Thank you guys so much for every single one who has left a review, followed the story or saved it as a favorite. It means the world to me that as many of you have an interest in it. I hope you like this chapter, too. We are getting closer and closer to an actual conversation between Mia and Paul. Have any of you read Midnight Sun yet? Is it worth picking it up?
beyondbored321: Yeah, she definitely doesn't like being bossed around. I think it will make for an interesting dynamic between her and Paul! I hope your week has been going well so far! :-) Marianka: Thank you, it means a lot to me that you liked it. You get to see Paul again today! Stay safe! :-)
Thatonechick72: Thanks. I hope you like this one, too! :-)
Gryffindor Gurl2: Thank you for taking the time to write a review. I appreciate it. Btw, I really like your user name :-)
The weeks blurred together. Autumn was fast approaching, and so was my last race of the year, although not of the season- that one would be coming up some time in late spring, early summer. So I spent most of my days training and my nights frantically scribbling down my homework. I scarcely passed my calculus class and aced PE. From time to time I thought about the douchebags from our trip to the cinema, but for the most part I tried to push these thoughts as far away as possible. It proved to be difficult, because they, well, mostly the guy who'd called out, somehow still managed to sneak into my head. My annoyance with them grew- the only time I could truly forget about them proved to be whenever I was training.
The movie we watched was an absolute flop. Mike, Eric and Tyler (who was mostly the friend of Lauren and didn't really belong in our friend group) thought it was great. Probably because it was gory and positively disgusting. I had no problem with blood and the likes- but I didn't much care for Dracula ripping out people's throats and then tearing open the rest of their body. My training session following my night out started tense. Aidan was pissed, which was nothing new, which in turn angered me, because, really, he had no reason to be pissed. So we spent the first hour silently glaring at each other while he instructed Dave, Will and Laurence.
Like me they were in their senior year and, together with me, they made up our senior year running team. Aidan and I were similar in that we were both more stubborn than was good for us. I flat-out refused to give him any attention, instead focusing on my exercises. He would occasionally walk by and make a remark such as "Keep going for five more minutes, then switch to another machine." As he turned around to go back to Laurence I somewhat inconspicuously held up my middle finger to his retreating form. Will caught sight of me and shot a shit eating grin my way.
Forks school gym was tiny and only offered few machines to work on. While it was nothing compared to a proper training center, such as the one in Seattle, it was better than nothing. The walls were painted a dark grey that was slowly fading to a dirty white and the ceiling was quite low for a gym. I'd already spent a considerable amount of time in my life between these four walls and it was as familiar to me as my own flat. My next race was no more than three weeks away and I could feel the pressure building up.
I knew that my parents didn't care one way or another whether I performed well or not. What mattered to them was my happiness- else they wouldn't have allowed me to move to Forks at such a young age in the first place. Aidan did care whether his team won or not, but he didn't blame it on us if we lost. It was more so my own ambitions that made my heart race at night or left me with cold, sweaty hands in class when I remembered how close the date already was.
To alleviate some of the stress I'd decided to pay my parents a long overdue visit. I hadn't seen them since my last race and knew that part of the unsettled feeling that had been weighing me down was longing for my family. Some people might think that we couldn't be particularly close, given the fact that I'd moved out as early and didn't spend a whole lot of time with them. But I often felt like it only made us value the time we did have even more. I didn't have a car and didn't feel like calling up my parents to take me there. I considered asking Bella if she had planned to go there this weekend. In the end I gave up on that idea. I knew that Edward, her boyfriend, wasn't a huge fan of the reservation. I didn't know all the details, only what she had shared with us, and had always gotten the impression that what she'd told us was quite far from the truth.
What had happened was this: Edward had left Bella, who hadn't taken that all too well, and fallen into some kind of depressive period. She'd found solace and comfort in Jacob Black, her childhood friend from the reservation. Upon Edwards return they had gotten back together right away- but Jacob didn't seem to have gotten the memo, or he simply didn't care to accept it. Whichever was the case, he still seemed to cling to some dumb hope that Bella would all of a sudden realize that maybe Edward was the wrong one for her. Either way, Edward didn't think much of Jacob, either, which had resulted in Bella visiting him less and less. So asking her wasn't really an option.
Neither was Jessica (by the time I'd arrive in La Push my patience would've worn away and I wouldn't feel up for any other conversations for the rest of the day) and I didn't really want to bother anyone else. This meant I was left with the bus. It left for La Push twice a day and made the way back twice a day as well.
