Quil Ateara and the Impossible Claire
Chapter Ten: Make Me
Claire's POV

I didn't hear from Quil for four days. Actually, it was three days and twenty two and a half hours, but who's counting? Okay, I was totally counting. It was the worst 3.9375 days of my life. At least it was up to that point.

He called me on Thursday afternoon while I was on my way home from school. I ripped my phone out of my pocket when I felt it buzzing and I nearly died when I saw it was Quil. No, seriously. I stopped breathing. I stared blankly at my phone for two more buzzes before I came to and answered it.

"Quil?!" I said breathlessly.

"Hi." I stopped breathing again at the sound of his voice. This was going to be a difficult conversation. Fortunately, he cut it short by saying, "Jake said you wanted to talk to me, so I was wondering if we could meet up." He said it very deadpan, with no inflection at the end to indicate a question.

"Yeah!" I cried. "Yeah, that's great! Just let me know when and where!"

"How about I meet you at your house? I'll probably beat you there since you're walking." He was probably right.

"Sure! Okay!" My voice sounded absurdly excited in conjunction with his emotionless one, but I couldn't stop myself. I could finally explain and fix this and get Quil to get over me and make it like this never happened! Or something like that.

"All right. See you soon," he replied, and then hung up before I could say anything else.

Quil did not beat me home because I practically ran. I sat nervously on the couch, rehearsing what I was going to say in my mind. Suddenly, the front door opened. I leapt up, and in walked...Carly. I groaned and plopped back down on the couch.

"Are you not happy to see me?" Carly asked.

"You're fine. I was just hoping you were someone else," I grumbled.

"And by 'someone,' you mean 'Quil?'"

"Um...yes," I replied. I hadn't told Carly what happened, and I raised an eyebrow at her questioningly.

"Don't look at me like that," she snapped. "It's just obvious you two are having a fight. He hasn't been over here in days." She turned on her heel and went into the kitchen, slamming her way to a glass of water.

I stared after her. "Are you in a bad mood?" I called.

"Not at all," she said, sounding very much like she was in a bad mood. Which doesn't happen very often.

I was tempted not to ask, because I didn't want to get involved in another drama while I was still resolving my own, but I couldn't just ignore her. She was my sister. "Yeah, you're in a bad mood," I told her as she came back into the living room with her water.

"Well, you would be too if you just found out your boyfriend of five months," she said, as if this were the longest time ever, "had been cheating on you with your friend for four of those months."

"What?!" I cried, leaping up again. "Greg cheated on you?!"

"His name is Gary, Claire. Honestly. I know you don't care, but you could at least pretend sometimes."

"I do care! I just never liked him anyway, so I didn't like to hear about him!"

"You've never liked any of my boyfriends!" she (rightly) told me.

"Because they're all jerks like Gary!" I replied. "I don't want to fight with you, Carly, I want to help you."

She softened towards me, but she still looked mad as hell. I was impressed. "I know. I'm sorry."

"So what did you do?" I asked.

"I dumped him, of course."

"Good. I'm sorry, Carly. I really am," I said.

She shrugged. "It's okay." There were tears shimmering in her eyes, but she forced herself to smile. That was Carly in a nutshell. "He wasn't worth my time."

"No shit."

"I'll be okay," she reassured me. "What's going on with you and Quil?"

Just as I was about to answer, someone knocked on the door. I launched myself towards the door. Carly headed towards the stairs. "Don't worry, you'll tell me later," she informed me before she disappeared.

I wrenched the door open and sure enough, it was Quil. Seeing him standing there immediately caused all my well-thought out and practiced explanations and reasonings to fly right out of my head. He had his hand stuffed into the pockets of his jeans and his white t-shirt was dirty and grass-stained. He was also barefoot.

When he saw me glance at his feet, he shrugged. "I ran here."

"You ran? How'd you get here so fast? And barefoot?" I asked stupidly.

"I can run fast," he said simply. When I still looked confused, he added, "As a wolf."

"Oh! Oh, right, gotcha," I said, shaking my head vigorously. "Duh."

"So, can I come in?" he asked after an awkward moment of silence.

He's asking to come in? Maybe this was even worse than I thought. "Sure!" I stood back and shut the door behind him. He sat on the armchair and didn't settle in. He looked ready to bolt, or as if he didn't plan on staying long.

I returned to my seat on the couch and tried to remember all the great things I had planned on saying. I couldn't think of any of them.

"So...," he said after more uncomfortable silence. "Jake said you wanted to talk to me?" He was prompting me.

"Yeah. I um...well...." Why was this so hard? Talking to Quil was never hard! I fidgeted nervously and shifted position.

"Come on, Claire, you called me 47 times the last few days. You must have something to say, so talk."

I winced. Quil never spoke to me that way. Then again, he'd never been upset with me either. And by "upset," I mean "hurt beyond all recognition." I steeled myself for what I had to say. "Quil, I never meant to hurt you -" I began.

He snorted. "You threw a book at me."

"I mean emotionally," I snapped. I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. This had to go right. "I talked to Leah after I left your house the other day. Although I'm sure you know that, since you guys can hear each other's thoughts and all," I joked, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't help.

"Actually, I didn't know that," he deadpanned.

"Oh. Why not?"

He shrugged. "Because she didn't want me to, apparently. Leah's the best at hiding her thoughts."

"Oh," I repeated. "Well, I talked to her after I left your house, and she explained a few things a bit more for me. About...about imprinting and all that." I forced myself to say the word. Had to address the elephant in the room.

