Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, or anything to do with it, however the OC's are all my own. The concept of Jasper being the 'God of War' is something that I've read in a few fics, but I don't know where it originates, so I'm sorry for not giving credit where credit's due! Plus, I have no idea what Louisianna, or Wisconsin are like - I'm from England, so please, forgive any mistakes. BTW, guys, it's a slow starter, but give it time! Have a great day, and I love you guys!

Camilla POV

June 2020

Baron Rouge, Louisianna

The following day was a confusing one, to say the least, and I didn't exactly know how to process it, honestly. Clyde had woken me up at around 6am in the morning, and after I threatened to sear the skin from his body, he told me that we were going for a light job around the neighbourhood. Normally I would have kicked up an absolute shitstorm for him ruining my usual lie-in, on that fine Saturday morning, however something in me had decided against it, and I agreed, and made my way into my closet, to pull out a pair of sneakers, a black oversized sweater along with a simple vest to wear beneath it, and a pair of grey sweatpants.

Clyde was already dressed, and his bright green eyes were alive and practically bugging out of his head, his curly hair dripping wet from his shower, and his attire similar to that of my own, however he was simply wearing a wife beater and pair of knee-length basketball shorts, with a pair of runner shoes on his feet, dirtying up my fawn carpet, and I growled at him, under my breath, and he grinned, sheepishly, and muttered, "I'll be downstairs, cher."

Padding into the standardised bathroom, complete with a medicine cabinet/mirror, a white ceramic sink, toilet and bathtub, along with a chrome showerhead and white and red tiles covering each wall in a sequential order. I switched on the shower, hearing the pitter-patter of the spray as it collided with the bathtub, and waited until the water became scalding hot, hopefully to wake me up more than I was now. Without even flinching under the intense spray, I squeezed the pearl-coloured shower gel into my palms and lathered them together, to create a foamy, lavender scented foam, and I rubbed it all over the length of my body, revelling in the scent of it. I scrubbed at my scalp, and winced at the tenseness in my scalp before watching the soapy liquid swirl down the drain.

Quickly, I rubbed some of the water over my face once or twice, and, after switching off the showerhead, I pulled a towel from the metallic rack by the side of the sink, beneath the rectangular window, and stepped out of the bathtub, and wrapped it around my body, feeling the droplets drip from my tendrils onto my back, and winced at the change in temperature. Automatically, I squeezed toothpaste onto the bristles of my lilac toothbrush and scrubbed at my teeth, both behind and on the front, as well as swilling my mouth out with some minty mouthwash, and grinned in the steamy mirror.

"Let's do this shit."

Walking across the landing, I yelled, loudly, "Clyde, Imma be down in a second," and he hollered something that I couldn't hear, but sounded suspiciously like 'Goddamn it woman!' and I strolled back into my bedroom, grinning to myself, and going about getting dressed in the dreaded sportswear that was thrown, haphazardly, onto my bed. I pulled on some clean underwear; a comfortable bra and a pair of black boy-shorts, and slipped on my clothes that I had picked out earlier. I dried my hair using the towel, until it was fairly manageable and easy to manipulate, and I pulled it into a high ponytail, the curls still brushing past my scapula, and after rolling on a little bit of deodorant, I practically sprinted down the stairs, and saw Clyde lying, with his legs hooked over the side of the comfortable sofa, and glanced at the analogue clock above the fireplace, and saw it was nearing twelve past seven in the morning.

I placed my hands on my hips, and chirped, "Hey! Come on, slacker, if I'm up now, you sure as hell gon' be up, too!," and I swivelled around, readying to unlock the front door, into the tepid atmosphere outside our home. He grinned, cheekily, "Imma comin', cher," and he stood, brushing off his clothes, "Let's go, I wanna get somethin' to eat after."

-0-

Red-faced, out-of-breath and sweating to high heaven, we practically had to drag ourselves into the nearest McDougall's, matching grins on our flushed faces at the sudden intense turn our workout had taken. We were jogging, at a leisurely pace, down the length on Connemara Way, when an idea seemed to strike Clyde, and he smirked down at me, mischievously, before he sprinted at a speed that, to me felt like it were nearing something like 20 miles and hour, down the stretch of road, leaving me, wide-eyed and alone in the middle of nowhere.

Obviously, I had to pump myself twice as fast to catch up with him, and even then, I was always on instep behind him, and that only served to excite me more, and we turned it into a kind of race. Of course, Clyde won, but he didn't mock me for it. As a matter of fact, he actually congratulated me on being able to keep up with him, considering I didn't do a quarter as much regular exercise as he did, and he promised to buy me breakfast for it.

So here we are, waiting in the queue for our breakfast; thankfully it was barely half past 9 in the morning, so we had plenty of time to relax and lounge around in here. I knew there was a reason for him being so nice to me, and I had an inclination as what it was, however I couldn't be sure until he asked. I didn't make it a habit of making assumptions about someone; you always turned out to be dead wrong.

"Hey, can I take your order, Sir?," a preppy blonde girl, with wide eyes and a gap between her two front teeth said, rather sultrily, aimed at Clyde, and it made me heave, internally. Wherever we would go, he would have women tripping over themselves to talk to him, or even to get him to look in their direction, but none ever did. He didn't care for girls who begged for his attentions; he liked a challenge, I suppose.

