Marisela.
"...Looks as if we're going to get some heavy rain and scattered thunderstorms by this evening with a low of thirty seven tonight that will eventually creep back up into the fifties by ten o'clock tomorrow morning."
The radio forecast is the only sound between the two of us as the old, beat up, Ford Bronco drives on a slick road, a light coat of rain scattering against the windshield as thunder rumbles in the distance.
Every now and then the luggage shoved into the back seats shifts and settle, prompting Emily to glance in her rear view mirror to make sure nothings falling in the floorboards.
She looks one last time before her eyes cut briefly to me in her passenger seat as I've gotten my elbow resting against the closed window, raven hair blowing against my cheek in the heat coming from the vent.
Deciding she's been quiet enough already, Emily takes in a breath and rubs her lips together before voicing her thoughts.
"So...are you gonna tell me what this big, bad, awful thing was you did that had your mom calling me to take you off her hands for a while?"
She gets no reply, which is something she was probably expecting being that she says it as if she knows I won't confirm nor deny it.
"She told me your grades were slipping but I'm not buying that." She keeps on, earning a deep breath from me, but no verbal response. "I know you're ticked off, but try looking on the bright side. She could've called Sue and not me."
It would've been extremely unlikely that she would have called Sue Clearwater or anyone in their family or even tribe for that matter, but still, Emily's words are spoken with the hope that this realization is enough to loosen the tension between us up a bit.
"My mom's freaking crazy, Emily. She's overreacting." The first words I've offered up since she picked me up in Portland.
She more than likely knows I've been completely wanting to avoid the conversation altogether but clearly that wasn't happening.
"Is she actually overreacting or do you just think she is because you got caught doing whatever it is she didn't want you to do?"
"She's crazy."
"Look, I know she can be hard to deal with sometimes, but I also know she's busted her ass to try to push through all the crap the two of you have had to endure, she's done a pretty good job at keeping herself together so she can keep providing for you and try to give you a good life. I just hope you didn't repay her by taking advantage of the fact she's working all the time and doesn't have her eyes on you 24/7 the way she was able to when your dad was around."
The mention of dad has me glaring at her from the corner of my eye before looking forward once more.
"I didn't do anything sneaky or fucked up if that's your worry." It's spoken harshly in hopes that this will shut down the conversation altogether.
Although, even if I did do something so awful, it's not like mom could get too pissed at me over it.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, after all.
I have to bite my tongue to keep this thought to myself, not wanting to taint how Emily views my mother.
"So, while she was working graveyard shifts, you weren't sneaking some nasty teenage boy in her house or something?" My cousin asks next, hoping the answer is, "no," so that's what I tell her.
"No. And I've already gotten the lecture and the T-shirt and souvenir cup from the lecture so can we please just be done talking about it right now?" I ask it of her nicely, more so a beg, and Emily looks at me again before turning onto the road that eventually leads to the Quileute reservation.
"Interrogation over." Emily relents, finally while I bask in the peace and quiet for a moment. "But just because I'm the fun cousin doesn't mean you won't have some serious ground rules."
"I genuinely didn't expect any less." I confess.
Emily just looks back to the road and keeps her eyes there until she's able to get back to her house, parking the car in the now pouring rain.
"Let me go get us some help with these bags, hang tight." Emily unbuckles and grabs the keys from the ignition before opening the door to the hounding rain and making a run for it.
Out of curiosity, I'm glancing at my phone to check the time, seeing the small screen read "9:54pm" before I'm gritting my teeth, preparing to get wet as I reach for the door handle.
I approach the porch, seeing Emily through the large slide glass door in the kitchen, standing and speaking to two young men, only able to hear part of it through the few inches of the door she didn't shut all the way.
"...I was starting to get worried." The tallest one says to her, giving a kiss to her lips.
"You always worry." She comments, nervously, as if she's trying to figure a way to rip the bandaid off.
The second man in her company just cuts his eyes at her.
"Where did you and your friends go on this 'day trip'?" He asks het next.
"Help us get this luggage out of the car and I will." Emily gives a toothy grin.
"Luggage?" The one in het arms asks her.
"Us?" The other one follows his questions.
