Sorry for the long wait for an update...sadly the next chapter is gonna be an even longer update because I'm swamped with homework for the next two weeks. Please enjoy!

Imperfection

Chapter 4: Flip Side-Jared's POV

I was the lucky one, the one that got everything that he wanted and didn't have to pay any ultimate price. Being a werewolf, wasn't a bad thing for me anymore, although my first transformation was a bit more than frightening, being a werewolf pointed me in the direction my life needed to go.

I was lucky, because I wasn't the first like Sam, I was lucky because I got my girl, unlike Jacob and I was lucky because I never had to live with a time where I couldn't share this great secret with my best friend. I was lucky.

"Shut up already, man," muttered Paul as he ran alongside me, his fur glistening in the moonlight. I gave him a grin and bounded between the trees. "Man I'm starved, Emily better have some food ready when we get back."

I nodded and continued bounding through the trees making sure that the girl on my back wasn't being whacked by any tree branches.

I heard her let out a loud sneeze and turned my head in worry. She continued to stare straight ahead but smiled as I continued to stare at her.

I almost never noticed the rain anymore, it being such a common thing around these parts and the sheer coldness and wetness of the rain didn't affect me at all, but she was human and she was fragile.

She hugged me around the neck tightly reassuring me of her condition as I let my gaze shift forward again. A surge of happiness ripped through me and I knew Paul would find a way to snap at her. Seeing her through his eyes was strange, since I was seeing myself too, but she was too funny when she attempted to make fun of gigantic Paul. It was kind of like when she was trying to make fun of me, but I at least pretended that it worked if I didn't feel like kissing her first.

"Stop it man! I patrol with you cause you're my best bud and you're thoughts are a little bit less crappy than Sam's, but none of that love shit!" Paul boomed giving me a slight head ache.

"Man, get over yourself and imprint already."

"You see Jared, unlike you and Sam and even Jacob, whatever is happening in his idiotic brain," he said that with a faint hint of friendship and a faint hint of rage, "I like my mental freedom."

"Right mental freedom, you think me hearing all of your thoughts is mental freedom."

"Hey at least I can think about a girl without going totally gaga," snorted Paul as we slowed down at the edge of the forest.

I looked back at my Kim as we stopped and let my tongue roll gently out of my mouth, her eyes lit up and she attempted to gracefully get off my back. It didn't work that well, and with a splat I heard Paul's laughter roar in my head.

I frowned as she sat there for a second; I think not totally registering what happened. I licked her in the face causing her to squeal and held out my right paw to her. The annoying string wasn't so annoying anymore when she tied it on for me. It was never too tight and never too loose. Once in a while I would forget that there were clothes hanging off of my leg.

Kim tugged at the string gently and pulled the clothes away from my foot. I barked at her and grinned when she held her hands to her eyes and turned a bright red. It always gave me a surge of pleasure to see that I had this kind of effect on her.

I let out a small cough and touched her shoulder, "Clothes please." I muttered. Her hand shot out with my clothes in them and I laughed as she turned a bright red as her fingers delicately grazed my hand. I grabbed them and changed as quickly as possible, not entirely liking that fact that I couldn't see her beautiful eyes.

I kneeled in front of her and delicately pried her fingers away from her eyes. There they were, shining at me with that same glow I got every single day of my life. I let out a quiet sigh and smiled underneath my breath, I was beyond happy.

"You can't say that you never liked what you saw," I grinned as I held her hand in mine, so small. She turned a bright red and tried to cover her face again with ultimate failure.

"Fuck man, none of that lovely shit when I'm around," Paul muttered as he came back from his giant bush. I grinned at him stood up straight, dragging Kim with me and gave him a mock salute. Paul began to walk away, to Sam's house, and I dragged Kim with me.

It was still raining by the time we got to Sam's house, the smell of Emily's muffins engulfed my senses and I felt as though I was drooling. When we got inside, Emily pulled my Kim away from me and I ended up at the dining room table with Paul, Quil and Embry.

"Man, I miss Jacob," muttered Quil as he rested his head on is hand.

"Can't believe he ran off to Canada, I mean he could have at least stayed in this country," laughed Embry as he leaned back in his chair.

"Canada has more trees, better for giant wolves experiencing unrequited love," I shrugged and started drawing with my finger on the table. I found myself tracing out her name, maybe Paul was right...then again, as I traced those three letters, maybe not.

Paul snorted, "Didn't mean he had to run away and all that. He's just causing a bunch of shit for the rest of us."

