A/N
Alright, Embry is going to give us a little run-down of competition day, the things we saw and what comes after that…And mucho thanks to .Wannabe-Fantasy. For being the first person to actually review this story. You would all do well to follow her example :D
…C'est la Vie…
Embry POV~
I stayed awake almost all night listening to Gracie's pacing. I didn't fall asleep until she stopped pacing, which wasn't until early morning. It was then that I dreamed of Gracie for the first time.
Gracie was just standing there, smiling up at me. Her beautiful eyes were bright with happiness. I took one of her small hands in my own. She looked down at our hands and smiled even wider.
A smirk graced her lips before she began leaning up to me, I leaned down to meet her but suddenly she disappeared. My hand was empty where hers had been and I looked around frantically for her.
The beautiful setting changed around me and I turned in circles before finally spotting Gracie.
She was running through the woods, alone. I could hear her panting. She had been running for a while.
Not to far behind Gracie I heard a man yelling, "You'd better hope I don't catch you, you ungrateful little bitch!"
Gracie whimpered and tried to run faster, but the man was gaining on her. She stumbled and fell and the man was on her.
He started dragging her through the trees and I could hear her screaming, begging.
I tried to run after her, but it felt like my feet were stuck to the ground. I pushed against the force keeping me down, but I couldn't move, couldn't phase and protect her.
I was going crazy. I could hear her screams getting louder, the man laughing, but I couldn't help her. I was failing my imprint when she needed me most.
I jumped off the bed when I heard someone scream above me. I thundered up the stairs and ran into Vivi's room. I scanned the room frantically looking for possible threats coming up blank.
"Morning!" Gracie called out cheerfully from her perch on top of Vivi.
Vivi narrowed her eyes and pushed Gracie off of her where she landed in the floor. She blinked up at Vivi in confusion. And Vivi started laughing hysterically.
I walked over to Gracie and offered my hand to her, which she immediately accepted. I easily pulled her up, and turned to see Vivi stop laughing and stare at me with narrowed eyes.
"Alright, what the hell did you do to Gracie?" She asked bluntly.
Gracie laughed and retreated from the room leaving me alone to deal with my cousin.
Vivi looked at me expectantly. I stared back defiantly at her, "What?"
"Do you like her?" she asked cutting right to the chase.
I sighed, before answering her, "Yes, I do. A lot."
"Then why were you such an ass yesterday?"
"I didn't know her yesterday," I answered matter-of-factly.
"And you know her now?" she asked suspiciously.
"Yes," I replied, "She's a thinker, a dreamer, but she still plans everything out. She loves the night sky and plans on getting a tattoo of it as soon as possible. She acts tough when she doesn't understand the situation she's in. She has insomnia. And she almost never tells someone when she is in some kind of pain.
"She has a lots of little freckles all across her nose, and dark, thick, curly hair. She loves cheerleading more than life itself. The only thing she loves more than that, is you and your family. Anything you'd care to add?"
Vivi looked at me for a couple of seconds before giving me a real smile. The first I've seen directed at me by her since I got here, "Alright, you passed. Make yourself comfortable here."
The way she said it implied that I should get used to the town, but I decided to make myself comfortable in room while I waited for Gracie to get back.
I heard her laughing as she came down the hall and walked into the room. She looked at me sitting on the bed, "You. Shoo shoo!" She said making little shooing motions with her hand.
"Why," I whined looking up at her from Vivi's very comfortable bed.
"Because we need to get dressed, so if you'll excuse us…" My eyes widened and I practically ran out of the room.
I cursed under my breath at how stupid I probably looked when I heard the girls laughing upstairs. Carol had told us to be ready to leave at eight, so I had about an hour to go check in with the guys before we left.
I headed outside and ran into the woods, waiting until I knew I was in far enough to strip down and phase. Jake and Quil were both asleep when I phased, but surprisingly Leah was phased and awake.
'Leah? Why are you phased this early?' I asked.
'Just seeing how things are going over there. I was actually waiting for one of these idiots to wake up, but all they'll do is lay there and dream about Nessie and Claire,'
'I think things are looking up,' I said, a picture of Gracie's smiling face this morning floating to the front of my mind.
'Is your family still being pissy towards you?' she asked protectively.
'No, actually. Carol was fine after I helped her out with driving the girls, and me and Vivi just started getting along this morning,' I said and showed her our conversation.
