Chapter 18-
The clock on the end table by the couch read 12:57 a.m. when Aria pushed into the house. Eli stood on the porch behind her waiting for her to get inside before he left for "patrol," as he called it. She had made a face at him when he said so and wordlessly slinked into the entryway.
Shame muddled her mind, only interrupted by the thought of nearly everyone she knew and loved having the ability to transform into giant wolves and hunt vampires.
She shook her head and swallowed heavily as she wandered up to her room, avoiding the creaky seventh step and slithering into the bathroom. When she leaned against the bathroom sink and stared into the mirror in front of her, she was left wondering how such a reality could exist around a seemingly regular individual. She had really been quite happy with her life as it was.
Loving, "vanilla" parents; a set of twin siblings living in their own telepathic world; decent grades at an undersized high school; a crush on an older boy who would never even look in her direction in the halls; and three of the funniest, kindest boys she had ever known for best friends. Life was spectacular, in her opinion.
Was the person in the mirror in front of her ready to take on a whole new reality?
She shook her head, a curtain of brown hair sashaying around her shoulders.
By the time she crept into her room, all traces of sleepiness had somehow dripped off of her along the way. With a sigh, she began wiping away the fading, black numbers and days of the week on her whiteboard calendar. It was the first week of March, yet February's dates still decorated her wall.
Perhaps February was the last time she had felt any sort of control over her own life.
When she had finished fixing her calendar, her eyes moved to her bulletin board, covered in another collection of photos. Her attention fell onto one of her and Embry on the beach as children, covered in goosebumps and sand with their arms clumsily but tightly wrapped around one another. She felt herself smirking at the photo with amusement. If someone had told that little girl that she was embracing her wolfy soulmate, she probably would've punched them in the face.
Despite the unease that had weaseled its way into her chest, Aria finally fell asleep around two a.m.
Saturday morning greeted her in the form of incense smoke and soft music drifting through the house. Her mother was hard at work in her makeshift studio below her, and the rain was bombarding the tin roof above her.
Her eyes opened slowly, and when the contents of the previous night infiltrated her mind, she immediately clamped them shut, rolling over in her bed and groaning.
Perhaps, by some unheard of stroke of luck, it had all been some sort of horribly cruel dream and none of it was real.
But as she peered over the edge of her bed and found her sand-covered clothes discarded on the floor, those hopes died alongside what little remained of her sanity.
With one more groan and a defiant punch at her pillow, Aria dragged herself from the warmth of her bed, her brother's words from the night before still echoing in her ears, and she wandered downstairs.
As assumed, her mother was in her studio, her attention belonging to a chunk of clay on the wheel, and Aria had only cracked open the door when her voice was calling out to her.
"Good morning-" she paused, her eyes flicking to the watch on her wrist, "well, almost afternoon, I suppose," she chuckled. Aria opened the door the rest of the way and entered, leaning her back against the frame.
Her mother's eyes moved to her and softened, her hands falling still on the clay. "Oh Aria Jane," she cooed, her lips forming a pout. "How are you handling it?"
Aria tried to avoid meeting her eyes as she shrugged, "I'm fine."
"How was your talk with your brother? Did it clear some things up more?"
"I guess," she shrugged again. Instead of her face, she opted to look at her mother's pale fingers gripping the wet clay. "I'm gonna go see Embry today, I'm just gonna get dressed and leave."
She found it hard to wait for a response before turning on her heel and exiting the room. The way her mother looked at her whenever Embry came up still made her uncomfortable- even more so after the revelation of why.
The rain beating down on the hood of her rain jacket seemed insignificant after all that had rained down on her the night prior, and she nearly ignored it as she trudged towards Embry's house. Tiffany's car was still in the driveway when her feet hit the gravel. After just one knock on the door, Tiffany was pulling her in and making remarks about walking in 'that sort of rain.'
Aria was stripped of her jacket and seated at the table by the time Tiffany stopped chattering.
"Is Embry home?" Aria finally blurted out.
