Disclaimer- The fabulous characters of my story, with the exclusion of a few, belong to the wonderful Stephenie Meyer and come from her Twilight series.
"You dropped this."
My eyes closed. I took a deep breath, exhaling in a soft sigh.
It was instantaneous. My muscles relaxed. My heart still raced, but it wasn't the same, I could tell. The uncomfortable knot in my stomach was replaced with the feeling of a thousand butterflies frantically beating their wings. I felt like a completely different person right away. The ache in my chest was gone. Not just the one from today, but the one that had been constantly present for so long. Years worth of tension left my body in a single second.
The voice wasn't high. I think maybe I thought it would be. It was low, not masculine, but strong. And quiet.
And hers. I hadn't turned around yet to look. But I didn't need to, to know it was her. No sound, but hers, could be like that to my ears. Like someone were next to me, singing softly in my ear. The sound was soft and smooth, and flowed through me.
I turned slowly. Nothing around me caught my attention. I didn't notice anyone bustling about, didn't hear any more obscure conversations. I think my entire being was just tuning into her at that point, blocking everything else out.
"You dropped this back there."
My eyes found her just as she said this. I was pretty sure that this was what peace felt like. When you got to that place where everything was just so right, the world had fallen into place, and you could leave it right at that moment with no regrets.
She was very much the same, and so different, all at the same time. The man she handed the paper to towered above her, and he was quite a bit shorter than me. Her hair was still in short layers; it was pulled back into small pigtails.
Blue jeans, white shirt with some kind of red pattern across it, tennis shoes, a lot like the first time I had seen her. I was viewing her from the side. Her skin was very pale, and she had dark circles under her eyes; under the one I could currently see, at least, like she hadn't slept enough. A fringe of bangs cut across the side of her forehead that faced me. Her cheekbones were more prominent than the ones that had played through my thoughts every day. I could see she had long, dark lashes. Her chin pointed slightly, giving way to a slender neck. Her collar bone was prominent too, just above the scoop neck of her shirt.
She was thinner. A lot thinner than she had been that day in the forest. She had been muscular then, and she still was now, but it was obvious she had lost quite a bit of mass. Her arm extended to hand him the paper. Her arms were long too; they almost appeared too long for her short frame, and looked painfully thin. The man thanked her, giving her a wide smile. Her lips curved into a tight one in return, and she turned on her heel to walk away.
She turned in my direction, and for a fraction of a second she was facing me. Her eyes were focused on the ground, and soon she was walking away quickly, gracefully, her feet seeming to almost float across the floor.
"Jake? Jacob? Come on, we need to get you home. Jake, are you listening to me?" Rachel's voice broke through. I wasn't sure how long she'd been talking to me. I didn't look at Rachel. My eyes stayed glued to her retreating figure.
"I need car keys. Now. You guys can go. I'm fine now." I spoke very calmly, still watching her. I held out my hand to no one in particular.
"I…what…what is with you?"
"Jacob?" Sam spoke slowly.
She was getting further away. Luckily the walkway was a long, straight line, so I didn't lose sight of her.
"Jake?"
This time it was Embry who spoke. I moved my eyes briefly from her back, focused on him for a moment, and smiled. He looked shocked, like I had never done that before. "Destiny…right? Now someone give me their damn keys."
His eyes widened. "Where?"
"I'm not even going to know if I don't get someone's keys fast!" My eyes left him and searched her out, quickly finding her. Lucky for me, she had stopped at a kiosk and seemed to be looking through some jewelry.
My eyes darted back to Embry. He was quickly pulling his keys from his pocket. He tossed them to me.
"She doesn't need a huge group following her, so don't follow me," I said firmly as I began walking in her direction.
"I'm coming," Quil spoke up, without hesitation. "Two won't be any worse than one would."
I nodded, not even looking at him, as I kept walking forward.
"What is he talking about? What's going on?" I heard Rachel demand.
"Let's go…I'll explain," Embry's voice drifted to me.
"Where?" Quil asked from my side.
"She's at that jewelry kiosk there in front of the shoe store. Blue jeans, white shirt."
"Are…you sure?" he asked, sounding as if he already knew the answer.
I rolled my eyes. "Did you really just ask me that?"
He cleared his throat. "Yeah…pretty dumb I guess. Do you…feel ok…are you ok?"
I watched her begin to walk away from the kiosk. We were maybe twenty yards behind her. She walked quickly, purposefully, her head down.
She was here. I was looking at her. It seemed impossible. I had been sure. That dream had been so…definite, in my mind at least. But she was here. My heart thumped in my chest. My breath still came a little quicker than normal.
But I felt lighter than I could ever remember. The saying 'the weight of the world on my shoulders' suddenly made perfect sense; because it literally felt as if this huge weight had been lifted from me.
"I am now," I answered softly as I watched her. She darted in and out of the small groups of people. She was careful not to get too close to anyone. Like being around so many people made her uneasy. This wasn't really an observation; not like most observations I made. I had always been fairly intuitive with people; but this was not intuition. It was simply something I knew. Like she was next to me, telling me herself.
"What do we do now?"