'Ooh, Embry's got a girlfriend!' Leah laughed jokingly.
I mentally sighed, 'I wish,' I whispered.
Leah quickly got serious again, 'Embry, you have to realize by now that she likes you,'
'What do you mean? How would I know if she likes me or not? I'm no Edward,'
'You don't have to be you big idiot! God, didn't you ever have a girlfriend before?'
'Yes,' I replied confused.
'And your girlfriend liked you right?' she continued like she was talking to a five year-old.
'Obviously,'
'Well, how did you know she liked you?'
I thought about it for a moment, 'I don't know, how she reacted around me?'
I saw Leah thinking about bashing her head into a tree, 'And how does Gracie react to you? Please! Answer before I kill myself!'
I thought about all the times I'd seen Gracie act different around me, when she first saw my eyes and she stumbled, when her heart beat like crazy because my arm brushed against her, how she shivered when I had my hands on her waist.
'Ooooooooh!' I exclaimed after my little epiphany.
'Finally! My god, I thought you were never gonna get it!' she said in relief.
'Whatever,' I muttered.
'But do you see what I mean? There's no doubt in my mind that'll you get together eventually,'
'I guess you're right,' I said, ' Well, I have to get going. It's breakfast time!'
Leah chuckled, 'Have fun. And don't forget what I said!' she called before I phased.
I ran back to the house and into the kitchen just as Carol finished setting the table for breakfast, "Help yourself," She said gesturing to the table before calling up the stairs for all the kids.
I sat down and started digging in, I looked up and realized everyone staring at me. Creepy.
"Oh, hey… You guys gonna eat?" I asked when they continued to gawk at me.
Finally Gracie snapped out of it and came and sat down in front of me. I was too busy staring at the over-the-top makeup she had on to realize that she stole the cereal box until it was too late. I moaned and whined as she emptied the box's contents into her bowl.
Everyone sat down and ate and then we were ready to head off to the competition. Vivi and Gracie hopped into my car and we set off following Carol.
Gracie immediately turned on her i-pod and fell asleep in seconds. I turned to Vivi, "I'm confused, I thought she couldn't sleep."
Vivi glanced back at her and picked up the i-pod before snorting and throwing it back down, "That is so Gracie,"
"What is?" I asked. I want to know everything about Gracie.
"That damn song she's listening to," Vivi told me, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark, you know by Death Cab for Cutie?"
I shook my head, "No I hardly ever get to listen to music," Vivi's eyes rose in disbelief.
"Gracie would absolutely murder you if she heard that. Just so you know," She said before continuing, "You might want to educate yourself."
She pulled out her own i-pod and scrolled through it for a minute before plugging it into the car so the music filled the car.
Mellow guitar strumming filled my ears as I looked back to Gracie as often as I could without crashing the car. I realized about a minute into the song that I actually did know the song, but I let it play in the background, as I followed behind Carol.
I glanced back wincing as we passed over some bumps that made Gracie's head bang against the seat. She started tossing and turning, a frown across her beautiful face.
Minutes later we pulled into a giant parking lot and Vivi leaned back to wake up Gracie. They both jumped out of the car and ran into the convention center, so much for saying good luck…
I walked in with Carol and got a wristband from the ticket booth before we all walked into the main hall to watch the teams compete. Gracie and Vivi were both sitting in there with their team watching the teams they were against.
I could hear them make little comments to themselves as they watched the other teams go. They were all muttering about bobbles and touch-downs. Soon enough their coach told them it was time to warm up and they all got up and took off any extra clothes they had on before walking out together, coolly, confidently.
We only had to sit there for another half hour before their team was announced as being on deck and we all went down to the "VIP" section. All it really was, was a little fenced-off section of ground right in front of the mat they competed on.
The other team ran off the mat and the announcer yelled Gracie's team out of the speakers and they all ran out. They were all yelling and jumping up and down together, a lot of them were blowing kisses to the crowd and doing other little things like that.
Finally they all settled down and they all settled into their starting positions, Gracie was standing in the same place she was when I imprinted on her…
The same music blasted through the air and they all sprung into action like before, but this time I didn't lose sight of Gracie the entire time. I watched her flip through the air countless times as the parents around me screamed, and hollered for the team.
I could sometimes hear the people on the team yelling to each other and encouraging one another. They would yell things like 'C'mon so and so!' or 'Finish it!'. Gracie would occasionally call out too.
