My mood remained unaltered from the night before as I lay on the couch, attempting to cling to the haven of sleep as the sun rose higher and higher through the windows. I still didn't know what to do or how I felt or what I thought. I was confused, more confused than I ever had been before. And as I soon found out, the bonfire was today. The one where all the guys and the elders came...including Quil's dad and Billy.

Joy…

Billy would want to talk and would be his normal mind reader self and Quil's dad kind of scared me…

I just had the feeling that this was not going to go well. I don't know how but I knew it.

All was revealed as correct after Emily and I cooked in silence for a while. I had finally decided to stop feigning sleep and walked into the kitchen where she was already hard at work. I came up next to her and started slicing onion for what looked like potato salad. She looked at me, heavy questions and concern on the one side of her face. I looked resolutely down.

She was quiet but determined when she commented, "Have you talked to Quil lately?"

"No." She knew the answer to that. Why was she asking?

"You should, you know." She sounded surprisingly stern, but I knew she had to mean well. Yet, it felt like there was just enough patronizing in her simple statement that I was reminded of my mother. A swing in my mood that I hadn't had to deal with since I moved away from home struck me. I was all out angry. I threw the knife down and my hands immediately went to my hair.

"Oh, why? Why should I? So I can go and apologize for getting his hopes up because I'm a whore? Because I can't get it through my stupid fucking head that I've already got a boyfriend? Is that what I should go and talk to Quil about? So I can tell him that we just have to be friends!"

My braid was done and my hands clenched into fists so hard my green nails were digging into my palms, almost drawing blood. "So I can explain to him that it doesn't matter that I like him. I should have known better and not gotten involved because I already have Colin! So I can tell Quil that I'm so fucking pathetic that him showing me the slightest bit of kindness and friendship made me jump off the deep end and turn into a slut! What do you want me to tell him? That even if there was the slightest chance that he could like me that way, that I can't date him because I'm dating Colin, who I am crazy about and because I'm not the type of girl who breaks up with one person so I can date another! Is that why I should talk to him?"

Emily's distorted face had turned into something truly sinister by the time I was done screaming. The spoon she was holding was visibly shaking in her hand and she looked ready to chuck it at me. She screeched right back. "Why the hell can't you break up with him? He can't treat you right, not from what I heard. And he'll never, ever, NEVER be able to treat you as good as Quil can. You may think you're a whore but have you even taken the time to see the way Quil looks at you? Does," she literally spat out his name, "Colin look at you like that? Can you see the love in his eyes when he glances over at you? Does he make your stomach get butterflies when Colin condescends to look up from his stupid video game at you? Does Colin just seem to fit you in every way?"

I stood there in fuming silence, refusing to look at her. Too much of what she said was true. Out of nowhere, her hand had shot out and grasped my chin, squeezing until it was almost painful. She forced me to look at her when she exclaimed, "Quil loves you, all right! He's loved you since he saw you walk back through that door! I can't explain it and neither can he and neither can you. But he loves you and somewhere inside that confused, battered heart of yours you know that you're positively crazy about him. You know that you won't ever find anybody better. He's your Sam! You're his imprint—soul mate—for him! He seems to fit you because he does! Stop hiding behind that pitiful excuse for a boyfriend you have because somebody might actually truly love you!"

Her eyes had softened and she gently let go of my face. She sighed before turning back to her mixing bowl. "That boy just can't catch a break when it comes to you, Claire..."

I frowned in confusion but she wasn't saying a word more. I picked the knife back up and resumed chopping. I swept the onion bits into the potato salad before pausing and looking over at her. The tears streaming down my face weren't from the onions. "Emily…I'm scared."

Wrapping one arm around me, she nodded, "I know, honey. I know."

I hid in the bathroom under the front of finding something decent to wear when Quil came to the house. I could hear Emily explaining where I was to him. I never heard an answer from him. He left with the other guys not long after. Abby and Harry must have noticed how down I was because they insisted that I walk with them down to their babysitter's down the road on the way to the beach. I agreed, if only to escape from any questions before I got there.

A mile later, I found myself sore from carrying both kids and walking up to a huge bonfire lit on the beach. It was just cool enough that the heat felt nice through my sweatshirt. I couldn't help but smile…until I saw Quil staring forlornly at me.

The ache I got whenever he looked anything but happy sprang up into my chest. I wasn't even there five minutes and I already felt like crying. Blinking determinedly, I looked away from him and greeted Billy. I could see the looks he sent from me to Quil every now and then but he never asked about them. For that I was thankful. Billy was nothing if not a tactful, compassionate guy and I loved him for it.

We chatted for a while as it got slowly darker and closer to supper time. As I scanned the beach again, trying to discover if Quil was any happier—that answer of which was no-, I realized that Sue was there. Smiling for the first time, I queried, "Hey, that's Sue Swan, right?"

