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6. TRY AGAIN
(FRIENDS)

The scent of freshly brewed coffee enveloped the kitchen as I stared down at the cereal in my bowl. There wasn't anything particularly interesting about the flakes that floated there. I just didn't have much of an appetite this morning.

"Any plans for today?" my mother asked from her place beside the coffee pot.

I shrugged, forcing myself to take a bite of cereal because I knew she was watching. I didn't really have any plans—especially not now, when my experiment had ended in such utter failure. What did I usually do on Sundays? Maybe laundry. Clean my room again.

"You seemed to have fun Friday. I thought you might want to head over to the rez and hang out with Jacob and Josie."

I didn't respond. Given my current mood, I wasn't so sure they'd want me around. I felt itchy and annoyed. Irritable even. I'd been holding on to the desperate hope that the dream would return, that I would find myself back on the sidewalk in Port Angeles, but I'd been left with the same old nightmare instead. Had the dream been nothing more than a fluke, a one-time-only event, or had I missed some important detail in my recreation of Friday evening?

"Billy says they usually spend Sundays out in the garage working on the Volkswagen," she continued.

The Volkswagen. Yes, I remembered them telling me about it on the way home Friday night. They'd even invited me over to see –

Jacob and Josie.

Jacob and Josie.

I froze, my empty spoon dangling several inches above the bowl. Could they be what I'd missed? They'd been with me in Port Angeles Friday evening, of course, but they hadn't appeared in the dream, so I'd assumed they weren't related to it, but what if something about them had been the real cause . . . or at least a part of it? I studied the cereal in my bowl as I considered my options.

"Maybe I will go to La Push. Just to see how the Rabbit's coming along."

My mother stilled at the sound of my voice. She must not have been expecting me to say anything. To be honest, I hadn't been expecting it either. She covered her surprise by taking a sip of coffee, but she didn't move from her place beside the counter as she watched me finish my breakfast. I wondered if she was expecting me to change my mind. She was still watching me out of the corner of her eye as I slipped into my raincoat.

"I should call Billy and tell him you're coming over," she said, still looking a bit suspicious. I got the feeling she wasn't sure I was telling the truth about going to La Push, but I didn't know where else she thought I might possibly be going.

"Probably a good idea. I'll see you later." Reaching up to the key peg for my car keys, I headed toward the door.

The drive to La Push took longer than I had anticipated. My wipers could barely keep up with the rain that pounded against the windshield, so I took my time. As I pulled up in front of the little red house, Josie ran out to meet me with a oversized yellow umbrella.

"Hi!" Her smile was bright as she came to a stop beside the driver's side door. Something about that smile warmed me a little.

"Hey." I glanced behind her, toward the house, my eyes suddenly registering all the details I hadn't noticed two days before. I still remembered the house, of course, but time had taken its toll. The narrow windows were still the same, but the bright red paint that coated the house's exterior had faded. There was a ramp now, too, weathered and unpainted but serviceable. Jacob stood in the doorway, holding the door open so we could make a run for it.

We hurried in through the deluge, getting soaked despite our attempts to stay dry. As we stepped into the house, Josie deposited the dripping umbrella into a large clay pot in the corner that seemed to serve as an umbrella stand.

Aside from the TV, which had been replaced with a newer model, everything in the tiny living room looked the same. Sarah's watercolors still graced the walls. The same little sofa I'd slept on so many nights still sat against the wall. Like the curtains at the windows, it was faded now, its colors muted, and it seemed even smaller than I remembered. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep on it comfortably any longer.

Billy looked up from the newspaper he was reading, a warm smile crossing his features as our eyes met. He folded the paper, setting it down on the arm of the sofa, and wheeled himself forward.

"It's good to see you, Edward."

"You too." I reached out to shake his offered hand.

"I've been told to inform you that you're staying for dinner."

"Huh?"

He chuckled lightly, amused by my confusion. "I invited Lizzie down when she called, and I just got off the phone with Harry and Sue. It's been too long since we all got together."

"So, what's on the menu?" Jacob asked.

