.
9. FRIENDS
(THIRD WHEEL)
We didn't find the meadow that Sunday, nor did we find it the Sunday after that, but as January slid into February, time began to move differently. For months, the days had slipped by in a meaningless blur with nothing to differentiate one from the next except for the endless cycle of depression and denial, but I had a goal now, a purpose. Every day that passed brought me one day closer to the next Sunday, and every Sunday we didn't find the meadow brought me one step closer to the day when we would.
I spent most of my free time in La Push. Jacob had already made what repairs he could with the motorcycle parts he'd found at the junkyard, so until he and Josie had saved enough money to buy the rest of what they needed, there wasn't really much to do in the garage. We usually did homework or watched TV, instead. Once or twice a week, whenever Quil came over, he and Jacob would retreat to the garage to talk about their missing friend, and Josie and I would be left to ourselves. It was a comfortable, predictable routine, one I found myself looking forward to as I counted each day until Sunday, when we would go hiking again.
My mother seemed thrilled with this new arrangement, but she saw only what I let her see. If she'd known the whole truth, she probably would have thought what I was doing now still looked a lot like denial, and maybe she would have been right. I was searching for something, for someone, using nothing more than clues from a dream. I was trying to convince myself that she was still out there, somewhere, waiting for me to find her.
I couldn't bear to think of the alternative.
Some nights I dreamed of her. Some nights I didn't. Sometimes there were new dreams in new places, and sometimes I was revisited by old dreams I'd already dreamed, but it was always the same—the same achingly realistic sensation that she was right there beside me and the same frustrating message. Look for me.
The nightmares still came, too, but they had changed, as well. Now they ended with the touch of a warm hand leading me out of the darkened forest and into the sunlight. I still couldn't see, but I could feel the warm sunshine on my face, and I could sense the bright light filtering through my perpetually closed eyelids. It made the nightmares somewhat easier to bear.
Other things were changing, too. I was no longer so oblivious to what was happening around me, but even if I hadn't been paying attention to the date on the calendar, there was no way I could have missed the significance of that day in the middle of February. I saw the first red rose in the parking lot before I'd even stepped up onto the sidewalk. The first box of chocolates appeared before Mr. Bertie had finished taking attendance. I tried to ignore the silly cards, the stuffed animals, the overly amorous couples on the sidewalks between classes. I did the best I could to block it all out, to try not to think about the person I wanted to be here with me, but sometimes you just can't win. It felt like a weight had lifted when I pulled out of the parking lot after school and headed toward La Push. I could finally breathe again, but that feeling of freedom was replaced by a new weight when I pulled up in front of Josie's house several minutes later and found myself presented with a red heart-shaped lollipop.
"Happy Valentine's Day," Josie said, a slightly goofy grin on her face.
I reached out to take the candy from her hand, moving as slowly as I could as I tried to decide how to react.
"It's Valentine's Day?" I finally asked. Playing dumb was the only thing I could come up with.
Josie laughed, but something about the sound seemed off. Mentally, I kicked myself. I'd been suspecting for some time now that she was starting to see me as something more than just a friend, but it wasn't something I was prepared to deal with. I needed her friendship to get me through, so I'd tried to ignore the possibility. I'd focused on our search for the meadow, instead, on getting from one Sunday to the next and trying to fill the days in between so the time sped by, but I wasn't being fair to her. I couldn't let her keep thinking something was going on when it wasn't.
"Just like a guy, never remembering what day it is." She elbowed me playfully as she turned toward the garage. "So, I've got an Algebra test Thursday. How's studying tomorrow sound?"
"Sounds great," I agreed, falling into step beside her, but I'd long since figured out that Josie didn't need any help with Algebra. She was doing perfectly fine on her own. It was just a ruse, one that, judging by her reaction when Jacob had first suggested it, hadn't necessarily been her idea, but she was keeping up the pretense, just the same. She and I were going to have to have a talk, an awkward and upsetting talk that I really didn't want to have with her. I didn't want to hurt her feelings. We were friends, after all.
