CHAPTER 10
Claire slowly made herself walk back up the stairs towards Quil's apartment. With every step she took she couldn't help but feel how much she didn't want to go back in there. But she also couldn't help but feel scared after what had just happened, so she did what Quil had told her to. She listed it as a check list in her mind.
Go back upstairs.
She made it back upstairs. Check.
Lock the door.
She turned the deadbolt. Check.
And wait for me to come back.
That was where she got stuck. There was nothing to do now but walk into the middle of the last place on earth she wanted to be and hug her left arm around herself, as she looked around.
The place was filthy. It looked like a mix of equal parts nasty motel, a raccoon nest, and that he and Leah had been having a rave before they decided to get busy.
She stayed in the middle of the floor, holding herself for maybe five minutes before it became clear that she needed to do something with herself. She was filled with nervous energy, and Quil's place was so nasty that she didn't even want to touch the walls. She started with the laundry. There was a large pile of t-shirts that all smelled like beer, but the again, the entire apartment smelled like beer. She took the whole pile in her left arm and shoved it in the machine with some detergent. That felt so good, being productive and whirling around leaving cleanliness behind her, that she decided to move on into the kitchen. There was spilled beer everywhere and unopened cans all over the floor. She put all the cans in a pile next to the fridge and then used the already soaked towel to mop up the excess liquid. She dropped the towel with the rest of the dirty laundry before grabbing the steam mop she had bought Quil for Valentine's Day last year (it had been an inside joke) and quickly mopped up the floor.
Once the floor was dry she took what looked like the evidence of Leah and Quil's date night and packed the Chinese food away in the box it came in. She had to open the fridge first and then precariously balance the box in her left arm before turning to slide it in onto the top shelf of the fridge. When she looked in the fridge for the first time, she was shocked to see it stocked with tons of beer….and nothing else…. Yikes. In her entire life, she had only seen Quil drink alcohol a handful of times. She had spent the night here at least a dozen times over the years, sometimes unexpectedly, and she had never found any alcohol here before. Between that and the giant mess that his entire apartment was in, she was starting to think that maybe he hadn't been so great that he could just have casual sex with Leah no problem, like she had first thought when she got there. There was a tiny voice in the back of her mind that was whispering, Maybe there was another reason. She shook her head. She honestly didn't want to think about it. They were in crisis mode. That was why she was here. She didn't want to, she couldn't deal with this right now.
She would stay here at Quil's place until everything was okay and then she would leave to deal with this however she wanted…. probably by falling apart and crying. Until then, there was plenty for her to do here.
She shut the fridge and turned toward the sink. Yikes again. She went to unload the dishwasher, figuring that that was the reason he hadn't done the dishes yet. Nope, it was completely empty. In fact, she was pretty sure she could see a cobweb in the back corner of it.
She spent the next two hours working on the dishes. It took a long time since there was so many, and because she could only use her left arm. In the middle of doing the dishes she went and took the load of shirts out of the washer and put it into the dryer, and then replaced it with a load of his darks, before going back and returning to the dishes.
She tried her best to only think about what she was doing at the time, but her mind would inevitably wander back to what she had seen when she had walked in. She would never have guessed how much it hurt her it see it. She knew that Quil wasn't a virgin… she had known for as long as she had known what a virgin was. Quil had been trying to impress as many girls as he could before he had met her. But that was the point. She thought it had all been before he had met her. Now she was having these doubts. Had he been sleeping with women this whole time? She had let him sleep with her in her bed so many times! And she had slept in his bed! Was he having sex with women in the same bed he was letting her sleep in? On the same sheets!? Obviously, he was, because she had just seen him about to have sex on this bed, with these sheets. Was it happening for all of those years? Was it just since she had kicked him out of her life? Was it multiple women? Was it just Leah? Was he seeing her? How long had they been together? Had they started sleeping together before Claire had seen Leah at her house on Sunday after the accident?
She was feeling hurt and stupid and lied to and betrayed. Quil was a huge part of the reason she had decided to wait and hold on to her virginity and now he was having sex with Leah. It made her shake just thinking about it. She felt like every time she had ever seen them together, every time they had ever nitpicked at each other and she had been the one to keep the peace, was a huge giant lie. Obviously they could get along fine together when they wanted to.
She kept reasoning with herself that she had been the one to push him away. That she was the one who had a boyfriend. That he had every right to date or hook up with whoever he wanted. They weren't even in each other's lives anymore so she had no right to be upset by what she had seen….
But she couldn't get the image of them out of her head. The way Quil had his face buried in her neck, the way Leah's hands had been on his chest claiming him with her fingers, the way Quil's hands had been undoing her jeans eager for more action, the way Leah had her knees wrapped around him with her legs bent upwards and her feet on the mattress to give her more traction as she arched her back up towards him.
Each image was like a snapshot of pain flashing across her brain, over and over again. There was one thing she knew for certain, she would never be able to go back to a time when she hadn't seen it. It would be burned into her brain, forever tinting the image of both of them for her.
