Chapter 6

Over the next couple of weeks we continued our one-word conversations always ending in the momentous goodbye. The most significant of these came when Collin actually said my name when we were leaving.

"Bye, Mandy."

My heart did a flip but I embarrassingly thought back, "bye, Collin."

Two months later, our runs were still silent as ever but the goodbyes were what we both began to look forward to, running faster as we neared the rendezvous point, as though it gave us the permission to finally speak. Phrases like, "I had fun running with you tonight" or "Have a goodnight" began creeping up before the "Goodbye, Mandy. Goodbye, Collin." We were too excited to finally be talking to one another to even care how silly this ritual looked.

Brady of course thought all of this was hilarious and had made it a point to give Embry all the ridiculous details. In Brady's mind this meant there would be someone waiting at home to tease me after patrol. Embry took that job seriously and tonight was no different.

"Must have been some goodbye to paint that smile on your face...?"

Yes it was! I couldn't stop smiling. It had sort of been a conversation instead of just a goodbye.

Collin had asked, "So I'll see you Thursday?"

And I'd responded, "Yeah, Thursday."

"Well I hope you have a goodnight. Bye, Mandy."

"You too Collin. Bye."

I sighed remembering and then answered Embry. "I'm not saying anything. I've got to go to bed. I have a big day tomorrow." I did. I was going to Makah for an extended day's worth of lab work with Mr. Yuel and his advanced Chem students, who were used to the adult-looking eighth grader by now.

"You know I might have to start phasing so I can be in on what makes you come home so happy. It's hard to believe it's just a goodbye." He suggestively wagged his eyebrows at me.

Before Embry could ruin the sweet impressions from tonight with his creepy ideas, I raced upstairs, calling goodnight over my shoulder.

The next day I was happily babysitting a filtration process in the lab when Mr. Yuel came over with some bad news. Summer break was fast approaching. I knew I wouldn't be able to have as regular of times to run experiments but I figured at least once or twice a month I would be able to come in. Mr. Yuel had a different idea though.

"Mandy, how clever of you to think to use a ten micron filter before the one micron filter." I saw a few kids in the class turn their heads toward us and I ducked down over my work. It was always so embarrassing when Mr. Yuel gave me praise like this. "It really increases the effectiveness of the filtration, doesn't it?"

I thanked him and asked some follow up questions. But before ending our conversation he became slightly uneasy, "Mandy what are your plans for continuing your studies over the summer?"

"Well, I was hoping if the school and you were not opposed, we could design some experiments together, maybe starting to look at fruit fly genes. There's a chapter—"

"Yes, actually," Mr. Yuel interrupted me, "I was sort of hoping you'd say that. Well, you see I'm not going to be here this summer. I was asked to teach at the University of Berlin and my wife and I are very excited to have an excuse to travel around Europe." Seeing the look on my face, he quickly continued, "but well, I've been wanting to introduce you to a good friend and former student of mine at U-Dub. His interest is in genetics. He lives here, in La Push actually, and said he would be very happy to tutor you while I'm away. You'd have full access to the lab here at the school, or he may have some equipment at his house too. I've invited him to come today to meet the class and you in particular. I think you'll find him an amazing wealth of knowledge and experience."

But before I could answer, Mr. Yuel was already hurrying away to help two students who were not having quite as much success with their filtration, having managed to spill the entire contents of their experiment all over their lab bench.

I spent the next half-hour pondering who this tutor could be and if I could possibly be as comfortable with him as with Mr. Yuel. He had said it was someone in La Push? Was that possible? I wasn't aware there were any scientist types, especially ones interested in genetics. Dr. Marroh was the only one I thought could possibly fit that description but he was a family doctor and aging. There was no way he could be a former student of Mr. Yuel's.

As I was carefully separating the beaker full of liquid, that I'd collected from my filtration, into the individual trays, it hit me who it must be, who it had to be. I felt the pull almost instantly, the pull that meant my imprint was nearby and getting closer. I nearly turned the whole beaker over in my panic.

I wasn't ready for this. I needed to leave. I couldn't see him now. I'd been happily pretending for months he was the fourteen-year-old from Brady's memories. Would seeing him now ruin everything? But it was too late. He was almost here, probably at the door. I listened and heard his footsteps turn down E-hall where the lab was the first door he'd come to. My breathing stopped when I heard him say an easy hello to Mr. Yuel. Then they both turned to come toward me.

"She's only in 8th grade, like I mentioned Collin, but you'd never guess that. Just wait. She reminds me so much of you when we first met at U-Dub. The same excitement and natural intellectual curiosity," Mr. Yuel confided under his breath.

"Mandy…"

What was I supposed to do? I had to turn around at least, probably look up. I would just keep my eyes on Mr. Yuel.

"…This is who I was telling you about, my former student, Collin Chimakey. He's pursuing his Ph.D. at U-Dub right now and is specializing in genetics."

I could feel Collin's eyes on me but I just stupidly nodded my head and kept looking at Mr. Yuel.

He must have thought I was waiting for him to continue because his face became confused and then more formally he said, "Mandy, this is Collin. Collin, Mandy."

There was nothing left to do. I had to acknowledge him and held out my hand. A high-pitched "hi" was barely audible as I sucked in a nervous gasp of air.

When he shook my hand, I let my eyes meet his for a fraction of a second. But before he could say anything, I was turning to Mr. Yuel and hurriedly making my excuses. "Mr. Yuel, I'm not feeling very well. I think I better call it a day. My experiment is all labeled and will ideally be ready to test for results next time."