Billy nodded, "Yeah, come on. She's an elder too, you know."

We came upon the woman who had single-handedly delivered me to my real family again pretty much. I was more than grateful to her, even if my emotions weren't being so simple at the moment. As she turned when Billy rolled up, she leapt forward and hugged me. "Claire, how have you been? I'm so glad you decided to come up! Oh, this is my husband, Charlie."

A Caucasian man about Billy's age with graying black hair and a mustache in a cop's uniform shook my hand. He seemed really nice. Quiet, but nice.

Sue latched onto me immediately. She linked arms with me and started a full on interrogation of the last few days. I didn't mind. I was able to talk about all the happy parts while skipping out on my insane whore tendencies and the emotional cataclysm I was unsuccessfully attempting to overcome.

We all sat down in a circle not long after. I had a plate of food in front of me that I nibbled at. Emily's cooking was amazing but I had inadvertently sat down right across the fire from Quil. I couldn't take my eyes off him if I had wanted to and he looked positively miserable. His misery took away my appetite as efficiently as his happiness.

Even so, my plate sat forgotten on my lap as Billy and Quil's dad began telling the legends. They were in material the same as what Billy had told me the day I first came but the way they told them and the atmosphere added a whole new dimension. I sat there, just staring at them enraptured as they spoke. At least, I did until their story deviated from the one Billy had told me.

Where he had stopped that day, he continued on this time. Now, the characters in the legends were very familiar. I heard the names Sam Uley, Jacob Black, and Seth Clearwater… I was paralyzed as a story revolving around a pack of wolves that were my new friends and their fight alongside vampires named the Cullens unraveled.

Whoa, what?

At first, I laughed. But nobody else did. This time everyone wasn't in an entranced stupor with me. They were remembering. I couldn't explain why but I knew that these two men, these elders, weren't lying. They were telling me things that had actually happened.

I was scared now. The plate of food dropped from my lap and laid there upside down on the sand. I sent wild looks in every direction though no one was even looking around to notice my horror.

They were telling me that I was surrounded by some sort of werewolves?

But they hadn't mentioned Quil. I'd been spending most of my time with him and he was still normal, right? Then it came. "And so later, after the redheaded cold one reappeared, Quil Ateara joined the pack and became a spirit warrior with his brothers..."

Billy continued talking but I didn't hear anymore. My eyes were riveted on Quil.

Huh? No! As if the last few days hadn't been hard enough now one of the guys in question was a werewolf?

I began crawling back away from the fire as my artist's mind began putting in the faces of wolves I'd been drawing for years behind the guys'. They were the wolves from my dreams! Sam had to be the black one that was always leading me away from danger. Jake, the big russet one that played with me like a puppy. Seth, the one that always licked my face. And Quil… Quil was my favorite. He was the chocolate one that had never stopped visiting my dreams.

I froze there on the sand as something occurred to me.

What my stepfather had always called my 'Speed of Einstein' thought streak broke through all the muddled emotions and something rational came out of my contemplation. I replayed everything I'd heard about wolves in the last few days and anything else that anyone had mentioned and I didn't understand, trying to find a connection of some kind.

About five seconds later, I'd leapt upright and demanded with terror quivering in my voice, "What the fuck is an imprint?"

Robert hadn't been teasing when he said 'Speed of Einstein'. I never liked to brag about being smart or anything and with anything but books and information, I was a complete idiot—look at my love life for the week before the bonfire for example—but sifting through data I could do as well as a computer in the right mindset.

Sam was one of these werewolf guys. He was married to Emily so she had to know the ins and outs of all this. Emily had said Quil was my Sam. I was Quil's imprint. That's what had slipped out that she had covered with soul mate. That's the only way I could connect myself into this. It's what I didn't understand that directly involved me…aside from being surrounded by a pack of werewolves, creatures that don't even exist!

My outburst broke the spell of the storytelling. Everyone turned to stare straight at me. My eyes shot from person to person, searching for someone to explain they were joking and I was overreacting like always.

Nobody did. Goddamn it! The silence was tense and I suddenly felt exactly like I was back home standing in a room with my mother when I asked about Washington. It was the silence filled with that patronizing 'doing it for your own good' ideology.

"What the fuck is it?" The silence continued on. I rounded on Emily, "You're the one who let it slip, now what is it? How am I connected to whatever werewolf thing that Quil is? TELL ME NOW!"

I recoiled as the first movement aside from my own popped up in my peripheral vision. Quil had risen and taken a step toward me, hands outstretched as if trying to explain. My eyes went wide and I put out a hand, "Don't, don't fucking touch me!" His face fell and a pained look clung to his features. That pang and ache I got whenever he had that look leapt up now, despite everything, especially when he acquiesced and sat back down without a word of defense.

