The Flower Moon


Year Eight, Chapter Sixteen

College and French


Renesmee's Point of View


The four of us were sitting in the movie room, watching some cheesy Hallmark flick Felicity had picked out. But I was having trouble focusing on the movie. Jake was smelling amazing, and being in this small space just seemed to be intensifying his scent. I couldn't do anything though. Not in front of our kids. Maybe we could slip away unnoticed?

Jake started moving closer to me. We were already sitting next to each other but now I was practically in his lap. Did he have the same idea?

He moved in and I thought he was going to start kissing me but instead he whispered in my ear. "I talked to Seth and Leah, yesterday." Taking in a deep breath, I tried to focus on what he was saying. Bad idea. Now I had to fight even harder to concentrate in his words and not what I'd rather be doing to him at the moment. "They agreed to watch Felicity and David during the times Nahuel is unavailable, while we're at school."

Damn he smells good. But what he was talking about was serious. There would be time for other things later.

Sometime while I was pregnant with David (or possibly soon after he was delivered) my parents had made all the necessary arrangements, for Jake and me to take last year off from Dartmouth. And this year as well, if needed, but it looked like it wouldn't be necessary. It was only the eighth of October so it looked like we were going to be able to resume our studies this year, only needing to catch up on the first few weeks of the fall semester. It wasn't something a normal person could get away with doing, but money, charm, and our family's connections always seemed to smooth over any impediments we encountered. We'd already gotten in touch with the school and made the necessary arrangements to return to our classes on Monday.

With David and Felicity at home, we didn't want to be away from them too much, so this year - our senior year, we were going to be taking as many online classes as possible. We'd worked it out so that we only needed to actually go to the school two days a week, for three of our classes.

For their own safety David and Felicity would need to stay at home the entire time we were gone. No going out. No hunting. No answering the door. We lived far enough away from most people that someone randomly walking up to the front door was unlikely, but you never know.

"That's great," I finally managed to say, once he moved back a few inches and his scent wasn't so strong. My mind cleared enough that I could reply in a semi-coherent manner. "I was worried -"

"What? You think I need a babysitter?" David sneered, interrupting me from his seat across the small room. He'd overheard Jake and clearly wasn't too happy.

I knew he thought we were always treating him like a child, but how could we not? He was only a year old. He grew so fast. Faster than I ever did. Sure he looked like he was in his early twenties, so I could understand why he would think that way. I mean I was only seven, comparatively, but it was more than him, I guess, and Jake was over three times as old as I was, with much more life experience. His life experiences were practically nonexistent.

But what could we do? Apart from hunting and the occasional trip to the store we kept him and Felicity at home. The only contact he'd with other people was when my or Jake's family came to visit, or the trip to La Push when I gave birth to Felicity.

Felicity gave her brother a look, wordlessly letting him know that she wanted to hear the movie. David got up and came over to us, while waving his hand, suggesting she move closer to the screen and away from us. Once they both were reseated he began again, "I'm an adult and would appreciate it if you started treating me accordingly. I don't need a babysitter; I don't want to be cooped up here any longer. I'm more than capable of leaving the house to go to the store, or school, or even hunt on my own."

"No you're not," Jake and I whispered back to him, and attempted to calmly state our reasons why.

We went back and forth with David over and over, he listing his reasons and we doing the same, until we were all tired and angry. Our voices had risen a few times but Felicity never said a word.

We'd been talking in circles, none of us hearing the other anymore. No one willing to see the others point. No one willing to compromise.

"I have a idea," our son said, when none of us had spoken for a few minutes. David seemed to think that he wasn't expressing himself as well as he could and decided now that Felicity's movie was over, it might be easier to show us what he was talking about by having us watch some old television show he liked. Apparently it mirrored his life in some way.

I didn't know where this was going and had never watched one with him before. I didn't really understand it or what he thought he was going to get out of showing us some old show, but we agreed to watch the entire thing with him, well an episode or two.

Before David started one of the episodes he gave us an overview of the show, "to help us understand what he meant". It was one of those starship treckie shows from the '90s, the one with the female captain on it. There was this character who was an alien and her species only lived for something like six or seven years, so their entire lifespan was compressed. Now at least I could understand how he related to the show.