I watched her run and do a particularly complicated series of flips, she came down to land and when she did she stumbled a little. Barely noticeable if you didn't have wolf eyes, but I could see her smile become more strained.
She ran to the group of guys and was thrown through the air, I could see her gritting her teeth anytime her ankle was touched, but she didn't stop.
Finally, they hit their ending pose and Gracie fell back into the guys' arms. Everyone around her started jumping around and screaming, but she leaned up and whispered something to the guy next to her.
Immediately he scooped her back up into her arms and carried her off the mat and over to a guy wearing a shirt that identified him as First Aid. I ran over when I saw the guy start prodding at her ankle and Gracie wince and grab her teammate's hand.
She looked up at me when I walked up to them and smiled briefly before gritting her teeth again as the guy started wrapping her ankle.
"So," Gracie started, obviously trying not to think about her ankle, "How'd we do?"
"I'm not really sure, I don't really know to much about this stuff," I told her only half-lying. Sure, I didn't know much about it, but even if I did understand it I was only watching her.
Vivi ran over then and started interrogating Gracie about what happened, and it turned out I was right and it happened after her complicated little flippy thing.
According to the guy Gracie was still holding onto, Kevin, they did very well, basically everything hit.
"Alright," the First Aid guy said, "You're good to go. I would suggest staying off that ankle for a while, though."
I offered my hand to stand up and she took it careful to only stand on her let leg, "Here," I said, "Get on my back and I'll carry you so you don't have to walk,"
She looked up at me for a moment before shrugging, "Okay, turn around then. Kevin? Can you give me a lift onto the giant's back? I don't think I could jump that high…"
Kevin chuckled and a few seconds later I felt Gracie get placed on my back, her arms grabbing onto my shoulder, and her left leg wrapping around me waist. I carefully, picked up her right leg by the calf, so she wouldn't lean to one side.
She started laughing really hard when she got put on my back and when I asked her what she called Vivi over.
"Vivi, Vivi! Look he's got a real monkey backpack! A Louis Vuitton monkey bitch!" Vivi started laughing hysterically before saying something too.
"It goes: Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" They both started laughing hysterically. I really need to start thinking about who I hang out with more carefully…
"Embry, let's go back to the seats," Gracie called from her perch on my back. I nodded and started walking back.
No sooner did we got back to the seats, their coaches pounced on us, like Vivi. I grabbed her arms and carefully pulled her around in front of me before setting her down in one of the seats.
I waited off to the side as she calmed her coaches down and they eventually walked away. I came over and sat down next to her, "How's the ankle?"
She laughed, "It's definitely been better. But, I know one thing for sure,"
"What's that?"
"That school is gonna be a bitch tomorrow!" she replied.
"Why? What's going to happen at school?"
"Nothing, but I'm going to have leave all my classes early walk with crutches and someone will need to carry my books for me," she told me, "Hey, do you have to go to school with us?"
I sighed, "Yes, I have to go to god damn school,"
She raised her eyebrows, "Touchy. It would seem that somebody's not very happy about school… why?"
"Because, apparently the attendance system is all different than at my school, so I have to go back to being a sophomore!"
"What's wrong with being a sophomore? You'll get to chill with me and Vivi all day!" I must have perked up at this because Gracie smiled, "See, not so bad. We'll probably have a ton of classes together."
"Yeah, I guess it won't be so bad,"
"Gracie!" We both looked up to see who yelled. Vivi came running up to us, "C'mon awards are in a few minutes we need to go over by the rest of the team!"
She turned around and I helped Gracie onto her back, "I bet twenty bucks you guys win," I said as she situated herself.
The girls both snorted, "Whatever. We'll see you later!" Vivi called back as she started running to where their team had congregated.
They made their way over to the mats, and sat down, Gracie with her legs up on one of the guys' lap. Pretty soon all the teams were sitting out on the mat and the lights dimmed.
I saw a lot of the teams grab each other's hands and put their heads down. I made my way over to the parent's section and waited for what was about to go down.
A/N
Yeah, I couldn't really think of a good way to end it, but I didn't want to show the awards ceremony from Embry's POV. Trust me it will be a lot better to see what Gracie is thinking there. Anyway, what do you think? This is the fastest I've updated, like ever. Hopefully that's worth a few reviews! Happy Cinco de Mayo by the way!