Hey, ya'll! I want to thank all my reviewers for their wonderful comments. I'm glad you guys like the story! And no worries. Everything will all be answered in time. I have several plot twists that I've worked into the story that I think you guys are going to like, and I already have a plot for the sequel in the works if I don't just add it in to this. So, now that I've taken up your valuable reading time with this a/n, I give you....drumroll please...CHAPTER SIX! Enjoy! And REVIEW!!!

Disclaimer: I'm not Stephanie. Period.

"I'm off to school, Ma!" I screamed as I barreled down the stairs into the foyer. I was determined to be at school at least five minutes earlier than my usual time of 'one minute till the tardy bell rings.' I was desperate to see Jared, although I would never admit that to him, or quite possibly to anyone else.

After our little jaunt on the beach Friday night, we'd spent practically the whole weekend together when he wasn't "helping his friend Sam and Sam's girlfriend fix the stairs on their porch." Of course, I knew he was really on patrol, but I figured I could let it slide. On Saturday night around eight we'd been in my backyard with Paul tossing a football around (even though it was March and freezing) after some pizza when they'd suddenly remembered they had to go and perform their handy man duties. I decided to have some of my own fun, considering I'd had to cut back on my telekinetic time, and messed around with Jared a little.

Flashback

"Why are you going to work on a porch at eight o'clock at night? It's dark."

"Oh." Jared looked a little gob smacked, but good ol' Paul jumped in and saved the day.

"Well, Sam works up at the timber mills during the day. And Emily, his girlfriend, helps Embry Call's mom at the souvenir shop sometimes. So we can only do it at night."

"Oh. Well, do you think they'd mind if I tagged along? I'm pretty good with a hammer." Paul looked torn between disbelief and laughter.

"Never would've pegged you for a tomboy, Kim," Jared said. He looked like I'd just made all his dreams come true.

"Well, I'm always too busy with…other things, like school, I guess. I don't really get to explore all the extracurricular stuff or whatever." Ah, sweet, sweet little fake Kim.

"Well, I guess you could come." Was he nuts? I almost laughed at his slip.

"Jared! She can't come, you nincompoop!" Oh my God! Did he just say nincompoop?

I burst out laughing, and he told me to shut up.

"Don't talk to her like that, Paul. It's your own fault for using that…word…anyway."

"I'll say what I want to Talon!" I was still laughing. I stepped in between them though before they could prematurely give away their secret to not only me, but to my neighbors who had just stepped into their backyard to check out what all the commotion was about. I'm sure they were already extremely skeptical about the fact that there were two hot men in my yard talking to me; probably because they thought I was testosterone-repellant. No need to further their worry by seeing said hotties explode into fur balls.

"Look, you guys need to get going before you're late. I just remembered I have a scholarship essay to finish up. Catch you guys tomorrow?"

"Sure. Peace, Connweller!" And with that Paul took off around my house to the front, where Jared's truck was parked.

"Sorry I had to bring him along. He says I've been 'neglecting his needs.'"

"No, it's cool," I said laughing. "He added some spice to our little soiree."

"Okay, Miss SAT words." He sighed a little, scratching the back of his neck as his faced scrunched up some. "I don't want to go. I had too much fun."

"Wow. Thanks a lot. I'm sure my mom's homemade pizza and getting the third degree from my dad is a step up from all that rockin' partying you're used to, huh?"

He laughed a little at that. "Definitely. 'I'm all tuckered out', as Paul would probably say." I chuckled remembering his early slip up.

"I don't have to finish my essay, y'know. I could come with you. That is, if you want me there." Man, I was so proud of myself! I even batted my eyelashes a little.

"Of course I want you to come! It's just, it's kind of- complicated. I'm really sorry Kim. Truly."

"It's okay." Fake Kim took over again. "I understand. We're still on tomorrow for the beach right?"

"Oh, lover boy! We're gonna be late! Let's go!" Stupid Paul. Jared groaned, looking at the ground and huffing.