She refused to let herself cry. Not here, not in this place that had used to be special for her. Right here in this kitchen Claire had kissed him. She almost cried just at that thought. Now this spot was ruined for her. After all, what is one sweet kiss compared to at least one night of passion with Leah. She decided that she would simply wait her time out here until this crisis had past and then she and Quil would go back to living separate lives being with separate people.
She hated being in his apartment now, but she didn't have a choice, she had to be here. So, she channeled her energy into cleaning. Once she finished the dishes she cleaned the counters, then she took all of the garbage through the entire apartment and put it by the front door since she couldn't leave to take it out. Then she took the load of shirts out of the dryer and put the darks in and started a load of whites in the machine. Then she vacuumed. Then she folded the shirts. Then she folded the darks. Then she put everything away in his dresser while hating the fact that she knew where everything went. And after all of that he still hadn't come back.
She normally would have washed his towels and sheets but she couldn't even bring herself to look at his bed that she used to share with him, and she wasn't even going to try to touch it. Eventually she ran out of things to do. She could have cleaned the bathroom, but it was honestly disgusting and she didn't have to go in there so she figured she would leave that as his problem.
She went to turn on the tv to try to distract herself when she noticed it was a new tv she hadn't seen before. She had noticed there was a lot of new little things she had never seen here before. A new alarm clock, a new coffee pot, now a new tv. She wondered if he had developed a shopping addiction in the last few months. She started pacing in front of the tv while it played Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns in front of her. She knew that Quil loved this show but she just didn't get it. She didn't even find it funny. She just paced in front of it getting more and more nervous as she did.
It was past 12:30, why wasn't he back yet? Was something wrong? Something must have gone wrong, why else would he still not be back yet? Was someone hurt? Was he? Finally, she felt like he must be toying with her and she grabbed her purse and unlocked the door before she thought, What if he isn't toying with me? What if there is something out there? She figured that even if he was somehow messing with her, he did live here and would have to be back, so she should wait to see him. Even if she couldn't look him in the eye. Ever again.
She left her purse on her shoulder but went back to pacing, she picked up the remote again in her left hand but didn't bother doing anything with it. She just walked back and forth as Will Smith did goofy crap in the nineties. She felt so betrayed and she knew that it might be slightly unreasonable but she had just spent so many years of her life living with the pressure of thinking that they were supposed to be together, that they were meant for each other. If Bennett hadn't asked her out she doubted that she would have ever even looked at another man out of loyalty to Quil. Even through the last few months of being with Bennett, a future with Quil had always been in the back of her mind affecting every step forward she took with her relationship.
Quil had dated when he was her age. Heck, he had even slept around when he was sixteen. It had never bothered her, she had always been willing to look past it. She had just assumed that he would lend her the same curtesy. That he could wait for her to have at least one dating experience, that he would give that to her. Apparently, it had been too much to ask. Apparently, the second she had left him alone he had needed to find something to fill ALL of the voids in his life.
After about five more minutes of her pacing and stewing on their relationship (or now lack there of) the door finally opened. She spun around mid-pace to see him walking through the door without a shirt on, it seemed to be in his hands and it seemed to have blood on it.
"Where have you been!?" she started immediately, "Is everyone okay!?"
He nodded tiredly, "Everyone is fine…..did you clean in here!?" he asked shocked and looked up at her.
She was surprised to realize that she must have grown. She didn't have to look up so high to make eye contact with him. That and that his chest was ridiculously cut…. What was that about? He had always been in good shape so why did he suddenly look like a black and white, airbrushed, and photoshopped picture of deeply cut muscle? Not that it mattered, it was clearly for another women's sake.
"Yeah…" She said like it was obvious, "I couldn't just sit around for three and a half hours, Quil. What happened?"
He smiled down at her like he thought she was cute and for the first time in her life instead of enjoying it, she found it incredibly condescending.
"Quil! What happened!? Is everyone alright? Did someone get hurt? Was there a vampire? Was there a fight? Who called for help?"
She didn't want to be here, it was late and she was supposed to have taken a pain pill two hours ago that she had missed while being here, and she was only staying long enough to get answers.
"Everyone is fine, no there wasn't a vampire." He answered with a sigh suddenly not looking at her.
"Okay. So, what happened?" she asked anxiously. Why wasn't he just giving her answers already?
He took a deep breath and said, "Here let me get dressed and then we can talk. Why don't you sit down? Did you eat?"
She was getting seriously annoyed now.
"I don't want to talk to you, Quil. Just tell me what happened, so I can go."
He seemed shocked for a second and then said, "Okay, I promise I'll tell you what happened. Just sit down and let me get dressed."
"There. In your dresser, I put clean shirts in your dresser. Now tell me what happened." She responded without moving from her spot in the middle of the floor.
He grabbed a shirt from the drawer she had indicated and threw it on before saying, "Okay, first of all no one is hurt. But you are going to need to calm down so that I can tell you what happened."
"I'm calm." She said immediately.
"Claire. You've had a long night, you should sit down and res-"
"Quil! Stop patronizing me! You have ten seconds to tell me what happened or I am walking out that door and I'm not coming back." She replied as she took a step to move around him to the door.
