A/N: Sorry for the long update time. On the bright side: went to see Perks of Being A Wallflower. I highly recommend it, and the book.

Review, please!

"Being in love with someone who doesn't even know you exist isn't the worst thing in the world. In fact, it's quite the oppostie. Almost like passing in a term paper that you know sucked, but having that period of time where you haven't gotten your grade back yet - that kind of exhale where you haven't been rejected, although you pretty much know how it's going to turn out." ― Tonya Hurley, Ghostgirl

October 28, 2005

You'll never guess where I am. Seriously. You won't. You would never guess.

Okay, here goes. I'm on a beach. First Beach beach, in fact, at sunset. The world was bathed in orange-pink light, and the ocean was amazing. It was a place for romance.

Which was why I was with Jared.

And it wasn't even a dream!

"Kim, we've been dating for a long time…" said Jared, looking a bit nervous. God, he was gorgeous…

"…yes?" Oh my god, was he going to break up with me? Oh my God!

"So, I just wanted to ask you…" he trailed off, fumbling for something in his pocket. He smiled briefly when he'd located it. He exhaled, nodded to himself, and looked up at me. "Kim Connweller. You are the most wonderful girl I've ever met. I'll never find a girl I could ever love more than I love you. So, Kim," he knelt down, and opened the little box. Nestled inside was a r-ri-ring. "Will you marry me?"

"Oh my God." I shrieked, staring down at the little black velvet box in his hand. "Oh, Jared!" I yelled again, staring at the man before me—who was proposing to me! With an actual ring! Holy shit!

"Yes, yes, yes!" I shrieked, doing the whole smiling-while-crying thing that girls do when their boyfriends propose in movies and stuff. He smiled widely—his smile is so rare—and I flung my arms tightly around his neck, crying happily and smiling at the same time, careful not to dislodge the velvety ring box still clutched in his hands. I could feel his happy smile against my neck, and God, I wanted to kiss him—

"What the—Kim, get off me!" A hand came out of nowhere, shoving me away from Jared and the sunset and the beach and onto a cold hardwood floor. I blinked rapidly, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit, obnoxiously pink room. It was like a unicorn barfed everywhere…all rainbows and those obnoxious stuffed teddy bears that say stupid shit like 'I love you beary much!' and sparkles…okay, the sparkles were okay, but I was in "little girl world" overload. Pink bunny sheets, purple sparkly comforter, shiny pink Hello Kitty curtains… In fact, the only things that really evidenced that a teenager lived in that very room were the dirty clothes strewn everywhere, the mess of random papers littering the ground along with candy wrappers, a banana peel, and—was that chewed-up gum stuck under the chair? What the…Where was I? God, don't you hate mornings like that, where you have no freaking clue where you are and you're all disoriented and shit—

Oh my God. Pink room. Morning. No Jared.

Crap. It was a dream.

That was Bubbalicious gum under the chair.

Chewed up Bubbalicious bubble gum stuck under furniture only meant one thing: I was at Natalie's. And, as I've said, she's a freaking bear in the morning before she has her coffee.

"God, were you trying to strangle me or something? What the hell?" Natalie demanded of me once she had woken up enough to actually converse. It was after we'd gotten dressed, on our way down the stairs of Natalie's spacious house to the kitchen where (Natalie hoped) her mother was making banana pancakes.

"No! I was—I was—just, you see—"

"Oh my God. Kim." Natalie turned to me suddenly, a look of horror on her face. "You had that proposal dream again! Ew! Was I Jared? Holy crap, I never thought I'd say that…"

"Yes! No…what?"

"Kim, seriously, he's been gone for, like, a year, so just, let it go, okay? Odds are he hightailed it outta here and is dead in a ditch somewhere. Maybe he got murdered by a freaky-ass serial killer or something. This is your intervention." Natalie inhaled sharply. "It is never going to happen. Okay? He's an idiot, he's kind of mean, he's had a ton of girlfriends—"

"Two," I corrected glumly. Natalie ignored me and steamrolled on.

"Kim! Face it. You're not soul mates!"

"We are!" We've cleared that I'm delusional, right?

