A/N: Sorry for taking so long to update! I caught that awful swine flu. Thanks for all of your reviews :) I'm so glad you guys like my story! In honor of NaNoWriMo, I'm going to try to update more often.
Liz
Bonnie threw her hot pink pillow at my head.
"Do you have to be reading RIGHT NOW?" She asked, somewhat aggravated. We were having our annual start-of-the-school-year-sleepover, but I was lost in Shiver. Since school started I must have read it a thousand more times, and each time it was as good as the last.
"Yes," I replied, not taking my eyes off the page.
"Well too bad. Because guess what time it is?" I groaned. "IT'S TIME TO TALK ABOUT BOYS!" As Bonnie rattled off the names of the twenty boys she had crushes on, my mind wandered to one guy. Him. It was like I could see his hazel eyes right in front of me, the way he chewed his lip when he was stuck on a particularly hard math problem.
"Hello? Earth to Liz!" Bonnie waved her hand in front of my face, waking me from my daydream. "You have a crush," it wasn't a question as much as it was an accusation. "LIZ SHAW HAS A CRUSH!" Bonnie screamed in my face. It was pretty unusual for me. I haven't liked anyone since Garrett Barker in seventh grade.
"So who is it?????" Bonnie asked with a little too much excitement.
"Brian Blackwood," I mumbled.
"OEMGEEEE!!!!!!" Bonnie screamed so loud and so high pitched that I thought the window above her bed might break. She started rattling off the reasons why he was "crushable", while I zoned out. I wondered if he was thinking of me? I didn't want to get my hopes up, because I was sure that a guy as hot and popular as him wouldn't go for some bookish nerd like me. It just wasn't how it was done in high school.
Bonnie stopped talking when she realized I wasn't listening. She shrugged and went back to talking about her thoughts on tenth grade. That was kind of how our sleepovers always went. She talked, I listened. We were both fine with that. I had always been the quiet one, and she had always been the loud one.
When Bonnie ran out of topics, she lied down and closed her eyes. She pulled her pink covers up to her chin, and I soon heard her breath become soft and even. I barely acknowledged this and read well into the early morning. Eventually, I placed Shiver next to my plain blue sleeping bag and fell asleep. I dreamt of a werewolf with hazel eyes.
Brian
I sat in the family room, reading some crap that my English teacher deemed a "classic" and assigned to the class. I tried as hard as I could to focus, but my mind kept wandering to her. I thought about the way she always tuned out in math class and read, but still got perfect marks. It was a talent I was envious of. Perhaps I could have her tutor me? Then I could get to know her better… No. I can't think of any girl like that, especially with the cold weather coming. If I were to get attached to anyone, or if they were to get attached to me, it would end badly. I don't even know how many more years of changing back and forth I had left. For all I know, this could be my last year.
A flick on my left ear brought me out of my thoughts. I looked up to see Pete's dark green eyes looking back down at me, his medium length blonde hair in his face. Pete was the only family I had left. When I was changed, he took care of me. In a way I thought of him as my father, although he's only 19, just four years older than I. All of the other wolves that I grew up with stopped changing back into humans over the years, so now it was just him and me. We refused to bite others and give them the curse that we have had to bear our whole lives. It was a lonely existence, but we were used to it.
"Hey Bri, whatcha up to?" he asked, flopping down in the soft armchair that was next to the sofa I was resting on.
"Reading," I said to him, then turned back to my page. I realized that I had been staring at the same words for over twenty minutes. This is bad. I have to get her out of my head.
"Doesn't look like it," Pete observed. He was always very perceptive. "You haven't turned the page in 20 minutes." So he noticed, too.
"There's just some stuff on my mind," I muttered, hoping he would leave it at that. He didn't.
"As long as it's just stuff, and not people. Winter's coming. We're having a hot year, but by November it's going to start cooling down. You can't afford to befriend any one," Pete reminded me. I nodded my head and closed my book. I turned so that I was looking him straight in the eye.
"It's a girl," I said. He would figure it out soon enough, and it was better to come out with the truth than just lie to his face and say I wasn't getting attached to anyone. Pete's only response was to raise one eyebrow. I took that as my cue to explain. "I can't really describe it, but she won't get out of my head. I've never been much of a romantic, but that's the only way I can say it. Everything I see reminds me of her, and I barely know her," I looked at Pete to register his reaction. The fun, jokey expression that's usually on his face was gone, only to be replaced with a serious, dark expression.
"This is bad, kid. You can't get emotionally involved with anyone. Probably ever." With that, he got up and walked out of the room. I placed my book down on the coffee table in front of me and headed upstairs to my room. I walked through a hallway of locked doors. The rooms that used to hold the others were now empty, except for mine. It was the second smallest and at the very end of the long hallway, but I refused to move into one of the bigger rooms out of respect for the ones who didn't change back this year.
I walked into my room and surveyed my surroundings. In front of me was a chestnut bed with a solid blue comforter and white sheets. To the left was a matching armoire, and a desk on the other side of the room was parallel to it. The walls were painted white. It was a plain, boring room, meant for someone living there temporarily.
I changed into my pajamas and turned off the lights. I dreamt of a brown wolf with Liz's eyes. I woke up and vowed that I would never change her.
