The house was empty the next day, which was both blissful yet unexpected. In my mind, I imagined a hiding from my parents for my behavior last night. I did feel some regret for the events the previous night, but not the reasons I would have expected. I regretted being so cocky. This revelation bothered me the most. I was always cocky. My Dad always said the greatest thing about me, was my complete self acceptance. Of course, this had turned people off me in the past. Females especially. They always assume cockiness is about looks, and physicality. They couldn't be more wrong. Sure, my looks were fine. I inherited my father's emerald eyes. Except his were kinder, and more round than mine. My eyes were more narrow and oval, and mine often glistened in mischief rather than kindness. My mother gave me her Indian, russet skin, and poker straight hair. As a child, she never let me cut my hair.
When she was 16, she cut all of her waist long hair off, for reasons she can't even explain. She told me that her hair never ever grew as well and as freely as it had before, so no matter how much I begged and pleaded, she wouldn't let me near a pair of scissors. Cockiness to me, came from my acceptance as who I am as a person. I've never, ever for as long as I can remember, questioned if I'm good enough, or endeavored for people's acceptance. I've never understood the point in it. You're born, and that's it. Live and love what you have, and accept what you don't. This quality of mine, most saw as a flaw. I however, was always the one laughing, and always the one on top.
I entertained myself in front of the TV watching Golden Girls re-runs for the rest of the week, with everyone scurrying around me at 100MPH, and my time slowed down in a blurry haze. Billy hadn't come back to the house since that night, which I could only imagine would be an instruction from Dena. It irritated me how everyone stomped around like everything was normal, walking around on egg shells around me. Part of me thought they were being kind, and giving me space. But the other part of me knew that they just wanted everything to go back to how it was. When everything was normal, and there were no such things as vampires or shape shifters. Was it possible that the world everyone knew was all just a cover up? A cover up for something that children had nightmares about? I hadn't considered this the first time it happened. I couldn't even recall what I had thought that day, when I awoke in the forest on four legs. I remembered screaming, in more terror than I had ever felt. But as much as I screamed, the noise that came out wasn't my voice, but a high pitched howl which rang in my ears.
Shuddering again at the memory, I forced myself from the couch and peeled my hair from the cheek it had molded itself on to. The house seemed eerily empty, and I had to sit for a second to try and remember what day it was. My mind was numb and heavy from the tedious TV watching. I groaned and sauntered and stretched over to the kitchen where I flipped the calender through my fingers. I noticed how Dena had scrawled a star on to the fateful day I had just been recalling. I stifled a bitter laugh at her flippant normalness at the situation, and ran my fingers down the weeks. There was only one other mark on the calender, in thick red pen.
Council meeting - 3PM.
Glancing at the clock, and back to where my finger still lay, it became obvious why the house was empty. A council meeting, I pondered on when the last one had been.
I really couldn't remember. There had been several a few years back. Hadn't it been when Billy's father passed away? That was a sad time in La Push. My father had been terribly grief stricken, almost as bad as Billy. Jake could have only been 9 years old, maybe 10. As I could recall it, we made sandcastles in his back yard the day of the funeral. I was 14, one of the eldest kids on the res at the time. A few of the others, Embry and Quil I thought, were with Sam Uley. Jake had asked to stay with me, which at the time made me feel some compelling sisterly protection toward him. Jake and I had grew up together since he was born. I could even remember the day Billy & Sarah brought him home, all tiny and a full head of jet black hair. My mom & dad had taken my 5 year old self around to the Black's modest home, and I'd posed for photos and smiled at the birth of this little bundle of joy. I smiled at that memory, and ran my fingers over several photos that were pinned above the calender. My mom and dad and me when I was born. My dressed up as a bride for a birthday party. The exact photo, of me holding Jake as a tiny baby, a wide childish grins spread across my whole face. The edges of the photo were creased, so I smoothed them with my fingers and brought the photo in my hands. I suddenly felt a wave of guilt flood over me. I pressed the photo lightly to my chest, and thought about Jake for a while motionless. There was a time, I thought, where my parents and Billy had hoped Jake and I would be more than friends. We spent every weekend together for a long time, and my Summer childhood memories were filled with his face. This was the outright reason we would never be more than friends - so much time spent laughing, fighting and talking as a child. Jake was never anything more than a kid brother to me, and I was glad we were never forced to be anything more than that.