Was there some way to avoid it, I wondered? How could I show Josie that she was just a friend, that I wasn't interested in her in any romantic way, without having to sit her down and say the words? With Jessica, I'd restricted our interactions to group outings and tried to push her toward Mike. Josie certainly wasn't Jessica, and I didn't want to push her away, but maybe a group outing wouldn't be such a bad idea. If I treated her like just another one of my friends, would Josie understand how I really felt? If one of the guys flirted with her a little—surely one of them would—and she saw that I didn't care, would she realize I didn't see her that way?
"Some of the guys from school have been talking about going to see a movie Friday." It wasn't a lie. A few people had been tossing around the idea at lunch. "I thought you and Jake might want to come."
"You want us to go see a movie with your friends from school?" she asked.
"Why not? That way, my friends from Forks can meet my friends from La Push. You should bring Quil."
"Sounds cool," she said as we stepped into the garage.
"Where are we bringing Quil?" Jacob asked. The bikes were still in pieces on the tarp, though they'd been moved to one side. The Rabbit was sitting inside the garage, and Jacob was tinkering with something beneath the open hood.
"Some of my friends from school are going to the movies Friday. I thought you guys might want to come. You can bring Quil, too."
"Will there be girls?" Jacob asked.
"Sure."
"Senior girls?"
I nodded. "Of course."
"Quil's gonna freak." He laughed.
"Senior guys, too." I nudged Josie on the shoulder, but she just rolled her eyes.
"Sure, sure," she mumbled, and then she went to join her brother beneath the hood of the Rabbit.
. . . . .
"What did you guys decide about the movies Friday night?" I asked the next day at lunch. Thankfully, enough time had passed since my months of silence that most people were used to me speaking again.
"You want to go to the movies?" Jessica asked. She hadn't acted very interested the day before, but she certainly seemed interested now.
Lauren, sitting on Jessica's right, sent a glare in my direction that clearly indicated she wasn't interested at all. I ignored her.
Mike shrugged. "I don't think anybody really decided."
"The trailer for Crosshairs looks good." I'd done my research this time. Nothing to remind me of things I didn't want to think about, just an action-packed bloodbath from start to finish.
"Sounds cool," Mike said. Most of the other people sitting around the table voiced their own interest, even Jessica, though I couldn't imagine her really being interested in something like Crosshairs.
"I've already got a couple of people going. A few of my friends from La Push want to come."
"Is the girl you're tutoring in Algebra coming?" Jessica asked, trying to sound casual as she picked at her salad.
"Yes." Maybe Josie's presence would discourage Jessica from getting too many ideas. "Her brother and one of their friends are coming, too." I turned to Mike. "Do you think we can use the Suburban? If everyone comes, we'll need the extra seats."
"Sure," he agreed.
But as it turned out, we didn't need the extra seats.
Lauren, of course, claimed to be busy, and although he'd been planning to go, Conner changed his mind. I suspected Lauren had somehow been involved with his decision. Eric and Katie had already made plans for their three-week anniversary, and even Quil was out after being grounded for fighting at school. Our numbers shrank again at lunch on Friday when Mike announced that his parents had found out about his slipping English grade. Since we had a paper due on Monday, he'd been given strict orders to stay at home all weekend and work on it. I sympathized—and felt a bit guilty because I suspected his parents had overheard us talking about his English grade at work—but I'd already finished my own paper the day before. That cut our group down to seven, a number that dipped even further when I arrived home from school to find the Rabbit sitting in front of my house with only Josie standing beside it.
"Jacob says he feels weird," she explained.
"Do you think he's getting that stomach flu you and Billy had last week?" I wondered, for a second, if this was just some further attempt by Jacob at matchmaking, but I could see that Josie was genuinely concerned.
She shook her head. "He said it didn't feel like that. He didn't know how to describe it. All he would say was that he felt weird. I think he had a fever." She frowned. "I offered to stay home, but Dad said they would be okay."
"Are you sure you want to come along tonight? You don't have to."