He seemed a little panicked that she might leave when he said quickly,
"Someone phased."
"Is that supposed to be an explanation?" she asked getting more annoyed.
"No. Someone phased for the first time, a brand-new wolf. That was who was howling. It wasn't a call for help so much as a cry of panic." He explained to her.
She was completely stunned for a full minute before she said,
"What!? I thought there were no new wolves? I thought that the vampires left and the Quileutes stopped turning?"
"So did we." He said blowing out a breath before sitting on the edge of the bed in front of her and leaning forward to put his elbows and weight on his knees.
"Why? Why would that happen?" she asked completely stunned.
"We don't know." He said with his face in his hands, "We think it might be Renesme. That her presence when she comes might be enough to set the gene off. That or the fact that Leah and I are still phasing. It's possible that as long as we refuse to give up our wolf, that new wolves will keep phasing just to form a pack around us."
She was stunned by all of this. It was shocking information but she felt like there must be something else, something she was missing. Why would Quil not be able to make eye contact with her while telling her this? And then suddenly she was terrified as she asked in a quiet voice,
"Who is it?"
"What?" Quil asked confused at her direction.
"Who is it? Who is the wolf, Quil?" she was starting to feel panicked now. She couldn't seem to get enough air. She thought she might be having a panic attack.
Quil stood back up and came towards her but she just backed away from him.
"Claire." He said in a hurt little voice when she refused to let him comfort her with his touch.
"Who is it, Quil?"
He just shook his head.
"WHO IS IT, QUIL!?" she yelled at him. He finally looked up at her and said,
"Bennett Callahan. Bennett Callahan is the new wolf!"
And then she threw the remote at him. She hadn't meant to. She didn't even know she still had it in her hand. He dodged it of course but it smashed into a bunch of pieces when it hit the wall behind him and landed behind the washer. She was surprised by the accuracy of her throw, especially with her left hand. It would have hit him smack in the face if he hadn't dodged it. It must be because she threw it so hard. As hard as she could.
She just stood there for a moment staring at Quil, shocked at what she had just done. And then she was moving. She was past him before he even realized what she was doing.
"Claire. Wait!" he said shocked.
"I have to go." She said in a rush as she got to the door.
He quickly walked the two feet to her and grabbed her left arm.
"Don't touch me, Quil!" she snapped at him.
"You CAN'T leave, Claire" he said to her.
"I have to go find him." She said mostly to herself, Quil still had his hand on her arm.
"You can't." he told her firmly but she wasn't listening.
She tried to use her right hand in her cast to brush his hand off her.
"Claire, listen to me! You can't go to him!" he said emphatically.
"I know how to handle a wolf, Quil. Now let me go. I need to be with him!" she spoke quickly and agitatedly at him as she finally looked up at him before looking back at the door she was trying to leave through.
She was starting to panic about how freaked out he must be. About the things he would be hearing in the other wolves' heads. About her. About everything. She needed to be there, to explain to him, to help him. He needed her.
"You can't, Claire!" he said to her again, pulling her away from the door slowly while she dug in her feet trying to hold her ground.
"CLAIRE! You can't be with him! Ever again!" he yelled finally cutting through her panicked attempt to get back to Bennett.
That stopped her cold. She froze so quickly he dropped his hand.
"What?" she asked completely shocked. She didn't understand what he meant, or at least she didn't want to compute it.
"You and Bennett. You can never be together again. It's over for you two." He explained quickly but slightly sympathetically.
"What!?" she said again in a broken voice. She was already starting to cry, her body was catching up before her mind was and it was already reacting.
"You…. He… He can't be with you anymore, not now that he is one of the wolves." He said in a softer voice.
"Wh-why n-not?" she was starting to sob. She thought she knew, but she needed to hear him say it.
"Because Claire. You're my imprint. Not his. A wolf can never be with one of his brother's imprint. It goes against all of the wolf laws of nature." He said as he tried to explain to her, "It's the reason Collin never talks to you. He's had the hots for you since you were thirteen, but in the wolf mind, you ARE mine. You could never belong to anyone else. Ever."
Claire was so shocked that she even stopped crying. She had never known about Collin. She just thought he was a little weird, now she thought he was just creepy being into her since she was thirteen. That was just kind of gross, even if he was younger than Quil was.
And then the truth of it started to hit her. Bennett and she would never be together again. For forever. There was no going back. He would be a wolf for the rest of…forever, if he wanted….and she would be another wolf's imprint for the rest of her life. And then she heard his voice in her mind from the last time she saw him, "Goodbye, Claire, I'll see you soon."
And suddenly she was collapsing on the floor right there where she stood a few feet away from the door, in the spot that Quil had managed to drag her to. And she was sobbing. She used her lone left hand to cover her face as she sobbed. She had never sobbed like that before, it was almost scary. Like a wounded animal, she heaved her sobs, almost without tears.
After a couple of moments Quil came to her on the floor. He sat down next to her and wrapped his arms around her while he placed his chin on top of her head and held her while she completely broke down. After a few moments, she gathered just enough control of her sobs, to whisper to him,
"How could you do this?"
