Chapter 2 – Volcanoes Erupt
"Morning." I tried without much conviction.
"Claire, what are you doing in here?" Quil stood up abruptly, incredulous. "And in my bed?"
"I woke up in the night. I couldn't get back to sleep," I replied lamely.
"So you wake me up! You don't crawl into my bed." He began pacing around the room. Horror washing over his features. This wasn't good. "Jeez, Claire, you do realize I'm going to have to tell your parents."
Wait, what? "Tell my parents?"
"Yes! The pack is obviously going to find out, which means Emily will find out, and I'm not going to ask Emily to lie to her sister."
"Lie? Clam down Quil. You're overreacting."
"Argh! Your parents trust me Claire. You don't think I'm about to keep them in the dark."
I swung my feet off the bed, just a bit indignant. I thought he was my imprint. Why did he always feel like he had to include my parents in every little thing?
"Whatever, Quil," I mumbled, and looked toward the door, ready to make my escape. Embarrassment was descending quickly. I just wanted to be alone. But then I felt his hand on my shoulder, spinning me around to face him.
"Claire, what's wrong? I don't understand what happened here."
"I don't know. It was dumb okay. Just forget about it. It won't happen again."
He studied my face a moment. I have no idea what he was looking for, but he smiled slightly before wrapping his arm around my shoulder and leading me out of his bedroom.
"Come on. I'll make you breakfast," he said.
All through breakfast and on the way back to my house, Quil joked around like his normal self. My chagrin hummed only quietly in the background, as I realized that the events of last night hadn't done any lasting damage. Or so I thought.
Before going into my house, his tone suddenly turned serious. "Claire, we are going to have to tell your parents what happened."
"What! Nothing happened. What do you mean we have to tell them!"
"It's up to you if you'd like to tell them yourself. But otherwise, I'm going to right now."
I was mortified and wouldn't even look at Quil. Making a beeline for my room, I left Quil to take care of whatever moral obligations he felt he owed my family. "My imprint," I chanted in my head. Mine.
Suddenly my mother's voice hit the rafters. "Claire Atah Keen! Get down here right now!"
Oh my gosh. This was so not happening to me. I moved in slow motion, getting the first inklings of an out of body experience as I watched my feet move down the hall and toward the stairs. The rest of me wanted nothing more than to stay safely hidden in the oversize chair in the corner of my room, and possibly die of mortification.
I saw Quil perched on the edge of the couch opposite my parents, as my feet hit the bottom step and I peered around the corner. He turned to look at me but I wouldn't look at him. I didn't look at any of them. I just stood there on the edge of the living room, within arms reach of the front door; emotionally cringing, waiting for my volcano mother to explode. Thank goodness I was a good runner.
My father surprised me by beating my mother to the punch. "So Claire," he closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Quil has been giving us some troubling news."
This was worse than my mother screaming. Watching my dad, like he was actually in pain thinking about what Quil had told him, devastated me. All I wanted to do was run to my dad and tell him I was sorry. Suddenly there wasn't enough oxygen. My lungs constricted, throat tightened, nose stung, vision blurred in tears. The living room felt like it had turned into a canyon. There was no way to close it, fill it, cross it now even if I had wanted to. I just stood there on the edge, devastated.
"Claire, we'd like to know what happened," my father tried again when he saw I wasn't responding.
But the volcano blew just then. "You better believe we want to know what happened! What in the world would possess you to get into his bed, Claire? You're not five anymore! We thought you were more responsible than this! You will not be going to Quil's house ever again!"
My mom was prone to ever higher-pitched exaggeration when she got going. I had seen her in action with my older sister whenever she walked in after curfew.
But I couldn't hear her words. The chasm that had suddenly formed between me and my parents, a chasm that seemed to even separate me from Quil now, was still all that I could see.
"Claire." My dad's voice grew a bit in volume now.
"I don't know." I mumbled back.
"Claire, can you just give us a clue. Obviously you're confused. But your parents need something here. I need something." Quil reached his hand toward me.
Confused didn't begin to cover it. I took a step away from the edge of the chasm that had formed in my living room. It helped clear my head. I studied Quil's hand and debated briefly trying to explain what had happened at school. But they weren't going to understand. What was I supposed to say? Kate had been teasing me that I wasn't interested in boys and seriously Quil, I'm not interested in you that way. But I needed a story to tell my friends and I didn't want to lie so I got in your bed. Well, and actually a part of me really does wish I could curl up next to you, and hold your hand at the bonfires. Yeah, that explanation would go over wonderfully. They would just freak out about hormones and peer pressure; and ugh, why can't they just leave me alone to figure out my own life? This was crazy. Nothing, when you think about it, had actually happened!
"Look, I just, I don't know. It's a misunderstanding. It's nothing. Seriously, not a big deal," I replied a little piqued now.
Quil dropped his hand.
My dad sighed.
My mom spewed, "You better believe it's a big deal. You are too young to have that sort of relationship with Quil.
That sort of relationship with Quil? Yes, I officially was dying of embarrassment now.
But my mom had just gotten going. "You will only spend time together with supervision. You will limit your time together to one day a week, and only on weekends, and only if you have all your homework done-"
Homework? Really? When had I not done my homework. I was good Claire, nice Claire. I couldn't help but smile just slightly at the picture my mom seemed to suddenly have of me in her head.
"-and you will," but then she abruptly stopped. Her expression became irate. "Why are you smiling, Claire? Do you think this is funny?"
No, I didn't. This was beyond awful. But another part of me thought this was hilarious. Call it teenage angst, I don't know, but I surprised even myself and burst out laughing, hysterically. I couldn't stop. The more I thought about it the funnier it was.
"Claire you will stop this right now," my mother yelled.
I just waved one hand at her trying to tell her okay, while clutching my stomach with the other one. "I'm sorry," I managed to choke out. And then I just left the house. I had to.
I couldn't believe how blown out of proportion everything had gotten. And of course I couldn't ignore the irony of it all. I had wanted to prove to Kate and the others that I was no different than they were except that I didn't need their little games and drama. I had Quil already. No dramatic scenes of misunderstanding needed.
Yeah, right, I thought bitterly. That's all I have: dramatic scenes. The one person who should totally be here right now so I can tell him how far crazy my mom had suddenly gone, was in fact in my living room buddying up to her and my dad, ardently agreeing with them apparently, on how to control teenage Claire.
Argh! I paced along the familiar path to the cliff overlooking First Beach. I could see some boys from my class throwing a frisbee back and forth and caught myself wondering what it would be like to be normal, to be one of those girls like Kate that would be savoring their every move, making the scene juicier than it really was, working up a story to tell on Monday to the captive hallway audience, surrounding her locker.
But then I heard the bushes rustle behind me. I turned in time to see an acrobatic angel go flipping off the back of an enormous wolf.
Kate could keep her stories. Mine were much more interesting.
"Hey Nessie."
AN: Thank you for the reviews! Feedback on this chapter? Was the internal dialogue too heady, not realistic for a 13-year-old girl to be thinking?