"No, it's okay. Jake made me promise to give him a full report. If the movie is any good, he and Quil might go once Quil's sentence is up."
It was then that Jessica's white Mercury appeared around the corner. She had picked up Tyler on her way over, so that just left Ben and Angela. Josie and I watched as Jessica parked behind the Rabbit. She and Tyler got out of her car and walked toward us.
"Jessica, Tyler, do you guys remember Josie Black from La Push?"
Jessica nodded carefully. She was watching Josie suspiciously, but she still managed a somewhat friendly smile. Tyler nodded his head in greeting, but his eyes were studying the Rabbit curiously. It was the perfect opening.
"Josie and her brother rebuilt the Rabbit," I told him.
"Really?" Tyler's eyes lit up. Jessica's went a little darker. "That is so cool!" He stepped forward for a closer look. Behind me, I heard the phone ringing in the kitchen.
"Hold on. Let me go get that." I limped into the house as fast as I could, leaving Tyler to admire Jacob and Josie's work.
When I finally made it into the kitchen to answer the phone, it was Ben. Angela had come down with the stomach flu, and he didn't want to come without her. That left just the four of us, considerably fewer than I'd been hoping for.
As I came back down the front walk, Tyler was leaning under the open hood of the Rabbit, seemingly fascinated by Josie's explanation of the rebuild. Jessica was standing several yards away, staring at them both.
"Angela's sick," I explained. "She and Ben aren't going to make it."
"Austin and Conner were out today, too," Jessica said. "Should we do this another time?" Somehow, I didn't think she was as disappointed at the prospect of canceling as her tone suggested.
"I'm still up for it," Josie said. "How about you, Tyler?"
"Sounds good to me, unless you want to go later?" he offered, glancing back toward Jessica.
Jessica's eyes focused on Josie for a brief second, then swung back in my direction.
"No, tonight's fine. I was just . . . . worried about Angela and Ben being left out."
Sure she was. I knew Jessica well enough to know that this had been a fact finding mission. She'd been hoping for enough of a group that she would have someone to chat with while eyeing Josie from a distance. Now that Angela wasn't coming, she didn't like the remaining ratio, but she didn't want to admit that she didn't want to go anymore . . . and she didn't want to give up the opportunity to come back from the movie with gossip.
I studied the cars for a moment. I didn't know how comfortable we would all be in the Rabbit, and something about putting Josie in Jessica's car just didn't feel right.
"Since you guys drove over, why don't I drive to the theater?" I offered. Everyone agreed.
I was relieved when Josie managed to snag the front seat of the Volvo before Jessica got the chance.
Josie was her typical cheerful self, chatting with me and talking to Tyler about the Rabbit for most of the trip to Port Angeles. For the most part, Jessica stayed silent as the three of us talked. I had a feeling I might pay for this later.
When we got to the theater, Josie gave me money to buy her a ticket. She still wasn't old enough to get in on her own.
"I'm a horrible influence on you, aren't I?" I joked. "Is Billy going to ban me from visiting if I sneak you in?"
"Are you kidding?" she laughed. "He practically shoved me out the door tonight. Besides, he says I'm the bad influence on you."
At the sound of our laughter, Tyler and Jessica glanced back from their place near the front of the line. Tyler was smiling. Jessica was not. Still, she managed to grab the seat on my left when we got into the theater. Tyler sat on her other side. Josie sat on my right.
The movie was just as expected. By the time the opening credits were over, five people were already dead—four killed by an explosion and one by beheading. In the row in front of me, I watched a girl cover her eyes and turn her face into her boyfriend's chest. He was wincing at the screen as he patted her back, clearly having second thoughts about their choice of movie for date night. Beside me, I noticed that Josie was shaking. I turned toward her, puzzled for a moment until I realized she was laughing.
"That beheading was so fake," she whispered in my ear.
To my left, I realized that Jessica's face wasn't pointed directly at the screen. Instead, her eyes were focused above it. She seemed to be watching the curtains.
