Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"MOM!" I yell frantically. Where could the possibly be?
"Yes, honey?" My mother says, ever the picture of calmness. She's already dressed to go to school.
"Where are all my school clothes?" I am panicking now. Does she understand what the alternative to my normal school clothes is?
"they should be in your closet." She says this simply not a shred of concern in her voice.
"They're not there. I don't know what happened, the only things in here are the things Alice bought over …" realization dawns on both my mother and me. Her face darkens.
"Oh no, I'm going to go talk to Alice." She says. She's experienced this before. Alice has the irrational need to dress us girls in ridiculously risqué clothing for school.
I should though, probably explain exactly what is going on. You see I usually wear matchy-matchy strictly Nancy Drew circa 2007 clothing. I totally go for the whole, I'm a blast from the past look/I'm innocent look. I wouldn't say I go so far as penny-loafers, but I'm still there. So when I open my closet and see it full of nothing but all the trendy stuff that I bought with Alice over summer vacation, I freak. This is not my style. At all!
"Um, Ness, I kind of have bad news." My mom says.
"What?" I ask my voiced threaded with caution.
"Alice kind of hid all your school clothes."
I walk into the school completely self-conscious. How did I get here?
"Hey Renesmee… oh, what are you wearing?" Rain asks. Rain, Elsa, Branca and Summer have been my best friends for the past three years.
"Ugh," I exclaim as a wolf whistle goes off behind me "It's horrible isn't it."
I am wearing the most conservative clothing that I could find in my closet. Conservative isn't a very good describing word, seeing as I'm wearing a navy blue low cut scoop-neck shirt, a skin tight white bandage skirt and five inch navy sling back heels.
"Nah, it's super sexy, nothing like that other vintage-type stuff you wear." Summer says followed by a chorus of "yeah you look greats" and "I'd kill for those clothes'". I want to crawl under a rock.
Lunch wasn't any better. There were guys looking at me from all angles, people whispering, totally unaware that I could hear them.
"What are you guys doing after school?" Summer asks "Me and Rainy were wonderin' if you'd want to come over and watch a bunch of chick flicks."
"Actually I can't." I said slowly. Every looked to me for an explanation. "I'm going cliff-diving with Jake and some of his friends." I say. From the corner of my eye, I see my family's ears perk up. Chill, I send telepathically to my dad as I see his face tense slightly. And then I think of something.
"Hey, you guys can come if you want. It'll be really fun. It's kind of a sleepover thing though so I don't know if you guys can come."
"A cliff diving sleepover?" Summer asks.
"Oh my gosh! I haven't been cliff diving in forever! Isso vai ser tão divertido!" Branca always went on portugeuese rampages when she's excited.
"Yeah it is going to be fun," I translate for my friends, "You've been cliff diving?" This is directed at Branca.
"Yeah," Her American accent is perfectly on point, just like her English, Portuguese, Italian, French, Spanish, and four other languages that someone couldn't even decipher if they tried, "I used to go cliff diving in Lagos (AN: the Lagos in Portugal) all the time. It was beautiful and all but I didn't particularly like having to get up the mountain."
Rain looked genuinely terrified by the idea of jumping off of a cliff. She's… not her sister.
"Will we get hurt?" She asks her voice tight.
"No, it's into a body of water." I say.
"Well I want to go." Elsa said.
"Well then it's settled. We're all going." Summer pronounced this, purposefully ignoring the terrified look on Rain's face.
"Will we get hurt?" Rain asks. She's a worrier.
"No, no way. It's totally safe. You'll be fine." I say to calm her down. I know she'll be fine.
"Then it's decided", Summer proclaims, "You call Jacob and we'll practice looking cute for his friends." She smiles at us all brilliantly and I get up to call Jacob.
The phone rings, and rings, and rings. Then I hear a voice pick up.
"Hello?" Jacob says.
"Jake", I say, "I have a little change of plans request."
"Yeah."
"Well, I wanted to know if we could go with my friends too."
"Uh, that's great, but…"
"But?" I ask indignantly.
"But even with the Rabbit, I only have enough room for five people."
"Well, Elsa's small she can sit on Summer's lap."
"You said last time you drove Summer and Elsa in the same car, they got in a fight over the existence of Jesus." He did make a good point. Summer and Rains' family is devoutly Roman Catholics and Elsa is Jewish and is very serious about her faith.
"Well I'll shut them up then. Just, please can we come? We'll bring our own sleeping bags." I wait silently for his relent.
"Okay." He sighs.
"Yes. 'Kay, I love you. Bye."
"Bye."
I head inside to tell the girls the news.
"We are mobile afterschool." I exclaim.
"And a-cliff-diving we go." Says Elsa smiling.
The ride goes smoothly with no religious outburst from Summer or Elsa. We arrive at the reservation and you can tell the guys are planning to make a night of this. Luckily it's Friday. I immediately see Quil and Claire, Leah, Embry, and Seth. Next I see the bags of firewood and other campy type stuff. And as we climb out of the car, something weird passes through the air. Something changes in Rainy. She reaches up to fix her hair and begins blushing profusely. What's going on, I think frantically.
"We were going to take these with us to the beach before you got here but you came early." Seth say referring to the stuff for the camp type outing.
"'S'okay we'll take it now." Jake says.
After dropping the stuff off, we hike up the cliff. Seeing as neither Rain nor Branca like hiking (or any kind of physical activity) I expected them to have absolutely no fun. But they make great conversation with Embry and Seth and everyone else.
"So, how exactly do you do this?" asked the amateurs.
"Okay", Embry says, "You amateurs grab hands with the more experienced jumpers, and we jump off the cliff and into the water. Simple." I can't help but note the way he is looking directly at Rain when he says this. Hmmm, interesting.
Everyone links hands with someone as we get ready to jump. Adrenaline surges through my body as I look down the line at all it pairs. Quil with Claire, Leah with Summer, Branca with Seth, and Embry with Rain (again hmmmmmm). It's only my second time jumping, but I feel totally experienced. Quil counts down and I breathe in deeply and jump…
We are now sitting around the campfire telling random stories. As we laugh at something Quil has said, I look around and notice that Rain and Embry are both gone.
"Hey, guys, I'm going to go look for Rain and Embry." My voice is laced with concern and suspicion as I watch a look pass between the boys. I stalk into the woods determined to find my friends. After looking for a while I decide to turn back because I've been gone for a while. Just a few feet more, I rationalize. I walk just a little farther and come upon a small clearing. I take a look see and notice two figures on the ground. They are atop each other kissing and making noises. Not sex noises, just, kissing noises. I see long, dark, curly hair cascading down a pale back in the moonlight, and my eyes widen.
"Rain?" I ask no one in particular. She pulls her face away from Embry's (I presume) and looks at me.
"Oh my Gosh!" She exclaims standing up and pulling Embry with her. She turns around to pick up their shirts (and her BRA) and tosses him his (shirt, Embry doesn't wear a bra). "We were just, uh, we were just um…"
"Not my business," I say "Not anyone's business. So, can you show us the way out of here Embry, we've got to get back to the group?"
"Sure, let's go." He says looking sideways at Rain. As we walk back to the fire, I start to question Rain.
"How'd you just get to second base with him? I mean you met him today." I breathe out worried that Embry'll hear me, "And he's the quietest person I know besides you."
"I don't know how it happened, there's just this way about him that I like. Oh, and he's cute." She replies, smiling. We arrive at the beach and find that everyone's been waiting for us.
"Goodness guys you've been gone forever. What were they even doing?" Seth asks.
"Uh, they were in a clearing in the wood talking about their favorite books." I've decided that this would be my cover for them, "Nerds." I say smiling.