"You aren't 'meant to be together'!" Natalie shouted, using a high-pitched voice—eerily like her cousin Sabrina's—on the 'meant to be together' bit.

"I know, I know, but, Natalie…I—I love him!" I insisted.

"But he doesn't love you, Kim, and he never will! God, just grow up, Kim!"

I flinched away from her reflexively, my eyes stinging. Natalie blinked, like she couldn't believe she'd actually told me that. Her brown eyes were wide with something that looked like regret. She squared her jaw and didn't look away from my eyes; she still stood by what she had said.

"Natalie!" The loftily shrill voice of Natalie's mother called through the closed door of the kitchen. "Natalie Lisa Wright, I swear, if you're not up—" The door banged open, Mrs. Wright standing in the doorway.

Natalie's mother was a woman of forty years old. She wasn't beautiful, what with her rounded face and pointy nose, and she clearly hadn't ever been, but she looked like something sweet that'd been left out in the sun and was suddenly all sour and gross. I guess having six kids (including Natalie) would do that to a person. I mean, she had five sons! She had twins, and then another set of twins, and then another boy, and then she had Natalie. She had five kid under the age of three: Jeremy, Jordan, Jeffrey, Jackson, and Jonathan. (Nat's mother's name is Josephine, so I guess that's where the whole J-name thing comes from; yeah, not exactly my taste either, but…to each, his own, right?) I mean, Mrs. Wright's my Aunt Renata's age, but my free-spirit aunt has always seemed a lot younger than Mrs. Wright.

And I'm just guessing, here, 'cause I don't know from experience or anything, but generally, becoming a grandmother at 35 isn't in most people's life plans. I mean, Mrs. W had Nat's brother Jeremy when she was eighteen and when he was seventeen he knocked up a girl from the Makah rez, Leah Clearwater's second cousin and Emily Young's sister, Hannah. That was five years ago; their shotgun wedding was in April of their senior year of high school and by the next Christmas they were divorced. As far as I know, Hannah has full custody of their daughter Violet because Jeremy left soon after the divorce and hasn't really had any contact with Hannah, Natalie, or anyone since he ran off to college beyond the odd Christmas card and child support check. It was all really hushed up, and Violet is called Violet Young instead of Violet Wright. Natalie says that her dad pretends that Hannah is a friend's daughter instead of his ex-daughter-in-law (not untrue; Hannah and Emily's Quileute mother, Kiara, was close friends with Mr. and Mrs. Wright in high school; she's also Paul Lahote's paternal aunt, believe it or not…it's kinda weird how we're all connected, but whatever) and treats Violet like…nothing at all, really; Natalie says that he likes Claire, Hannah's younger daughter with her Makah boyfriend, better than he does Violet, his own granddaughter. As far as Mr. Wright is concerned, Jeremy doesn't have a daughter and is still the perfect son; I know this really bothers Natalie and Mrs. Wright, but Mr. Wright is home so rarely it doesn't really matter too much to me what he thinks about his son and his love child.

But whatever.

Natalie's dad, Evan Wright, is some sort of big shot lawyer guy. (I know, weird, right?) He now works out of a law firm in Seattle, and has a condo there he stays in over the weekdays. He's technically supposed to come home on the weekends, but he's kind of a workaholic and never really leaves Seattle. I honestly think they're secretly divorced or something, because as long as I've known Natalie, I think I've only seen her dad twice. Natalie talks about him a lot; she kind of idolizes him.

(You're probably wondering how on earth someone who had a baby at eighteen in a deadbeat town like La Push could ever be a big shot anything. I know, I was wondering that too, but the answer is this: Mr. Wright's half-white, and the white side of his family were real rich off a huge-ass lumber company they had out of Forks. Mr. Wright used his inheritance to sell the company and go to law school, all the while supporting Mrs. Wright and their growing brood.)

"I'm right here, Mother!" Natalie snapped at her mother. Mrs. Wright jumped, seeming to suspect that Natalie was ill; the only plausible reason for Natalie to be up so early of her own free will. Natalie didn't notice; she was too busy being annoyed at having been interrupted in the middle of her anti-Jared tirade.