I now decide to further piss on their parade as I open the slide glass door, letting out a deep breath as I state "sorry, you were taking forever," soaked head to toe the way Emily is from the rain.
They look at me as if I'm a complete trespasser. Cold. Unwelcomed. A far cry from the right embrace I received from Emily upon seeing her hours ago.
"Surprise." Emily's voice shakes just a little bit as she speaks it to them.
Even I know she's stepped in a pile of shit she won't be scraping off her foot anytime soon.
"Hi." I say to them despite their glares.
"Hi." The second one says to me, the one standing next to Emily not making a move to welcome me nor tell me to get out.
"Can you please help us get the luggage out of the car so we can talk about this?" Emily asks him quietly.
It's only now his exterior cracks as if being pulled back from his thoughts, looking at her as if she placed the moon and stars in the sky.
"I'd love to." He squeezes her shoulders reassuringly. "Jared." He adds, regarding the second one.
Emily might just be the saving grace that keeps me from being kicked off their land.
"Coming." The one her significant other calls "Jared" avoids touching me as if I'm plagued as he walks by, nearly bumping into the table as he gets as far away from me as possibly to pass by when he follows him outside.
"You didn't tell anybody about me coming to stay, did you?" My words hit Emily as hard as they can, her beautiful face falling, but still trying to fight to stay optimistic.
"They will know by tomorrow." Emily nods, dreading the conversation.
I know she dreads it.
"I'll help you get your stuff to your room when Sam and Jared get it in here." She says next
Sam.
His name snatches a memory from my mind, playing it before my eyes, the long line of solemn family that have their heads down, some of them sobbing, others waiting to speak to our family with tight lips.
Aunt Sue, Uncle Harry, Seth, Leah, and Sam Uley, who I had learned was Leah's boyfriend nearly a year prior at a different funeral.
The memory fades as the boys come back inside.
I recognize him now, unable to before due to his short hair and muscular build, a long cry from his shoulder length hair and nearly lanky frame the last time I saw him.
My stomach turns seeing them kiss, my eyes falling anywhere but them for a sense of privacy.
Jared's staring at the floor before he looks up at me, giving me a mediocre smile.
At least he's trying.
Sam and Emily actually acknowledge they're not alone, my cousin clearing her throat to address the elephant in the room that is the stranger she's got living with her, now.
"This is my cousin Marisela. Marisela, this is my fiancé Sam and our close family friend Jared."
Fiancé.
My jaw rolls at the word.
Poor Leah.
"We've met." I say to her, though my eyes are on him, smiting him because I won't smite Emily.
Whatever fucked up scenario occurred for him to be engaged to his ex girlfriend's cousin is his fault.
"We've never met." Jared breaks the tension before I'm tempted to tear Sam a new one, his hand extends to mine, he actually loosens up a bit from how stiff he was when he first saw me moments ago.
I take his hand in mine, taken back by how warm his skin is, hot almost, but I disregard it for now, smiling at him.
"It's nice to meet you." I say to him.
"You, too." He replies, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth before he says, "So, how are you two cousins?"
The air grows stale around us, Emily hesitating to say it, and I know exactly why.
"Tom Clearwater."
Jared drops my hand as if it's diseased or something, Sam's jaw clenching for a brief moment.
Their distaste for that fact has nothing to do with my father, but everything to do with my mother, who's name might as well be blasphemy to the tribe's ears.
"So…you gonna show me to your room so I can help you get your things unpacked?" Jared once again shoves any tension aside with humor that's laid on thick, the comment coming out just as suggestively as how he means it to.
"No, I'm sure I'll be quicker at unpacking my own things than if I had your help." I match his tone, pulling my hand from his and he holds back a laugh.
"Damn, okay." He raises his brows before looking to Emily and Sam, the two of them not looking very amused. "It was a joke." He insists.
"Uh-huh." Emily isn't buying it as she grabs one of my suitcases by its handle, Sam grabbing another one. "Go home, Casanova." She adds to Jared as she flicks his forehead while passing him, and he flinches from the sudden attack and rubs his forehead, wincing.
"Fine, 'mom'." He says sarcastically to her before he looks at me. "So, you got like a phone number or something...?"
"Go home." I repeat Emily's order and he sighs out.
