I'm so glad y'all are enjoying it! I'm giving myself a pat on the back for keeping up with my 2x a week upload schedule. As always R&R

Chapter 4: Food for Thought

I told Jess and the gang that I would go to First Beach with them. Don't ask me why I thought an hour long car ride sitting on the hump between Mike and Eric was a good idea. All I'm saying is this beach better be worth it.

After the hundredth time telling of Mike that I'm not cold and he doesn't need to turn up the heater for me, we finally arrive. The ocean is so beautiful, my breath catches. It's gray and dreary out, but there are white caps as far as the eyes can see. Taking a big sniff like my wolf would, I think the salt in the air is glorious.

Everyone is excited to finally be at the beach, and a couple people even say they are going out in the water. No way I'm getting in that cold water.

"You coming Bella?" Mike asks hopefully.

I laugh at the thought. "No, I think I'll stick to dry land. I'll leave the ice swimming to the locals."

Mike laughs exaggeratedly at that, and it makes me wonder if he's being facetious. "Let me know if you change your mind. I'd be happy to teach you how to surf!"

I just smile politely and shake my head. There are a few people sitting around taking and some walking down the beach. Now that the "surfers" have left, I don't really have a group. I know I should get up and join a conversation, but I enjoy the sense of peace I feel here watching the waves. I'm ok being the weirdo that sits by herself for a little while.

My solitude is quickly interrupted by a new group of boys that join us.

"Hi Bella," one of the boys greets me. His young, eager face looks familiar and my brain scrambles to remember where I've met him before… The truck!

"Oh hey! Jacob, right? How are you?" I reply, flustered. Or is his name Jordan?

"Yeah, I'm good. Didn't expect to see you on my turf," he replies jauntily, and I crinkle my forehead in confusion.

"Your turf?"

"Yeah, this is the Quileute res." At my still confused look he says more pointedly. "Reservation?"

"OH! Right. Of course." Native American reservation, dumb ass. Could you look more ignorant right now? I gesture to the ocean to hide my embarrassment. "First Beach is beautiful."

"It's nothing to the beaches you must have seen in California," he continues, and I think he must not be offended if he's still trying to talk to me.

"Being warm and sunny does have it's perks, but the way the forest here comes right up to the rocky cliffs is distinctly PNW. I like this kind of beach too."

Jacob practically beams at my description of his gray beach, and it gives my the faint impression of a puppy dog. Maybe he and Mike are cut from the same cloth.

"So uh Bella. Do you want to take a walk with me? Just down the beach or whatever," Jacob runs on. I look around at my group and everyone seems to be occupied.

"Sure. I'd like that," I agree. After a suitably awkward period of waiting to see who will talk first, I offer, "That's a cool pendant. Is it a wolf?"

He picks up the necklace sitting on the outside of his shirt, as if he forgot it was there. "Yeah. My dad gave it to me. It's kind of a family thing."

"That's cool. Like a coat of arms?" Again I think I've put my foot in my mouth because that is definitely a European tradition, but Jacob doesn't seem to mind.

"It's more like a tribal thing." He looks around the empty beach dramatically, then turns to me and says mysteriously, "The Quileutes were supposedly descended from wolves."

"What?" I ask, startled. "What do you mean?" I've taken biology. I know how evolution works.

"Well, I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but the Quileute legends say that we're descended from wolves. Our ancestors could 'shape shift,' I guess you would say, into wolves to protect the tribe from its enemies."

"Like werewolves?"

"Sort of, but not like in the movies. When the spirit warriors shared the body of the wolf," Jacob explains, "their mind was still present. They protected the tribe. They didn't hurt or bite innocent people."

"Wow. That's really cool," I reply in a daze. By this point my mind is turning. I know a very strange behaving wolf. It sounds crazy, but what if?

"It's just a story," Jacob shrugs it off. "Even still, it's illegal to hunt wolves on Quileute land."

"Good!" I say forcefully, and Jacob looks at me funny. "Uh, they're an endangered species right? I'm all for animal protection."

"Cool," he says in a chipper voice. "So how do you like Forks, Bella?"

The afternoon goes on, but I can hardly concentrate. Something about that conversation on spirit warriors sticks in my mind and won't get out.