"Lizzie insisted on bringing a salad." Billy paused to make a face. "Sue is bringing cake for dessert, and I am responsible for the main course—my super secret recipe for spaghetti, handed down for generations."

Jacob chuckled.

"Even I can boil pasta and open a jar of Ragu," Josie laughed. Billy just shrugged, an innocent expression crossing his face as he turned toward the kitchen.

The downpour had eased into a misting sprinkle by the time we made our way out to the garage, so we left the umbrella behind. The old wooden building I remembered was gone now, replaced by a couple of prefabricated metal sheds that had been bolted together with the interior walls removed. It sat behind a line of trees and shrubbery that blocked it from view of the house. The Volkswagen sat within, looking a bit old but mostly in working order.

"What year is it?" I asked as Jacob reached up to turn on a work lamp.

"1986. A classic," he beamed.

"That's older than we are," I pointed out. Beside me, Josie shrugged.

"Like we said, a classic. It's almost done. Just a few more days, and we'll have her road ready." Her voice dropped to a lower volume, as if telling a secret. "Dad made good on his promise last spring."

"Oh." I remembered, though I tried not to. The master cylinder. Billy had bribed the twins to come to my prom and try to convince me to stay away from the person who'd become the center of my universe. Little had he known the warning would be unnecessary. He didn't have anything to worry about now.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jacob and Josie share a look, a silent agreement between the two of them not to say anything more about the master cylinder . . . or that night.

"So, can you keep a secret?" Josie asked instead, seemingly eager to change the subject. From the back of my mind came the memory of another secret, one they had shared on a cloudy section of First Beach nearly a year ago. I forced the thought aside.

"Sure."

With a somewhat impish grin, Josie motioned me to follow her into a dark corner of the garage. She peeled back the edge of an old tarp to reveal what was hidden beneath.

"Motorcycles?" I asked as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

"My haul," she said proudly. "I found them sitting by the curb when I went to the radio station to get the movie tickets. It's a good thing Harry Clearwater let me borrow his truck that day." I studied them for a moment.

"They look like they need some work," I noted, choosing my words carefully. They looked like they needed a lot more than that.

"They do," Jacob said as he adjusted the angle of a work lamp dangling above the open hood of the Rabbit. "It'll take a while to save up for parts."

"I've still got some money left over from my summer job," Josie reminded him. "I worked at the Dysons' summer camp," she explained to me. "Lifeguarding, mostly. And I taught some of the kids how to swim."

"You should be saving that for college," Jacob said, sounding a bit like his father. I suspected this was a conversation they'd had before.

"I am, I am. But the deal was that if you were doing most of the work on the car, I had to contribute too."

Jacob just shrugged.

"At least they were free," Josie reminded him.

"True enough," he agreed.

"They were actually going to throw them out. Can you believe it? Throwing out a Harley Sprint?" She sighed and shook her head. "But we're almost done with the Rabbit, so I figured we'd need something else to do."

My eyes spotted a Honda logo on the red bike, which meant the black one was the Sprint.

"So . . . I'm guessing the secret part is that Billy has no idea what's under the tarp, right?"

Josie nodded. "Right. He can't get his wheelchair out here, and he probably won't care by the time we finally get them going, but still . . ."

I could understand. Losing Sarah the way they had, Billy probably wouldn't be too excited by the prospect of his two youngest children riding around on motorcycles in the rain.

As Josie carefully settled the tarp back over their secret, I wandered over to see what Jacob was doing under the hood of the Rabbit. The few basics of car maintenance I'd learned from my neighbor, Bud Krawalski, as a kid were nowhere near up to rebuilding a car, but I was still interested, so I dragged a stool over from the other side of the garage and tried to find a place where I could watch while staying out of the way. I listened silently as Jacob explained each step of what he was doing and what he needed Josie to do to help. It didn't take me long to realize Jacob knew more about what he was doing than a lot of professional mechanics twice his age. It was hard not to be impressed.