"Yeah. I'll be there, Kim. Definitely." He smiled, and moved in for a hug, just as the horn blew from the other side of my house. He jumped back quickly, waved awkwardly, and ran out of sight.

End Flashback

Sunday had been even better. We'd gone for a walk on the beach, gone to the diner for a burger (and let me take this time to say that that kid can EAT! He was just being polite Saturday night when my mom had only made three pizzas), and I basically talked about myself for two hours, avoiding all the particulars, of course.

So, I was dying to see him. Even though we'd technically only been friends for a weekend, it felt like much longer for me, and I was his imprint, so neither of us really minded our newfound closeness.

I parked my Jeep in the parking space farthest away from the entrance, as usual, and I saw Lindsay hurrying towards me, obviously surprised to see me there earlier than was normal for me. Before she could reach me, though, I saw a red truck speed into the lot from my peripherals, expertly sliding into the space directly to the left of mine. I stared into the cab at Jared, smiling brightly as he looked up at me after putting his truck in park. In a flash he had his door open and ran over to get mine before I could even reach the handle.

"Morning, Kim."

"Hey, Jar." I jumped to the ground and popped the latch to move my seat up, then reached in the back to pull out my backpack. Jared tried to wrench it out of my hands, but I was adamant.

"I'm good, Jared. I-n-d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-t, do ya know what I mean, man?"

"Please don't ever try to rap again, okay Kimmy?"

"Hey, Linds!" I had completely forgotten about her. What a great friend I was. She was looking at me with wide eyes and if her eyebrows rose up any further, they'd disappear into her hair line. I locked up the Jeep, for no reason, of course (this was La Push, after all), just as Lindsay tugged on my arm, dragging me towards the entrance of the school, looking back skeptically at a slightly amused, slightly affronted Jared.

"Linds, what are you doing? Stop!"

"We need to have a little chat, Kimmy." She looked back to Jared again, except it was more of a glare this time. I caught his eyes and smiled, giving him a little wave with my free hand.

"See you in first period, Jar." He smiled back, his mood obviously brightened by the thought of seeing me in mere minutes.

"Bye." He waved back sweetly, and I'm pretty sure I heard a gagging noise from my captor, but I was too wrapped up in those chocolate eyes to notice.

I turned around and allowed myself to be pulled through the double doors into the lobby, and down the history hall to the deserted tribal archives room. Lindsay slammed the door shut and rounded on me, and I prepared to receive the third degree.

"Kimberley Jenae, what the HELL was that?!"

"What was what?"

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO! Don't play stupid, Connweller. Don't even do it. Jared freaking TALON was talking to YOU in the parking lot this morning. And you know something else? HE LOOKED LIKE HE WAS ENJOYING IT!"

"Oh, gee, thanks, BEST FRIEND. You're so supportive and encouraging!"

"I'm just keeping it real, Kim. He's playing you! It's some sick joke! He's never even talked to you and now he's replacing me as your best friend? And all over the span of a weekend? Puh-lease."

I know she had my best interests at heart, but I couldn't help but help but want to defend Jared against her accusations. Must come with the whole imprinting thing.

"Whatever, Lindsay. We spent the whole weekend together, and he was completely genuine! And you know what else? I saw him on the beach Friday night and we talked and then I kissed him. Yeah! I kissed him! And he kissed back. And he seemed to like it pretty good, if you know what I'm saying!"

"Oh, so let me get this straight. You MADE OUT with him randomly on the beach randomly after a five minute conversation and THEN he proceeded to hang out with you for the entire weekend? Of course he did, Kim! He thinks it's gonna be easy to get into your pants! He wants to make you his fu-"

"Don't you DARE finish that sentence if you value the shape of your nose, Acres."

"Yeah, right, Kimberley. I'd like to see you try."

"What? You think I wouldn't?"

