25 Outside Keep Holding on- Avril Lavigne

"Hey! Cathryn!"

I jumped, falling off my skateboard. The voice was vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't quite remember….I turned around. It was Collin, catching up to me easily. "Are you all right?" He asked anxiously.

I looked down. The scrapes on my legs from when Hart had pushed me had been almost healed, but the fall had taken the scabs off, and both of my knees were now oozing blood. "Sure." I grumbled without looking at him. "I'm peachy."

A par of very warm hands picked me up off the ground and dusted me off. "You're bleeding." Collin informed me.

"I hadn't noticed." I said.

Collin bit his lip, looking nervous for some reason. But he said nothing.

I had never been one to fall for the strong silent type.

"What?" I demanded, putting my hands on my hips and tilting my head back so that I could look him in the eyes.

"Look," he began cautiously. "I know you're kind of mad at us and all, but-"

"I'm not mad at you. I don't know you. It wasn't your job to tell me anything." I interrupted. Not that I was still mad at the ones that were expected to let me in on the secret, but whatever. I checked my watch. The high school classes hadn't been let out yet. Collin must have been skipping. I hoped Hart wasn't. If he was already waiting on me in the parking lot, he'd see me with Collin. And he'd assume I was flirting. And for that, he'd give me what I 'deserved'.

"-help?" Collin finished, looking at me expectantly.

Only I had no idea what he'd just said. "Um…what now?" I asked him. I was really making a great first impression.

Collin sighed, looking frustrated. Poor guy. He obviously wasn't any more comfortable talking with me than I was with him. "I just heard that you were having some trouble in French. I thought I could help."

I blinked up at him for a moment. He wasn't asking me out. I knew that much. He was genuinely concerned. Not about my grades, though. More about me socially. He wanted me to get tight with the pack again.

Well, that made two of us.

The bell rang, and seniors poured out of the high school doors and into various cars, off to either McDonalds or Star Bucks, the only two places to eat within a close enough distance to the school. Hart would be among them.

"Yeah." I tried to smile. "Thanks. Uh, could you come over at, like, four this Thursday?"

"Sure. Great." Collin grinned. "Later."

"Right," I said distractedly. I didn't think he was out yet…maybe I was safe. "Bye."

I realize that I may have been a bit mopey lately, what with all the crappy things that have happened to me. And I apologize for that. Because I failed to remember that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Good things happen to those who wait. All of that. I have been truly blessed. Not even kidding. I couldn't have planned it better myself.

So I was just snoring away in my bed at ten thirty in the morning, you know, the usual Saturday rutein, despite the fact that Collin was supposed to come and hept me some more with French, due to the fact that he had come on Thursday as planned and we had both discovered that I had retained NOTHING all year. Anyway, I was all snug in my bed, dreaming about being somebody else, when Leslie bangs open my door and comes storming in, all frenzy-like.

"Cathryn!" She exclaimed, thumping me in the head.

"Uhhhnng. What?" I groaned, sitting up groggily.

"I," Leslie declared, throwing herself dramatically across my bed. "Am finished. I mean it. I've reached my limit."

I squinted at her for a second, trying to work out what she said. "Limit for what?"

"YOU!" Leslie sat up again, so quickly that it was shocking. "You've been avoiding me. All of us, actually. And we don't know why. Or at least I don't. Its like, we were best friends one second, then we didn't even know each other the next. I mean, what happened? And frankly, I don't like who you're turning into. Who is this Harty guy? He seems a little...eh. I mean, I'm not one to judge, but I do go to class with him, and stuff. When he decides to show up. He's not a good guy, Cat. And you just completely ditched all of us for him!" She shook her head sadly, winding down from her little speech. "I just don't get it."

I stared at her. "And you couldn't have said all this a little later? You know, when I'm coherent?" I asked her finally.

Leslie glared.

"Okay, okay, fine. I'm sorry. Seriously, I am. But there were some things involved that…its complicated."

"I think I can keep up." Leslie told me.

Don't freak out. I didn't tell her about werewolves. I told her about Hart and his incredibly convincing fists. Anybody would stay with him after having a nice long talk with those. Or at least, I meant to. But we were kind of interrupted.

It was Cocoa, naturally, pulling twigs from my tree out of her hair as she opened the doors and plopped down on my bed right next to Leslie, making herself at home. Leslie's eyes widened. Poor girl. She really wasn't used to dealing with people like Cocoa and I. "You know," I said. "You really could use the door. I would have let you in."

"You said that last time. But climbing the tree is so much more fun." She leaned carelessly back onto my pillows.

"Its getting annoying." I informed her. Like when I'm having guests over.

"Ahh, hi Cocoa." Leslie said hesitantly, recovering.

"Sup," Cocoa responded a little distastefully.

"Don't you, uh, hang out with Collin?" Leslie asked, still timid.

"Yup." Cocoa's tone was not encouraging, but I knew that Leslie didn't need to be encouraged when it came to Collin. She'd interview Cocoa about him until Cocoa killed her. Which wouldn't take long, as she looked ready to do it already.

Oh, God. Collin. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table. Ten forty-five. Collin would be here any second. Leslie would have a heart attack. It would kill her. And Collin was a sweet guy; he didn't need murder on his conscience. I had to get her out of here.

"Leslie, listen. I really appreciate you coming down here and all. I've been wanting to talk too. And we will. Soon. But I've really got a lot going on, and-"

Ding, Dong.

"Crap," I whispered, and headed to the head of the stairs. Cocoa and Leslie followed suit. You could see the front door from where we were, despite the two floors difference. The shadow outside was huge. It was definitely Collin. "Come in," I called warily.

Collin came in, hands in his pockets. He glanced up towards my room. His eyes fall on me first, then Cocoa, then Leslie. I heard her sharp intake of breath. "Oh, God," She whimpered.

