Author's Note: Okay, so this is a rather short chapter, and doesn't have much of the wolf pack, however it does introduce a family situation that will greatly impact Reece's eventually decision between Jake and Seth...dun dun dun!

Disclaimer: So yeah, I think by now you guys know this part...

"You missed school yesterday."

"No shit, Jake. Ya know, I heard werewolves have super senses, but your observation skills just blow my mind."

Jake looked away, annoyed with my attitude. "Sometimes I don't know why I like you."

My head snapped up from the Chemistry book I was pretending to read. I mean, who really needs to know the six strong acids from the six strong bases? That wasn't going to help me when I was married to a werewolf someday. "Say what?"

"As a friend," Jake quickly, and pathetically, recovered.

I rolled my eyes. "Right."

"No, seriously," he began an attempt to defend himself. "I like you…in no way more than just a friend."

I nodded, giving him a knowing look. "I'll take your word for it." I flipped a page in the book, eager for a new picture to look at, when the bell rang. Jake and I packed our stuff up and headed for the door. When it came time for us to part ways I added, "Oh, by the way, you suck at lying."

His face turned a tomato color and he looked as if he was about to die of embarrassment. I grinned, spinning on my heel to walk in the direction of my locker.

*

"Uh…dad?"

I had just burst through the door, expecting my mother to run at me with a thermometer to make sure I hadn't relapsed, but instead all that I saw was my father perched on the couch with his face in his hands.

"Humph?" he snorted, surprised at my presence, as if he had just noticed I was there.

I waved and squinted my eyes in question. "What's up?" My dad usually worked from sun up to sun down, figuratively speaking, considering in Forks the sun rarely came out, and I rarely saw him before dinner.

"Oh," my dad waved his hand, dragging his fingers through his hair. "I just…came home early today." He lifted himself off the couch, giving me a pinched smile and patting my head as I walked by.

I blinked, not understanding his odd behavior. I dropped my backpack next to the bed and stepped into the kitchen to ask my mom what was up. Maybe dad's job wasn't going as my parents had hoped it would. That would suck. I certainly didn't want to move again. "Mom?" I asked.

She was facing the stove, hunched over and trembling. She turned abruptly at the sound of my voice, as if she hadn't heard me talking to dad just a few feet away in the adjoining room. Her makeup was smeared and for once her fluorescent orange lipstick was MIA. She looked worse than my father. "Oh, honey, I didn't hear you come in," she stammered in a high pitched squeaky voice.

I raised an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

My mother's lips pursed and she looked considerably paler than a woman who frequently fake baked should have been. "I'd rather not talk about it right now. Baz should be home soon; then, maybe, your father will have calmed down…" She trailed off, eyes going blank, and returned to stirring whatever it was that was on the stove.

Baz had better get his ass home soon, I couldn't take much more of this freaky business. I wondered for a moment if angry vampires could possess bodies. Maybe the vampire that tried to kill me but ended up getting killed herself's clan was attempting to mess with my mind through making my parents act even weirder than they were. I banished that thought from my mind though as I realized they probably would have offed me by now. Unless insanity seemed a better punishment…

The front door slammed open as Baz entered the household, babbling on about protons and neutrons. That was as far as my chemical knowledge went and I zoned out the rest as I corralled him into the kitchen. "Look mom!" I exclaimed theatrically. "Baz is home! Yay! Now will you tell us why you and dad are acting like depressed robots?"

Baz glared up at me. "It is highly unlikely that a robot would be depressed, as a robot is a machine and incapable of feeling emotions of any kind. I'm sure a robot could be encrypted to register when another being was feeling a certain way, but it's nearly impossible to get metal and cogs and bolts to emote fear or happiness or depression."

"Shut up and sit down," I ordered, shoving him down with a bit more force than I had intended. "Mom?" I asked again hopefully.

I mother blinked a few times and I noticed tears brimming in her eyes. "Go get your father Basel."

Once Baz had vacated the area my mother burst out crying, composed herself, and tried smiling at me. She ended up looking very much like the Joker. Not comforting let me tell you. Baz dragged dad into the room and I noticed the way he eyed my mother. Hurt and anger and sadness clouding his gaze. What the fuck?

"Spill," I demanded.

"Don't talk to your parents in that tone," my mother scolded.

"Don't yell at our daughter," my dad lashed back at her.

Baz was staring between them in confusion and I raised an eyebrow, wrinkling up my nose. "Spill, please?" I repeated in a softer, calmer tone. The kind of tone you would use with a rabid dog that's about to fucking rip your head off.

My mother put one hand on her hip and dragged the other through her hair. "Go ahead," my father spat. "It's your story to tell. I was merely in the way."

"That's not true," my mother argued, voice quaking, once again on the verge of a meltdown.

"Mom," I hissed. "Just let it out."

"I've, um, well," my mother chuckled nervously as my father's glare grew stronger, "I've been seeing Dr. Gardner."

I rolled my eyes. "We all have," I pointed out, hoping that maybe I wouldn't have to go back to another family therapy session.

"You are an idiot," my brother growled beneath his breath at me. I stared down at him and shrugged my shoulders, not understanding.

And then it hit me. It me like a ton of bricks that had just toppled off of the top of a building; like a piano falling from a building and inevitably crushing a zombie; like a wave crashing on top of a sand castle. You get the point.

My mom was sleeping with our therapist. That would be a grand story for the wolf-children I'd eventually bring into the world. I can just see us all nestled together next to a fire during story time. 'And then, instead of opting to talk to a volleyball named Wilson grandmother decided she was going to screw the shrink.'

Seriously, curse life.

Author's Note: Oh dear!