Tears were freely streaming down his face and my heart broke somewhere down inside me because of it.

Emily stood and for the first time, I saw her look genuinely scared. What for I couldn't figure out. She began crying as she tried several times to get her words out. "An-an imprint is their version of a soul mate, like I said. They've got love at first sight. There's no confusion or going back for them. When they see their imprint they know and they love you for the rest of their lives. It's supposed to be rare but… I-I'm Sam's imprint. Kim is Jared's. Jake's sister Rachel is Paul's. And-and you're Quil's. You have been since you were two…"

I saw Quil flinch out of the corner of my eye. I thought I heard him whimper, "No, don't mention that part…"

He wasn't wrong. I couldn't have been able to move less than if I'd had a third vertebrae spinal cord injury. I couldn't even blink. I attempted to process again. Einstein wasn't running at full capacity this time. Maybe he'd drank too much wine at a bar mitzvah. "Wha-WHAT?" I couldn't breathe.

My hair was braided and my fingers were caught doing the motion through the empty air. I started again. I couldn't deal with this. What was this? Whatever it was I couldn't deal with it. Why had this week ever happened to me? I dropped my hair and put a hand to my forehead as I tried to blink away my tears.

"Oh my god, what-what the hell is wrong with me? I-I'm a failure at anything remotely social. My mom thinks I'm a freak who's going to kill myself. I have three siblings I have never held a normal conversation with. I don't even have a biological dad as far as I've ever known. I don't have anything I'd consider family for nineteen years and-and then I find one and-and they turn out to be a pack of shape-shifting werewolves that shouldn't even exist because werewolves aren't REAL! Either that or they're a group of crazy people."

"Then…then, I fall in love with one of them and it turns out he's had a thing for me since I was fucking two! What the fuck is wrong with me? Why can't anything I have be the slightest bit normal? Goddamn it!" I couldn't hold back a sob.

"Just fuck my life… Why can't you be kidding? Please, just be kidding…"

Emily stepped forward to hug me but I jumped back, immediately terrified again. This wasn't right. None of this was right. Everything was all wrong! She lowered her arms and spoke gently, "Claire, I-I know it's a lot to take in and you weren't supposed to find out about imprints yet. But, please, don't freak out. I wanted to when I first found out but just give it a little time. It'll be all right."

I stared at her, shocked, "No. No, none of this is right! None of this will ever be all right! How am I not supposed to freak out? How-how am I supposed to deal with this? I'm in a family of like… clinically insane mental patients or fucking monsters!" My legs were running and I was only too happy to follow. I sprinted out into the darkness, oblivious to everything but my terror and misery.

I could not be ok with this. They were werewolves…WEREWOLVES! None of this made any sense.

It was raining again when I saw the familiar glow of the house's lights. The drops didn't comfort me for the first time as I pounded down the driveway. But I stopped short when I saw a blue Chevy Cavalier bathed in the light. I knew that car…!

His nappy, black with front bleach striped hair and eyeliner couldn't have been more welcome ever. "COLIN!"

His face brightened for the few seconds I saw it before I reached him. I slammed into him, hugging him and burying my face in his neck, clutching normal as much as him. Finally, someone normal and human… He didn't seem to know what to do at first but eventually he wrapped his arms round me. I hugged him all the tighter for it.

"Hey Claire, babe. I missed you so much," he whispered in my ear.

Immediately smiling at the words I had never before heard from him in person, I pulled back and looked at him. It was hard to see his eyes behind all his hair but I took them as sincere. Acting boldly for once, I put a hand behind his head and fiercely kissed him. I didn't know how he was here but I was glad and I didn't want to ever let him go.

He grinned when he pulled away, "Wow, someone missed me." I tried to smile back but it didn't work. He frowned, "What's wrong, Claire?"

"Colin, take me home. Please, just take me back right now. Let me grab my bag and let's go."

He nodded with concern in his voice, "Ok. Whatever you want." He eased himself into the driver's seat as I ran inside. Bag in hand, I emerged seconds later. We were on our way the hell out of La Push within five minutes. I didn't care about my car at the moment. I wasn't sure if I'd care about it ever. How was I supposed to go back through some supernatural creatures to get it?

Colin began talking, telling me about his tournament and asking me about my stay and I tried to pay attention. I really did. But soon, with my head leaning against the window, I fell asleep, finally getting respite from the impossibility called that day.

I dreamt of a chocolate colored wolf sitting all alone on a cliff overlooking the ocean, howling his broken heart out to the empty sky. I woke up sobbing silently, sending trails of tears down the window.