Here's the next chapter!
Chapter One - Seconds of Peace
I didn't want to bother with La Push. I knew that we'd be out of here in a matter of weeks, so what was the point of making myself comfortable when we'd be on the road again the second I started liking it here? None at all. The only thing I liked about moving to La Push was that summer vacation had just started a few days ago. It was always harder to move around during school.
I didn't see Seth or Quil again until two days after I'd met them. The time between this was passed by seeing everything else La Push had to offer. It seemed like everyone there, or at least the guys, were huge, the top of my head barely scraping the shoulders of some. I wondered if they were all related and had gotten the height from some great ancestor or if it was some kind of mutated plant they'd all eaten. It was so weird.
There was Leah Clearwater and Sue, Seth's sister and mom. Then there was Jared, Paul, Jacob, and Sam Uley, with his fiancee Emily. Emily was kind and a good cook, but half of her face and most of her arm was covered in thick, bright red scars. No matter how hard I tried not to, I couldn't help but cast them a sideways glance whenever she was around. I heard that this was the result of a bear attack, and shuddered at the thought.
Sam acted so dominant. It was like he held a hand of power over all of La Push, and you could tell from the way everyone reacted when he came by. I had to admit that he made me uneasy. But maybe that was just because he was so commanding.
Everyone in La Push moved so strangely. It was hard to explain. Whenever one of the guys felt a certain way, so did everyone else; Paul slumped around angrily one morning and I watched Jared and Embry snap at anyone who dared come by their path. Their expressions mirrored each other at exactly second they changed, and they all got around with the same easy, loping grace. And all though their personalities were extremely different, they all acted so brotherly, so united in their speech and movements.
All of them were so mind-boggling strong. I assumed that they all went to the same workout place, but when I asked Emily about it, she shrugged and said it was simply the way they were. This led me to believe that they were all part of a gang, punching each other in the face and knocking everything and everyone down in their quest to become the toughest guys around. I gave them the nickname The La Push Wannabe Wrestlers, though of course I never called them that to their faces. That would have just sounded stupid.
That afternoon - almost evening, really- I sat in the park reading a book in a rare moment of peace. Sitting on a nearby bench were Quil and Seth, who were talking and shoving potato chips in their mouths at an incredible speed. I'd never noticed how much the Wrestlers ate. I didn't pay any attention to them until Quil shouted over at me, "Hey, Willow, did you drop this?" and held up something.
"Man, stop bothering her! She's just trying to enjoy the afternoon!" said Seth, giving him a light punch on the arm.
"Shut up," replied Quil, punching him back. "I was just asking her if she dropped her pen."
I hadn't been carrying any pens around, so that would be a no. Negative. Nada. "Nope."
And so I went back to my book.
When Quil and Seth talked, they talked loud. Like Ohmigod-they're-gonna-start-an-earthquake loud. It was more like they were across a football field from each other instead of sitting less than a foot apart. Quil was going on and on and on about somebody's car and Seth responded with, "Well, then I guess that's your problem now." Quil punched him again - wrestlers, indeed - and said,
"Man, you're not helping at all! What am I gonna tell her?" His distressed face looked strange on top of his body.
"Tell her that you wrecked her car, duh."
"I didn't wreck her car! That Jeep idiot just ran into me because he had issues and needed to take them out on someone. And he just felt like being stupid. I told you that already!"
"And who says I believed it?"
Quil threw a handful of chips at Seth and they were soon in an all-out food fight. They looked like a pair of idiots, to be honest. Like a bunch of little kids. This food fight turned into more punches and pushing each other off of the bench and smacking each other on the head and all of this crazy stuff. I actually thought that this had turned into a real fight at one point - over a car? - but when they finally stopped, both were smiling and laughing at each other. I just kinda looked at them for a moment, and started reading my book again.
Weirdos.
Either that, or a bunch of show-offs.
Some time passed, and Quil had to leave. As he stood up, he asked Seth if he was still going to Emily and Sam's house for dinner later tonight, and Seth nodded. Then they high-fived and Quil wandered away.
A couple of minutes later, Seth plopped himself down next to me and asked, as though we'd been talking about the subject, "Where'd you move from, anyway, Willow?"
"Morton. Why?"
"Jared was wondering." He hesitated, searching my eyes for something. "Morton. That's far."
"Yeah," I said, and I knew that a rant was coming before I even spoke it, "my mom did that on purpose. She always does that. We'll move somewhere that's four million miles away from where we just were and she'll feel like she 'can finally get out of that hellhole, it was always so miserable to live there' and the next thing you know, we're moving again. And then just as I start getting friends, she says 'Oh no, soandso broke up with me and let's get out of here' and we leave. I'm really tired of it. I don't get the point of bonding with people any more if our friendship will last two weeks."
"I'm really sorry," Seth said. "I mean, about you moving. And your mom's boyfriend...er...boyfriends." He sounded like he really meant it, and for a second I saw the same expression that had been on his face the day I'd first met him flash across his eyes. Then it was gone.