I didn't know if it was his stature; being tall did always guarantee you play with the ladies, or if it were his good looks; those slanted green eyes, practically glowed when paired with his olive toned skin, a perfect blend of both our parents skin colours, whereas I was a fairer shade of olive, he caught the sun more often, from being outside all the damn time, so he was darker. He had fairly short, curly dark brown hair, I had been told on more than one occasion that he had a 'rugged, deep voice', and I guess it was an 'attractive' Southern accent that attracted so many women, I thought it was far too unnecessary.

It kinda made me feel a little icky when girls would leer at him around me. It was gross. Nobody needed to hear all of their vulgar, crass, thoughtless comments as they spewed from heavily made up lips.

You would think that he would have used this to his advantage, and slept around a lot, but.. He never did. He was entirely monogamous when he was in any kind of relationship, and treated his girlfriends like princesses. None of them ever deserved him, in my opinion, they were always so bitchy, and just plain mean in everything they did, but then again, I guess its because he's my brother, and I feel like nobody deserved him.

He was too nice for his own good, and sometimes that came back to bite him.. Or, well, me, in the ass, as I was always the verbal punching bag for his ex's to take their anger out on. That's why I didn't make many friends; they always would use to me to try and get to my brother, who, to this day, remained completely oblivious to it all, and I lied to keep it that way.

"Yeah," he turned to me, as if asking for me to chip in, and I stepped forward, and replied, flippantly, "Just a hot chocolate and a cinnamon melt'll do, thanks."

He added, "Alright.. I want a pair of hotcakes, a double cheese and bacon bagel and.." he scrunched his face up, slightly, and I saw the stars explode behind the girl's eyes, "Yeah.. Hot chocolate, too, please," to which she sighed, dotingly, and I fought against the urge to vomit all across the counter. Seriously, how could he not see the adoration in her eyes? He was completely unaware of these kinds of things, and it was actually sort of shocking, if I were being honest. Distractedly, she totalled, nervously, "That'll b-be s-seventeen dollars, 65 cents, p-please."

The stuttering itself wasn't even the worst part of it, it was the fact that her hand was shaking, violently, as she held it out, hoping against hope that he would just brush his fingers against her palm, and the disappointment that she felt when it didn't happen was practically palpable. He grinned, and nudged me, "Go find a table, cher," and the girl's eyes practically rolled into the back of her head, as well as a few other's behind the kitchen section of the eatery, and, after huffing irritated, I padded over to the open booth on the far corner of the establishment, and sat down, glancing out of the window beside me, and watched as people went about their regular days, completely engrossed in their own world's, and disregarding everything surrounding them.

I was so enraptured with the people bustling past me that I hadn't noticed Clyde approaching me, and I jumped out of my skin when he placed the two large trays onto the marble, concavely shaped table, and beamed down at me, his mouth practically salivating over the meal in front of us.

Immediately, he pushed himself into the booth, and went about tearing the brown paper bag open and withdrawing his breakfast, and dug in, quickly after saying his morning prayer. I repeated this action, and simply sipped my warm drink, and picked and nibbled at my cinnamon melt, revelling in the spicy taste and odd texture of the food in front of me. His mouth widened into a small smile, his mouth filled with food, and I grimaced at the picture that he seared into my imagination, and rolled my eyes, good-naturedly. I had long finished my breakfast, and I was casually sipping my drink, and watched him enjoy his own. It was an enrapturing process, watching someone else do something that they clearly enjoy, and apparently his 'thing' was eating like a somewhat practised animal.

He glanced up, and grinned, momentarily embarrassed, before brushing his hands on a napkin that he had brought along from the front counter, and then his expression sobered up, quickly. "We're going to have to talk about pops' proposition," and he raised an eyebrow at me, to which I simply ignored, and glanced back out of the window, bristling slightly at the intensity of his words. I already knew I had to think about this shit, I have been thinking about it, damn it, and it was driving me crazy.

I muttered, earnestly, "Clyde.. I jus', I don't know what to do," and felt my forehead furrow, uncomfortably. He pressed a thumb between my eyebrows, playfully, and smirked, knowingly.

His expression was sympathetic and calm, and he answered, understandingly, "I cant convince you to do somethin' you don't wanna. That's all up to you, cher, and I know you know I've made up my mind on this. I wanna change of scenery, I've never been outta Baton Rouge my whole life, who wouldn't I wanna leave? I know it's hard, cher, but you gotta make up your mind, and soon. Pops wants us to finish up here, then go to Wisconsin at the end of Freshman year, and start Junior year over there. I ain't gonna pressure you, because that ain't fair, but I'll stick by you, no matter what, cher," he reached over the table, and grasped both of my hands in his own much warmer ones, and stared in my eyes, intently, before adding, "I promise."

He never went back on his promises, he's not that kind of person, I trusted him wholeheartedly, and I wanted to make him proud. I didn't want him to be disappointed in me, and even though he said he would stick with me, I got the impression that he would be a little bit saddened, not necessarily in me, but because he just wants a big change in his life - and this was just that.

A change.

A big one.

We could move away, I could find myself a new set of friends, start my life anew, mould myself into someone that I wanted to be, and not have to worry about anyone from my past coming around and ruining that. I could make the most of this move, I really could, but something just wasn't letting me. Every time I thought of leaving, I wanted to cry. And I wasn't a sensitive person, at least, not in that sense, so I hadn't a clue why I was so damned emotional all of a sudden. It was annoying, discouraging and more than a little infuriating, especially as I had no clue as to why my own body was betraying me in such a way.

I needed to sift through these damned emotions, and quickly, otherwise I'd find myself in a prickly predicament, and that wouldn't be helping anybody out.

Second chapter to hopefully get you guys interested? I really hope you like it! R&R!