"No, I don't, Kimberley. What happened to you, huh? You were smart, sweet, quiet Kim and-"

"Invisible! I was invisible. Invisible Kim freaking Connweller who never, EVER gets noticed by anyone ever. And you know what? I think maybe you're jealous! Because you-"

"Jealous? I can't believe you just said that!"

"Yeah, well I did! You're just jealous because you're lonely and miserable and a complete-"

And then she hit me. She hit me GOOD. Just as her hand and my face connected with a loud 'thwack,' the door burst open, and Principal Fox walked in with the school resource officer. My jaw dropped, and my right hand flew up to my face, where my cheek was starting to heat up from her slap. Deep down, I knew I deserved it, but I wasn't thinking at the time. Right as Mr. Fox grabbed at Lindsay to pull her away from me, I balled my hand into a fist and socked her right in her nose.

As soon as my now aching hand was back at my side, I felt immensely guilty. "Oh God, Lindsay! I'm sorry! I'm SO sorry!"

"Ah! God, my nose! I think it's broken!" She pulled her hands away from her face, and even through all the blood I could see it angling abnormally. She gingerly cupped her hands around her face again, moaning as Mr. Fox pulled her out of the room, radioing the main office to tell Nurse Susannah she was coming up. A large group of students had gathered outside of the room, and some of the teachers who had been assigned to crowd control began ushering students to their first period.

"Ms. Connweller, please come with me." I was now crying. Scratch that. Bawling. I was sobbing harder than the time Danny had cut all the hair off of my Barbie dolls when I was six to recreate Platoon, his then-favorite movie. I didn't care who saw. I had just punched the girl who'd been my best friend since forever. I wanted to throw myself over a bridge. As if that wasn't enough, I saw Jared pushing his way through the throng of students, trying to get to me, and looking extremely worried.

I took one look into his eyes and a fresh round of sobs wracked my body. I looked down immediately, and he called out to me, surprising more than a few people, I'm sure.

"Kim? Kim! Are you okay? Are you hurt?" He looked like he'd bust up the principal if I gave any indication that that's what I wanted. He kept staring at Mr. Fox's hand that gripped on to my upper left arm, and I could've sworn I heard him growl.

"Mr. Talon, please go to class." Jared completely ignored him, and shot me a concerned glance.

"I'm…sniffle…fine. I'll see you…sniffle…later." And with that I was led to the main office, no doubt to endure a phone call to parents who would soon be livid, and to face some kind of official school punishment, as if feeling the guilt of deforming my best friend who would probably now be my ex-best friend wasn't enough.

I was already seated in front of Mr. Fox's desk, beside a slowly recovering, seething Lindsay, when our mothers walked through the door.

Great.

Insert an hour of yelling, chastising, profuse apologies, more yelling, some lividness, skirting around the real reason we were fighting, and more yelling. Then add twenty minutes of me and Lindsay sitting on one of the benches in the lobby while our mothers and principal discussed disciplinary options, not talking, and you have my unusually eventful morning.

"Get up, Kim. We're going home."

"I can't go home, mom! I have class!"

"Not for three days you don't. Mr. Fox suspended you."

"Suspended?! What?!" Oh my God! I couldn't get suspended! I had college to think about! Or did I? Woah. I didn't even hear a word my mom said as we made our way out to the car. I was lost in my thoughts-again.

Was I going to college? I'd never really thought about it. I mean, I knew I couldn't be going too far, what with the visions my grandmother had had and all, at least not for a while. I had worked my butt off in school, but because that was the one place where I really could apply all of myself, not because of any plans that I had made for my future.

Man, I was messed up. I'd just lost my best friend for absolutely nothing, because she had no idea what was going on between me and Jared. And if I wasn't who I, well, was, then I would've probably agreed with her. But I was who I was, and I knew things she didn't, and the repressed Real Kim popped out of nowhere. Repressed? I guess I was repressed. After all, I'd been pretending to be someone I wasn't for as long as I could remember. Even from the time I'd been a toddler my mom or my dad or my grandmother had been telling me 'Act normal, Kim.' 'Don't let your powers slip, Kim.' 'Make sure you keep everything in check, Kim.' 'Can't let anyone know your little secret, huh ,Kim?'