"Oh, I couldn't care less about her boyfriends," I replied, rolling my eyes. "But, yeah, the moving part is a pain in the neck. It's like she doesn't want me to have any friends."
He didn't respond to that, obviously not knowing how to. I didn't blame him. The silence gave me enough time to question why in the world I'd told all of this to someone I barely knew. Now he knew all of my secrets. And he would think I was, in medical terms, "physcologically disturbed." Well, if he thought I had problems, just look at him and his wrestling obsession and gigantic size and blonde hair and asking where people came from like a friggin' stalker -
"Well, even if you do move a lot, I think you need to make friends. Because life really sucks without any friends."
"Yeah, but I wouldn't be able to keep them for very long. Me and long-distance relationships don't really go hand in hand."
"So? Listen, I know that it's tough, but if you don't let yourself make any friends then you'll be a very lonely person, and I know you don't want that. So even if you don't have friends too long, I think you'd prefer if you had them for two weeks instead of never having any. Right?"
Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. He was so wrong. Maybe it was like that with anyone else, with any normal person. But not me.
"Mmmph," I replied.
And still Seth kept talking. "You know, there's a lot of good people in La Push. I'm sure any of them would hang out with you whenever you asked them to." God, he sounded like a kindergarden teacher. Not to be rude, but honestly, he did. Just like one. "Like Emily. Have you met Emily?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I'm sure you already know that she's really nice, then. You can go over to her house whenever you want and she'll talk to you. I remember one time, I was bored and I went over there. She taught me how to do this magic trick thing. It was pretty cool."
"Yeah," I said again; I'd lost track of the conversation. Seth seemed to notice this: he straightened up and shook his hair out of his eyes.
"Well, anyway, Willow, just know that La Push has always got your back, no matter what." He looked so serious when he said it that any temptation to laugh I'd had vanished.
"Oh. Um." How do you reply to this statement? "That's nice."
Seth just smiled at me like I was being cute - and to him, I might have been, I dunno - and we sat without saying anything for a little while. Evening was starting to settle in, dimming the light all around us. It was warm, but every now and then a light breeze would blow by. It felt good. Really good, and suddenly, just like that, for a moment, I was at peace with the world.
And then I remembered reality and thought of CJ, who was probably awake from his nap by now, a wave of guilt crashing over me. "I gotta go," I told to Seth, breaking the silence and making him jump at the sudden sound of my voice. "My mom told me to be home by now." It was a lie and Seth knew it, but he said nothing about it.
"'Bye," Seth replied as I walked away.
"See ya, Seth."
When I walked through the door, chaos met me, as usual. Heather was laying on the couch and talking on her cellphone, her slightly oversized skirt practically falling off her narrow hips. Ciara was standing in front of the full-body mirror slathering on lipgloss, in a sinfully short red dress and black high heels that made her about a foot taller. Her hair was done up on top of her head and sparkling, golden earrings framing the side of her face. Clothes were scattered all over the floor, obviously possible choices from whenever she'd been struggling on what to wear. From upstairs, I thought I heard CJ crying. Typical.
"Where are you going?" I asked Ciara. She glared at the mirror and me beyond it, for no reason at all as usual, and I glowered back.
"I told you already," she said.
"Well, say it again."
Ciara's eyes critically examined her lips, and she raised one painted finger to smooth the gloss over. "On a date with Greg," she said after a moment.
Greg.
I just stared at her.
She stared right back. "What?"
Who was Greg again? And then I remembered: Greg. Moving Guy. Right. Moving Guy Greg.
"Nothing," I told Ciara. "It's just that that dress looks hideous on you."
She whirled around, giving me a steely glare. I'd always been glad that I hadn't gotten her eyes, instead recieving the ones from my unknown father; hers were a dark blue that many found beautiful but I thought were ugly. My own eyes were a sea green, kind of pretty. I'd gotten her hair, though: dark brown, straighter than a board except for a few somewhat-wavy-but-not-really parts. I'd always plan on cutting it as soon as I had a pair of scissors in my hands. But then I'd forget.
"Don't you dare talk to me that way," Ciara snarled, her default comeback, as she took a step closer to me. Heather rolled her eyes and said loudly,
"GOD, you two."
She left the room then, as she always did when Ciara and I got into an argument, pulling her skirt back up as she went.
"Mmhmm, sure," I said to Ciara, grinning as I leaped up the stairs. She grabbed her purse from the table and crammed her lipgloss in it, swinging it over her shoulder. "Have fun, princess." I winked at her and laughed when she thundered out of the door, slamming it behind her with enough force to make the remote on the coffee table fall onto the floor.
I was lucky, I knew, that our argument hadn't escalated into something worse as they always did. But I didn't really care. I knew that when she'd come back at four in the morning with her hair all messed up and clothes put on backwards, reeking of beer, and that my good mood was short-lived. Then it would be time for the yelling and the accusations and all of that crap.
But for now, I would just enjoy the peace while I could.