Quil:
He just sat there, holding her while she moaned in pain for hours. The fact that she was even letting him hold her after what she had seen earlier that evening was proof of exactly how much pain she was in. And to make it even worse, he knew that Leah was in a similar position with Bennett, trying to comfort him as she explained to him again that yesterday Claire had been his girlfriend and as of now he could never be with her again.
Quil had had no idea that Bennett cared so much for Claire. Almost as much as he did, but it was different, in Bennett's mind it was more, it was specific. Not like Quil's all-consuming love for everything that was Claire. Bennett loved specific things about her, the way she talked to people, the way she smiled at him, how she felt in his arms. They didn't even have to really explain it to him. In the midst of everything else he was freaking out about (being in his wolf mind, and body for the first time) he could feel it. He would think of Claire and immediately feel the same sense of denial that Collin had felt every time he thought of noticing her. She belonged to Quil, and he knew it from the moment that he had phased. Quil thought it was that, more than anything else, that had been the reason it had taken so long to get him to calm down and phase back to his human form.
Quil had stayed there in his mind with him for hours, explaining things and talking him down. They didn't usually explain imprinting to a wolf the very first time they phased but this was such a unique case that they had to go in to deep details of the history of imprinting and how it worked. Quil even had to go back in his mind to that very first moment that he had seen Claire and had imprinted on her when she was just two years old. Bennett never fully understood until that moment that Quil had showed him. Once he felt the power of Quil's imprint in his own mind, he seemed to accept it. That was the moment where all of the fire seemed to die within him and after a couple of minutes of Leah talking him through it, he phased back to his human form.
It was a good thing too. It had taken all of Quil's self-control to just be around him. Every time Bennett thought about Claire it had this tone of loving possessiveness. He would of course immediately be shut down by his own instincts but Quil's instincts would also kick in, and he was constantly fighting the urge to lunge for Bennett's neck and defend and claim what belonged to him. Being a wolf was something that was driven much more by primitive animal instincts than by rational mind. If Quil hadn't had so many years of practice, it would have turned into a fight right there, and there would have been no competition. He would have taken a brand-new wolf-Bennett down in seconds.
Quil was already planning on calling Jacob in the morning. He needed to get back here. This was his pack and his problem. Quil wanted to remove himself as far from the situation as possible. It was technically the Alpha's job to train any new wolf. Quil really didn't want to be spending the next few months going on runs with Bennett every night and explaining how to refine his new senses and skills to him. Plus, they needed to figure out why Bennett had even phased in the first place.
Bennett had been with his mom when it had happened. Quil, and Leah, and Brady (who had been on patrol at the time) had all seen the replay in Bennett's mind through the haze of his panic. His mom had been about to take him to the airport and he had decided he didn't want to go. He wanted to stay the weekend with Claire instead. But he HAD to go, that's why he had gotten so upset and then boom, he had exploded. Literally, a mass of deep brown/black fur and heat had burst from him and he was a wolf. Brady had been shocked by his sudden appearance in his mind and was about fifteen miles west at the time. But he came running and tried his best to calm Bennett down and talk him into heading into the woods away from the possible public eye. Leah and Quil had gotten there within minutes of hearing the panicked howl of what they instantly new could only be a brand-new wolf.
Leah had to take a few minutes to explain things to his mom and calm her down before she tried to call the cops or animal control or something while Brady and Quil stayed with him and tried to reason with him through his panic. They couldn't seem to make any progress with him until Leah made it back in her wolf form. He seemed to respond to her the most, instinctively trusting her. Eventually Quil had Brady phase back to his human-self so that there was one less intrusive voice in Bennett's mind. And then he and Leah had stayed there with Bennett for hours, explaining things to him and trying to keep him as calm as possible. Quil had sat back mostly and let Leah reason and explain things to him since she was the only one Bennett seemed to be willing to listen to.
The biggest problem was Bennett's constant hang up on Claire. Leah would be explaining things like how the wolves originally came to be (since Bennett had mostly grown up in Ohio and not on one of the reservations he had never heard the stories before) but then he would think something along the lines of, "Oh shit, what will Claire think about all of this!?" and then BOOM, as soon as he thought of her, he was shut down. There was a wall of pure denial in front of him. She was NOT his to claim, and his wolf mind knew it. And then he would start freaking out all over again.
It had been exhausting. After a couple of hours, when it was clear that Leah had things reasonably under control with Bennett, Quil had decided it was time to get some answers. He had phased back to human, found his clothes and gone to find Bennett's mom. As soon as she saw him she immediately asked, "Is he okay? Did he phase back yet?" She had seemed to be taking this remarkably well for someone who had never heard of the Quiluete Werewolves. And then it had occurred to him, She already knew. That was why she wasn't getting hung up on wolf details and just wanted to know if he had phased back.
"No, he's still working with Leah." He had explained while giving her a shrewd look.
She had just nodded at him and then he grabbed a chair at the kitchen table and sat down uninvited. She didn't seem to notice anything until he gestured for her to sit down at the table across from him. She seemed a little surprised but complied. That was when Quil had just bluntly asked,
"Who's his father?"