So I got up early Saturday morning and was in La Push at ten a.m. La Push was much prettier than Forks. Where Forks was a lot of flat brick buildings and paved streets, La Push consisted of smaller wooden houses, spread out from each other a lot further, and narrow dirt roads. Most of them were quite secluded; small roads led to the houses, surrounded by trees. The village was close to the sea. Wherever you went, the rush of the ocean and the wind in the tress were your constant companions. I loved it here. My parents lived in a rather small house, tucked away between tall pine trees, close to the beach. It wasn't much, but it was home.
My fist had just connected with the wood of our front door when it was opened by my mother. She embraced me, her hug tight and familiar. "What a pleasant surprise, Miakoda. How are you feeling? Hungry? You look a bit tired. I hope you aren't training too hard." "Everything's good, mom. The late nights doing my homework are just starting to catch up to me." She shook her head, a crease appearing between her brows. "I've told you- maybe it would be better if you just started using your lunch break instead."
I really wished my mom would stop trying to influence how I lived my life- I knew she only had the best intentions, but after having lived independently for as long, it was nothing short of annoying. My dad swept in to heroically stop my mom from starting a discussion neither of us really wanted to have. "We've already finished breakfast, but there are leftovers. Would you like a bread roll? I've baked them just yesterday night. They are still fresh- soft on the inside and crisp on the outside, just how you like them."
While I enjoyed my second breakfast of the day we talked. I told them about my training schedule and they told me how they were planning on repairing the front porch. "But you do make sure to go out occasionally, right? Running shouldn't consume your entire life." This had been my mother's main concern after I'd moved to Forks- that I would make no friends and end up doing nothing but train. She wasn't entirely right with her prediction, but I secretly thought it was closer to the truth than they realized or I would like to admit.
"We went to see a movie the other day." "Was it any good?" My father inquired. "Not really, no. It was this weird Dracula remake and complete and utter bullshit. Had they focused more on the plot and not just tried to make it as gory as possibly it may have been better." "Let me guess; the boys chose that one?" The hope on my mom's face was easy to read. She had always wished for me to be less tomboyish. "They did. Along with me. Lauren, Angela and Jess wanted to watch a romance and I could not support their choice, regardless of how crappy the movie description for Dracula sounded."
The sigh that left my mother sounded like she'd just experienced the biggest disappointment of her life. "Look, do you want to stay for lunch?" I shrugged. I didn't really have a choice- the next bus wouldn't be here before four p.m. "Sure. What will you make?" I turned to my father. "Well, I'm not sure. We haven't got a lot in the house right now. I think I'll do a quick grocery run and grab a few things. Want to join me?" Enthusiastically nodding I got up, put my plate in the sink and walked to the front door. "Ready?"
The grocery store in La Push was tiny. Most people had a preconceived idea of what tiny meant. People in Forks thought that Forks High was tiny. Which was true, but it was large if compared to La Push High. But few people actually knew what a tiny grocery store was.
The "La Push All You Need Convenience Store" was basically the textbook definition of tiny. It had one large freezer, one wall where fruit and vegetable were stacked in boxes on top of each other and three shelves with dried goods stood in a row in the middle of the room. A boy younger than me sat at the check-out, his nose buried in a book. "Hi Brady, everything's well?" My father asked him upon entering the store. The boy, Brady, looked up. "Yeah. How's the porch coming along, Mr. Davis?" My father started explaining their exact plans. With surprise I noticed that Brady looked like he had a genuine interest in my parents plans- even I didn't find them to be very intriguing. While he did the talking I started to collect the items we would need for lunch. Once everything was in my basket I sat it down next to my father.
"I'll be down at the beach. When should I be back for lunch?" "One p.m.?" I gave my father a thumbs-up and left the store again. The path to the beach was well trodden. Just five minutes later I found myself on the shoreline of First Beach. I took of my trainers and let the waves cool down my feet. It was quiet and peaceful down here. An ache in my chest reminded me of everything I had left behind in choosing my running career over my family and my heritage. Laughter pulled me out of my thoughts.