I settled in for the next two hours, trying to focus on the other people in the theater, rather than on the violence dancing across the screen. Every so often, Josie would snicker, and after a few more minutes, I let my eyes drift back toward the movie. By the time I watched a man get knocked into the air by a speeding car, I was laughing along with her. He flipped and cartwheeled for at least fifteen seconds, doing a routine that would have won him a gold metal at the Olympics before finally landing on the pavement. It was absolutely absurd.
We were most of the way through the movie when Josie suddenly let out a gasp and leaned forward in her seat, her head in her hands. At first I thought she was laughing at something on the screen, but then I realized she was rocking back and forth, as if in pain. I leaned forward to look into her face, but her eyes were clenched shut.
"Josie?"
"Just give me a minute," she said, her voice a strained whisper. "I think it's going away."
Movie forgotten, I rubbed circles on her back and waited for the pain to pass. I didn't know what else to do. When she finally sat back up a moment later, her eyes were distant and unfocused.
"I need to get some air," she said, standing.
"I'll come with you." I followed her out of the theater, shaking my head at Jessica when she moved to follow. "Stay here. We'll be back."
Outside the theater doors, Josie leaned against the wall and rubbed her forehead. It was quieter here. Both theaters were mid-movie, and no customers roamed the hallway. Around the corner in the lobby, I could hear the sounds of popcorn popping and the quiet conversation of concession attendants as they restocked paper cups and popcorn buckets.
"Are you okay?" I asked. Josie nodded, but as she lowered her hand from her forehead, I could see that it was shaking. Still looking a little dazed, she made her way around the corner toward a bench in the lobby. Her expression had changed to one of bewilderment as she sat down and reached up to rub her temples with her fingertips.
"Out of nowhere, it felt like someone shoved a thousand knives into my head all at once. I have never felt anything like that."
I sat down beside her.
"Any flashing lights? Auras?"
"Like those migraines you used to get when you were a kid?" she asked. I nodded. I still got them from time to time. She lowered her hands from her temples and shook her head. "No, nothing like that. Just . . . all of a sudden it hurt, and then after a couple of seconds, it just went away, like it had never happened." She sighed. "It was really . . . weird." She made a face, her eyebrows lowering slightly before she shook away whatever thought had just crossed her mind.
She turned toward me, her eyes meeting mine for the first time since we'd sat down. As she watched me silently, something made me think of the movie we'd just left, of the laughter we'd shared, and somehow I knew she was thinking about it, too. This hadn't been my intention for the evening. We weren't supposed to have this much fun together. This movie was supposed to clarify the line between us, not blur it even more. We were definitely going to have to have that talk.
"Josie . . ." I began, but I wasn't sure how to continue. I couldn't find the right words to say what I needed to say without hurting her. I considered for another moment, finally settling on the right way to start, and took a breath, but Josie interrupted me before I could begin again. Something in her eyes said she already knew what I was about to say.
"Wait. Can I just say something first?"
I nodded. I owed her that, at least—the opportunity to say what she needed to say before I hurt her.
"I've been thinking about a lot of things lately," she began carefully. Finding the right words didn't seem to be any easier for her than it had been for me.
"We're friends, right?"
"Yes," I answered.
"No matter what," she said, "we're friends."
I nodded and she turned away, her gaze falling to the checkered carpet of the lobby floor. She studied the worn pattern of squares as she tried to collect her thoughts.
"I know you're going through a lot right now," she continued, "and I know you're hurting. I can see it in your eyes, sometimes, and I know why. I know how you looked at her."
I fought the sudden urge to turn away, to change the subject. As hard as it was to have this conversation with Josie, it was impossible for me to talk about that.
"We don't have to talk about it," she said quickly, turning back to face me. "I just want you to know that I get it, and I want you to remember that if you ever need a friend, I'm here. Jake is, too."
She paused, waiting for some reaction on my part, but I still didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. After a moment of my silence, she continued.
"If you ever want to talk, I'm here. If you just need someone to hang out with, I'm here." She stopped to take a deep breath, holding it in for a few seconds before letting it go. "And if you need someone to help you find a meadow so you can get some kind of closure, I'm here."