"Who Mike? He's in Ohio still." She replied obviously surprised.
"No, who is his biological father?" Quil asked undeterred.
She just looked at him scathingly until he said,
"The Quileute wolves are just that. Quileute. That's where we descend from. You are a descended from the Makah tribe, and since there has never been a wolf without Quileute blood, I'm going to assume it came from his father."
She just looked at him in shock, and then suddenly blushed and looked down at her hands on top of the table. Something about her look sparked something in Quil. It wasn't just guilt about the situation, it was guilt associated specifically with him.
"It was him, wasn't it?" he asked immediately.
She just looked up at him, surprised that he knew.
"It was my father." He said without any emotion, just looking at her for confirmation.
She nodded at him. She looked nervous like she was afraid of how he was going to take it. And then suddenly she said,
"I was surprised the first time I saw you, when you were at the Young's house before Bennett took Claire to homecoming. You just look so much like him. You're younger than I would have thought though."
This was the point where Quil had put his hand on his forehead and started rubbing his temples.
"It's a wolf thing. We stop aging. Bennett will now physically age to his peak, around twenty-four or twenty-five, within the next few months, and then it'll stop. He won't age again until he stops phasing permanently. I'm actually thirty….. thirty-one." He said as he suddenly started trying to figure out the date.
It was. Today had been his birthday. He was thirty-one. Well that explained things. Like why Leah had texted him repeatedly and then shown up to check on him, or why Claire would break her silence with him after all of these months to show up unexpectedly tonight.
He hadn't stayed much longer with Bennett's mom after that. He didn't really want to linger and think about the only thing (or person) that they had in common. Quil's father was always a sore subject for him. He had always kind of been a crappy dad but him abandoning Quil, his older sister, and his mom when he had been a teenager had been the icing on the cake. It didn't help that Quil looked so much like his dad, or that he shared the same name either.
Fortunately, he also shared the same name with his grandfather who had been a tribal elder until the day he died a few years back. Quil had done the best he could to erase his father's existence out of his mind, and used his grandfather to fill the role, while sewing up the spot where his father should have been.
It had sucked enough when Embry's paternal parentage had been called into question those first few years they were wolves. Leah seemed to never let it go, constantly bringing it up but there had still been a fifty-fifty shot that Sam's father was also Embry's. Though that didn't explain why Quil and Embry seemed to have the exact same set of dark eyes. But this, this now being directly related to Bennett, definitely had taken the cake for the all time crappiest thing his dad had ever done to him.
It was only about an hour after that that Leah got him to phase back. She said that she would stay with him. Someone would need to be with him at all times for the next while until it was clear he could control himself moderately well. Leah seemed the best one for the job, besides someone needed to go explain to Claire what had happened, and it was clear whose job that should be.
It amazed Quil as he walked home knowing that Claire was there waiting for him, how for all of these months he just wanted to go to her, and now he wanted to do anything but. He had to face her and give her the news that would change everything for her.
He had been surprised by her attitude. He knew that she would be mad at him. He expected that, deserved that. But she had no patience for him. Before she had always been so willing and able to give him the benefit of the doubt. But tonight, she wanted nothing from him but an explanation, and if he wasn't going to give her one than she was going to walk out of his life and never come back. She had said it to him, and it was clear from the look on her face that she meant it.
He did his best to explain things to her, but he hadn't meant to just blurt the truth to her that she could never be with him again. He didn't even want to tell her. He was hoping he could wait until the morning to explain all of the extended consequence that followed Bennett joining the pack. But she wouldn't let it go. She wouldn't stay, and if she left, he knew that she would go to him. She wouldn't stop until she found him.
Quil knew that she didn't truly blame him. But she did resent him. After all she didn't care that Bennett was a wolf, she had accepted the idea of being with a wolf years ago, as a child. The only thing standing in the way of her still being with Bennett, was Quil. He had no idea why things were so ridiculously screwed right now, but they definitely were. So, he just sat there with her. Holding her while she revealed the depth of her love for another man, by revealing the depth of her pain.
After asking him how he could have done this to her, she didn't say anything else. She just collapsed into him and was racked with sobs for hours. Finally, she didn't seem to have any sobs left in her, she just stayed there, leaning into Quil's chest whimpering. It was around five in the morning. Quil got up slowly without saying anything. She just slid to the floor, she didn't seem to have the strength to support herself. He went over to his dresser and pulled out a clean t-shirt that she had washed for him. He came back to her and pulled her into a sitting position. She didn't respond in anyway, she just sat up against him when he pulled her up. She wasn't even looking at him. She wasn't looking at anything. She seemed to be lost in herself.
Quil carefully pulled the strap of her sling up over her head and then slid it off her arm. He finally had a chance to look at her fairly extensive injuries and wonder again with a sense of urgency, What happened?!