With a sigh, Tiffany shook her head. She sat down across from Aria and pursed her lips, "You may or may not have noticed, but Embry comes and goes whenever he feels like it," she shrugged, the bitter tone in her voice alarming Aria as it came. "I never know when I'll see him next, and he's so full of the excuses," she shook her head. "At first, I hoped he was sneaking out to see a girl- I even held onto the idea that it was you," she chuckled, Aria's cheeks flushing, "but I'm afraid it's much, much worse than that."
Aria felt uncomfortable as she sat there, the want to see him growing with each moment his mother sat there miserably.
"I'm, uhm," Aria bit at her lip, "I'm really sorry."
Tiffany nodded at her, lips sucked in.
"I'm gonna go, then," Aria stood up clumsily, grabbing her jacket back off the back of her chair, "I'm sorry, again."
"Don't be, Aria," Tiffany waved her hand, walking with her to the door, "but don't be a stranger. Maybe if you start coming around more, Embry will want to, too."
Aria forced a chuckle and nodded, "I'll be sure to try."
With his own home ruled out, the answer became very clear.
The walk to Emily's was much longer than Aria would've preferred to make in the rain, and by the time she reached the freshly stained porch, her Vans were soaked to the core. The screen door allowed the sounds of laughter and the smell of food to waft outwards, and Aria was quickly hopping up the steps and welcoming herself inside.
All conversation and laughter ceased as she squelched into the house, stopping on the doormat to avoid dripping onto Emily's floors. Every eye in the room turned to her, but the suddenly twinkling brown ones were the only ones she was looking for.
She pressed her lips together and struggled to release his gaze to take inventory of the room.
Emily was leaning against the counter, a laptop in front of her, and Sam was behind her, an arm wrapped around her collarbones to hold her against him. Jared was perched on a barstool, chewing on something as he looked at her, and Embry sat at the table, anything in front of him long forgotten in favor of her.
"Can we talk?" Her voice seemed small, but Embry was on his feet and moving towards her instantly, nodding as he did so.
"Well, don't-" Emily began, stepping towards them, "it's raining, though…" her voice fell away as the two ignored her and stepped back outside.
Despite that he was walking alongside her, Embry's eyes never left her face as they approached the treeline. They were silent until they reached the cover of the trees.
"I'm so glad you're here," Embry spoke nearly breathlessly, his eyes trickling over her face and filling with that look.
"I know that we're soulmates, or whatever," Aria mumbled, her already ruined shoe digging into the dirt in between them. She felt the warmth fill her cheeks before she even looked up at him.
"Wow, uh, okay," Embry nodded, a hand reaching to scratch at the back of his head. When Aria finally looked at him, she was relieved by his blush to match hers. "How, uhm," he coughed nervously, "how do you feel about that?"
"It could be worse."
Aria's deadpan caught him off-guard, but when the edges of her lips twitched upwards, the blood glowed beneath the cover of his russet skin.
"I-" he reached out nervously, and Aria allowed him to take her hand into his, "I was so relieved when it happened," he shook his head as a smile overtook his face.
Aria's face was boiling when she smiled back, a nervous giggle passing through her lips. "Why?" Her nose twisted into a scrunch.
Embry stared at her, disbelief and warmth simultaneously gracing his features.
"Are you kidding?"
Aria puckered her lips, nose still scrunched, and shook her head.
"Aria Jane," Embry sighed, dipping his head back and chuckling, "finding out that… that someone like you is meant to be your soulmate. That's," he blushed again and squeezed her hand, "that's probably just about as good as it gets."
"I wouldn't go that far," she murmured, sucking the insides of her cheeks in to grind between her teeth. Embry looked at her with disbelief, though the look on her face led him to keep quiet. Aria swallowed hard again and pulled her hand out of his.
"What if you didn't want me as an imprint, or whatever it is?" The word still seemed foreign on her tongue.
Embry frowned. "That would never happen, Ari, it's always been you, isn't that clear?"
"That's not what I mean," she shook her head, pushing the hood off of it to run a hand through her hair, "what if I didn't want this?"
Embry's face fell, his lips moving in an attempt to formulate a response. Aria stared at him.
"You don't?"
Aria couldn't deny that the cracking of his voice came down on her chest like a boulder, and she nearly winced at the physical pain it somehow brought her.