The female character grew to adulthood in only a single year, sort of like him, the only difference was she continued to age and David would stop soon (I hoped, it was still just a theory). But within that first year she went from being a baby, to a child, to a teen and finally to an adult and everyone treated her as such.

David felt like we should do the same with him. "I look like an adult, and act like an adult, I want to start being treated as such. Felicity and I are as smart as any adult you would meet on the street." That was true. They had eidetic memories, just like mine. They remembered everything they saw, heard, and read, and understood it all as well.

The more he talked the more I could understand what he was talking about. I'd felt the same way when I was younger. My mind developed so much faster than my body, I had the mental equivalent of an adult by the time I was a single year old as well, though I only looked like a six year old at the time.

Jake didn't feel so certain. I know that he thought David was too rash, too impulsive, too reckless. Our son had somehow managed to find the one stray Vampire in the woods around La Push and ran after it without waiting for backup. And then did the same thing here.

Personally, I wasn't sure which I more upset about - his putting himself in dangerous situations or the fact that he was killing our kind. Didn't he realize that he was part Vampire too? I know he did somewhere deep down inside, but it didn't seem to matter to him. According to David's way of thinking all Vampires (except for his family, he was finally softening to them) were murderers and all murderers needed to be destroyed.

But then what did that make him? Didn't that make him a murderer as well?

No! I refused to think of my son like that. David was good, just misguided. He wouldn't listen to us when we told him, asked him, begged him, pleaded with him to stop.

"David we realize you think you're an adult. We understand that, truly we do. It's just that when you do things that we know are dangerous it causes us to worry," Jake tried once again to explain.

"How am I ever going to prove to you that I'm adult if you never let me show you? I know I've made some mistakes in the past… when I was younger."

"No kidding," Jake huffed. "You tried to fight Jared out of his Alpha role only four months ago."

"I know. That was a mistake. A huge one. And I realize that that wasn't very long ago to you but it seems like forever ago to me. I was only nine months old at the time. I'm thirteen months old now; percentage wise that's almost fifty percent older. If I was human it would be like comparing a stupid teenager to a young adult. Can't you see -"

"Alright, alright," I cut him off. He made his point. "If you want to be treated more like an adult I guess we can work on that. If you want to go to college with us this year we should be able to arrange that," I told him after a quick whispered side chat with Jake.

He wouldn't be able to officially enroll at Dartmouth yet, having never applied, but we could look into seeing if he could audit a few classes.

The other option would be having him go to the same college as Leah. Even if he felt he was ready, we didn't want him to be completely on his own. He got along with her well enough and I knew she would be able to look after him. Of course, we would also need to get him some high school transcripts if he wanted to officially enroll next semester. It looked like I was going to have to make another trip back to Mr. Jenks.

"Awesome -" David beamed, before Jake cut him off.

"Now David, you can come to school with us but we're not going to be backing down on the hunting issue. Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, needs to hunt with one other person, at the very least."

"Fine," Dave gave in, a bit pissed but he realized we wouldn't back down on that issue.

Jake looked like he was going to say something else to our son but then paused and looked over at me. "What do you think?" he asked with a slightly raised eyebrow and a smirk. "It was going to be a Christmas present for both of them, but I guess we could do it separately, and give him his early." Instantly I realized what he was talking about and nodded before quickly running to my bedroom and back.

"I believe this is yours," I told my son, while placing the license we'd obtained months ago, into his hand.

"A driver's license?" David face lit up, just for a second before a doubtful look took over. "What does this mean?"

"What do you think it means David? Your aging has slowed down enough so that you can go out in public more often now without everyone noticing how much you age from one day to the next," I explained.

"Really? That's awesome."

"Hold on there," Jake interjected, "this doesn't mean you get to go run off, whenever and wherever you feel like. You can use this to just go to school and back at first, and we'll see how you do. That and the occasional trip into town for a grocery or book run. We're not exactly ready to let you go gallivanting around, all over the state yet."

"But you will be, soon. Right?" he questioned us.

"Let's see how you do first," I reiterated to him.

"Wait. What am I going to drive?"

Really? My family left all of their cars here, when they moved to France. "Dave, the garage is full of cars, just pick one."

