for a second and then said, "I don't know if we're supposed to. Probably not. But we do."

"Everyone does," I said.

That's the whole problem.

A/N: So, let me be honest: I've never been to a psychiatrist. I don't know how they work. This could be completely different from an actual visit, I honestly have no clue and I didn't feel like doing a ton of research. Also, psychiatrists technically deal with "mental disorders" (they're also the only type of "therapists" that are able to prescribe medicine) and my Kim doesn't have one of those. Depression could be considered one, and while Kim isn't clinically depressed, they don't know that. And, okay, I'm thinking La Push here. Small town next to a bunch of other small towns. They're not exactly going to have therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist galore. Beggars can't be choosers.

Alrighty so a little bit about Kim real quick! I know she's kind of, I don't know exactly how to put it, unemotional? She's not big on emotions, that's for sure. And I just want to explain that and let you know it's not going to be that way for long. Right now, Kim's been through a lot of tragedy (more emotional tragedy than you might think, there's a little twist coming in to play eventually; you'll see!) and because of that, she's sort of closed-up, even to herself. She's scared to breech her emotions – I would be too! But screw that, because Jared's going to come in and toy with her emotions (unintentionally of course; I love Jared) and make her a whole lot more interesting.

OKAY, so anyway. Thank you so much to my eight reviewers! All of your comments made me so happy, you don't even know. :D I hope everyone enjoys this chapter, it's sort of special to me, in a weird way.

Oh and Jared's coming next chapter! Do you want to see the imprint next chapter, or the one after that?

Also any ideas are always welcomed and appreciated!