Angela felt like she was in a dream for most of the next day. The English report went well. Edward sat beside her in class and she tried not to think about the previous day and what almost happened on her couch. She swore she smelled that sugary scent throughout the night as if she was unable to get it out of her head.
She glanced to where Ben was sitting and he was whispering something to Katie. She wondered what it was about. She didn't know they were friends. Maybe she could ask Eric if he knew. They were friends as they were both on the school newspaper.
Edward snorted. She turned to him and wondered what he was so amused with. He tended to do that around her like he always knew an inside joke. He gave her a smile and it showed off a flash of his pearly white teeth.
"What?" She whispered. "What is so funny?"
Before he could answer, the bell rang and they joined the shuffle to leave for their next class. Edward walked with her through the hallways. Her ankle was hurting less but she still wasn't her usual speed. She had to stop by her locker to get something and he lingered, almost like he felt awkward.
She searched through her locker for her Geometry textbook.
"Hey, um, do you like the beach?"
She wasn't sure why she asked that. Mike had been talking about going to La Push all week and they'd all agreed to go this weekend.
"My friends like to surf at La Push. It's gonna be freezing but it's kind of fun."
Well, they always looked like they were having fun. Angela usually sat in Tyler's van covered in her grandmother's quilt and tried to pretend she wasn't losing feeling in her toes. The few times she agreed to actually go into the water, she couldn't even stay on the board and found herself beached and frozen to the bone. She would rather stay in the van and drink hot chocolate from her thermos.
"I don't go to the beach," He answered, curtly. "I don't think we should be seen together."
Closing her locker, she clutched her Geometry book to her chest.
"Why not?"
"We shouldn't be friends," He refused to look at her. "You'd be much better off without me in your life."
She opened her mouth to reply but found no words came out. She realized she may have misinterpreted what was happening between them for something else. Edward may have just been friendly for the sake of getting their report done but was uninterested in actually being friends. It shouldn't have shocked her and she tried to stamp down the bloom of hurt in her chest. Rejection never felt nice but she knew it was inevitable in life.
"Oh, I'm…I'm sorry if I was being forward," She swallowed. "I understand how things are now."
He looked pained. "That's not what I meant."
"No. It's fine," She really wanted to crawl under a blanket and stay there until graduation. "I should get to class."
"Angela…"
She never ran through hallways. She'd been a hall monitor in middle school after all but she had to make an exception in that moment.
Tyler was driving her home after school since Jessica and Lauren had volleyball practice. On any other day she might've just waited for her friends and spent the time doing her homework but she just really wanted to go home. Her house was only a few minutes away from the school and walking home on her sprain was unadvisable. Tyler was more than accommodating and she sat in the backseat while Eric continued talking to his camcorder.
"…Homecoming is almost here and everyone's just thinking about who they're gonna ask or if anyone's gonna ask them. It's so stressful!" Eric said. "Why can't there be an easy way of doing these things?"
He pointed the camera to Angela. "Don't you think so, Ang? Why can't there be someone to arrange people together for these dances?"
"Like a matchmaker?" She returned. "Do we answer a survey and they find someone for you based on your answers?"
Tyler added, "Like a romantic career test!"
Angela laughed. "Yeah, like a romantic career test. If you answer A, you get this person and if you answer B, you get another person."
Eric flipped the camera back to himself. "So, if you answer A, you get somebody like me – awesome, nice, will treat you right. And if you answer B, you get someone like Jasper Hale, who may or may not be murdering you at the end of the night."
"Eric!" Angela chided. "That's not nice."
"But he's so creepy!" Eric replied. "Like a blond Norman Bates. I swear he looks like he wants to chop me up and eat my liver!"
"Nobody wants to eat your liver, Eric-"
"-especially 'cause I've seen you chug down cough syrup and beer together," Tyler remarked. "Dude, your organs have gotta be rank."
"Hey!" Eric moved so both him and Angela were captured by the camera. "Going back to the topic - who are you going to Homecoming with, Ang?"
"Nobody," She tried to hide her embarrassment. "I might just skip it."
"Huh," Eric turned off the camcorder. "Is this because of Ben?"
"No," She was a horrible liar and they all knew it. "Is he going with Katie Marshall?"
Eric winced. "Sorry, Ang. He's been crushing on her all summer."
That made sense. It wasn't like Ben had shown any interest in her. Katie was pretty and nice and she was on the volleyball team. Of course, he would like her.
"I'm really sorry, Ang…"
"It's not your fault," She tried to shrug it off. "I'm fine. Everything's fine."
He fiddled with his camcorder, guilty at having to be the one to tell her. Eric was the sweetest of the boys and hated having to be the bearer of bad news. Tyler would've made her laugh and Mike would've just told her she deserved better and offered to punch Ben in the face. Eric tried to distract her until they reached her house and she waved at them as they drove off.
She kept the tears in until she reached her bedroom.
As the sun made its few visits to Forks, the Cullens left to go on their family camping trips much to Angela's relief at not having to deal with the embarrassment of her last encounter with Edward. The weekend finally came and Lauren drove them to La Push at noon. They met the boys there and helped them unload the surf boards from Tyler's van. Mike was eager as always to get in the water and she had to force him to stand still as she applied sunscreen on his face.
"We rarely get any sun," He complained. "Shouldn't I be letting the UV in instead of blocking it out?"
"You go red like a lobster, Mike," She knew that from the many summers as kids where Mike would get sunburned and complained for a week about his damaged, peeling skin. "Better safe than sorry,"
"Yes, mom."