"Hi, Mrs. Wright. How are you?" I smiled weakly, blinking away the sudden tears that Natalie's early morning grumpiness-driven outburst had invoked. Natalie herself sighed loudly, like she knew I'd never get the whole Jared-is-just-not-into-you-so-you-should-just-get-over-it-already thing.

I think we both know that I'll never get the Jared-is-just-not-into-you-so-you-should-just-get-over-it-already thing.

Mrs. Wright blinked in surprise. At first I thought it was because I looked like I was about to cry, or that Natalie looked incredibly guilty, but then I figured, this is Natalie's mother; she's just so unused to pleasantries at seven in the morning that she's shocked I didn't give her the finger. Frankly, with her living in the same house as a pre-coffee Natalie, I could understand that. "Kim, you spent the night?" Oh. She was surprised I was at her house. On the affirmative, she rounded on Natalie. "Young lady, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU HAD FRIENDS OVER? ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME LOOK LIKE A TERRIBLE HOSTESS?" You know how over-exaggeration is a hereditary trait on the Hewes side of Natalie's family? Well, voices so loud they could be used as communication with alien life forms on Mars is another one of them.

"YOU DON'T NEED MY HELP TO DO THAT! YOU DO THAT ALL ON YOUR OWN, MOM!"

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK, NATALIE LISA WRIGHT, OR I'LL—"

"IT'S JUST KIM, MOM, SHE'S OVER HERE, LIKE, EVERY DAY. GOD, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO FREAK OUT ABOUT EVERYTHING?"

"How are you today, Mrs. Wright!" I attempted shouted over them; it was kind of feeble, but…whatever.

Both Wright women blinked at me. Clearly, they'd forgotten I was there.

"I'm fine, thank you, Kimberly dear. And yourself?" Mrs. Wright's ability to go from crazed, shouting madwoman/mother to painfully pleasant and irritatingly polite hostess was disconcerting, to say the least.

"God, Kim, don't make nice with my mother, she's so—" Natalie seemed intent to forget our shouting match over Jared—it certainly wasn't the first, but she'd never gone so far as to say something like he doesn't love you, and he never will. I mean…I'm allowed my weird addiction, but God, wouldn't it be easier if I were addicted to coffee, or alcohol, or routines, or texting, or even—God forbid—calculus homework (shudder) instead of an actual person?

"Finish that sentence, Natalie, and I swear—" Mrs. Wright snapped at her daughter.

"Mom, has Jonathan called to talk to me yet, he said we would—" Natalie ignored it like she wasn't being scolded.

"Natalie, are you wearing cologne?"

"What? Kim, you told me that was perfume!" Oh…I guess Natalie yelling at me about my whole Jared-obsession-thing was karma for tricking her into putting on cologne…

"Waffles or pancakes?"

"Where's Dad?"

"He's in Sacramento on business, but no, Johnny hasn't called, as a matter of fact—"

"What! Jackson says Johnny calls him every day!"

"Don't change the subject, Natalie, clean your room!"

"Mom, Kim's over, I can't clean my room!"

"Waffles or pancakes, Natalie! Choose!"

"We hear from Hannah every day and she isn't even related to us!"

"She's Jeremy's ex-wife, and the mother of my granddaughter."

"Why is Dad in Sacramento, anyway?"

"Jordan's bringing his new girlfriend home for Thanksgiving, her name's Charlotte, I think, or maybe it's Gretchen…"

"Mom, do you have any smoothies?"

"I didn't offer any smoothies, Natalie, quit being ungrateful!"

"Josephine…."

"For the last time, quit calling me Josephine!"

"But it's your name, isn't it?"

"I'm making pancakes," Natalie's mother sighed and turned away, grumbling something like 'I wanted to stop after two kids'.

"Kim likes blueberry."

"Blueberry it is," answered Mrs. Wright loudly, turning back into the kitchen, with us following her.

Natalie and her mother could go on like that for hours. I don't understand how they do it, to be honest, all that interrupting and subject changing and general rudeness… I mean, really, how do they even keep track of the conversation? They jumped from Natalie's brothers to Natalie's room to Natalie's father to Natalie's behavior to Natalie's breakfast in fifteen-seconds flat.