Quil said nothing, waiting for me to continue.

"Um...anyway, first of all I want to apologize for freaking out so much. It wasn't necessary. I just – you're my best friend. And I think that's how we are supposed to be. Best friends."

"Why did you kiss me, then?" he demanded suddenly.

"Because I wanted to see what it felt like! Because it was different and new! I don't know!"

"And what did it feel like?" he asked.

Amazing, I thought. Stop it. Best friend. "Different and new," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "Different and new in a good way?" he pursued.

"Different and new in a different and new way! I was just experimenting, Quil. Isn't that allowed?"

"Not on me."

"Well, I didn't know."

"Claire -"

"Quil, listen. You're my best friend, and I care about you a lot. More than anything. I don't want to lose you. I know you imprinted, but Leah said that imprinting can be different. That we can stay best friends. If I wanted. And," I said hopefully, "if you were willing."

He looked at me with big brown eyes, all the fight leaving him, and I wanted to just hug him, he looked so sad. I'd never seen that look on happy, easy-going Quil's face. After a long moment, he said, "That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes," I emphasized. "You're my best friend."

Quil stared at me for several beats and I thought my heart was going to self-destruct, it hurt so bad. And then he smiled the weakest, lamest smile ever and said, "Okay. I'll...I can do that."

I exhaled sharply. "You can?" I asked. I needed to hear it twice to believe it.

"Yeah." He sounded like he was convincing himself as well as me. "I can. I'd rather be your friend than be nothing to you."

I burst into tears of relief, and then I launched myself off the couch, over the coffee table, and into him, throwing my arms tightly around his neck. "You could never be nothing to me!" I sobbed into his shirt.

He put his arms around me hesitantly at first, but after a moment, he hugged me tighter, burying his face into my hair.

"Quil," I said.

"Hm?" he rumbled.

"Um...," I said, leaning back and wiping my eyes. "Will you...you know, date other girls now?"

He grimaced. "Can we not talk about this right now? Please?"

"But you should! I want you to be happy, Quil, really."

"Please, Claire?"

I was tempted to push the issue, but I backed off. "Okay," I agreed. "Okay." I nestled back into him, and reveled in having my best friend back. Quil stayed for dinner, and I was hoping he'd stay for a movie, but he left, saying he had to go over to Embry's.

"You agreed to being 'just friends?' Are you stupid?" Embry demanded.

"What was I supposed to do? Cut myself out of her life completely?" Quil was sitting on Embry's couch next to Jake. Both Embry and Jake were staring at him, incredulous and pitying.

"That would be a lot easier on you, so yeah," Jake replied.

"That's the thing! It wouldn't be easier! It would be so much worse," Quil said.

Embry and Jake exchanged a glance.

"You guys haven't imprinted and you aren't with anybody, you don't understand. It gets physically painful to be away from her and to know when she's upset and to not go to her. I tried to stay away. I tried for four days and I almost went batshit," Quil said.

"Four days?" Embry said sarcastically. "Wow, that's a long time."

"Well...it was three days and twenty two hours. And a half. Twenty two and a half hours. And it felt like a long time," Quil insisted over the snorts of laughter coming from his two friends.

"Quil, in all seriousness, are you just supposed to go along pretending you don't feel anything for her more than friendship?" Jake asked.

"I did it before," Quil countered.

"What happens when she gets asked to winter formal in December?" Jake asked.

"Or when she goes swimming at the beach next summer and she's wearing a tiny swimsuit?" Embry added.

"Or when she gets a boyfriend? How are you supposed to just pretend you don't care?"

"Or that you don't want to jump her. Because you know you do."

"I'll – shit, guys, I don't know, I'll deal with it when it happens!" Quil cried.

"You will not. You'll lose it, dude. The only reason you handled it before was because you had getting together with her to look forward to. Now that you don't have that, you will go insane. Or die. Or go insane and then die," Embry rambled.

Quil opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again. His shoulders sagged and he wilted. "You're right," he said quietly. "I can't do it. I was her brother when she was a kid, and that was fine. I was her best friend after that, and that was fine. But I can't be just her friend anymore. I can't."

"You fell in love with her at some point?" Jake asked.

"I guess so. I didn't really acknowledge it until now, but yeah."

"Could you...I'm not trying to be insensitive here, Quil, but could you ever get over it? Could you ever find someone else?" Embry asked tentatively.

Shaking his head, Quil said, "I honestly don't think so. I wish I could say yes, but I don't think so."

"I don't even believe that she doesn't feel anything more for you. I bet she doesn't even know it," Jake grumbled. "There's no way that girl isn't in love with you. Not from what I've seen. I mean, it's her choice, but I think she's making a mistake."

"Well," Embry said, "there's only one thing to do then."

"And what's that?" Quil asked glumly.

Embry shrugged nonchalantly. "Make her want you."

"What? What do you mean? She doesn't want me."

"Exactly. So what you have to do is make her. Make her jealous, make her uncomfortable, make her 'catch you' just after you've shifted back to being a human, if you get what I'm saying."

"Make her see him naked?" Jake supplied skeptically.

"Yes! Make her see you in a way that is completely too friendly and force her to admit how she feels for you. Make her. Because otherwise you'll die and go insane. But not in that order," Embry said.

Jacob nodded. "I hate to say it, but I think he's right. Which doesn't happen often."

Embry slugged him, then turned to Quil. "Get out my house. Right now. I don't want to listen to you bemoaning your misfortune in love anymore. Get out of my house, and make her see what she's missing."