"But the smell -" he began, before I gave him a look that told him that he would just have to deal, he wasn't getting anything else.

Instead of continuing to argue he wisely sat down.

"You don't want to go to college too, do you?" I then hesitantly I asked our daughter, who had been quietly watching a second cheesy Hallmark movie she'd put on once Dave's TV show was over. She'd probably been listening to our entire conversation but didn't want to appear to eavesdrop. She had little choice to though since we were all in the same room.

I see now where we'd gone wrong with David. We've been too strict, too confining. He'd rebelled because of it… at least partially. Part was also due to youth and part was just him.

Our children needed room to grow. Maybe after the winter break, Felicity will look old enough to join us. She looked too young for college currently, but was still growing so fast.

"Oh, that's okay," she hedged. "Right now I'm fine at home. I can continue my studies online with the family."

"What about taking some online classes with us?"

"Oh, that could be fun," she eagerly replied. "If there's time," she amended. Felicity was right. She was already pretty busy with all of the online work my family gave her. But I'm sure we could work something out, decrease her family studies just a bit.


Jacob's Point of View


"Nessie, avez-vous commencé vos Francais devoirs, encore?" (Nessie, have you started your French homework, yet?) I called to her in the living room. I needed to start my French assignment soon if I was going to finish it today, and if I was going to finish it before dinner, like I wanted, I was going to need her help. "Je pense que je vais avoir besoin de ton aide." (I think I'm going to need your help.)

"Um... okay. I'll be right there," she replied, but there was hesitation in her voice. She probably already finished hers and was just humoring me. But I still could use her help. A second later she was in the bedroom with me.

"Are you sure you're going to need my help, Jake? You seem to be doing fine with French."

"Ouais c'est vrai! Je peux même pas mettre deux mots un à la suite de l'autre." (Yeah right! I can barely put two words together.)

"Jake, you do realize that you're currently speaking French, don't you?"

I am? "No, I'm not."

"Well, no not anymore, but you were. Here," she said as she handed me the French book, "why don't you try doing the homework assignment on your own and then I'll look it over and tell you how you did."

"Nessie, it's not nice to tease."

"Like you would ever know if I was teasing you Jacob", she said to me with a wink and then a sigh.

Huh? Well I hope she gets a good laugh after she reads over my translations. Of course it will be time to go to sleep by then and she'll probably be too tired to laugh.

As I worked on the assignment it didn't seem as hard as past ones and I was done before it even got dark out. The professor must be going easy on us this week.

"Alright Nessie, I'm done. Do you want to look at it or should we eat dinner first?"

"Um, Jake, that only took you twenty minutes, it's only a little after three in the afternoon. I think it's a bit early to eat," she said while she looked over my translation on the laptop.

Crap. I had a feeling my earlier conclusion was wrong. This assignment was just as hard as all the others and my paper was probably pure gibberish.

Oh, no. It looked like she was about to turn it in. "Nessie don't. I want a chance to fix the mistakes before submitting it."

"Relax, it doesn't need to be fixed. Everything was correct."

"That's impossible." I know French seemed a bit... easy wasn't the right word, less hard, for me to pick up, compared to Spanish, and I'd actually been doing pretty well in it, so far this year, but it had never come easily to me.

"No look," she said pulling up her assignment, on the screen, next to mine. They looked nearly identical.

"Weird! I wonder how I'm suddenly understanding French so easily?" Of course I wasn't only speaking it but reading and writing it as well.

"Well it's the forth language you're learning. Aren't people supposed to pick up other languages more easily, the more they learn?"

"Yeah, but I'm only fluent in English and Quileute. Spanish is still a struggle."

"Okay but this is the third year you've been taking French, and we go over it every night, and you did hear me and my Father speak it years ago when he was teaching me. And you hear Dave and Felicity when they have their lessons as well. I'm sure a lot sunk in without you even realizing it." I guess she'd a point. "Also, it's not that different than Spanish, and you took that for what? Five years? Come on Jake give yourself a break, maybe something just clicked in your brain. You did a great job today. Lighten up," she finished, while playfully jabbing me in the arm.

"Sure, sure." But it still seemed a little strange, but who am I to complain.