Eventually the conversation drifted away from the car and on to their sophomore year at school, to their teachers and their classes. As I listened to Josie complain about one of the girls in her homeroom, I couldn't help but realize how little attention I'd been paying to my own classmates recently. I sat at the same lunch table with them everyday, but there was an invisible wall between us. I didn't even know what was going on in their lives anymore. I tried to remember if Mike was dating anyone . . . had there been a cheerleader at one point? Or maybe he was back together with Jessica? I had no idea. I felt like Ben and Angela had been sitting side-by-side the last time I'd paid any attention, so they must still be dating, but how long had it been since I'd actually looked at them? There were some other people who had recently joined the table as well—I remembered more of the chairs being filled—but their faces were all a blur. Most of my days were anymore.

We stopped for lunch, which consisted of Josie's specialty—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It felt kind of silly at first, eating something I hadn't had since I was a kid, but they actually tasted pretty good. That surprised me. How long had it been since I'd really tasted anything?

It was early afternoon, and I was stumbling through an explanation of something funny that had happened in my sophomore year English class, struggling to remember details I hadn't thought about in a long time, when there was a commotion outside.

"Jacob?" a voice called. It didn't sound like Billy. I glanced toward Josie, wondering who it could be, but she just shook her head.

"Josie? Are you two out here?" the voice called again. It was coming closer.

"Yeah!" Jacob shouted back. Two teenage boys appeared from around the corner, strolling into the shed with familiarity. They stopped when they saw me.

The first boy was slender, his dark hair trimmed to chin-length and the top of his head nearly as tall as Jacob's. The second was shorter, burlier. His hair was practically a buzz.

"Hey, guys," Jacob greeted them.

"Hey, Jake," the shorter one said, but his eyes had already slid toward Josie. "Hey, Josie." After a moment, he turned his gaze back to me. Jacob paused to wipe his hands on an old rag.

"Quil, Embry, this is Edward."

"Lizzie Masen's son, right?" The shorter boy held out his hand.

"That's right." I shook hands with him, noticing how his eyes kept drifting in Josie's direction.

"I'm Quil, Quil Ateara."

"Embry Call." Another outstretched hand, this time from the taller of the boys.

"Nice to meet you."

"Weren't you guys just here yesterday?" Jacob asked from beneath the hood of the car.

"Yeah, but there's not much interesting to do around here," Quil explained. "Watching you two rebuild that old scrapheap is the best entertainment we can find." But his eyes were still focused on Josie, and I had a feeling Quil wasn't really interested in the Rabbit.

"Don't hate the car," Josie scolded as she dug through an open toolbox, "not if you expect a ride anywhere once it's done."

"I don't hate the car," Embry said, sounding a bit defensive. He wandered over to look at what Jacob was doing.

"So, Edward, just . . . hanging out?" Quil asked. There was something in his expression. His eyes, which had been drifting toward Josie every few seconds, were suddenly focused on me. It clicked. Quil thought I was with Josie. He was jealous.

"Yeah, just visiting. I haven't been around in a while, so I thought I'd come hang out. There's not much entertainment in Forks, either."

Another few seconds passed, and Quil relaxed visibly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Josie had stopped whatever she was doing in the toolbox and was glaring at Quil. Whatever interest Quil had in Josie, it didn't appear to be mutual.

Our visitors didn't stay long. Apparently Quil's grandfather—also named Quil, confusingly enough—had asked them to help clear out an old tree that had fallen in his backyard. They had just stopped by on their way over.

"Quil and Embry?" I asked after they had left. "Unusual names."

"Quil is actually Quil Ateara the Fifth," Jacob explained as he adjusted a socket wrench. "His grandfather has been 'Old Quil' for so long that it doesn't get too confusing."

"The fifth? I thought being a junior was bad enough."

"Embry was named after an actor on his mom's favorite soap opera," Josie added, rolling her eyes slightly. Whether she disapproved of actors, soap operas, or the idea of naming your child after an actor on a soap opera, I couldn't be sure.

"Just don't ever let them catch you giving them a hard time about their names," Jacob said as he ducked back under the hood. "They fight dirty. They'll tag team you."

