Chapter 4

This routine continued almost every day. I would eagerly come home, eat dinner, do more homework, and then wait impatiently until about 9 pm when I'd feel him outside. I could never resist peaking out the window and as the months passed, and I became confident he wasn't coming in, I started spending more and more time sitting at my window bench.

Six months this routine went on. Eventually though feeling his presence just outside my window turned from the sweetest relief of my day to a burden, a sore hurt that wouldn't go away and just got worse. I began waiting for him. I would skip meals, frantically sketching, holing myself up in my room all day, scared I might miss the moment he'd come by. I began falling asleep curled up on my window bench, desperately trying to be that much closer to him.

During one of these evenings, my floor littered with sketches, charcoal pencils, and an organic chemistry textbook, I heard Embry come up the stairs. He'd taken to checking up on me, having given up trying to get me out of the house much less my room. I leaned further over my biggest sketchpad, concentrating on getting every detail right of my charcoal wolf's long tail hairs.

There was a soft knock and then uninvited the door slowly opened. Embry came in to sit with me on the floor. He studied my drawing for a moment and then looked at me.

"You know he's right outside? You could just go talk to him."

I shot Embry a fearful look. After all this time, the idea of actually seeing Collin, talking to him, was overwhelming. I leaned farther over my drawing and quietly mumbled, "Embry, it's better this way. I can't be around him."

I wish I could be. The bonfire last week was the closest we'd come to actually seeing each other face-to-face. Jake normally let me bow out of most activities since things had been pretty quiet here in and around La Push but bonfires were obligatory. I remember he laughed when he thought about it and said, "Hey Mandy that means you too. We will all be there. Jeez kid, you're the only person who'd have to be made to go to a bonfire. A little less studying might be good for you, you know." Only Embry and Collin knew the real reason for my obsessive homebound behavior. The rest of the pack thought I was just some big nerd, not getting enough of my biology textbook.

"Mandy this is it." Embry interrupted my reverie. "There is no more life to you anymore. Even your drawings, look at them." He motioned with his hands over the floor. "Your world has become so small, you've lost the big picture. Collin's tail? Really? You don't talk to him. You don't talk to mom. You don't even talk to me anymore, Dee Dee. It's like you're a whisper of the old self that I could count on to be bounding down the stairs eager to tell me something new about one of Jupiter's moons or some new discovery on Charon."

I couldn't help the smile as I looked up and saw Embry completely exasperated. Charon? He remembered the name of Pluto's moon? He wasn't kidding when he said he actually waited for me each day to tell him a new fact about something I had learned. He not only listened, he actually remembered what I told him.

The smile faltered as I let this sink in and I sighed. How did I ever think this would be better, staying away from my family, hurting them, just so I could be by myself and go crazy? Looking around my actually very small room, it was painfully obvious how much I had cut myself off. This small messy space was all I had left. Embry was right. I needed to get out.

An idea occurred to me then and before I even thought about it, I was already asking, "Maybe, maybe you could talk with Jake about letting me be in Collin's patrol?" I tried to keep my breathing even, my face calm. But as I said Collin's name, my heart hurt like the blood was suddenly having trouble pumping through the arteries; and I rushed through the rest of the words because I knew I wouldn't be able to get them out for long. "You're right. I have to do something. I'm sorry I've been so elusive. It might get better if, um, we're around each other at least. The imprint, you know, I think, I don't know whatever happened when we imprinted, but we, I have to be closer than this to him. I might go crazy if—"

Two big Embry arms interrupted me as they pulled me into his chest, burying my words. "Shhh. You're not making sense. You don't need to apologize. I'll talk to Jake." His relief filled every word and he added with a small smile in his voice, "I'm just so glad you're finally going to leave your room Mandy."

"I've been trying my best." I muffled into his shirt.

"Well, as much as drawing parts of charcoal wolves all day is clearly doing everyone a lot of good, I think you'll be much better off actually spending time together."

Spending time together? Is that what Embry just said? My heart began to race and a cold sweat broke across my skin, desire and fear all of a sudden coursing through me like a current. Spending time with Collin? It wasn't something I'd done in almost a year. Now if Jake gave me what I just asked for, I'd be running patrols with him once or twice a week. My legs were growing weak. What would Collin think when he heard I asked to be in his patrol? What would he say? What would I say? "Oh my God," I gasped as my legs finally gave way.

Embry, still hugging me, caught my weight before I fell on the floor. "Whoa, Dee, slow down there. It's just running patrol. There will be at least three or four other wolves in both of your heads. You probably won't even have to speak to each other."

Embry gently sat me on the bed with a look of half concern and half amusement on this face. Before I could change my mind about Collin's patrol or even process Embry's expression, he was racing out the door, out of the house, calling over his shoulder that he'd be right back. I heard him phase and realized there was no way out of my hasty request. Whether I was ready or not, I was going to have to face Collin soon.