I turned and grabbed my things, not able to get out of this situation fast enough. As I rushed past a somewhat startled Mr. Yuel, I called back, "it was nice meeting you," which was obviously more for Mr. Yuel's sake than Collin's, although I hoped it would salvage something of whatever damage I was doing right now to that relationship.

When I got outside, pretending to walk toward the parking lot in case anyone was watching me, and then walking right past the last row of cars into the woods so I could run home, I was surprised how dark it was. It must have been at least seven o'clock. Collin would normally be outside of my window soon. Would he come tonight?

I thought about the way my hand burned in the brief second we had touched. I wanted to feel it again. But the same old fears wouldn't go away. I was not ready to be human with Collin yet. I still felt like an eighth grader and he still felt like…like a guy old enough to be my teacher.

I waited anxiously for Thursday, for the next patrol. He had come on Monday like usual and every night afterward waiting outside my window, doing who knows what. I couldn't imagine how boring it must be for him to sit out there in the woods, watching. Apparently I wasn't nearly as fearful as before because I phased twice before Thursday, hoping to catch his thoughts maybe coming home from U-Dub. Unfortunately all I heard was Jake running over to Nessie's house, and Embry laughing at me knowing exactly why I had phased.

When Thursday's patrol came and I could finally listen to Collin, all I heard was relief. He was excited to run together. Returning this excitement, I still couldn't help feel confused. Was he not angry at all?

"Hi," I greeted Collin when I came into the clearing where he, Josh, and Brady were waiting. "Hey guys."

"You ready?" Collin asked at the same time Brady teased, "She speaks! Or at least she does as a wolf. Not so interested in human communications yet?"

I was mortified that Brady knew about my ignoring Collin so completely in Mr. Yuel's class on Monday. Then I was even more embarrassed for having remembered the incident for the rest of the pack. I bounded off in the direction we were going to start our patrol, calling back to Collin, "Let's go."

Quickly I sunk deep into the wolf's mind and only heard on the periphery Collin struggling with whether or not to broach the topic of Monday's encounter. Thankfully he stuck with the one word warnings and comments about the terrain as we ran. It took a bit longer than usual because of a scent we caught, which we thought had to be a vampire we didn't recognize. But then the scent just disappeared; and after looping back around it, closing in to where it vanished, we weren't sure in the end what it was.

Returning to where we began our patrol that night, Collin hypothesized with Brady what the disappearing scent might have been. Brady figured we shouldn't worry about it. He'd let Jake know so Nessie could see if she recognized it. The pack certainly wasn't as familiar with all the vampires that came through here as the Cullens were.

Then his thoughts turned to me and teased, "Maybe there's another Mandy out there who can think forest and disguise their scent instead of their mind."

Josh and Aidron laughed but Tamara was impatient. "Very funny Brady. Can we go now? I'm beat and some of us have school tomorrow."

"Ah, you guys are such babies. Yes, go. We're done. Collin needs a minute anyway to—"

"Ugh. Yeah, we know. Let me phase first, please." Tamara was already out of sight. Josh and Aidron were close behind her. Brady said a quick goodbye and was gone too.

I looked at the place where Brady had disappeared, my ears perking up attentively as I realized Collin and I were alone together.

"I'm sorry about Monday, Mandy. I should have made some excuse to Daniel. But I didn't want to have to explain anything to him. He already suspects something is different about me."

His voice was so normal. I stopped pawing the ground and looked up.

"Yeah…" But when I met Collin's eyes, my mind went blank, and then everything went out of control. Instead of just taking a normal breath, an actual whine came out. "Oh my gosh," I thought, "get a hold of yourself Mandy." But what were we talking about? Mr. Yuel. That's right. "I'm sure me arriving without a car all the time isn't doing much for his imagination."

Why was I so nervous? I kind of paced a bit following the sound of a chipmunk off to the right and then tried again, "I'm sorry for running out like that." Just get it over with. I forced my mind to think the words, "I like the time we spend together on patrol."

He barked a laugh, a relieved slightly restrained laugh. I could tell he was really ecstatic. "Me too."

I paced back, pawing at the dirt some more, trying to figure out what else to say, trying to escape from this way too comfortable feeling of being alone together.

"So what did Mr. Yuel say when I left?" Oh this was awkward.

Collin smiled, breaking away from his own reverie. "He was surprised. But I explained that you probably weren't comfortable being singled out and then thrown together with a stranger."

I caught his memory though as he said this. He was replying to Mr. Yuel, "She's an eighth grader, Daniel. She won't want to be tutored by some strange guy. Have you thought about the legal implications? It's not that easy."

Yes, that pretty much summed it up. It was actually illegal for us to spend time together right now. My awkwardness was justified. But where did that leave us?

"Hey Mandy, let's get you home. This was fun." He was purposefully interrupting my disheartening train of thought. All I heard was gentleness in his voice. There were no hints of condescension, as though he were talking to an eighth grader, which was after all I reasoned just a technicality at this point.

He dropped me off near the edge of the woods to my backyard. "I'll see you Saturday. Bye Mandy."

"Bye Collin." I phased and raced inside.

I could feel him nearby and listened carefully to determine he was in his usual spot in front of the house off the driveway. After getting ready for bed, I did something I had never done. I went to the window and waved goodnight. Not wanting to get a response, still not ready for that, I turned quickly away, turned off the lights, and crawled in bed.