I am Steph Meyer and Paul has a kitten of whom he is more fond than Rachel. He loves cats and hates all canines.
Actually, Claire'd taken to reprimanding me lately for calling her "little" – "Quil, I'm in junior high! I'm not little!" – at which point I'd kneel down next to her and swipe my hand over first my head, then hers. That usually got a giggle out of her. I'm still a few inches taller than her like that, thank god. I don't ever want there to be a day when I can't call her little, because physically she always will be, and right now we're still in the best friends / siblings stage. I mean, not that I mind at all; if Claire was happy, I was happy, too. Really, if she was a closet transsexual and wanted to marry a camel, I'd support whatever she did as long as she was happy. Because I've never heard just what fate dictated "together" to mean, it could mean that I was to visit her every day and clean out the camel's stall.
As it was, Claire and I still had a pretty fantastic relationship after ten years. I guess most people would have gotten pissed a long, long time ago if they spent as much time with a kid that wasn't theirs, as I spent with Claire. I mean, yeah, we'd had our spats – when we first met she wouldn't eat Cheerios with milk on them, despite the added nutritional value (she only spat about that one a few times before I got the picture and left them – and my face - dry). When she started first grade she was mad when I wouldn't be a Homeroom Mother. At age nine I tried for days, but failed, to convince her that Barbie could go faster in her Dream Car than on Skipper's horse. And on her first day of eighth grade she'd wanted to start taking the bus to school with her friends. That one hadn't quite been a spat, but I still worried about her like crazy, even after almost three weeks.
After we'd first met, none of the pack or her parents had really kept any of the legends or werewolf stuff from her. So she knew, of course, that I loved her, and she always told me that she loved me too, but really, she's twelve – how much about love could a twelve year old really comprehend? It had been so long since I'd been twelve that I could hardly remember it. I was around her about as much as her parents were, so I figured it was only logical that she felt the same about me as she did them.
lalelalelathisisjustadividinglinefanfickeptgettinridofmyunderscoresabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyandznexttimewontyoueithersingwithorsubmitareviewformetheend!
All that I had to hand in the next morning was a paragraph about my high school graduation. With Claire back in school and taking the bus, I had about 8 hours of free time each morning, and Embry'd already gotten sick of me, I guess – he'd pushed me into taking some "intro to liberal arts" class at the local community college with Leah. Speaking of Leah . . .
"So, what did you write about?" she said, coming up behind me.
"High school graduation. You?"
"Oh, not about Claire? Why, does she have a boooooyfriend?" I punched her in the arm, but she continued as if nothing had happened. "Actually, I wrote about the day Jacob finally stood up to Sam and I could leave the pack. Of course, all I could use was "friends", but it was still a major turning point . . . ." She trailed off, and looked thoughtful. "Speaking of Sam, actually, I think we should head over to his and Em's place after class – I've heard some rumors about Jake coming back."
"Jake's coming back? But the Cullens, and-" She shoved her hand over my mouth. "Shut up, dog," she said, her eyes twinkling, "I'll tell you on the way. You ran, right?" I nodded and shoved her hand off of my mouth. Turning to face the front, I noticed a few of the students – because they mostly were all 18 or so – staring at us, and I blushed, at least as much as a wolf can. "Whatever", I mumbled, as I stood up and pushed past her to turn in my bullshitted "favorite memory".