DOUBLE DIGIT CHAPTERS! HECK YES!
There's a boy who sits beside me in both my Math and Socials classes (thanks to some very cruel teachers), who is a jerk. He saw the beloved "Make Art Not War" button on my bag, and he promptly told everyone sitting near me that I'm apparently a hippie. Of course I guess in some ways I could be, because of the music I listen to, and some of the clothes I wear, but he was very jerk-y about it. And he kept asking me if I was "chasing the dragon", and making weird comments about ET and Free Willy. Rawr, jerk. I basically ignored him, he makes me angry. Anyone got any good tips on making voodoo dolls? Ha, just kidding.
Disclaimer: Twilight=Stephenie Meyer=love. I'm reading a Night World book again. I should really stop doing that. It messes up my writing. U2 is performing at the Grammy's! *hug for Bono*
"Um, Juliet, do you think you could maybe stop doing that?" Seth asked, careful not to take his eyes off the road as it was pretty dark out.
I ignored him. Ever since he'd confirmed that he, Embry, Jacob, and basically all of the other guys that had been at the campfire—and more—were werewolves, I hadn't spoken to him. Instead I'd spent the rest of the time flipping through the radio channels, trying to find something that was more than just static.
"If you break the toggle off, or like, break the radio, then my mom will—" he paused as if to consider what exactly his mom would do to him, and I raised my eyebrow. "Well, if I said that she'd take away my allowance, would you stop?"
I rolled my eyes, but the big grin on Seth's face when he said it made me smile a little. Then I promptly turned away from Seth so that he wouldn't see my face, and continued repeating to myself what I had been ever since we'd left the beach.
He's a wolf. Embry's a wolf. Jake's a wolf. They're all werewolf freaks, but they're still wolves. I hate wolves.
"So… what's it going to take to get you to talk to me?" Seth said, and when he received no reply from me he just continued. "You like Jacob, don't you?"
"Seth, shut up."
"HA! You said something. That means I win," he exclaimed, laughing a little.
"And what exactly do you win?" I asked, still trying to repeat my little mantra in my head. It was hard to hate Seth though, he was just so nice.
"Oh wouldn't you like to know," he said, shooting me a mock suspicious look. I laughed a little without really meaning to, and the grin on his face grew bigger.
I was about to say something, but at that moment Seth pulled up in front of my aunt's house. "I'll, um, see you later," I said grudgingly.
"We'll be in touch," he said with a conspiratorial smile. I rolled my eyes, got out of the car, and waved at him as he drove away. I made my way up to the door and dug my keys out of the small purse that I'd snuck with me after Alice had specifically banned any bags with my outfit.
It took me a few moments to find them, and in that time I felt my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. I'd gotten my phone in Australia when I was thirteen years old 'in case of emergencies' or so my mom said, but ever since then my parents had been the only ones to call me. Now I just carried it around in my pocket most of the time, because it never went off in class, and I didn't particularly care if it got stolen—no one called me anyways. So, needless to say, I was totally freaked out when my hip started buzzing.
"Oh crap, don't be dead!" I exclaimed when I tried to pick my phone up and sent it falling towards the ground. It hit the pavement with a painful sounded crack, and by the time I'd picked it up, the call had been forwarded to voice mail, but it was otherwise unharmed.
While I was fiddling with it in front of the door it started to buzz again—but this time I didn't drop it, luckily.
"Hello?" I asked, pressing it to my ear probably harder than I needed to.
"Juliet? Good. This is Alice. We really need to talk to you A-S-A-P. Is tomorrow good for you?" came Alice's voice from the other side of the phone.
"Uh," I paused, pushing some hair away from my ear and trying to figure out what she was talking about. "Tomorrow? What do you need to talk to me about?"
"Well…" Alice paused, and I could hear some voices in the background. Then there was a muffled static-y sound, before someone else's voice came on the line.
"Juliet, this is Edward. Like Alice was telling you, we really need to speak with you." He sounded so formal that I felt myself biting my nails nervously without really meaning to.
"Um, Edward, would you mind telling me what's going on?" I asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.
"I can't say much over the phone—" oh, how very James Bond of him "—but Carlisle says there's basically nothing to worry about. There's just the tiny possibility that some people…" he trailed off, as if looking for the right words.
"People meaning vampires?" I asked, trying impatiently to help.
"Yes, people meaning that," he continued, sounding the tiniest bit irritated, "some people may want to harm you, well, because you know about us, and because of your ability to read minds."
Well, at least he was being matter-of-fact, I though, shrugging, before I realized that he obviously couldn't see me over the phone. "Ok…" I began, still not entirely sure as to what I was agreeing to. "I'll come to your house tomorrow afternoon. Or, actually, is there anyway I could get a ride? I kind of don't know where it is."
When I'd been driving there with Bella, I'd been more talking with her or otherwise zoning out than paying attention to my surroundings, and with Alice I had been just focussing on not puking, as opposed to taking in the scenery.
I heard a strained sounding chuckle before Edward replied, "Of course. Someone will be there to get you. Oh, and you may want to make sure that all your doors and windows are locked tonight. Good night, Juliet."