What? Closure? Was that what she thought I was doing? I stared at her as she waited for my reaction. Of course she must have figured out by now that the meadow was somehow connected to her, but I'd never considered what Josie must think we were doing, searching through the forest every weekend. And how could I ever explain what I was really doing?
"If you ever get . . . there," she said, her voice suddenly softer, quieter, "if you ever find that closure, I just want you to remember that I'm . . . here."
This wasn't exactly the way I had wanted this conversation to go.
"Josie . . ." I still hadn't worked out what I wanted to say, but she waited, watching me patiently as I tried to find the right words. "What if I don't ever get there?" I finally asked.
"Then we're still friends, right?" Her smile was soft, hesitant . . . and maybe a little bit sad.
I took a moment to let this sink in, then nodded. "Right."
She studied me for another moment, her expression uncharacteristically serious, but it wasn't like her to stay so serious for so long. The corners of her lips twitched.
"Just promise me one thing," she said. "If you ever do get there, don't go out with Jessica."
I couldn't help but smile at that, even if my smile was a weak one.
"Not a chance, don't worry."
As we sat there in the quiet lobby, the music from the theater grew suddenly louder. The movie we'd just left was over, and as the first few people began to make their way out of the theater and into the lobby, the soundtrack from the closing credits swept out behind them through the open doors. I could hear people laughing and joking about the movie's ridiculous grand finale. I pulled my hand away from Josie's—strange because I hadn't remembered putting it there—just in time to see Tyler and Jessica step out of the hallway. He was giving her a rather unnecessary play-by-play of the final scene they had both just watched.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked as they came closer to our bench.
"Yeah, I think so," Josie answered. "I just had this really bad headache all of a sudden, but then it went away. Maybe the movie was too loud?"
Jessica's eyes swept from me to Josie and back again. The frown on her face was visible for less than a second before she managed to hide it.
"So we missed the grand finale, huh?" I asked. It was the wrong thing to say. Tyler began to fill us in on absolutely everything we had missed, beginning about ten minutes before we'd left the theater. He continued his recap all the way into the parking lot, and we were about a third of the way back to Forks by the time he finally finished. Jessica still hadn't said a word. Josie was oddly silent, as well, sitting in the front seat with a strange expression on her face. She seemed . . . upset about something, but she insisted she was "just tired" both times I asked. I offered to take her home as we approached the turnoff to La Push Road, but she insisted her headache was gone and that she would be okay to drive herself home. I could practically hear Jessica glaring up at her from the back seat. As I parked in my driveway, I could already imagine the gossip Jessica would be spreading at school on Monday. She barely said "goodbye" before she and Tyler got into her car and drove away. I turned to Josie.
"Are you sure you don't want me to drive you home?" I asked.
"No, I'll be fine." She reached into her pocket for the keys.
"At least call me when you get home, okay?"
"Okay." She smiled and bumped her shoulder against my arm before getting into her car. I stood at the end of my driveway, watching until her taillights had vanished down the street, and then I went inside to wait for her call.
It didn't come.
I watched the clock on the wall, counting how many minutes she'd been gone, trying to envision how far down La Push Road she might be. I gave her half an hour to make what was usually about a fifteen minute trip, and then I called.
No one picked up the phone.
I waited five minutes, then tried again. This time, Billy answered.
"Hello?" He sounded wary, like he was expecting a call from someone he didn't want to talk to.
"Hey, Billy, it's Edward. I was just checking to make sure Josie got home okay. She left my house about half an hour ago. She had a headache at the theater and—"
"She's here," Billy interrupted. He sounded distant, distracted.
"Is she okay? She was supposed to call. Did her headache come back?"
"No, it didn't. She's . . . looking after Jacob."
"Jake? Is he sick?" I asked.
"Something like that," Billy answered vaguely. The tone of his voice sounded off, like he didn't really want to talk. Maybe he wanted to go check on Jacob.
"If you guys need anything, let me know, okay?"
"Thank you, Edward. Goodbye." The call disconnected before I could answer back. I stared down at the phone for a moment, wondering what was going on. Then I gave up and headed upstairs to bed.
