A/N: I have no clue what's going on with this story. No, really, no idea what's going to happen. I'd appreciate suggestions. In da meantime, this chapter was inspired by something that IH8Abbreviations said, and recent events in my real life which, though slowly being starved, does in fact exist.
"Please, remind me why it is that we're here."
"Because all of my shirts and shorts and hand-me-downs from my brothers, and therefore all date back to like the mid-90s."
"Fine, why did I come?"
"Um..." Because I have no friends.
We're at a Target (yes, Idaho has Targets), because I'm cheap as all bloody hell, and guess what? Apparently I have a fantastically irregular body shape. I mean, I already knew that, but still. Guys, come on, not all girls are tall, skinny and flat-chested. Everything either already looks like one of my brother's shirts does on me, or attempts to accentuate my cleavage which is NOT something I want to do, or that I can do without looking like...well, never mind. I mean, maybe if, again, I were flat-chested, but I'm not, therefore: Sara can't buy clothing at Target.
Oh yeah, or something has stripes. Guess what stripes do? Accentuate your curves.
Again, not something I particularly want to do.
Hey, we're all girls here, right? Yeah. I know you're cringing.
This store has an impossibly high ceiling. I wonder if birds nest up there.
Jake shuffles awkwardly behind me as I shuffle awkwardly forward, rifling through racks of clothes. The on-sale rack, to be specific. Yes, there is an on-sale rack at Target. I told you. I'm cheap.
Blue tracksuit with teal racing stripes. Um, no.
Something black and shiny with sequins. I don't even know what article of clothing it is, and I don't care.
A skirt that looks about the same height as my underwear. Actually, I think I saw some more popular girls wearing stuff like this...
Oh, look, one of those 'whatever!' t-shirts with rhinestones.
A sky-blue shirt with pink, yellow and white stars boasts 'Daddy's Little Girl', another one behind it has an indecently low v-neck.
That's another thing: what's with the boob-boasting, fellas? The fabric around that area is scrunched, tightened, eyelet-ed, low-cut, pushing up...I mean ew, man.
"Ooh, I like this. Buy this one," Jake says, grinning at me. I look down at the atrocity held in his hand, some strange and foreign creature with fake fur and zebra stripes, it looks to be a jacket, or maybe...no, it better be a jacket. Still, that doesn't make it much better.
"Aah!" I screech. Not too loudly, though. "Get that thing away from me! It's carnivorous!"
He laughs. "What? This?" He shoves it into my face. Little plastic hairs tickle my nose.
"Gah! What the crudzorp, dude?"
"I'm evil. What's your excuse?"
"I will put my dog's electric fence collar around your neck. And padlock it. And then I'll swallow the key like a pill."
"Hey now." He grins and pulls the hideous offense away from my face.
"I wonder how many stuffed animals they had to kill to get that thing."
"Oh, the standard is about ten or twenty," I reply as he re-hooks it onto the metal bar via hanger. He looks up at me, a quieter smile on his face.
"You are a lot more fun to shop with than my sisters."
I pause. Then, finally, "You have sisters?"
"Yeah. Two."
"Oh," is all I can manage to say. It's moments like this that remind me how little I know about him. It's almost...well, I don't quite know what it is. It makes me...a little sad, I suppose, that I can see all the inner working of his soul and not understand what it means.
As he stares at me, I can tell he's feeling the same sort of almost-remorse. Over the last couple of months, it's turned out that each emotion tastes different, and each taste is different for someone else. Anger might be salt for one person and copper for another, excitement orange in a friend and lemon in a parent.
Now it's like drinking vanilla or eating a spoonful of cinnamon; somehow, this fools you into thinking that it's a good feeling right up until it reaches your mouth, it can be confused easily with anticipation like the steady climb up the hill of a roller coaster. But it's not the same at all. I taste chocolate, unsweetened baking chocolate that leaves a clammy, hot feel in my mouth and that burns my throat.
I've got a pillar. It's got my name on it. I can feel it, sometimes, when he sleeps over (on my roof). He's not quite so guarded when he's asleep.
I try and feel it again now, wedging my way in between the cracks in his armor. Everyone has cracks, some are fewer and smaller, some people have gaping holes, but everyone has them. Even me.
So I wiggle myself in, surveying the almost-chaos that is, by now, so many not-colors it feels like a hallucination. My pillar doesn't really have a name. It's just got sort of an...imprint on it, it's a little shorter and smaller and a little bit more confused, and separate like it's been surrounded by a tiny barbed-wire fence. So not distanced from everything else, just...well, separate. I can't even describe it to myself.