What was I going to do now? I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to walk right up to her. Look into her face, find out the color of her eyes. Touch her cheek. Hug her tightly. I wanted to make sure she was never out of my sight again, hide her behind me and protect her from the world. I wanted to walk up to her and tell her I loved her; that I may not know her name, but I needed to be with her.
I also knew I could not do that. I knew she wouldn't react well. I had no idea how I knew this; I just did. Of course, most people wouldn't react well to something like that from a stranger, but hers would be worse, I somehow just knew.
"Jake?"
I cleared my throat and slowed my walk as she stopped at a storefront, looking at something through the window.
"I…don't know. Right now I guess I just follow her. I don't think that…approaching her would be the best thing."
We had stopped walking now, since she still didn't move, and were pretending to look into the store to our right.
"She's a tiny little thing," he said quietly, peering at her out of the corner of his eye.
I frowned, scrutinizing her very carefully again. The more I appraised her, the thinner she looked. Thinner than she should be, I thought, but still somehow very athletic. "She wasn't that small the first time I saw her. Well, I mean, she was short, but not so skinny."
He nodded. "She is seriously short. You're a good foot and a half taller than her."
I nodded absently, still watching her. I was looking at her from the side again, but the other side this time. The circles under her eyes were etched deep. She was so pale. And her features looked…different. The same, but like she had changed a lot. Of course, it had been years since I'd imprinted, but I still didn't think she should look so different. And she looked young. I wondered how old she actually was.
"How do you feel Jake? I mean…what is it like, you know, having not seen her for so long?"
I took a moment to think before answering. "I feel…complete," I sighed. "I want more than anything to go to her right now. But even if I didn't, even if I never spoke to her, I think I could just die content right now. Just…just knowing…that I was wrong. That she's alive, and that I just get to…look at her." I smiled. "She's beautiful," I murmured softly.
She was beautiful. The bone structure in her face was very delicate, prominent. Her tiny body was lithe and graceful. Her lips were thin, light pink. She wore little, if any makeup, and she definitely didn't need it. Her nose was long, narrow. I wished I could see her eyes. I wanted to know what color they were. I thought maybe brown, but a soft brown, not like they had been in my dreams. Or maybe hazel.
"Why don't you just go talk to her? You don't have to, you know, profess your love or anything. But you've been waiting a long time for this. Go and…ask her the time or…her name…something." His voice was frustrated.
I smiled. He didn't understand that, for the moment, this was plenty. And that somewhere, somehow, I knew that the best thing to do right now was hang back.
Her name. I hadn't even thought of that. I had wondered so many times what her name had been. What her name is, I amended. I had taken to referring to her as if she were gone. But she wasn't. She was right here.
"Don't you want to know her name?" he pressed.
I opened my mouth to answer.
"Calli!"
I watched her turn around. I followed her gaze to see the tall blonde who rushed toward her. The blonde was scowling. She scowled back, and turned around to look back through the window.
The blonde girl reached her quickly and they started having a conversation in hushed voices, both looking annoyed. I didn't even try to listen to what they were saying, I just wanted to enjoy watching her
Calli. I was matching the name to the face. I had never attempted to guess what her name might be. She had lived on in my thoughts as her, or she, or the girl. Calli fit her perfectly. It sounded to me like how she looked. Dainty, but strong. Feminine. Beautiful.
"Well, that problem's solved," Quil murmured. They started walking, and we followed behind.
"…his number." I caught the end of whatever the blonde was saying.
"Don't want it, don't care," Calli replied, her voice annoyed. Shivers raced through me this time when she spoke.
"Whatever," the other girl chuckled. "You're nuts. I'll call him." She flipped her long hair over her shoulder. She was much taller than Calli, a good five foot eight or nine. She was heavier than Calli too. Not quite big, but not small either.
They started down the escalator. Quil and I waited to make sure there was a good amount of distance between us before we stepped on. There were a few people between us. The girls were silent. Calli suddenly dropped her head into her hand.
"You should go to the doctor," the blonde said reproachfully.
"I don't need to go to a doctor," Calli retorted icily. The blonde mimicked her as she said it, so they were both speaking at the same time.
They stepped off the escalator and walked quickly toward the exit.
I pulled Embry's car keys out of my pocket. "Go out and get the car," I said, holding the keys out to Quil. "I don't want to lose them."
Quil grabbed them without a word and hurried ahead of me. It only took him a few long strides before he was ahead of them, out the long line of glass doors.
The blonde cocked her head to the side and watched Quil with interest. I smiled to myself. Calli didn't seem to be watching at all.
"Did you see him?" the blonde hissed.
"Nope," Calli replied nonchalantly.
They walked through the first set of doors, then the second. Quil must have booked it once he got outside. When I stepped out I could see him, already in the car, coming toward me. The girls stepped off the curb, and soon Quil was pulling up in front of me. I jumped in.
"It's lucky we were parked in the same lot," Quil remarked.
I smiled. "Yeah…lucky." They advanced up the lane that was directly in front of the doors until they reached a beat up red SUV. Calli walked around to the driver side, while the blonde got into the passenger seat, and soon they were pulling out.
"And so now we follow?" Quil asked.
"We follow."