With that he hung up, leaving me standing with my keys in my hand, the phone still to my ear, and a totally freaked out look plastered across my face. Then, as if it was planned just to completely scare me, Aunt Joan came bursting through the door with a semi-crazy grin on her face.
"Juliet! I thought I heard you! How was your night?" she asked eagerly.
"It was fine," I said in a sort of strangled voice as soon as my heart started beating again.
"Come on in and tell me all about it, I just made popcorn and I have the first four seasons of Gilmore Girls on DVD," she said, grinning, and added as an afterthought, "Oh, and sorry if I scared you…"
By the time I could assure her that it was no big deal, and that I like to keep a defibrillator in my purse at all times just for things like this, she had already disappeared back into the house. I felt a little bad, as she had clearly been all set on spending this evening by herself, but she seemed so totally fine with it that I had to smile. I sat down on the couch next to my aunt, who had a large bowl of popcorn sitting on her lap. There were DVD's laying across the coffee table, along with several dozen bottles of nail polish.
"Sorry," Aunt Joan began, gesturing at all of the stuff and laughing a little, "this is just normally what I like to do when I have the house to myself."
That struck a cord with me for some reason. So far I hadn't even seen my uncle, so wouldn't she spend every night alone? I tucked my legs underneath myself so I was sitting in a sort of lotus position on the couch. My yoga-enthused old PE teacher would be proud. And then I felt that I just had to ask;
"Aunt Joan, um, if you don't mind telling me… where's Uncle Mo?" I didn't really feel entitled to use his nickname having never met him, but I did just because I hoped that it would make my aunt feel better about answering.
The smile remained on his face for a few moments, before she seemed to digest what I'd just asked her. Then her face became sombre as she thoughtfully placed a few popcorn kernels in her mouth one by one.
"He… uh, he left," she said, turned away from me to read the back of a random DVD.
"You mean he just ditched you?" I asked, not meaning for it to come across so harsh, and then added, "Are you like, divorced?" which probably didn't help at all.
"Technically we're still married, but that's just because the paper work hasn't come through yet," she said, turning to me with a slightly wistful expression on her face which I took to mean that she wasn't totally sad about all of this.
We were quiet for a few more minutes, before I said, "Let's start with season two. I don't like Dean."
She laughed, and said, "Me neither," before putting the DVD in the machine and stretching out on her chair. Even though I had ruined a conversation earlier this evening, I had also avoided making this one any more awkward, so I thought that warranted some good karma.
"Oh, Aunt Joan?"
She made a face, which I took to mean that she either didn't want to talk, or was for some reason suddenly completely disgusted with me. "Don't call me that, it makes me feel so old. How about just Joan?"
I nodded, and smiled a little, before continuing. "Do you mind if I lock the doors and windows, and stuff? They were telling some, uh, ghost stories at the campfire…" I said, trying to come up with an excuse, and hoping she'd get the idea.
"Oh, of course. There are just latches on most of them," she said, making no move to help, but I didn't mind. "I just hope you're not too scared. I'm a bit of a horror movie buff."
I nodded, smiling, and stood up. I kept my eyes down, away from the windows, because I was oddly afraid that I'd see something out there. Instead I busied myself with the locks, and concentrated on Joan's thoughts.
Joan? Just call me 'Joan'? I'm probably the lamest aunt she's ever had. Oh well. Hmm, maybe tomorrow we could go shopping; have some girl time, or something…
Almost as soon as she thought this, she said, "Hey Juliet, how would you feel about going to Port Angeles tomorrow? Forks is basically the shopping equivalent of a small cardboard box."
I turned my head to face her—or at least the wall blocking me from the living room—and tried desperately to try and come up with some way to still be able to go to the Cullen's without hurting her feelings. In the process, my eyes darted to the glass of the window I'd been trying to lock, and I saw what, for some reason, I felt as if I'd known I would see.
Standing there against a backdrop of tall trees, and a dark sky, was a furry animal that even from this distance I could tell was a wolf. And after hearing the stories tonight, I was relatively sure that it wasn't just a regular wolf, but rather one of the guys from La Push. But who?
Seth's hair was too light to be it… I looked away, shaking my head. This was crazy, crazy. I was actually trying to figure out which person that wolf—that thing—was, but the color of their hair as people.
"Um, I'm really sorry Joan, but Alice invited me over—you know her, right? She's one of the Cullens—she's really nice, and she said that she'd be able to help me out with math, because I've been having some trouble with some of the formulas…" I said, saying the first thing that came into my head.
I chose Alice because she'd been at my aunt's house before, and I said math because I knew that Joan hated math, and so she wouldn't offer to help.
"Oh, sure, of course. It's great that you're making friends," she replied, and I heard the distinct sound of her putting popcorn into her mouth. I turned away from the window, guilt washing over me, and decided that I should at least spent tonight with her. I walked back into the living room, and took a seat, knowing—did I know? Or was it more like 'thinking'? Hoping, even?—that all of the windows and doors were locked.