"I didn't say that," she shook her head, "but what if I didn't?"
His features were still wounded, but Embry bobbed his head slightly. "I mean, it might seem like it's forced, but…" he pursed his lips, "it's just a push in the right direction. The elders say the two would most likely end up together anyway."
"You think we would've ended up together one day?"
Embry blushed, and a small part of Aria took great pleasure in it happening to him for once.
"I think I always hoped so," Embry shrugged. His hand twitched towards hers, but she ignored it, her eyebrows raising as she watched his face. As if the fact that he could burst into a big, furry animal wasn't enough, the sudden confession certainly made her head spin.
The idea of never really having a say in the matter after-all made her angry.
"But you never acted on it before," she grumbled in an attempt to buy herself time.
"Aria, that's not fair," he shook his head, "do you even realize what would've happened if I told you that twelve-year old crush never went away? And how much shit I would've gotten from Jake and Quil if, and when," he added bitterly, "you said you didn't like me back?"
She stared at him, lips caught between her teeth.
"Okay, okay," Embry nodded his head, lips becoming a thin line. "Let's be honest here, can we do that?"
Aria glared at him slightly and nodded.
"You're telling me that you haven't felt anything for me since I phased?"
"That's after it happened!"
"Okay, we can have it your way," Embry shook his head with a chuckle, "you didn't feel a single thing for me right before I phased? When you really think about it in that deep little head of yours, you don't think we would've ended up together?"
"You've made your point," Aria chuckled, the color flooding back into her cheeks as she finally met his eyes. He smiled at her. "This doesn't mean we're, like, automatically together, though," she shook her head, breaking the eye-contact and pushing her hair behind an ear.
"I didn't ask for us to be."
Aris stared at him again.
He sighed, "you could tell me right now that all you'll ever want to be is friends, and I'd still do that if it'd make you happy."
Aria blushed again and pushed a pocket of air into the top of her lips. She waited a moment before she reached out to grasp Embry's fingers with her own. He lit up at the contact.
"I'm not gonna say that," she mumbled out, the red creeping into her cheeks again as she avoided his eyes. She didn't have to look to know that he was smiling again as he gripped her hand tighter.
Aria spent the rest of the weekend in her room.
Despite that she was accepting the truth of the situation, she wasn't ready to jump in and pretend that she wasn't horrified about every last aspect of it all. Legends were supposed to be just that: fictional stories carried on by word of mouth with more than likely hundreds of holes and faults in them.
Her father tried to lure her out more than once, but she found herself sitting in various spots around the room and allowing her mind to wander for hours on end and felt no need to come out until she had done all the thinking she wanted.
It suddenly made so much sense why Emily and Embry were so happy to see her wolf drawing, why her mother was so happy her and Embry were spending time together, and why Emily had wanted her at the house so much. She wondered how she would feel if she found out that her youngest daughter had been… imprinted upon by someone. Maybe she felt better because it was Embry and not some stranger?
Monday dawned, and she wondered how she was supposed to go back to school and act like everything was normal and that the ground beneath her very feet hadn't fallen out from beneath her just nights before. The weight of something seemingly so unbelievable was weighing heavy on her shoulders.
When she found Quil waiting for her in the parking lot, she nearly flung herself into his arms with gratitude for his normalcy. Sweet, funny, Quil was still just Quil. And she loved him for it.
"Hey… you," Quil chuckled, patting at her back, "how was your weekend?"
She nearly choked out a laugh as she pulled away, shaking her head, "It was- uh, it was fine," she shrugged.
Quil stared at her strangely for a moment before nodding, "Alright, cool. Mine was too, thanks for asking." He twisted his face jokingly at her before beginning towards the school.
When Reanna and Leah aggressively pushed past the two of them, Aria sneered. Quil looked at her with raised eyebrows, "Re still being a bitch?"
"How could you tell?"
They laughed with one another and carried on inside.
While Aria and Quil had hashed out any issues from the days past, he still didn't accompany her to her locker, where they both knew Embry would be waiting. And as expected, he was there, practically glowing as Aria came into view.