My family isn't in sync at all. In fact, I'm still maintaining that I'm secretly adopted.

(Personally, I think my mom is banking on a mix-up at the hospital after she read an article about people finding out about a switch at the hospital in their fifties, but like I said: not in sync)

"So, Kimmy dearest," said Natalie in a mimic of her mother's 'perfect housewife' voice. This earned her a glare from Mrs. Wright as she placed a full to the brim coffee mug in front of her daughter, but Natalie was so used to that sort of thing that she didn't care (personally, Mrs. Wright can rival my mother with glares—it must be a conspiratorial Mom thing). "Since I've come to the conclusion that you weren't actually having a dream about strangling me—"

"I dream about that all the time."

"So do I, actually!" chipped in Mrs. Wright helpfully. Natalie glared at her from behind her coffee mug.

"Child abuse! Kim, do you see what I have to deal with here?" I shrugged neutrally at her. Natalie plowed on, seeing that she wasn't getting any response. Natalie sobered up slightly. "Look, Kim, maybe I was a little harsh—"

"You were," agreed Natalie's mother.

"Mom! Butt out!" Natalie yelled. Mrs. Wright went back to stirring pancake mix into a bowl with an eyebrow-raised sign of surrender. "Okay, as my mother has said, I was a little harsh, but Kim, seriously…he's been AWOL, and you can do better than Jared Cameron." Natalie rolled her eyes when I looked at her disbelievingly. "I mean, come on. He's kind of an idiot." She felt bad; she was trying to combat her guilt with humor as only Natalie could.

I couldn't help but smile weakly at her. "But seriously…aren't you even a little bit worried?" The opportunity to freak out about Jared's current MIA status was too great for me to resist. "I mean, he's been gone for three weeks! As in 21 days! Three weeks! Three entire weeks, Natalie!"

"So you've said, honey," Mrs. Wright chipped in. I felt my cheeks warm, my eyes sliding to the elegantly finished tabletop. God, did I really talk so much that Mrs. Wright knew what I was going to say before I'd said it?

"Yes," Natalie put in, poking at the flowery centerpiece at the center of their breakfast table. Like almost everything in Natalie's house, including the people, it was over the top—there must have been a hundred fake autumn leaves in it.

"Kim, darling, I'm sure he's fine. I knew his daddy a long time ago, and I used to be friends with his aunt Fran—that reminds me, I should call her…"

"Mom, again: If you're going to butt in, at least have a point."

"Oh, hush, Natty," Mrs. Wright dismissed her, trying to remember what she'd been saying. Natalie scowled.

"Yes, hush, ickle Natty," I sniggered at her. She glared.

"Oh yes!" Mrs. Wright remembered. "Sean and Fran are a good bunch, real hardy. He's probably fine," she reassured me. She flipped a couple of pancakes seamlessly and bacon sizzled in the pan. "Unless he's like that mother of his, there's really no problem."

"His mother?" Okay, remember how I said I knew everything about Jared Cameron? Yeah. Apparently that was false.

"Yes. Cora was her name, real lovely, real delicate. She was always kind of fragile, and having those Cameron boys must've been too much for her. Kind of frail, especially towards the end. I think Sean was trying to get her help, and she didn't want it, and he loved her too much to really protest. Sad thing, that." Mrs. Wright shook her head as if trying to rid herself of a burdensome fly. "Well, moving on! Breakfast!"

She moved around the breakfast table, two plates stacked with pancakes perched on her thin arms. She placed one in front of me and I ravenously grabbed my fork and knife and dove into the blueberry bliss that were Mrs. Wright's pancakes.

"Pancakes! Come on, Mom, I told you I wanted waffles!"


"So, Kim, I think Henry Hobber was checking you out in Gym," Natalie said conversationally as she drove us to school in her Jeep Wrangler. It'd been a "sorry I'm missing your birthday again" present. Technically Nat's not old enough to drive, but no one really gives a fuck around here, since the only cop's Charlie Swan and his deputy, and they hang around his station up in Forks most of the time.

