-Chapter Two-
On Saturday, we piled into Mike's van to go to La Push.
I tried to get Gunner to come, but he didn't like my friends. More accurately, he didn't like Lauren. I barely liked Lauren most days, but Gunner hated Lauren. One of his past times was holding his nose shut to make fun of Lauren's high, nasal-y voice.
"You can't eat all the marshmallows before we even get there, Tyler," Lauren scolded him and rolled her eyes. Even with all the room in Mike's van, Lauren just happened to end up sitting in Tyler's lap. It made his face burn a deep red, much to our amusement.
Lauren definitely knew what she did to that boy. I just hoped she wouldn't use him or string him along. It was hard to say how Lauren ever felt about anyone, because she was naturally capricious.
The weather was overcast but balmy—a rare warmth for Forks, this late in the year. My excitement over this fact was great enough that I wore shorts, but also a long sleeve top and I had brought a jacket. I knew better than to be fooled by the weather after so many years.
"Will you help me look for some sea glass, Maisie?" Ben asked me. "I know you won't be swimming. Angela wanted to get some more."
Angela loved sea glass. She collected it, but she had caught a stomach bug on Friday, so her plans to get more were quickly cut short.
Ben and Angela had been dating since the end of last year. They were by far the most mature in our friend group, so I was neither surprised that they paired off nor that they were the only ones who could admit their feelings for each other.
"Sure, Ben. She likes the turquoise pieces best, right? I'm sure we can find some."
While everyone else slipped out of their clothes to reveal their bathing suits underneath, I took only my shoes off and followed Ben down the beach.
"How'd your first week of classes go?" I asked Ben, letting the ocean waves lap over my bare feet. I couldn't swim, but I still liked the feel of the ocean.
"They were classes," Ben gave an easy laugh. "You've been the talk of the school, though. Word on the street is that you got partnered with Jasper Hale for the year in Spanish."
I rolled my eyes. Not even Ben was safe from the mob curiosity that surrounded the Cullen family.
"Yeah, I'm not sure how, though…I don't know what kind of Spanish classes they have in Alaska, but Jasper is completely fluent. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up with him."
I knew Spanish well enough, or so I had thought before Jasper became my partner.
"I mean, like, I'm not bad at Spanish. I think I'm proficient enough to hold a conversation. But he speaks it like it's his first language."
Spanish slipped from Jasper's tongue as if it were completely natural. And his accent never got in the way. It was only present when he spoke English.
Sometimes I could almost swear he thought my frustration with his superior Spanish skills was funny. Every now and then I would catch a glimpse of a smile playing at his lips.
"It'll be a good challenge for you, then." Trust Ben to twist it into a positive. I put a piece of sea glass in the little bag he had brought for Angela. "You would have been better than anyone else you were paired with. I bet you'd get bored with any other partner."
"Are you saying Jasper's gonna be bored being my partner?"
Ben laughed and shook his head. "If there's one thing I've learned about you since you moved here, it's that no one could be bored when they're with you, Maisie."
"Aw! Thanks, Ben!"
Exactly three hours later, I would prove exactly how not boring I am when I decided to chase Mike with a soggy piece of driftwood that looked remarkably like a snake. Mike just so happened to hate snakes.
Naturally, I thought it was funny. Our friends did, too. I could hear Jessica laughing just a little too hard, because laughing at a boy losing their pride is how you let them know you liked them, obviously. My fatal flaw in this endeavor was chasing Mike all the way down the beach, to the craggy outcropping of rocks underneath the cliff diving ledge.
"Maisie, I will kill you." The words were good intentioned, despite their appearance. I knew Mike would never intentionally hurt me. But he did think I had a snake, so I couldn't blame him when he pushed me away from him once I had caught up.
When I fell, I threw my hand out to catch myself. My dad always did like to tell me I wasn't situationally aware. I didn't realize how close we had come to the rocks until my hand landed on a sharp one, cutting into the meat of my palm and up into my thumb.
"Mike!" I yelled for him, because he was still running. There I was, sitting in the shallows, cradling my right hand to my chest and bleeding everywhere. I pulled my sleeve up over my hand, but the water was still turning to red around me.
By the time Mike had gotten to me, I was shaking from the adrenaline of the injury. Salt water burned in the cut, and I was terrified to look at it because it felt awfully deep. Mike hauled me to my feet. He jogged ahead of me, but I could barely manage to shuffle my feet over the sand. The cut was only in my hand, but the pain radiated through my whole right arm if I jostled it.
"What did you do, Michael?" I heard Lauren snap as I got closer. I was sure the blood looked awful. I was wearing a light pink sweater, so there was no way it didn't stand out.