"Hey, you," he smiled, reaching forward and squeezing her hand warmly.
She mustered a smile, still tired, and began shuffling through her locker. While she did so, a warm hand lingered lightly on her back, and she could vividly imagine all the stares pressing onto the pair of them. She was still navigating her own feelings about them and what they may or may not be, she certainly wasn't ready to pay mind to the thoughts of anyone else on the matter. As her mind drifted to the last time her and Embry were all anyone could talk about, she let out a quiet chuckle and he raised an eyebrow to her.
"Eww!" Jacob cried, his voice crackling as he did so, "I can't believe you did that!"
"Embry dared me to! I wasn't gonna use a chicken, it's just mold" Quil cackled as he sat up from the floor, the remnants of the molded pizza crust still on the floor, the twelve-year old having just eaten a piece of it.
Seated on the couch in the garage, much newer and in better shape then, Embry was laughing loudly beside Aria as she held back a gag.
"Oh, grow up," Quil made a face at them, chuckling as he plopped back onto a canvas lawn chair.
"My turn!" Jacob gleamed, raising his chin up and running a hand through his long hair as he looked around at them. His eyes fell on Embry and a smirk danced onto his face. Embry narrowed his eyes at him.
"Aria," Jacob began, smirking, "truth or dare?"
"Dare," she answered without hesitation, eyes already twinkling in anticipation of the mischief she was sure for Jacob to inflict.
"I dare you to kiss Embry-" Aria gasped "...on the lips."
Aria's jaw was still hanging open when Jacob finished speaking, and beside her, Embry was glowing red from head to toe and glaring across the room at Jacob.
"Gonna use a chicken?" Jacob smirked, raising a bushy eyebrow.
"Nope," she popped the 'p' sound and set her jaw back into place, a determined look already gracing her young features. Her hair was in a high ponytail atop her head, and she tightened it as she turned, her legs tucking beneath her, in her seat to face Embry.
Quil's eyes were the size of dinner plates as he watched from his chair, leaning forward on his knees in awe of the situation. Aria later found out from him that Embry had told them just days before that he thought he had a crush on her.
Jacob was smirking when Aria cast one last glare over her shoulder at him. Looking at Embry, still glowing red but facing her, she nodded to him, and he timidly nodded back.
Aria didn't even think twice before she placed her hands on Embry's shoulders, leaned forward, and pressed her lips against his.
From across the room, Quil gasped and leaned over to Jacob to start slapping at his leg.
Only a moment later, Aria pulled back and turned to smirk at Jacob, crossing her arms across her chest and settling back into her spot. Embry's lips were a thin life of embarrassment, a hand shakily running through his hair and pink splotches spread across his cheeks.
With Aria staring at Quil and mulling over what she could possibly dare him to do that would be grosser than eating a piece of moldy pizza crust, Jacob looked at Embry with a smile, shooting him a quick thumbs-up. Embry, still blushing, smiled back before casting a quick look back over at Aria.
By lunch the following day, the entire middle school was buzzing with the talk of Aria and Embry kissing.
"You little rat!" Aria squealed, shoving at Quil's shoulder as she sat down beside him. Her eyebrows were high as she stared at him, her lip curling upwards with anger, "why would you tell everyone?"
"I, I-" he looked across the table at Jacob for help but was met with a shrug, "I just told a couple people that Embry got to have his first kiss yesterday!"
"Why would you do that?"
"He was excited!" He gestured to Embry, seated beside Jacob with red cheeks.
Aria followed his gesture to look at Embry, her lips falling into a pout. "Embry?"
Embry shrugged, a small grin daring to expose itself.
With a sigh, Aria settled into her seat and took out her lunch, but she was in no way oblivious to the stares that were being set on their table and the whispers among the other seventh graders about the two of them kissing before hardly anyone else had.
"Aria Jane," Embry chuckled, his hand on her back pressing firmly against it instead of its previous light touch.
She looked up at him with raised eyebrows.
"You alright there?" He chuckled again, switching his hand from her back to her upper arm. She nodded and smiled before reaching up and grabbing that hand with her own. Embry smiled happily as she led them to homeroom.