Howdy :)
So, I like this chapter. I don't love it, but I like it. The beginning is great. It makes me laugh, and smile. And I hope you do too. :)
The end might be a little hard to understand, but...eh...if it is let me know. I'm planning on updating tomorrow but if I don't, don't get mad. Okay. Read, review, be merry. (Especially the reviewing and the being merry.)
I'd like to thank Vintage Bluejeans for her help and advice...thanks to her you guys might even get another chapter tonight. We'll see though. Anyways...
DISCLAIMER: Don't own them. Never have. Never will. They're Stephenie Meyer's, I'm just borrowing them.
Tuesdays in the life of Kimberly Miller were rarely extraordinary. Even if they were anything special, it was nothing to be celebrated and was soon forgotten.
So when I woke up on that dark dank Tuseday, I wasn't expecting anything. The morning played out as most mornings did in the Miller household: Brandon griped about the early hour and our cabinet's lack of Lucky Charms; Lucas finally showed up – hung over and dazed – and trudged lazily up into his room; Dad milled about in his usual psychotic morning-loving daze; and I took a shower – which was cut short by my father and his insatiable need to do laundry before he went to work.
In fact the only even semi-odd thing about that morning was the snoring lump of uncle sprawled out on our futon.
Sir-snores-a-lot didn't interfere too much with the routine though, so we hardly noticed him.
Brandon and I sloshed through the murky puddles on the way to the bus stop without any form of conversation; again, a very normal occurrence. We stood in line with the five other poor sods forced to board the Quileute bus, separating ourselves into two groups – high school and middle school – just as the stinky yellow travesty pulled up.
The middle school children filed on in front of us and we scuttled after them obediently. Cara Sanders was in front of me in line. Normally, I didn't pay any attention to the person I walked behind; but Cara smelled like pee and it made my nostrils burn. My eyes were focused on her as she took a seat next to her urine-smelling friend Greg Laurell – so I didn't notice the odd seating arrangements farther back until I had no choice but to pay attention.
Three familiar faces caught my attention and my stomach dropped to my toes. Jared, Heather and Carol Fisher – back from her "violence provoked" suspension – all had their eyes locked on my face.
Something was off. They were in the wrong places. Carol and Jared usually sat together, while Heather and I were together. Today Carol and Heather were together…and Jared was sitting by himself.
Alone. Without Carol.
His was also the only available seat unless in wanted to squish in next to Cara and the piss-pie gang. The smile Heather shot me told me she'd planned it to be this way.
Let's see: sit by my one and only love, or smell like a port-a-potty all day?
I gulped and plopped myself down next to Jared. I was careful not to bump him or look at him when I pulled off my book bag and settled it on my lap. Half of my butt was hanging off of the seat in my attempt to not jostle him.
Holy snot he smells good!
"Felling better?" His voice was like a siren; as soon as I heard it I had to look. My eyes sang to me as they drank in his familiar features and an involuntary smile crept onto my face.
Oh, Jared.
His lips curled into the grin I'd seen so many times, but never been on the serving end of.
I had to look away or I would have done something really, really stupid.
Easy girl, breathe. That's the ticket. Don't look…don't do it…ah!
Despite my strong mental persuasion not to…I couldn't take my eyes off of him for too long.
"Kim, are you feeling better?" He repeated. This time I found my voice and answered him with an over-zealous affirmative.
His arm snaked out towards me and my heart stopped. Literally froze mid-beat in the center of my chest. Jared's hand slid between my back and the seat, sending tingles wherever it touched. It curled around my rib cage on the other side, and he pulled the other half of my butt up onto the seat so that I was closer to him.
"I don't bite, promise."
I tried to laugh without sounding hysterical – I really wish I hadn't. The restraint caused my nasal passage to constrict in on itself, and the un-holy result was my very loud, very embarrassing snort.
Oh holy shit.
My attempt to not laugh turned into a battle with tears as Jared erupted into laughter. I turned my face to the side and bit down hard on my lip.
Ah, fate. It hated me. Every time I was alone with Jared – the one person on earth I really wanted to show that I wasn't some kind of idiotic loser – I did something like snorting, or pulling away from him when he tried to kiss me, and the whole attempt at normalcy was blown.
Well, I thought. It's over. He's never going to be nice to you again, and all the progress you've made will mean nothing because he's not going to even remember you exist… My teeth sawed into my lower lip until it was bleeding, but I didn't pay any attention; I was trying to ignore my own thoughts. They were making me feel horrible – like the idiot I really was.
I felt a rush of warmth on the side of my face and when I turned to see what had caused it my heart leapt into my throat. (The poor organ was having a really bad day.)
Jared's face was so close…so close.
"You're going to bite that thing off if you're not careful." He murmured and pulled down on my chin with his big warm hand so that my lip slipped out of my teeth. His fingers lingered on my skin and I almost started hyperventilating.
Jared's face seemed to be getting closer and closer – almost like he was leaning forward – and I wanted to believe that he was trying to kiss me again. But why would he be? I was Kim. And he was Jared. Jared, the heaven-sent angel with the melting pot eyes and skin as warm as a flame. Jared.