"It's just a cut," I said weakly. I was too scared to look at it. "I think I need stitches though."
In the car, I sat sandwiched between Tyler and Ben in the middle seat. Ben's logic was that I shouldn't be rocked as much driving back up the dirt road we had taken to the beach if I was dead center. Lauren drove, because Mike was freaking out at that point. Since Jessica was so tiny, she hid in the floorboard.
"I'm so sorry, Maisie," Mike said for what had to have been the millionth time.
"I'm not going to die, Mike. I might sue Newton's Sporting Goods, though." It was a joke, but it still made Mike's eyes go wide.
Someone—probably Ben, he was the most responsible—had the forethought to call my parents. They met us at the hospital. My shirt was soaked through with blood by then, making the cut look a lot more serious than it was. I had been holding my hand cradled to my chest, so that the whole front of my sweater was stained red, too.
I thought my mom might faint when she first saw me.
"It's just my hand!" I rushed to say. "It's only my hand, Mom. I'm not hurt anywhere else. It's just bleeding a lot."
That didn't stop her from hugging me so tight and for so long that she ended up a little bloodstained, too. Dad had to keep a tight grip on her hand, so she would stay in the waiting room while I got stitched up.
My hand bled so much, I would later find out, because it had been cut down to the bone. The tendon in my thumb was spared, which was great news. Dr. Cullen said I would have lost mobility of my thumb had the tendon been severed.
The main ligament in my thumb had been torn, but not severed. Also great news.
"You got pretty lucky," Dr. Cullen told me. Even though he was rinsing the salt water and sand from the cut, he was so gentle that it hardly hurt. He was blonde, like Jasper and Rosalie. I couldn't help but notice his eyes were the same as Jasper's, too: a warm, almost golden color.
Was it Dr. Cullen the twins were biologically related to? I could have sworn they were his wife's niece and nephew, but it seemed strange that two unrelated people would share such an unusual eye color.
"I'm not too broken, then?" I didn't even feel when the needle pierced my skin to numb my hand before Dr. Cullen started stitching it up.
"Not too terribly," he chuckled. "But your thumb will have to remain immobile for the ligament to heal properly. These will be dissolving stitches, so we can set a cast over them. Are you right-handed?"
"Do I get out of doing homework if I say yes?" I didn't know how I would write without my right hand.
Dr. Cullen laughed again. "Maybe. I can only write in the doctor's note that you shouldn't be using your right hand for the next six weeks. It will depend on the kindness of your teachers if you get out of homework or not."
The cast Dr. Cullen put on wrapped entirely around my thumb, so that it was held upright and was impossible to move. It also encompassed most of my hand, leaving only the rest of my fingers free, and extended down my forearm.
"Here's the trickiest part." Dr. Cullen tapped lightly on the plaster. "This can't get wet."
It had started raining shortly after we arrived at the hospital. I usually loved the rain, but right then I was glaring at the window.
"I know, easier said than done in this part of the world. You might want to invest in a raincoat with sleeves long enough to pull over the cast."
The only positive in all of that was that I for sure got to go shopping, and I might get out of homework. I also got a prescription for pain medicine that I knew Mom wouldn't fill because she was convinced anything stronger than Tylenol turned you into a junkie overnight.
Sporting my new cast, I followed Dr. Cullen down the hall to the waiting room, so he could give a rundown to my parents and brief them on taking care of my cast. Jess, Mike, Lauren, Tyler, and Ben were still in the waiting room, too.
"I thought your dad might kill Mike," Jess whispered to me. "Idiot fessed up that it was his fault you got hurt."
I rolled my eyes at my dad's overprotectiveness. "It was an accident. Besides, it didn't hurt that bad. It's still numb from all the shots Dr. Cullen gave me."
Jessica's eyes flicked up to the young doctor. "He's just as hunky as his sons, huh? I have no idea what kind of water that family drinks, but it's gotta be good."
I probably would have given her a light smack if it weren't for my cast, but as it was, my dominant hand was temporarily down and out. She got lucky.
"You can stop looking so scared, Mike. Luckily for you, I am not that easy to kill. I'm reduced to only having one hand for the next month and a half, but I guess I'll live."
And truly, my hand didn't hurt until much later that night, when I was in bed. Mom had to help me wash my hair, and a complicated system of plastic bags and tape was required to keep the cast dry while I showered.
I couldn't get comfortable in bed. I liked to sleep on my right side, but that wasn't an option with the cast. I tossed and turned for a long time, but it was no use. I ended up watching Netflix until I was so tired there was no way I couldn't sleep.