The door clattered, and I turned to see my dad lolloping through the door with hand fulls of fish. His face beamed at me, and he shook his trophies at me in glee.
"Look! What a day!" My mother sauntered in after him, lugging the fishing gear with a struggle.
"Mom drop that." I sighed, slipping over the wooden the floor of the kitchen. I grabbed the huge cool box from the floor, and another ridiculously large metal container.
"Claudia you'll snap your-" My mother's eyes widened in wonder as I easily placed the four foot metal container on top of the brimming cool box. I looked at her and shrugged.
"Super human remember?"
"Yes." Dena replied, gawking after me as I grabbed both fishing rods from her and placed the load in the kitchen.
"Treasure!" John boomed his sturdy laugh opening up his container full to the brim of fish. "I've never seen so many fish in the river!"
"Hey Dad.."I crept over to him, my hand over my mouth as I spoke.
"There were some I'd never even seen before!" He continued, rifling bare hand through his stinking treasure. "Charlie is a keen fisherman and even he said he'd never seen so many. Say, Dena.." My dad looked right through me as if I weren't in front of him. "Do you remember Charlie's girl? Isabella?"
"Sure." Dena nodded, tidying up around us. "She lives in California right? With her mother?"
"Arizona." John corrected. "Well, Charlie says she's moving back to good ol' Forks!"
"Oh that's nice. Charlie could do with some company." Dena seemed genuinely pleased. The name did ring a bell to me. I'd known Chief Charlie Swan for as long as I could remember, but i always forgot he'd once had a daughter.
"She must be Claudia's age by now."
"Naw. Claudia was a year or two when she was born. It was just after the Summer, do you remember?" Dena began to laugh. "Billy's girls had the chicken pox and gave them to the whole reservation!"
"Ah!" My Father joined in the laughter. "I do remember that Summer. Charlie and Renee had a scare that night, I think - "
"Hello?" My foot stomped petulantly on the floor. "I'm right here!" Both parents looked at me like I had two heads.
"Yes you are." My dad said.
"Well now I have your attention..." I poked him in his arm hard. "Do you think I could go and see Jacob today?"
"Honey..." I had his full attention now.
"Dad, please. I'm so sick of being cooped up in this house!" My voice whined.
"I don't mind you going, but I can't have you go alone. It's not safe." I could feel the frustration rising up in me. I was so sick of being treated like a silly little kid again. I was so used to being an equal in this house.
"Not safe?" My voice was high and anguished. "I'm a freaking werewolf! I'm pretty sure I can take care of myself!"
"I didn't mean you." My fathers eyes went dark. "I meant for Jake. For anyone. You're only young Claudia, and you're not in control yet."
"Yes. I. am." My teeth ground together. Suddenly the bile of fury rose up my throat in an uncontrollable fashion, and I could feel what was going to happen. I thought the floor was shaking, but I realized quickly it was my legs.
"Claudia calm down." My Father's expression was panicked. They darted between me and my Mother who was almost hyperventilating in the corner of the room. "Breathe. You can't do this now."
My father didn't realize that it was already too late. The bile tasted white hot, and felt like it was spouting through every vein and vessel inside of me. My hands balled in to fists,and the sensation of skin coming from my muscles and bones shot through me so i tensed rigid on the spot.
"Get out of the way!" My Father cried out. I could hear him, but it was echoed like I were underwater. The next thing I saw was exceptional red, shifting for a second before suddenly the foreign breathing and growling bared through my foreign mouth. The fury ripped out of me, and everything felt comfortable. It was only then that I realized that I was looking at the my back yard from a great height. Through phasing, my head had ripped through the ceiling of our house leaving a three foot hole around my head.
I couldn't seem to grasp what had happened, all I wanted to do was run. Run fast and break free. The hole in the ceiling bared no guilt in my conscience, as I lept out of the hole, and darted at speed in to the welcoming forest.