When I finally recognized that he was in fact leaning forward, I swallowed hard. This time I would not lean away. I was determined. My hands curled around the strap to my book bag like an anchor.
Do. Not. Move.
What happened next was proof that someone up there really had it out for me.
Our bus hit a bump in the road, and as fate would have it, instead of a hot and steamy lip lock, Jared's forehead smashed into mine. The collision cracked loudly.
I saw stars and swirls and bright colors – I thought I was going to pass out.
There was a strange sound to my left, and a warm feeling on my side. My head cleared a little bit and I realized that the warmth was from Jared's hand, and the weird sound, was his raucous laughter.
"Someone really hates me," he hiccupped, and my brow furrowed. That hurt though, so I un-wrinkled it and settled for jutting out my bitten lip. I thought it was odd, that Jared was speaking what I had been thinking only moments before. Very odd.
It then occurred to me that maybe our foreheads had smacked together so hard our bodies had been switched or something; but I checked the face to the left and it was his, so I was still Kim.
Darn. It could have been fun to be inside his body.
"Are you okay Kim? I know my forehead's like a rock." I smirked at him and nodded; but I guess my word wasn't good enough. He grasped my head between his two big warm hands and pressed a thumb lightly on the collision point.
I winced.
"Sorry about that." He grumbled and released me.
"It's okay."
Gah! Barbie voice was back.
"So…" Jared shook his shaggy bangs into his eyes and jutted his chin towards the window. Outside it was gray – dark gray. "Nice day huh?"
Thunderstorm's coming. I realized.
Waves crashed against the beach in angry strikes, each time getting closer and closer to the berm that separated school grounds from the ocean. Up above, the great green tops on the Evergreen Trees swayed with the wild wind. Branches cracked and popped, only to crash through the undergrowth and land on the ground with a resounding boom! The only word I could think of to describe it was nightmarish. In a movie, this would be when the pretty little girl gets chased by the evil monster, only to be saved by her handsome hero.
I stole a glance at Jared before the bus pulled to a stop and we all got off. The strange gray light glinted off of his dark brown eyes in a way that made them look midnight black. A flash of lightning illuminated the sky and cast his features into a distorted mask.
For a moment, I wondered if he would be the monster, or the hero.
Then the lightning passed and normal lighting returned. He was the same handsome Jared I had been infatuated with for so long, and the answer came to me in a blast of intuition.
He was the hero. Even if he was the monster…he would always be the hero to me.
xXx
"Kimberly Miller?"
Mrs. Reece was on a grading rampage again in English, and for the last forty minutes she had been belting out the test scores of every senior to pass through her third period class. Tyler Danvers – who had spent half of the previous day complaining about the test – had pulled an A, so I hoped that maybe I hadn't done too terribly…
"Yes ma'am?"
"I thought you said you studied." The old hag squawked and twirled around the scantron paper to show the entire class my grade.
A big fat F stared right back at me and my mouth fell open. I heard a few people snicker in the back of the room and I turned to glare at them; but my gaze caught on Jared's face.
He mouthed "I'm sorry," then held up his own test paper to show that he hadn't done any better.
I had to step outside of myself for a moment so I could assess the situation without going all loopy at the sight of him.
This strange new…acquaintance-ship with Jared was overwhelming. Why now? Ten years after I fell in love with him, he notices I'm alive. He was talking to me and making me laugh…trying to kiss me? It made no sense. Now, I wasn't complaining – because all I'd wished for since I was seven was for this to happen – but I was just…confused.
I'd tried telling Heather about it, but all she did was croon over how cute he was and how amazing it was that he was finally talking to me. She said that "boys were always confusing" and they "always play hard to get." Heather'd had more boyfriends than I could count on my fingers and toes so I trusted her judgment on men – but for some reason I didn't feel like the same principles applied to the subject of my affections.
No, something had changed. Had he finally smelled the strawberry shampoo in my hair? Did he like the lip-gloss I was wearing now? There were so many things that I had changed about myself over the years to better…acquaint myself with Jared. It just seemed odd that now he noticed them.
But maybe that was all this was, and I was just over-reacting. He just simply hadn't noticed me before. A very plausible notion, since I was invisible to most of QTS anyways.
With that idea in mind, I twisted in my seat to face him again. His mouth turned up in a wide smile and his eyes twinkled. This time – I felt my heart react calmly. I guess I was getting used to his smiles. My own face mirrored his for a moment, and my mind was at ease. For a moment I could look directly into his eyes and pretend that he really was beginning to care for me – that he really did want to kiss me and not just because I was a girl. Because I was Kim.
But only for a moment.
Then I stepped back into my own body and the intensity of his gaze was too much. I whipped back around to face the front of the room where Mrs. Reece had just subjected poor Hannah Waters to her evil glare.
I was Kim.
And Jared Anthony Brooks would never be mine.
Not even if he wanted to kiss me.
Not even if – on some warped level – he kind of cared about my well being.
Not even if I could stop being such an insecure idiot…
Not even if my feet fell off and I went blind and a meteor struck earth.
Jared was Jared.
And I was Kim.
And she was Kim. :( Please review. Tell you what. If I get...seven, before I go to bed. You'll get an update. Promise. :)