He knew he wasn't going to get his answers now though. He reached down to the hem of her dress and carefully pulled it up to her chest, where he then guided her left arm through before lifting it off over her head and then carefully pulled the dress out over her cast, noticing as he did, that the front seemed completely soaked with her tears. She just sat there in her gray, cotton, brief-style panties and light lacy bra that was remarkably similar to the one that Leah had been wearing early that evening. The thought immediately sent feelings of guilt racking though him. He took the shirt he had just grabbed and pulled it over her. He helped her get her left arm quickly through the sleeve and then pulled it carefully over and around her cast before he let it drop where it fell all the way to the floor, covering her completely.
He gently lifted her into his arms leaning her left side against him so that he wouldn't jostle her broken arm and then carried her over to the left side of his bed. Claire usually slept on the right side of the bed but that was the side that he and Leah had been on earlier, so he thought it was best to put her as far from that side as possible. She didn't say anything as he laid her down, exhausted, onto the bed. She just stared up at the ceiling completely dazed. He put his hand on her forehead, brushing her hair softly and asked quietly,
"Where's your phone, Honey?"
He needed to communicate with her family. They were probably panicked that she had never come home. She just looked at him for a second as if she couldn't process what he had asked and then said in a dry hoarse voice,
"I don't have one. It shattered in the accident."
Feeling even more questions about this mysterious accident he just nodded at her and said,
"Go to sleep, Claire."
She didn't respond except to move her eyelids. She hadn't moved at all. She was just lying there looking at him and then she closed her eyes.
He reached over to his phone that was still on his nightstand from where he had left it after the gym. He did have at least four messages from Leah and one from his sister wishing him a happy birthday. He ignored them and found Rachel's number in his phone. He wasn't even sure that he had it, but he was relieved when he did. He texted her quickly,
Do your parents know Claire isn't home?
He just sat there waiting, hoping that if she was asleep his text would have woken her up. After a few moments his phone pinged, and he looked away from Claire, who he had been staring at, and saw Rachel's reply,
No. Where is she?
He just shook his head; how could they not know that their sixteen-year-old daughter wasn't in her bed where she was supposed to be?
Good. She's with me, I'll take her home later.
At least he wouldn't have to explain to a panicked Robert and Susan what had happened. There was another ping.
She's with you? Is she alright?
He guessed he couldn't blame Rachel for being skeptical at this point.
She's asleep. She's okay, it's a long story. I'm sure she'll tell you later.
Now that that was taken care of, Quil was exhausted. It had been an incredibly emotional day and it was quickly approaching twenty-four hours since the last time he had gotten any crappy sleep. He walked around to the other side of the bed, he didn't even bother turning off the light, and laid down next to Claire. He didn't dare touch her, but he wanted to feel her as close to him as he could, so he ended up in the middle of the bed only inches from her and then closed his eyes while listening to the slow rhythmic breathing of her sleep. He immediately felt a sense of calming peace. He was back to being exactly where he was supposed to be, and he fell asleep without being buzzed for the first time in months.
He slept better than he had since…since he had left without her that day. He woke up when he felt her wake up. He had never seen her wake up like that. She usually woke up gradually, rolling around and continuing to try to sleep. But this time, she was lying there asleep, and the next second she gasped and opened her eyes with seemingly full awareness. He was groggy but worried about her, so he sat up in the bed still only inches from her. He started rubbing his face to wake himself up and asked,
"You okay?"
She only nodded at the ceiling. She didn't even look at him. Quil was at a loss at this point, he knew that the only thing to make her feel any better, he couldn't give her. He couldn't reclaim her potential future with Bennett and give it back to her.
He sighed deeply and said,
"I'm going to take a shower; will you stay here until I get out?"
She continued to stare at the ceiling as she nodded again.
"Okay." He said as he blew out a breath.
As he climbed off the bed he looked around for the first time and noticed just how much she must have cleaned the night before. He doubted if his apartment had ever been so cleaned. She must have had a lot of nervous energy to plow through everything she did in three hours…especially with only one arm. The thought made him sad; her stuck here for hours, not knowing what was happening, and then finally after all of the waiting to be rewarded with what was potentially the worse news of her short life. He shook his head trying to stop himself from thinking about things out of his control.
He grabbed a clean pair of boxer-briefs out of the drawer Claire had put them in and got in the shower. He meant to be fast, knowing that Claire was out there essentially helpless and with a broken arm. There was also a certain amount of flight risk, if he took too long she may find more energy and just decide she had had enough and leave. But the hot water seemed to loosen all of his over-tightened muscles. They had only slept for roughly four hours. It was better sleep than he had been getting, but it wasn't a lot of it. After about thirty minutes he got out and was suddenly feeling rushed knowing that he had taken longer than he should have.
He wrapped a towel around his waist and while brushing his teeth he wiped the steam off the mirror to catch a glimpse of himself. Crap. The beard. He hadn't thought about it since Leah had mentioned it the night before. He knew Claire wouldn't like it, but he didn't have time to shave a growth that thick. He just sighed and finished in the bathroom.
He came out in only his boxer-briefs since that was all the clothes he had brought with him into the bathroom. Claire had sat up and was sitting on the edge of the bed with her casted arm against her. That seemed to be all she had moved. She was in just the large t-shirt he had put her in the night before with her legs hanging out of it and realizing that she was only in his shirt while he was only in his underwear sent a rush of shame over him as he thought of what she must think of him after last night. He still hadn't explained to her any of what happened with Leah, but now just didn't seem like the right time. He didn't even think she would be able to hear him if he tried to anyways. She was staring at the floor and didn't even look up when he walked out.