He grabbed his board and followed the others to the beach. Thankfully, he was wearing his wetsuit and the rest of him would be fine. It never really got hot in Forks, warm was the best that could happen in the summer. It was September and autumn was beginning to creep in and Angela who was always cold went to get her quilt and hopefully create a small cocoon of warmth for herself.
She mostly sat on a log and watched her friends surf. Mike was able to get on his board first while Lauren was the best at keeping her balance on the board. Eric got knocked down by the waves the most but that didn't deter him from having fun. Jessica kept trying to get her to go into the water but she just smiled at her and sipped her cup of hot chocolate slowly.
The cold aside, La Push was beautiful. The turquoise sky, the golden sun, and the evergreen trees by the cliffs made up a very pretty picture. Probably something Bob Ross would've painted. She smiled at her own thoughts and wished she had Mike's talent for drawing or Eric's gift with photography so she could capture the moment.
A group of Quileute boys were heading towards them. She didn't recognize them at first. A lot taller and muscular than she remembered, they'd spoken to each other a few times over their visits to La Push. They'd always been welcoming and polite.
Puberty seemed to have kicked in for them over the summer. Shirtless and only wearing cutoffs, she wondered how they weren't freezing. One of the boys stopped a few feet as they made eye contact, his brown eyes widening in shock before he collapsed to his knees. She put down her quilt on the log and rushed over to him. His friends were hunched over him in concern.
"Hey," She knelt down on the sand so they were at eye level. "Are you okay?"
He was still staring at her, eyes wide as he couldn't believe she existed.
"You're…you're…"
"Angela," She supplied. "I'm Angela. And you are?"
"Jacob."
He blinked and as if awakening from a dream he got to his feet, he held out his hand to her to pull her up. His hand was shockingly warm. It almost burned her. Worried he might have a fever, she considered checking his forehead for his temperature but hesitated as that would be too forward.
"You're really hot," She blurted out before realizing her wording. "I mean, warm! You're really warm. Are you sure you don't have a fever?"
Surprised, he laughed. "I'm okay. I'm just very warm-blooded."
One of his friends snorted. Suddenly remembering they weren't alone, she gave them a smile.
"Well, the sun's setting and we're gonna have a bonfire. Do you guys wanna join us?"
Another one of Jacob's friends grinned at him, nudging him slightly. "Should we join them, Jake?"
Jacob elbowed him in the side, giving him a look. He turned back to Angela and gave her a big smile. He was all white teeth against golden skin. And she realized that he really was quite attractive.
He finally answered her question, "We'd love to."
The Quileute boys helped them with the bonfire and whittling some sticks for the s'mores. Angela handed out the ingredients and cups of hot chocolate. Jacob was toasting a marshmallow for her and he pulled back the stick and she worked on creating the s'more. Pulling off the marshmallow from the tip and placing it between crackers required speed and care. It wouldn't be the first time she got burned by a dessert. She handed the finished product to Jacob who smiled gratefully at her.
Jessica came over. She'd changed from her wetsuit and her hair was still a bit wet. Her thick, curly hair took a while to dry.
She asked, "Ang, do you have soup?"
Angela poured her a cup from her second thermos and Jessica sipped happily before returning to sit with Lauren.
"That smells nice," Jacob said. "What soup is that?"
"Italian wedding soup," She answered. "It's my favorite. You want some?"
She poured him a cup and watched him take a sip. Italian wedding soup was a meal on its own, chicken broth with meatballs, green veggies, and acini de pepe pasta. She liked to eat it best when she was sick and it was her favorite comfort food. She could honestly eat nothing but this soup for days.
Jacob's eyes widened in surprised delight and he asked, "Did you make this?"
She nodded, smiling.
He took another sip, the enjoyment clear on his face. "Make me this every day and I'm yours."
She blushed at that, feeling her cheeks burning and not from the heat of the bonfire. "Um, okay?"
"Yeah. I'm that easy, Ang,"
He finished his cup and asked for a refill. She complied and tried to remind herself he was just being nice. Eric and Tyler would sometimes flirt with her jokingly and she knew they didn't mean it. Jacob seemed to type to flirt with a girl to make her feel good and it wouldn't do well to put any other meaning behind that. She already erred with somebody else that week and didn't want a repeat.
"Just to clarify, I'm serious," Jacob explained. "If you ever wanna make me soup… or go out for soup I'd be okay with that."
She tried not to gape at him.
"Like a…like a date?"
"Exactly like a date."
She didn't say anything at first. She was truly speechless. These things normally didn't happen to her. She was usually the Mom Friend, the dependable one, and not the object of romantic interest. She didn't mind it even with the unrequited crush on Ben that still stung a bit. She disliked the attention and hated being so tall because it made her stand out. Maybe at the back of her mind she imagined a boy finally liking her but she never thought it would actually happen.
She must've been too quiet for too long because Jacob began to look embarrassed. He tried to pull away but she grabbed his arm, his skin was still that shocking, almost burning temperature.
"I would love to," She rushed out. "Make you soup or go out for soup."
He gave her that wide smile again. It was bright like the sun.
"Great."
He didn't have a cellphone so she wrote her house number on his forearm. The bright blue ink of her pen stood out against his dark skin. It reminded her of the ocean waves meeting the beach. Rather like La Push itself.
References:
1. Norman Bates is from the film/book 'Psycho' who you guessed it, kills people.
2. wouldn't let me use the full chapter title which was 'Angela's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week'. Chapter title is a play on the children's book and film 'Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day'