"As Jacob knows from experience," Josie added from her side of the car. "How old were you, Jake? Seven? Eight?" Jacob stopped what he was doing to glare at his sister.

"I was six, and I was not making fun of their names," Jacob asserted. "It was all just a simple misunderstanding."

"Sure, sure," Josie laughed. "I seem to remember that 'simple misunderstanding' ending with you sitting in a mud puddle with a bloody nose."

Jacob scowled at her, but there was a teasing gleam in his eye. "Careful, Josephine, I know a lot of your secrets, too."

From my place on the stool, I watched as Josie's eyes narrowed. A mischievous grin slid over her lips as she sent a grease rag flying toward her brother. Jacob ducked to the side, barely avoiding what would have been a direct hit to his shoulder, and tossed his own rag back at her. Soon they had taken up positions on either side of the Rabbit, laughing like loons as they tossed the same two rags back and forth at each other over the roof of the car. And, miraculously, I heard myself laughing at their antics. I stopped, shocked at the sound. It was strange, foreign. I hadn't heard it in a long time.

. . . . .

"Edward? Jacob? Josie?" It was my mother's voice. I'd spent the rest of the afternoon in the garage, chatting with Josie and Jacob and listening as they teased each other back and forth. I'd enjoyed myself a bit more than I would have expected, but now it was evening. Darkness had fallen outside the garage, and the only light came from the pair of work lamps angled to shine on the front end of the Rabbit.

The twins and I shared a look—and a panicked glance toward the tarp hiding the motorcycles. They were safely covered. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

"We're out here, Mom!" I called back. She still sounded like she was some distance away.

"Everyone's here! Come in and wash up!"

Jacob wiped his hands on a rag and reached up to turn off one of the lamps as Josie put away their tools. I slid down from the stool I'd been sitting on for the past few hours, limping slightly because my ankle had gone stiff.

"I'm not turning down food," Jacob said as Josie closed the lid on the toolbox. He reached up to turn off the second light.

And suddenly I was blind, alone in the dark. It was my nightmare all over again. I took a deep breath, holding it in and trying to tell myself this was not the nightmare. I wasn't alone in the forest. No one had abandoned me. And then Josie's hand found mine, and she pulled me out of the darkness of the garage, up through the trees toward the house. My eyes were still adjusting to the lack of light, but Josie's hand was firm in mine. I knew I wasn't alone.

My mother was standing on the little back porch. Billy sat in the doorway behind her. Josie's hand was still wrapped around mine, guiding me along the unfamiliar path. In the light that streamed out around Billy, I saw my mother's eyes fall to where Josie's hand was linked with mine, but she turned to go back inside without another word.

The house was full, to say the least. It was barely big enough for the entire Black family, and with so many visitors, we filled every corner. Harry and Sue Clearwater were there, as were their two children, whom I vaguely remembered from my summers in La Push. They were older now, of course. Seth was fourteen, and the admiring way he shadowed Jacob's every move could only be described as hero worship. Leah was about my age, a senior as well, but I didn't get the chance to talk to her. From the moment I stepped through the door, she was on Billy's phone. No one complained though, and from the glances Billy, Harry, and Sue shared, I got the feeling something serious was going on.

I didn't know where we were all going to eat until Harry and Jacob started moving chairs out into the front yard. We sat in the dim light that spilled out through Billy's open door, plates perched precariously in our laps as conversations spilled in all directions. I could hear Billy and Harry talking about an upcoming game while Sue and my mother discussed the test results from Harry's latest appointment at the hospital. Sue tried unsuccessfully to convince Harry to have some salad by pointing out that Billy was eating some, but Harry wouldn't budge. In between short conversations with the adults, Jacob, Josie, and I continued talking about school, with Seth interrupting here and there. His interruptions weren't always on topic, but he was a good kid. I assumed he was just afraid of being left out—after all, his sister had already abandoned us. She was still in the house on Billy's phone.

Eventually, as must always happen in this corner of the world, the rain returned, running us back inside. There wasn't enough space for everyone in Billy's living room, so we parted ways. The Clearwaters had already left when I turned to Jacob and Josie.