He quickly went to his dresser and pulled on a pair of pants and a t-shirt. He grabbed Claire's dress off the floor where he had left it the night before and brought it over to her where he set it right next to her and then crouched down right in front of where she was sitting on the side of his bed. She finally looked up at him.
"Claire, Honey?" He said in a soft voice as he put his hand on her left cheek where she didn't have any stitches, "What do you want to do now? Do you want some food?"
"I want to go home." She said in a cracked voice.
"Okay. I'll take you home. Do you want some water first?" he asked her.
She nodded at him. She wasn't using a lot of verbal communication which worried him, but she was maintaining eye contact with him which he perceived as a good thing.
He got up and went to the kitchen where he took a clean glass out of the dishwasher Claire had run and filled it from the tap before he brought it back to her. She seemed to be finally gaining awareness and looking around herself hesitantly. He handed her the glass in her left hand and then went to sit next to her on her left side and put an arm around her, but as soon as he sat down she used her left hand with the glass in it to push him away from her while still looking away from him. She didn't use any force. She just pushed pressure against him until he slid down the bed a few feet away from her.
Everything inside of Quil was screaming at him to be close to her. To touch her. To pull her into his chest and hold her while he still could after these longs months apart from her. But he knew he needed to respect her need for space, so he just stayed as close to her as she would allow while she seemed to maintain a three-foot protective bubble around herself.
She didn't say anything, she just drank the whole glass of water at once. When she finished she slowly stood up. The T-shirt she was wearing came almost halfway down her thighs. Quil grabbed her dress for her and went to help her but she put her hand out to stop him again before he could touch her.
"I can do it." She said in a dead voice still not looking at him, "Just wait downstairs."
It surprised Quil, not that she would insist on doing it herself, she had always been independent, but that she would refuse to change in front of him. She had never done that before, excepting the few times she had been naked after getting out of the shower. But here with her arm broken and having faced multiple traumatic events he wanted to argue that he should at least stay in case she changed her mind about needing help.
"Claire." he said in a reasonable voice.
But she finally looked up at him and he could see in her eyes that she wasn't being stubbornly independent, she was just not going to change here in front of him. Not now, not ever.
It hurt him to think of the trust she had lost in him. He realized that after his stunt with Leah last night he had no right to expect any better, but he didn't like it, he wanted to stay as close to her as he could and help her as much as she needed.
"Alright." He sighed putting his hands up in surrender. "I'll be downstairs waiting to take you home when you're ready."
"Thank you." She said simply as he got up and went to the door.
He wanted to turn around and go back to her, to hold her, to apologize, to explain things to her but he knew that it would be a mistake too. So, he just walked out the door, closed it softly behind him and blew out a big breath as he went to wait in the garage for Claire.
She was ready surprisingly fast, especially considering her broken arm. Within about five minutes she was coming down the stairs looking young and fresh. Quil hadn't liked the way that the lipstick she had been wearing the night before made her look older. Claire was beautiful, what did she need to look like she was in her twenties for? She seemed like she had combed out her hair, and washed face. He suspected she had done that cute thing she used to do where she would brush her teeth with her finger and his toothpaste any time she stayed the night unexpectedly. She would always make a face and say how weird it was that his toothpaste was cinnamon flavored.
She didn't say anything, she just walked up to him where he was sitting on the hood of the Camaro waiting for her.
"You ready?" he asked her.
She just nodded, Uh-oh we're back to nonverbal communication- he thought to himself.
"You look nice." He said trying to engage her.
She looked up at him and gave him maybe half a smile before she walked around him to get in the passenger side of the car. He hopped up and quickly went before her to open the car door for her. She obviously wasn't expecting him to and she jumped at his close proximity to her. He quickly put his hand behind her to catch her when she jumped. She seemed to visibly relax against his touch but did nothing to get closer or touch him back, she just stood there for a second with his hand on her back and then she slid into the car without looking at him. He closed the door softly, before he blew out a breath as he ran a hand through his grown-out hair, he hadn't cut it since the last time he had seen Claire.
He clearly had a lot of work to do before they could get back to what they had been. But he was more than willing to do it, just as long as she let him stay with her this time.
It was silent as he got in the car and pulled out of the shop. She just sat there stoically until he finally said,
"So, do I ever get to hear about the accident?"
He had been dying to find out what had happened since the moment he had seen her. She had tried to blame cheerleading at first but Quil had a tough time imagining what kind of cheerleading accident would leave her with that amount of damage.
She seemed surprised to hear him speak, it took her a second while she swallowed before she said,
"It was a week ago today. Bennett and I were leaving one of my competitions when we got rear ended. The car was pushed through one lane of traffic and into the next where we were hit on my side by a bus from one of the competing schools."
She explained it as if she was giving a report of the past week's weather.