Being a poser you're entire life is bound to drive you nuts eventually, right? I suppose it was, because here I was, lying on my bed, not remembering how I got there, staring at the ceiling fan as it went round and round, and thinking about how my real personality had been stifled by another.

Can you say freak show?

I was knocked out of my trance as I heard a commotion downstairs. "She's grounded. No friends. Especially no male friends."

Huh? Since when did I have male-oh. I glanced at the clock. It was only 12:30. Shouldn't he be in school?

"Please, Mrs. Connweller. I just need to make sure she's okay. Then I'll leave. I promise." I cringed, just waiting for her to yell at him or something. But it never came. In fact, I'm pretty sure I heard my mom squeak and say 'Put me down.'

I heard him thundering up the steps, taking them at least two at a time, and thankfully I hadn't been alert enough to lock my door when I'd closed it earlier, because he kind of just burst into the room. If it hadn't been for his super-enhanced gracefulness, he probably would've landed in a heap on top of my dirty clothes.

Dirty clothes! Crap. Oh well. He'll probably be ecstatic to see my plain cotton under-roos.

"Kim!" He sighed in what appeared to be relief. He was shirtless, and had obviously ran here in his other form.

"'Jared, how did you…never mind."

"How did I get past Fox? Wasn't hard. I faked a fever. They called my mom, and I got to go 'home.'" Okay. That was easy.

"Oh."

"Kim, I…I'm sorry. I know this is my fault, and don't say it isn't, because I heard everything you guys said."

Damn him and his dog ears. How embarrassing.

"I wanted to come here and apologize, and to check on you. I told your mom that I would just come and check on you and leave, but if you want me to stay I can go out the front and then sneak in your window. I'm pretty agile."

Wow. Even when he was trying to be supportive and helpful he still managed to toot his own horn. Not that that was a completely bad thing, just inappropriate for the time.

I wanted him to stay. The only thing I wanted more was for Lindsay to go back to being my best friend again. But I didn't want to push things. We were just friends after all, and I didn't want to seem too desperate. And there I go again. Repressing myself. Yay. So I said nothing, hoping he would just take the initiative and put his little plan into action. But he, of course, took my silence for a bad thing, and jumped to conclusions.

"Ah, dang. You probably want to be alone now, and I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bother you. I'm so stupid."

Oh, how wrong he was. I was SICK of being alone, and I hadn't even realized it until he'd ran into my life.

"You're not stupid, Jared. Of course I want you to stay." Then he smiled the smile that I was now officially claiming as my own, and he walked out the door in a hurry. I was still laughing quietly as he bounded down the stairs, yelled goodbye to my mom, and slammed the front door.

I got up off the bed, shut and locked my bedroom door, hurriedly threw my dirty panties in my closet, and ran over to throw open the window. I tried to look surprised as Jared scaled the vinyl siding up to my windowsill, where he heaved himself in, landing on his feet, but I just didn't have the energy. I sat cross-legged on my bed, leaning against the headboard as he plopped down near the footboard, stretching out as much as he could and propping up on one arm.

"So, you wanna talk about what happened today?"

"I'd rather not."

"Oh. Okay." I guess that wasn't the answer he was expecting to hear. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

"Umm, I guess we could talk about how well Emily's porch is coming along." He laughed.

"Yeah, we could talk about that, or we could talk about how I want you to come meet some of my friends in a couple of weeks."

Woah! He was moving this along pretty quickly, huh?

"Re-really?"

"Well, yeah! See, it's Embry Call's birthday, and we're having a party at Sam's. Emily, his girlfriend, well, you already know that, is cooking and stuff, and she told me it'd be awesome if you'd come, seeing as she's usually the only girl."