It was just after three in the morning when I woke up and stumbled into the bathroom. Apparently it was my turn with the stomach flu. My mother found me curled up on the bathroom floor when she got home from work several hours later.
"Oh, no, not you, too," she said. "Everybody's got this thing."
I just groaned.
"At least I'm off work for the next few days." She leaned over to check my forehead with her hand, something you apparently never got too old for your mother to do. "You're definitely warm. Hopefully it's just the twenty-four hour version. Don't you want to go back to bed?"
"No," I croaked. I wanted to stay right where I was. I had already discovered that trying to move was a very, very bad idea.
She sighed. "Do you need anything?" she asked.
"Can you call the Newtons and tell them I won't be in?"
She nodded, disappearing from the doorway. When she came back a few minutes later, it was with a glass of water, a blanket, and the news that Mike, too, was sick and had been since the previous evening. That made me feel even worse about not being able to work, since Mike wouldn't be able to, either, but my mother assured me that Mrs. Newton's only instruction had been for me to feel better.
I spent the rest of the day on the bathroom floor, sleeping and waking in spurts. My dreams were hazy and disjointed. Only one made any sense. A chestnut-haired girl with amber eyes sat on the edge of the bathtub watching over me. She said nothing about looking for her this time—even in my dreams I was too miserable for that conversation—but the feel of her cool hands on my forehead felt like heaven.
My mother poked her head into the bathroom to check on me from time to time. Early in the afternoon, I noticed she had showered and changed clothes, but I couldn't find the energy to ask where she 'd gone. She must be going to the neighbor's house. That realization made me feel guilty for monopolizing the bathroom, but there was nothing I could do. Every time I moved, I got sick again.
It was dark when I awoke to the sound of the ringing phone. I was still lying on the floor when my mother leaned her head in the door to tell me Mrs. Newton had just called to say Mike was feeling better.
Just a few more hours to go, I told myself.
I must have slept through the rest of the night because when I awoke again, there was sunlight streaming in through the bathroom window. I sat up carefully, waiting for the nausea to return, but it didn't. I was thirsty, I realized, reaching for the fresh glass of water my mother had left. I drained it, relieved to discover I wanted more.
I made my way carefully down the stairs to the kitchen. There was another glass of water and a sleeve of saltine crackers waiting for me on the table. I watched as my mother ascended the stairs with a bottle of bleach, a soldier marching into battle, prepared to vanquish the germs I'd left in the bathroom.
The crackers tasted good—wonderful, actually—but I didn't want to push my luck. I waited until I was sure they were going to stay down before I tried to call Jacob and Josie's house again.
Jacob answered. He sounded terrible.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Jake. Are you still sick?"
"Sort of," was his answer.
It was Sunday morning, but he still sounded terrible. I didn't think I sounded that bad.
"You aren't feeling any better?"
"No," he answered. "Everything hurts."
There was a shuffling sound on the other end of the phone, and then Josie's voice came on the line.
"Edward?"
"Josie! How are you feeling? Did the headache come back?"
"No, it's . . . taken care of," she answered vaguely. What did that mean?
"What's wrong with Jake? Does he have that bug that's been going around? I just got over it, but it only lasted about twenty-four hours for me."
I heard Josie sigh. "You were sick, too?"
"Yeah, but I'm okay now. What about Jake? Does he have what you and Billy had last week?"
"No, I don't think so," she said quietly. She didn't elaborate.
"Is there anything you need? Medicine or—"
"No!" Her voice, so soft and quiet up until now, became suddenly louder, more urgent. "We're okay. And you shouldn't come over. Jake might . . . be contagious. We'll call you when he's better." I heard more shuffling in the background. "I've got to go, Edward," she said. "Jake needs me."
"Okay, I hope he feels better."
"Sure," she said, but there was a worried edge to her tone. "Just . . . wait for us to call, okay?"
"Okay," I said. "Bye, Josie."
"Goodbye, Edward." She hung up the phone.