But I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. I was busy looking at Colin. He was staring at Leslie, gaping openly. The way he looked at her…it was familiar, somehow. Like the way Sam looked at Emily, and Seth looked at Keilly, but…something else. I'd seen that look before on someone else, it felt like. I couldn't quite place it.

Leslie broke apart form Cocoa and I and started to hide back in my room. Suddenly, though, I lost patience. It just disgusted me, you know? Collin, regardless of the freakish way he looked at her, was obviously just as in love with her as she was with him. So what was the problem? I so wasn't in the mood to cover for Leslie while she snuck out my balcony Cocoa-style.

So I did what I now consider to be one of the best decisions I ever made. I grabbed her wrist, and yanked her harshly back towards the stair case, expecting her to fall. And I was right. She stumbled about halfway down, a look of such utter panic on her face that I actually felt bad for a minute, but then Collin rushed up and caught her, cradling her against his chest like she was a child. Or the most precious thing in the world.

I'm telling you, I witnessed love at first sight. It was enough to make people of weaker stuff than myself and Cocoa break down in sobs. Major Kodak moment. And you can't tell me that I'm over reacting, because Cocoa was standing right next me, looking totally disgusted the whole time, so I know it was real.

It feels good to be nice.

And, okay, Collin finding love may have repulsed Cocoa so greatly that she decided to move from his couch to my balcony and has been there ever since, but I can handle that. She's actually not that bad. For the most part. And now Collin will probably tell her about the legends being real, but she won't react the way I did. I know that much. She's too nice. Plus, there is no way she would ever leave Collin, regardless of his species.

I know, I know. This is a lot to assume about one little look. But you weren't there, now, were you? Leslie will be having Collin's children a decade from now, I'd bet my life on it.

I was young again. Like, really young. Maybe two or three. And I was back at my house in Gainesville. The whole world looked huge and magical again, and for me, the whole world was my big white lake house and the pond in the backyard. I was running along its bank, chasing my puppy. Notice I wrote my, not a, despite the fact that the puppy in question was not Papaya or any other dog I'd had in my life. But that was one of the biggest details that I remember. The puppy was, completely and permanently, mine.

He was quite adorable, as far as puppies go. He was real tiny, and chubby, and almost as clumsy on his baby legs as I was. He wasn't gray, exactly. But not white either. Sort of like a combination of the two. And he was covered in teeny black dots. Salt and pepper, I'd guess you'd call it. The salt and pepper fur was light and fluffy and beautiful. His eyes were, too. Big and dark and intelligent.

He was quite possibly the most adorable animal I'd ever seen in my toddler life. And, like most young girls, when I saw a cute animal, I wanted to pet it. So I stumbled clumsily toward it, my pudgy fingers outstretched. But my puppy seemed to have other plans. As soon as he saw my intentions, he turned and trotted away, his tail wagging and his tongue hanging comically out of his mouth.

I chased him. But I was so small, I couldn't catch him. But he always stayed within my reach, so close that it gave me the motivation to keep running. Then, suddenly, he veered off, off of the bank and into the woods. I followed him, not realizing the dangers of the forest in all my childlike innocence.

Slowly, though, the scene changed. My puppy changed. His paws grew, big and strong and muscular, until the prints he left in the dirt could easily be mistaken for a lion's or some other beast. In fact, his entire body grew. Before I knew it, he was as big as a horse, a bear, a truck. His fur changed, losing it's fluffiness and becoming more like a coat, something used for protection, not show. His fur darkened, turning into a dark dark gray. His black spots all but disappeared, they were only on his back now. He grew fangs around the tongue that remained dangling out of his mouth.

As he grew, so did my desire for him. Instead of being frightened, or even repulsed, getting to him became my heart's desire, something I wanted more than anything in the world. Only it wasn't a want anymore. It was a need. I needed my puppy to come to me, to stay with me, to protect me from the fearsome forest, and everything else in the world.

Because my childhood was fading as my desire grew, and along with it my ignorance. I could feel myself changing, just like my puppy had. My legs lengthened, became thinner and stronger. I lost all my baby fat, and gained freckles. My hair grew longer, it whipped against my face in the wind. But despite the fact that I was older, I still didn't understand why I needed this animal so badly. Why it was this creature, and not another. Or any other.

I just knew that I did. That giving up would be like giving up my life. So I ran until I couldn't breathe, until my eyes teared up, until my feet felt like they were made of lead. But I kept going. And my puppy did too, but he always stayed close to me, speeding up and slowing down when I did, instinctively seeming to know my limits.

Then, as quickly as they had began, the woods ended. My puppy burst out of the trees, and kept going, over the mossy meadow in front of us, weaving his way in and out of the various yards in the neighborhood we had come to. Of course, I wasn't as coordinated. The shock of coming out of the forest sent me falling flat on my face into the ground, getting a mouthful of damp grass for my efforts. Lovely.

I didn't care. I scrambled up, my eyes raking my surroundings desperately, searching for him, barely noticing that I was no longer in Gainesville, but my yard that I had currently, in La Push. But I couldn't find him.

The wolf had gone.

I gasped, and bolted upright in my bed. The clock read four oh-five in the morning. You would think, wouldn't you, that after having a nightmare so many times that it would lose some of its original horror? Apparently not. I was still just as freaked as I had been the first time, a couple of months ago. I had had this dream every night since my unsuccessful attempt to dump Hart.

The thing that got me was that, instead of feeling exasperated or tired once the initial shock wore off, I was still terrified. My subconscious still wanted the wolf, despite the fact that my conscious knew that it wasn't real, and that if he was, he definitely wasn't some one that I would ever want to encounter.

Logically.

But in the back of my head, I would always lay back down wishing for my puppy. Like he really did exist, somewhere out there.