"Okay. Sounds like fun." I was pretty excited. I knew Emily and I were going to be good friends one day.

"Really? You wanna go?"

"Really. I really do." If at all possible, he smiled even wider.

"That's great! I guess-" He stopped mid-sentence, and I was confused momentarily, until I heard my mom's footsteps on the staircase.

"Quick!" I whispered. "The closet!" I was gesturing wildly toward the half-open sliding door, and he practically launched himself from my bed to the disaster area, somehow managing to fit in their while simultaneously closing the door. I hurriedly unlocked my door and zoomed back to my bed, where I pulled my journal out from under my mattress and pretended to read it.

"Kim? Can I come in?"

"Yeah, mom. It's open." She walked in, appraising the state of my disheveled room.

"Look, Kim. I don't know what happened today at school, or what's going on in that head of yours, but what I do know is that you need to make some changes in your schedule or your life or something. And I think you need to talk to someone about whatever problems your having."

"You know I can't do that, mom." I was praying with everything I had in me that she would keep her mouth shut about the whole Guardian thing. Of course, I knew everything went well, because no one outside of my family would know my secret until Alaska, which is what I'd taken to calling the incident these days.

"I know, Kim, I know. But you don't have to mention any of that…stuff. You could call it something else, like your mental disorder, or something." How was I going to explain this conversation to the wolf man in my closet? Hopefully he wasn't listening.

Yeah, right.

"Well, just think on it. You don't have to make any decisions right now. But what you do need to be doing is straightening out your friendship with little Lindsay. That girl had been too good a friend to you for you to just let her go."

"I know, mom. I'm gonna call her tomorrow. I'm kind of tired right now."

"Okay, baby. You rest for now, then we talk business when your father gets home. I'm thinking all the housework for a month?" I groaned. I hated cleaning.

"Fine, fine." She smirked at me, and pranced out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I got up and locked the door as soon as I heard her hit the first floor, and Jared stepped out of my closet just as I turned back around.

As soon as I saw him I wished I'd have thrown my underwear somewhere else, because in one hand he had my favorite blue ones with little white stars, and in the other one he had what I'm pretty sure was the thong Lindsay got me as a gag gift for my sixteenth birthday.

He was grinning in a way that made me think of what Tom would look like if he successfully caught Jerry. "What are these, Kim?" At least now I wouldn't have to explain the conversation between my mother and me. He'd been to busy groping buttless underwear.

"Oh my God, Jared. They're my panties. Everyone wears some form of them."

"Not me."

"Did you just admit to going commando?"

"Maybe."

"Sick. Thanks for sharing!"

"No, Kim. Thank YOU for sharing." He laughed at me as I tried to wrench my undies out of his hands, but he held on tight and I eventually gave up.

"Fine. Take them home and tack them up on your wall for all I care." His face fell as it dawned on him that I might be angry, and I took the opportunity to snatch the garments from him.

"Hey!" he said, perking back up.

"Ha! Gotcha."

"I won't fall for it next time."

"Ah, silly, naïve little Jared. There won't be a next time."

"I wouldn't count on it."

We spent the rest of the afternoon engaged in playful banter, until he was forced to leave when my dad got home, since my parents wanted to sit down for a chat.

As he was about to make his descent out of my window he hesitated, and walked back toward where I stood in front of my desk.

"Umm, can I hug you, Kim?" I laughed, and without answering, wrapped my arms around his midsection.

"Bye, Jared. Have a good night."

He gently kissed the top of my head, and reluctantly released me. "Bye, Kim. I'll see you tomorrow." And with that he left.

I closed my window and walked backwards clumsily, collapsing onto my bed with a loud sigh before heading downstairs to face the inevitable.

Honestly, I couldn't have cared less about what my parents were going to do to me. Jared could sneak in the window whenever I wanted, and that was all the consolation I'd ever need.

So, there you have it! Chapter six! My longest one yet!!! Now, out of your appreciation, REVIEW!!! :-) Please? R&R.