Natalie got a lot of those.

"Henry Hobber? Natalie, you do know who that is?" I exclaimed. Henry Hobber was the class geek. He was even geekier than me and quirkier than Natalie, which is saying something. Plus, he's really gross and only about three feet tall.

"Okay, it's true, but it was feeble. Just…anybody who isn't J—"

"Jared, I know," I grumbled. Natalie glanced at me before returning her eyes to the road.

She let out a sigh. "You're pretty, Kim," I snorted at this, and she rolled her eyes. "It's true, and you could get any guy who isn't Jared effing Cameron. Besides, Kim, there's a whole world out there! There're other fish in the sea, and they come in more than one flavor than Cameron-trout."

She pulled into a parking space and we hopped out, into the pouring rain, holding our backpacks over our heads and sprinting for the shelter of La Push High.

"You know," Natalie said, shaking water droplets from her long black hair. "Let's do that."

"Do what?"

"You. Me. Hot outfits. Port Angeles. Club. Dancing. Drinking. Males. This Friday." She smiled widely at me, pleased with herself coming up with such a 'brilliant idea'.

"Nat, no. You cannot even fathom the trouble I'd be in with my mom if I—"

"Oh, puh-lease, we'll take freaking Laura and Leah, too, I guess, but she'll be a real downer. God, that chick needs to move the fuck on, already! Jesus!" She exclaimed, and I chuckled a little as we began to walk towards our lockers. "We do need a way to get past the bouncer."

"Yeah, the double-L will do it for you," I agreed. Leah and Laura, or double-L or L-squared as they were commonly called, were both young, hot, up for a party, and best of all, eighteen. They could get past any bouncer with the power of L.

"Yep. Shit, dude, we're late," and we rushed off to first period, dragging dripping backpacks and showering the hallway in water, all thoughts of Jared Cameron and L-squared gone from our minds.


As usual, Art sucked. My sculpture, surprise, surprise, one me a C-. Natalie got an A for 'originality', which I guess comes from being the only person in class to not make a wolf.

And Henry Hobber's sculpture blew up in the kiln, and unfortunately, mine wasn't there to be shattered with it.

We were moving on to paper mach, now.

Kill me.

So it was with a gloomy disposition and a negative attitude that I trudged over to English, prepared for another class on analyzing the symbolism of the rabbit dream in Of Mice and Menwhen I heard it.

A whisper.

"I heard he's back, and he's on hard drugs."

How the fuck do you even get hard drugs in La Push, anyway? I rolled my eyes discreetly at Stephanie Morris, the gossiper.

"He's on steroids. They're mining them out in the national park," Sabrina Carlton was incapable of being subtle, or even quiet. And I'm pretty sure you don't mine steroids.

"I can't wait until Paul and I fuck again. He was alright before, but with those muscles…" God, my sister was too sexually forward for my sanity!

"Laura, you moron," snapped Leah Clearwater, because you can't have L2 with out L1 nearby, "steroids shrink guys' balls."

"Oh." Laura looked disgusted. "Gross."

"Yeah. It's probably just as well that bitch has that dick you know? He's probably miniscule," she meant Sam and Emily of course. Everything with Leah was. For someone who claimed to want nothing whatsoever to do with them, she certainly talked about them a lot.

Wait. Hold the flipping phone. Paul Lahote is back?!

That means—that—Jared—

"Get in class, weirdo, you're holding up the line!" Stupid Cole Abrams shoved his way past me into English.

English!

I sprinted into the classroom like a madwoman, racing to my usual seat to find its counterpart…empty. No Jared to be seen.

Fuck my life.

I felt like bursting into tears and crying until I drowned in them, so deep was my despair.

(I should be a poet, no?)

Hahahaha no.

I yanked my binder and my beat-up old copy of Of Mice and Men from my (still) sopping wet backpack with force they probably didn't deserve, but…whatever.

I glanced at the empty seat again, and sighed. The minutes ticked by slowly, like time had gotten stuck in syrup as Mrs. Latimer droned on and on about things outgrowing their usefulness, which, apparently, was symbolized by the shooting of Candy's old dog in Of Mice and Men. Like I cared.