"Do you guys mind if I hang out sometimes?" Behind me, I heard Billy and my mother grow quiet.

"Anytime," Jacob said.

"You can come tomorrow, if you want. We'll just be working on the Rabbit again," his sister added.

"And doing homework," Josie's father reminded her from his place by the front door.

"Yeah, that too," she muttered.

My mother followed me home through the rain, and I excused myself upstairs as soon as we got into the house, telling her I still had things to take care of before school the next day. In truth, my homework was already done, but I couldn't stand the light in her eyes as she looked at me. She was hoping things were starting to change, that I was starting to get better, but it wasn't anything I really wanted to think about.

My mother went to bed soon after—she had to get up early for work the next day—but I wasn't eager to go to sleep. If the nightmare was going to come back, I was in no hurry for it to do so. I wasted time as best I could, cleaning my already immaculate room and putting away some laundry I'd left sitting in the corner for a few days, but eventually I ran out of excuses, and I crawled beneath the covers with a sense of dread.

I must have been more tired than I'd realized because I drifted off to sleep within minutes.

. . . . .

I was sitting at the grand piano in the main room of the big white house in the forest. My fingers danced across the keys, the beautiful notes of one of Beethoven's sonatas flowing out into the air. Beside me on the bench sat the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. I paused, my fingers barely brushing the keys, and looked down at her.

"Please don't stop," she said softly. "It's beautiful."

"No, it isn't," I told her. "I'm out of practice."

She shook her head. "It sounds wonderful."

"No, it can't. I haven't played in months. I can't anymore." I lifted my hands away from the piano, settling them on the bench at my sides. "You took the music with you."

Leaning closer, she reached out to take my left hand from the bench and interlaced her fingers with mine. She leaned her head against my shoulder, and I turned to lay my cheek against her hair.

I could feel her. I could smell her. Why couldn't this be real? I closed my eyes and breathed her in.

"You have to promise me, Edward," she whispered as she slid closer, her body curving against mine the way it always had.

"Promise you what?" I asked. Anything. I'd promise her anything if I could just stay here, forever, with her. Did I really need to wake up at all?

"Promise me that you'll keep looking for me."

I opened my eyes and pulled away just far enough to look down into her face.

"Where?" I whispered. "Where do I look? I don't know where you are. If I knew, I'd already be there." But she just shook her head.

"Look for me, Edward. You know where I'll be."

I could feel it now, that vague tugging, the sensation of the dream letting me go. I leaned down again to breathe in the scent of her hair one last time, to brush my lips against the top of her head. I squeezed her marble fingers gently in mine, wishing I could hold on to the dream, hold on to her and not have to let go, but it was slipping away, fading, leaving me alone again . . .

And when I opened my eyes it was to the sight of my bedroom ceiling. I turned over in bed, pulling the covers up over my head, desperate to go back to the dream, and though I did manage a bit more sleep before the alarm sounded in my ear, the angel did not return.

. . . . .

It took every bit of will power I could muster to force myself to pay attention the next day in school. Now that I had discovered the secret behind the dreams—Jacob and Josie, apparently, though that didn't make much sense—it was all I could think about. It seemed last night's dream had finally done what the first dream had only briefly accomplished. It had broken me from the endless cycle of depression and denial, and now I didn't want to go back.

All around me, I noticed what had been happening for months—people weren't just ignoring me. They went out of their way to actually avoid me. They intentionally kept their distance on the sidewalk between classes. They carefully looked in every direction but mine whenever I was near. Whenever one of my old friends accidentally made eye contact, they would smile uncomfortably and look away without any further greeting. I pondered these realizations as I made my way toward my usual table at lunch.

I'd been right. The table was fuller than it used to be. Katie Marshall, the junior who lived around the corner from my house, was sitting next to Eric Yorkie. I knew she'd been sitting with us for a while, but I couldn't remember how long it had been since I'd first seen her there. Judging by the way her red head was always turned in Eric's direction, I was pretty sure they were dating. Austin Marks was here, too. I vaguely remembered that he was friends with Ben Cheney, Angela's boyfriend, but I couldn't remember when he'd first started sitting with us, either.