Quil was completely stunned for a second as he took in all the details of such a brutal accident. He realized his hands were shaking as he said in a hurt voice,
"And you didn't call me?!"
She seemed to have a little more life in her when she responded,
"I told my mom to. But then once I was out of the hospital, I didn't know how to let you know….. That was a big part of why I came over last night."
And they had come around to last night. He knew they needed to talk about it, but he wanted more details about the accident first. They were just pulling up in front of her house when he asked,
"Why didn't your mom call me?"
Claire seemed a little embarrassed but said,
"She thought that you might have come on to me… That that was why…." she took a deep breath and continued, "…why I asked you to leave."
He just took a breath and looked forward out the windshield. They were already parked with the car turned off, but he needed a second to process the fact that Susan had thought he had come on to her then fifteen-year-old daughter.
Claire quickly said,
"I thought she had called you, at the hospital. I thought you knew and just didn't come."
He immediately turned and gave her a shocked and angry look,
"Claire!"
How could she ever think that? That he just wouldn't come, when she was hurt, when she needed him.
"As soon as she told me she hadn't called you and why, I told her the truth."
She told him honestly.
"Which is what?" He asked her, thinking about how he had tried to kiss her right before she had kicked him out of her life.
"That you would never do that."
He was relieved, he couldn't hide it. He was glad that she knew that. He was about to grab her hand when she surprised him by reaching around herself with her left hand to open her door and saying,
"Thanks for the ride."
"Claire, wait." He said startled.
She just turned to look at him with a blank look on her face. He wasn't sure if he thought she wasn't seeing him at all or else seeing him clearly for the first time. Either way, this wasn't the way she used to always look at him, with love, maybe even admiration. This look… she wasn't even mad, it was just nothing. As if a stranger had asked her to stop for a second to ask her a question. He was so stunned by this that it took him a second before he could speak,
"We…. we need to talk about last night."
She seemed surprised and then turned forward before she said in a quiet voice,
"No, we don't."
"Claire," he said in a semi-whiny voice. She had to know that they needed to talk about it if they wanted to get past it.
She didn't respond, she just took a breath and turned back to look expectantly at him. It was clearly the only chance he was going to get to clarify what had happened with Leah. He just struggled for words for a moment before saying,
"…. Eh….. It was a mistake."
She rolled her eyes as she looked away from him again,
"You really don't have to explain." She said like she didn't want to hear it.
"Yes, Claire, I do." He tried but she immediately came back with,
"No, Quil, you don't. It's fine. If you want to be with Leah, go for it. In fact, you have my blessing, at least one of us should be with the person we want." while looking out the windshield at her street in front of them.
Quil was almost shocked into silence before he could say in a soft voice,
"Claire, I don't want to be with Leah."
She simply shrugged,
"Have a relationship, just have casual sex. Look, whatever it is, I don't need to know, okay? It's your life. Neither of us chose to have our lives irreversibly twisted together like they are, but that's the way it is so let's just move on, alright?"
She seemed to get upset as she finished and opened the car door, she stepped out before he could stop her. He quickly got out of the car and said over top of it.
"Claire, wait! It's not like that. I don't want to be with Leah. Last night was a mistake. I was drunk and stupid and in pain and she was just…. there…"
He felt like his explanation wasn't coming out right, but she had stopped walking away and turned back around to him, starting calmly over the car,
"I never had sex with him. I never had sex with Bennett. I was holding on to my virginity, like some idiot! Thinking that you and I were some sort of stupid soulmates or something, and now I will NEVER get that chance again. So, go have casual-drunk-she-was-just-there-sex with Leah because I really don't care!" She finished before giving him a scathing look.
Quil actually was stunned into silence this time. He didn't know that Claire had been saving herself for him. They had never even talked about it. Sex wasn't a tabooed subject between them, the subject of when or who she would give her virginity to had just never come up. But realizing now that she had been putting off Bennett and holding out for him… it suddenly made last night the biggest mistake of his entire stupid life.
"Claire, I…. I didn't know… I should've….. Claire, I'm sorry." He said knowing that it would never be enough for the way he had hurt her.
"Sorry for what, Quil!?" She asked exasperatedly, "Sorry that I showed up? Sorry that she was there? Sorry that my boyfriend turned into a stupid werewolf!? Sorry that you imprinted on me fourteen freaking years ago!?"
He didn't know what to say, she was obviously hurt, and he didn't know how to fix it. He just stood there helplessly before she blew out a big breath and said,
"Just go home, Quil. What more is there to say to each other?"
She turned to walk up to the house, and he was suddenly panicked she wouldn't let him come back again.
"Claire!"
She paused where she was and looked back at him expectantly.
In a small pleading voice, he begged, "Please. Please let me come back."
She just evaluated him for a moment before she nodded at him. He was extremely relieved and blew out a large breath he had been holding in.
"Tonight? Can I come see you tonight?" He asked quickly.
"That's fine." She said in a defeated voice before she turned and walked the rest of the way into her house.
He sighed relieved and despite everything, excited. He had the prospect of seeing Claire again for the first time in four months. He finally got back in his car and drove away with a smile on his face.