"Aww, Paul you know you love him!" grinned Embry as he punched my best friend in the arm. Paul just glared at him back but didn't give a word to reply.

I heard slight foot steps to my left as Kim set down a large plate of steaks. Grabbing a few pieces and plopping them onto my plate, I leant back and watched as the rest of the steaks disappeared.

Kim came back with what can only be described as a giant bucket of potatoes and set them down onto the table. She grabbed the empty plate of steak, shook her head and strolled back into the kitchen.

Coming back into the dining room, she flashed me a brilliant smile and tried to sit down beside me. She should have known by now that I would never let that happen. I grabbed her by the waist and settled her onto my lap. We smiled at each other and her eyes shone at me with absolute delight.

"You're still damp," I stated as my eye brows creased. She just reassured me that she wouldn't get sick and I held her close until we had to leave Emily's and Sam's for the night.

It was dark outside and I was having pleasant dreams of my Kim, my beautiful Kim as she laughed and danced around with me in the forest. Even in my dreams I had two left feet and she was as always, graceful as a swan. I laughed along with her, out voices melding into one as we fell to the forest floor. I was holding her tightly in my arms as she squirmed and laughed giving me a kiss on the cheek.

I looked down at her in amazement as her hair gently lapped at her shoulders and her eye lashes brushed against her cheek bones. How did I ever get to lucky?

I was broken out of my perfect dream just to be immersed into another one. She was trying to crawl over me and get out of bed. I stared at her lips as she spelled out water and then tip toed out of her room.

Laying there for a moment I sighed and got out of bed, the springs creaking in protest. Being away from her when I needn't be, even for just a moment was beginning to get physically painful, but I didn't mind...I rarely hurt.

Kim was already on her second glass of water when I reached her side, she didn't seem that shocked to see me. "Can I have some too?" I asked letting a bit of a baby pout slip into my voice and reached out for her glass of water. She laughed and pulled the glass away from me giving me a giant smile before setting the cold glass right on my lips.

The liquid drizzled down my throat as I took a huge gulp. Suddenly Kim was right up to my face, well kind of, she was a bit shorter than that, but she pressed her lips to my chin gently. I shifted my head slightly so that I could catch her lips with mine and held her close to me, playing with the hem of her top while doing so. I felt a shiver pulse through her body as she whispered my name, pulled away and stared gently into my eyes.

"I know, I won't until you want me to," I leaned down so that my forehead was touching hers as she threw her arms around my neck. I was lucky.

Next morning I ended up having to jump out of her window because her mom was in the kitchen brewing up some awesome smelling coffee. Sam had of course howled for me again but I left a small message for Kim as I left. Hopefully she wouldn't notice the loss of warmth with the extra blanket I managed to get around her.

"Took you long enough," muttered Embry as he grinned at me, "had a nice time in bed last night?"

"It was warm."

"When is it not warm?" laughed Embry as he sat down on a log.

Sam shook his head at us, "Embry is going to be joining us for this run. He switched out with Paul because he had a few complaints about yesterday."

"So I'm now stuck with two imprinted werewolves, this is gonna be enjoyable. Sam you better have not done anything...mind invading last night."

Sam just grinned and walked into the outskirts of the forest. You could hear him take off his clothes and the ripping sound of fur popping out of skin. A large black wolf emerged as I only managed to tie mine around my leg.

It was an odd sensation having your skin nearly ripped apart as a giant canine emerged from the depths. Embry was already in wolfish form and laughing under his thoughts. "Man Sam, you sure take you clothes off pretty fast."

"Embry you take the river."

"No! Man, dude you suck," muttered Embry as he trotted off towards the sweet smelling river. Of course Sam had prohibited us from eating any of the fish swimming around for a while; we had almost endangered the population there about a month ago from an all out eating spree. Going to the river was like going to Emily's when she was making salmon.

"Jared, take the deeper rims of the forest, I expect you to be out there for at least three hours, meaning about two rotations. Got that?"

I nodded my head, "also, report back to Emily's after. I need to talk to you about...that."

I nodded my head again and let my tongue roll out of my mouth, Sam laughed and turned away heading for the outer rim of the forest.

I bounded into the green leaves and ran head on for about ten minutes only slowing down when all I could hear was the sound of the wind and the water in the nearby stream rushing around me. This was a place that I wanted to take Kim one day, but not yet while everything was still unsure and danger was present.