I glanced toward the empty chairs at the far end of the table, then back toward the group. There was an unclaimed seat beside Mike. Maybe it was time I tried to rejoin the world. I pulled out the chair and sat down, but no one seemed to notice me. Was I really invisible, then?

Mike and Conner were discussing a game, but I'd lost touch with professional sports, so I had no idea what game it was. It didn't sound like the same one Billy and Harry had been talking about the evening before.

Across the table, I heard Lauren ask Angela where Ben was. I noticed that Lauren had cut her hair short—extremely short. I vaguely remembered it had been that way for a while. I just hadn't cared enough to let it register.

"Ben's got the stomach flu," Angela explained softly. "Hopefully it's just some twenty-four hour thing. He was really sick last night." Angela's hair was different, too. It was longer. It suited her.

"What did you two do this weekend?" Jessica asked. She sounded more polite than interested.

"We were going to have a picnic Saturday, actually, but we changed our minds." Something in her tone made me think there was more to the story.

"That's too bad," Jessica responded. She didn't really sound that interested. Whatever it was that had caught my attention about Angela's voice had been lost on Jessica.

That was ironic, considering how much I'd been missing lately.

"What happened?" Lauren asked curiously.

"Well . . ." Angela hesitated. She seemed a bit reluctant to tell the story. "We drove up north, almost to the hot springs. There's a good spot just about a mile up the trail, but when we were halfway there, we saw something." Lauren's eyebrows pulled together. More people around the table were listening now, but no one had noticed me yet.

"Saw something?" Lauren asked. "What?"

"I don't know," Angela admitted. "We think it was a bear. It was black, anyway, but it seemed too big."

Lauren snorted out a laugh. It was not becoming.

"Oh, not you, too! Tyler tried to sell me that one last week."

"You're not going to see any bears that close to the resort," Jessica chimed in.

"Really," Angela protested, looking down at the table timidly. "We did see it."

Lauren was still snickering. Jessica was shaking her head. Mike and Conner weren't paying any attention. I felt bad for Angela, always so sweet and so kind.

"She's right," I said. "We had a hiker in Newton's on Saturday who saw a huge black bear just outside of town. He said it was bigger than a grizzly. Isn't that right, Mike?"

The table went silent with shock. Even Katie Marshall stopped to stare at me. In an odd way, it was actually kind of funny.

"Remember the hiker talking about the bear, Mike?"

He stared at me for a moment, blinking like I had just materialized out of thin air. Honestly, hadn't he realized I was sitting right next to him?

"S-sure," he stuttered after several seconds. "Yeah, um, there was a guy who said he saw a huge black bear right at the trailhead. Bigger than a grizzly."

"Hmph." Lauren was already over her surprise at my appearance. She turned to Jessica and tried to change the subject, but Jessica was still staring at me.

"So, what did you do this weekend?" Mike asked. Everyone but Lauren was watching me, waiting for my answer.

"I went to a movie in Port Angeles with some friends from the rez. Then I spent most of yesterday down at La Push."

Jessica's eyes widened slightly.

"What movie did you see?" she asked hesitantly.

"Dead End. The zombie one."

"Dad saw that one," Jessica said. "He said it was really scary."

"It was kind of creepy," I admitted.

Jessica, Mike, and Angela kept up a conversation with me for the rest of lunch, but the others drifted slowly away. I still caught them throwing cautious glances in my direction, though. When I got up to dump my tray, Angela followed.

"Thanks," she said as soon as we were away from the table.

"What for?" I asked.

"For speaking up, sticking up for me."

"No problem."

She studied me for a moment, concern in her eyes, but it was a warm, friendly kind of concern. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm getting there," I told her after a moment.

"I'm glad." She offered me a small but encouraging smile. "We've missed you."

Lauren walked by just then, her eyes shooting daggers at me. I watched as she followed a crowd of people out through the cafeteria doors.

"It doesn't look like much has changed," I mused.

"No, it hasn't," Angela said. "I was just thinking the same thing."