The door opened suddenly, about halfway through class, and nearly everyone jerked awake from the Latimer Lecture-induced stupor with surprised exclamations. Henry Hobber actually fell off his chair in fright, the pussy.

Or maybe not a pussy, because the guy standing in the doorway was huge. Fucking ginormous. Titanic, mountainous, hulking, immense, monumental, enormous, gigantic, colossal, mammoth, elephantine.

Okay, not that big, but good golly he must have been related to the Hulk or something.

I'm legit serious about that.

"Mr. Cameron?" Mrs. Latimer exclaimed suddenly after squinting and titling her head to the side. We all followed suit, and found that if you squinted your eyes and tilted your head, the guy in the doorway might vaguely resemble a distant relative of Jared Cameron's.

"Sorry I'm late, Mrs. Latimer," he said solemnly, and he began to make his way towards the back. Towards me.

Holy FUCK JARED CAMERON SITS NEXT TO ME AND HE REALLY IS ON HARD DRUGS BUT OH MY GOOD GOLLY GUMDROPS HE GOT EVEN HOTTER AND I THINK I'M ABOUT TO JUMP HIM—

Whoa. That was a startling thought process. Startling, but true.

Still, Jared sat down next to me like he hadn't just gained thirty pounds of muscle and two feet in height and missed three weeks of school. The chair creaked as he sat down, and for a second I thought it'd give way. It didn't.

Oh my God, I was staring! Blatantly ogling him. I whirled back to my copy of Of Mice and Men and pretended to be fascinated by the hooks on my binder.

"Well, Mr. Cameron, due to your long absence, I'm afraid you'll have some catching up to do. I'll give you a copy of Of Mice and Men after class, but for now, use Miss Connweller's copy. And just copy her notes later, I don't have the time to catch you completely up, you'll have to do some of it on your own, Mr. Cameron. But I'm sure Miss Connweller will be happy enough to oblige you for today."

Mrs. Latimer went back to the themes of the book without another word, so I just slid my binder and my book across the desk towards him, trying not to blush like a tomato at his close proximity and lethal hotness. I mean, like literal hotness. Did he had a fever or something still? 'Cause I could, you know, play the whole sexy nurse gig and nurse him back to health. I'm down with that. And I make a killer chicken noodle soup, just saying.

"Do you have a pen?" At first, I didn't realize that the fucking God next to me was talking to me, but then it became apparent when nobody else had looked around.

"Oh, y-y-yeah," I stuttered, rummaging feverishly through my pencil case. I found a pen, a blue gel pen, and turned around the face him, praying my face wasn't a tomato. I extended the pen, and as his huge hand came up to close around the suddenly ridiculously small pen, our eyes met.

And it was like stars colliding. Not fireworks. No. It was more than that, like the world was suddenly perfect and whole now that Jared was here, and he was looking at me, and being Jared. I could have stared at him all day, but—

Back to work. I turned back to my work, but I could see that Jared hadn't moved an inch since I'd moved. I glanced up at him; he was still staring.

Back to work.

I glanced again; he was still staring.

I added something about Lennie needing 'mercy'.

He was still staring. Still. With this expression on his face like I'd hung the moon, which I hadn't, just so you know.

I wanted to say something like, I know I'm the sexiest girl alive, but please, stop staring. While I find it flattering, you're only drawing unwanted attention to me.

Instead, I said something like: "W-w-why are you l-l-looking at m-me like that?"

Smooth.

He blinked, and then a blinding grin—I know, Jared smiling? What the fuck?—spread across his face. He stuck out his hand eagerly and said, "I'm Jared."

"I know," I said, and took his hand. It was probably the smoothest thing I'd said all my life. He looked a little hurt, maybe because he'd never known that I existed before now and yet I knew every insignificant little detail about him, so I added: "I'm Kim. Kim Connweller."

"Kim." He repeated, like he was trying out it sounded in his mouth. "Kim." He repeated, and another grin spread across his face. I smiled back.

I liked the way he said my name.

A/N: Thanks for all alerters and reviewers. I love you all.