Her little scouting expeditions with me was merely because she begged and pleaded, no that's not right, she demanded that I take her along with me. Of course it was almost impossible to refuse her almost out right command and I let her ride along. The times where I would take her with me would only be during the times where I patrolled near La Push. If the danger ever got too great I could ship her off to Emily at the speed of light.

Imprinting on Kim might have been one of the weirdest experiences of my life. She was a well known girl, which I'm sure of, but we were in totally different social circles. The most I'd ever said to her before that faithful day was probably a question in borrowing a pencil.

I wanted to knock myself over the head for not noticing her the moment I saw her...in grade 1.

The weirdest thing to ever happen to me though, downright was Kim loving me back. I suspected that it would be hopeless, totally unachievable for her to love me like how she loves me now. Her love was so ridiculously clear that I couldn't even be unsure about it, all I could hope for was that she felt the same way.

I ran around the inner rim of the forest sniffing around for any foreign scents and listening for any foreign sounds. La Push was safe, if not just for the moment.

Three hours felt like one as I neared the edge of the forest. I grinned to myself as I pulled on my pants as I thought of my Kim. She was easily embarrassed sure, but in the moment she was definitely something. Sam and Embry hadn't spoken a single word about my Kim thinking escapade, maybe because in the backdrop I could hear Sam thinking about Emily too.

Embry though, he would probably give me hell the moment I stepped into the tiny house. Opening the door I saw Embry sitting on the sofa with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face, I could hear Sam and Emily in the kitchen, doing whatever they did around the food that we ate. The thought made me shutter, but the food was way too good to even try to resist.

"Jared," said Sam as he stepped out of the kitchen with Emily almost welded in his embrace, "we need to do the little talk now."

"Finally! If I hear another thought about that coming out of his head I will burst into a flame ball and make sure that you never...EVER think again," muttered Embry as he gave me an evil look and scooted over on the couch. I sat down beside him as I reached my hand into my pocket.

"Oh Jared, let's see it!" Emily nearly squealed as she attacked my hand trying to rip my fingers open.

Sam laughed and growled at the same time as he sat on the love seat, probably sad, well as sad as Sam could get, that Emily was out of his reach. "You should calm down a bit there sweet heart." His voice was saturated in sweetness, I wondered if I sounded like that when I talked to my Kim.

"Ugggg, ugggg, stop with the love and crap I can't take this anymore, I'm out of here." Embry exited the house with a loud bang.

"He's still not feeling so great about Jacob being gone now is he?" questioned Emily as she stopped prying at my fingers just to stare at them, almost willing them open with her eyes.

"No, throughout our patrol today Embry was trying to tune into Jacob's thoughts. The distance makes the thoughts have a small amount of static and the fact that Jacob was trying to avoid thinking at all cost got Embry into a bad mood."

"Oh...so that's why he wasn't complaining so much," I muttered not realizing how much Embry cared about his friend. Of course I should have known this from the time that Embry turned before his two best friends were. It was like his world has torn in two.

Emily nodded before her expression turned wicked again, "Jared, you will show me that right now. It took all of my will power not to squeal on you when I saw Kim today, now show me!"

I smiled at her as she glared at my hand again. Opening my fingers slowly I revealed to her not exactly what she wanted to see, a little red box that was wrapped with brown ribbon. Slowly she pulled the ribbon for me as I opened the top of the lid.

Inside was the ring that I had bought for my Kim. "How are you planning to do it Jared?" asked Sam as he stared at it. It was a simple thing, simple but not cheap, I saved up my whole entire life's earnings in order not to be cheap.

It was a silver ring that looped around so that the tips did not touch each other but instead wove their way around an assortment of diamonds and sapphires which connected the two hanging ends. It was small and delicate, made out of the best materials I could have found. Absolutely unique, just like her.

I slowly pried it from the box just to look at it again, checking to make sure that there were no scratches, no marks that weren't supposed to be there and then checking the engraving.

The engraving always made me smile, it was impossible for it not to. Kim Thatcher, just like how it was in her diary so long ago. "I have my ideas."

Suddenly the door burst open once again. Embry was standing there his whole entire body shaking and pulsing. He was staring at me so intently that I would have suspected that he may have imprinted. But he hadn't, and I could tell from the ways that his eyes flashed at me.

"Jared, it's Kim," he informed his voice raspy and frantic. His hands clenched around the door frame, that was when I noticed the blood, "she's been in an accident."

My whole entire world froze at that very moment; the only sound I heard was that of a small band of silver clinking as it hit the ground.