The colors dance in and away from each other, whirling numbly.
"Please don't, Sar."
"Sorry." I pull out so fast, I stumble; he catches my arm. "Thanks."
He just nods and lets go. "I didn't mean to scare you or anything, you know. It was just that..."
"No no, yeah, I know. I didn't mean...I mean, I didn't either..."
"Yeah. Yeah I know. I...yeah."
Awkward silence ensues.
"Excuse me," the voice of a Polish woman grates my ears. "Do you have de time?"
A quick glance at my watch. "One forty-five," I tell her with a smile.
"Tank you," she smiles back before hobbling away.
I turn back to Jake.
"So anyways."
He laughs, slinging his arm over my shoulder.
"Okay. Awkward silence time is over now."
"Oh, but dearest Jacob, it's always awkward silence time!"
XXX
"Uhm...kay, how about this?" I step out of the changing room.
If this were a chatroom, Jake would be an ellipse: "..."
But instead, he just shrugs and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I don't know. It's nice I guess."
"'It's nice I guess'," I say mockingly, making my voice deeper and dumber.
"What do you want me to say? I don't exactly pay attention to what you wear."
"Is that even a good thing?"
He shrugs again. "It's the truth. I dunno."
"Right. Um.." I look down at the white shirt, decorated with flying birds.
"Oh, eff this. I'm going to buy some plain t shirts from LL Bean. Screw it." I stalk back into the dressing room.
XXX
"Lemme just dump this in my room and then we can go bike or something."
Jake coughs. "Well, you can bike, I kind of need to...um...stretch my legs."
He looks at me meaningfully.
"You mean-" I consciously think about my mother upstairs. "Oh, right. I'll get Johanne then. Go to the woods."
He quirks an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Keep making that face, I'll shoot you with a rhino tranquilizer and you'll wake up neutered."
He just laughs and pulls me by the arm to the mud hall to get Yo's faded purple leash. "It's just," he begins, hooking the choke chain to the leash.
"I don't really think your dog can keep up with me."
"Oh please. He's an Afghan hound. They're built for speed. You," I give him a judgmental, harsh once-over. He grins under my gaze.
"You're built like a bloody giant tank. It's like a cheetah versus a horse. If the cheetah had as much stamina as a horse."
"Oh, so-"
Jake's soon-to-be rant is cut short when the phone rings. I hurry over to the wall that it's been hung on, shifting the plastic chord phone out of the holster and holding it between my ear and my shoulder as I adjust the choke chain, making sure the loops are situated right.
"Hello?"
A voice, male and gruff but frenzied: "Jake?! Is that you?!"
I pause. "No, I'm sorry," I make eye contact with Jake. He looks at me, puzzled. "This is Sara. Are you sure you've got the right number? This is the Ellison residence."
"Do you know a guy named Jake?"
"Jake?" I ask questioningly.
Jake's eyes widen, he steps towards the phone. When I start to offer it to him, he shakes his head furiously, just motioning me to hold the phone so he can hear it too.
There's a notepad by the phone.
Should I tell them I know you?
He reads it, shakes his head, holds up a finger to signify that he wants to hear this person's voice first.
"I'm sorry. There's a kid at our school, Jake Levvy, maybe that's who you mean?"
"No, I mean Jacob Black. Apparently his cellphone..." the guy continues to explain that Jake's cell was found in Montana, and that through a 'series of events' he was traced here. I'm guessing that's vague enough that this person or his friends followed Jake's scent. So, another wolf.
Jacob listens intently, frowning. Finally he takes the pen from my hand, leaning over to write on the pad:
Embry? I could be wrong, it sound like him.
I roll my eyes. Yeah, because if you write down his name I'll know who he is, right?
He smiles apologetically and shrugs, gesturing for the phone to be handed over.
I sigh; it sounds like crackled paper over the phone connection.
"Is this Embry?"
"Wh- how did you..."
Wordlessly, I hand the receiver to Jake.
"Em?"
He almost smiles as he hears the other guy's voice; I feel a plethora of emotions from him. This time I don't take any away, because he doesn't need pain dulled or anger lessened. Happiness for him is like the taste of the air after it rains, worry like thick sap and a tinge of regret, like butter.
I rub my eyes and go up to my room so that I don't end up eavesdropping. Or crying in front of my only friend, whom I'm about to lose.