Three guys were pushing each other around and slowly nearing where I stood. I narrowed my eyes. They looked an awful lot like the ones from the cinema. Before they could get any closer I turned around, making my way back home. As my feed hit the pebbles of the narrow path back to the main road I turned around one last time. They were watching me intensely. I couldn't tell if all of them had been at the cinema, but they looked at me with recognition. So at least one of them must have known who I was.
Slowly I let my eyes rake over them, trying to see if the douchebag was there as well. Upon closer inspection I realized, to my great annoyance, that I, in fact, didn't remember the faces of any of the other guys, expect for one. No matter how hard I tried to think back to that day, their faces were no more than a blur. The guy who'd whistled, though, was still as fresh in my mind as though it had been no more than a few minutes.
He stood the furthest from me, the water washing over his feet. His eyes were on me, intense and quite confusing. I blew a breath out my mouth and shut my eyes. It didn't matter that they looked rather nice with no shirts on- one, I didn't have time for a boyfriend and two, they were jerks anyway. I made a somewhat rude gesture in their general direction just to make sure they understood to stay away, before I started turning around. The one whose face I'd recognized turned around as well and stormed off. One of his friends ran after him, shouting something I had no chance of understanding up here.
I should've been pleased. I didn't want them to look at me. I didn't want them to have any kind of weird interest in me. Still, I couldn't help but feel something akin to disappointment gathering in my stomach. Or maybe I was just hungry. If that was the case it was easy to cure, though, so I went home to help my dad with lunch.
We were sitting at our desk, a steaming plate of vegetable and potato in front of us. "The other day, when we watched that movie, there were five guys from the reservation at the cinema. Tall, weirdly fit, dressed way too cold for the weather. Do you have any idea who it might've been?" Realization dawned on my parents faces as soon as I said those words, but it was my father who spoke up. "I'd guess you must have seen Sam Uley's boys." "Sam Uley has children? He's hardly older than me. No more than four years I'd wager."
I tried to take the laughter that followed my statement not as an insult to my person. "No. His boys as in they spend a lot of time together. They do a lot of good work for the reservation. I've heard that Sam helps those who are in danger of losing the right path." I quirked up an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?" "Well… Some of them, for example Paul Lahote, were rumored to mix with the wrong people and get into things they shouldn't involve themselves in. But, of course, they are only rumors and you know I don't tend to listen to those a lot. People talk, especially in a village as small as La Push." "And whatever jobs they do around the reservation require them to look like that? Do they have some sort of dress code? Do they have to go through some weird kind of initiation? I saw Jacob for the first time in what must have been two years a few weeks ago. He looks like he's on steroids now. Does that have to do with "Sam Uley's boys", too?"
My mom rolled her eyes. "Not that I know of. But they are nice people. You should've spoken to them. Make some more friends." She didn't need to add the "male". It was implied and I knew what she was getting at. "Boys," I put a lot of emphasis on that word, so it was clear that I didn't think they were mature at all, "who whistle after girls, are not my type." This made my mom sigh (again) and my father smile at me proudly. I didn't think he deemed anyone worthy of his daughter's attention.
The rest of the day flew by. What felt like no more than an hour later, I found myself at the bus station. I had been able to convince my parents not to go with me. I wanted a few minutes of quiet before I got back to Forks. Of course, most people wouldn't consider Forks to be loud, but the difference between the two was clear if you truly paid attention.
A sudden noise in the trees made me turn around- something was here, I just didn't know what. Everyone in the reservation knew that there was a wolf pack in the surrounding woods, and both mountain lions as well as bears weren't uncommon either. I had seen the last two of these from afar before, but knew that they tended to stay away from human civilization. The same applied to wolves, but I also knew that especially in the last two years a couple of sightings had been reported, though mainly from tourists, who I guessed weren't the most reliable source. Apparently the wolves had been huge, almost horse-sized, which made me think they had gotten them confused with bears and in their blind panic had forgotten everything they should've known about biology.
I took a step toward the rustling noise. The sound of twigs snapping marked the departure of whatever had been lurking in the bushes. I furrowed my brows, for a short moment contemplating if I should tell someone that some large animal had been rather close to the houses. And then I felt silly for even thinking about it, because I knew it to be a regular occurrence. Bears were spotted all the time here. Those who'd been born here were used to it, just like people in cities were used to the sight of pigeons on the sidewalks.
The bus arrived noisily and I got in, the doors closing with a loud slamming sound. The further I got from the reservation, the more I forgot about the rustling- and the more I thought about the whistling dumbass.