"Yeah, yeah." He mumbles in defeat. "Goodnight." It's added before he steps outside the glass door, shutting it.
I lock it behind him, pulling the ceiling to floor blinds before grabbing my third bag and heading up the ladder-stairs.
"...It was last minute, her mother called me in total meltdown mode and asked me if I could watch her for a while and I couldn't tell her, 'no,' Sam, you should've heard her. She sounded at her wits end and so I caved." I can hear Emily before I even get into the hallway. "It's just for a little while and then she'll be back home."
"Am I upset?" He asks her.
"No." She replies quietly.
"No." He repeats. "I'm not. I just wish you would've come to me about it and gave me a heads up before lying to me and telling me you're going on a day trip to when you really just went to pick a kid up and bring her home without telling anyone."
"I was scared you would say, 'no,'." She says.
"So, what? It's your house. You can move whoever the hell you want in here and I can't do anything about it. We'll just have to be careful about the..." he doesn't have to say it apparently before my cousin realizes what he's referring to while I furrow my brows in confusion.
"...Don't even mention it." She sounds stressed, as if she hadn't fully weighed her options before making the jump to let me come live with her. "I'm so stupid." She says next.
"You're trying to do the right thing and help out someone you care about. You're not stupid. You're kind." He corrects her.
I take the opportunity to make my presence known, coughing as I take the last few steps up before getting to the hallway.
"Em?" I ask, though I already know what room they're in.
"In here." She says, and I walk to the end of the hall and open the ajar door, seeing her seated on the bed and him standing at the foot of it. "Did Jared leave?"
"Yeah." I tell her, putting the bag down, looking around the room.
It's quaint, very cozy, the only light in here it's from the lamp by the wooden bedside table, real wood floors at my feet, a dream catcher at the head of the bed, a big window on the wall opposite of the door, facing the tree line in the front of the yard.
"If he keeps bothering you I'm gonna have to neuter him." Emily jokes to me, looking to Sam.
There's another pause between the three of us before Sam's giving Emily a particular look, clearing his throat as if to encourage her.
"I'm gonna go get ready for bed." He says to us.
"I'll be there in a minute." Emily assures him.
"Okay, see you in the morning, Mari." He adds, smiling to me for the first time since my arrival.
"Good night." I say back to him before he leaves and shuts the door behind him.
"Is there something else you need to tell me?" I question her, and she lets out a breath.
"I don't know how to say this because I don't want you to take it the wrong way or think I'm accusing you or something but..." She struggles with her words, as if what she's about to say is out of her kind glossary of communication.
"Emily, I guarantee you whatever you're about to say, I've heard from mom a million times over so just spit it out."
"There's a couple boys that come around here a lot, and they're great guys, they really are I just..." She stumbles once more. "...It's not that I don't want them around you, I just don't want you around them."
"Is this your way of telling me to keep my legs closed to people I'm more than likely related to anyway, or...?"
"I didn't say that, I just...they're just boys." Emily states. "And some boys are just a lot of hormones and things happening and you're a teenage girl with hormones and a lot of things happening, and—"
"—You do realize I've had sex before, I know how it works, right?" I inform her and she looks at me.
"I completely figured that and I'm sure they have done that, too, why do you think I'm bringing this up?" She asks me rhetorically.
"I'm not gonna be having orgies all summer with your family friends around my age if that's what you're worried about." I say it before I can stop myself and her face burns bright red with embarrassment.
"That is not what I'm saying." She covers her face.
"You just said—"
"—Take the sex part out completely and my point will still be that I just don't want them to get you into trouble, and I don't want you to get them into trouble, okay? Doesn't even have to be sexual it can just be not doing anything stupid that you know I wouldn't want any of you to do. That's all."
"You could've started with that." I tell her, scoffing as I open one of my bags. "Any other rules you wanna give me?"
"Just be a good influence, stay out of trouble and be respectful to the people here. That's it." She says it tiredly before she yawns to me and I yawn as well. "Good night, sleep tight." Getting up and walking to me, she bends down to kiss the crown of my hair.
"Don't let the bed bugs bite." I finish for her as she steps to the door.
"We don't have bed bugs." She states, grinning at me. "I love you."
"I love you." I reply, and she shuts the door, leaving me to myself.