Hello. The weekend has come again and that means (for me at least) late nights spent reading and writing fanfiction. Because I can. I hope you all enjoy this next chapter.

Last time:

It might have been my imagination, wishful thinking, or even just sleep deprivation, but I could've sworn that I saw a flash of a sand-colored animal through the trees. I smiled to myself before getting off the bus, entering my house, climbing up the stairs and crumpling onto my bed. I stayed there until the next morning.

I jumped out of bed the moment I was fully conscious. I glanced over at my clock. Nine-thirty, fairly normal for me. Maybe now my sleep schedule would go back so I wouldn't have to suffer through school.

I knew I was being sort of pathetic, and that pretty much all of my social life was starting to revolve around Seth, but I'd never had much of one to begin with. I was excited nevertheless.

I loved spending time with Seth, but I would have been lying to myself if I hadn't acknowledged that at least part of my want to see him was to stop the two parts of my mind, the part that knew I wasn't good for him and the larger part that wanted to stay with him anyway, from doing battle.

Seeing his beautiful, smiling face, smiling because he was so happy to see me, alleviated the constant warfare in my mind. When he was with me, I didn't feel so bad about depriving him of something.

I walked down the stairs, past the living room, where I could hear Chris and Dan fighting over the remote, and into the kitchen. I poured myself a large bowl of sugar cereal, the type that my brothers generally scarfed, because I was so hungry from missing dinner.

I carried my bowl over to the table, trying not to spill milk on the floor. As I ate, I looked out the window and saw that it was raining. Big surprise. This rain was heavier than normal, and seemed to cast a gloomy cloud over the day. I could barely make out the forest; the normally bright green seemed so washed-out and far away. I couldn't have made out an individual tree if I'd tried.

The rain slammed onto the roof like a drummer in a rock band. It was almost deafening, but as I slipped into another daydream I felt myself tuning it out. We were sitting in his mother's car this time, looking at each other over the center console. Well that is, I was looking; he was looking: that special gaze he reserved for me alone.

I was shaken out of my daze when my dad walked into the room, looking cheerful. I wondered why, with this weather. He poured a bowl of sugar cereal for himself too (breakfast of champions) and sat down next to me at the table.

"Morning," I mumbled around my mouthful of now-soggy cereal. It's harder than it looks to eat and dream at the same time. Multitasking was overrated.

Dad looked up from the sports section of the paper he was looking at so carefully. That explained why he looked so cheerful, someone must have won something. Or maybe someone had lost something. It basically all boiled down to every male in my family being a sports fanatic.

"Good morning, are you doing anything fun today?" he asked jovially. Rats. If I told him, he'd be prepared this time around. I pictured something along the lines of the Spanish Inquisition.

"Yes. I'm going into Port Angeles. I was planning on seeing a movie."

"Who're you going with?" My dad looked suspicious.

"Remember Seth?" I edged cautiously. Who was I kidding? Of course he remembered Seth. He wasn't exactly easy to miss, plus he was the only guy to have ever asked me out, a fact that most likely did not endear him to my father.

He paused, and then evidently decided he wasn't going to get into anything with me. He had nothing on either Seth or me that he could lodge a complaint against. Well, he could've said something about Seth looking too old for me, or something, but I'd already told him his real age. Even if he sometimes looked like he was in his twenties, Seth was still only a year older than me.

He turned back to his paper and I left as soon as possible. I'd gone about two feet out of the room before Sophie practically attacked me.

"You're going on another date tonight!" Sophie almost screeched. She really had to work on that eavesdropping problem.

"Ye-es," I drew out the word, managing to sound both bored and insolent.

"Please, please, please let me pick out your outfit!" she pleaded.

I sighed. She was obviously never going to be happy until I let her. It was also fairly clear to me that I wouldn't be wearing anything I wouldn't like, anyway. She couldn't go awry in my distinctly non-trendy closet, and none of her clothes would fit me.

"Okay," I said in my best martyr fashion. "Do your worst."

She squealed. Honestly, this girl was pep squad material, and those girls scared me.

"Go. Go take a shower, or something. I'm going to go look through your stuff!" She certainly looked pleased with herself.

"Soph," I protested, "it's not even ten yet, and we're not going anywhere until five."

"Yeah, but I really wanna do it now! And isn't five kinda early?"

"It apparently takes an hour to get to the theatre from this isolated piece of civilization. And fine, but I get veto power on anything you choose."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just go."

I shook my head as I went up the stairs, wondering why I was taking orders from my little sister. I entered the bathroom and turned the water on, letting it heat up.

After I stepped out, I walked over to the sink and wiped some of the fog from the mirror. I inspected my face, wondering what Seth saw in me. I wasn't ugly, but there was nothing at all remarkable in my features. I had an oval-shaped face with dark green eyes, a ton of freckles, slightly too thin lips, and a slightly too prominent nose. My hair was long, thick, and dead straight, chestnut brown.

I walked back into Sophie's and my room. Of course, Sophie had an entire outfit, including accessories, spread out on her bed.

"Soph, those are going to get cat hair on them," I said, raising my eyebrow at her.

"Whatever, just come over here and look at them. That's what lint rollers are for."

I walked over to her bed, expecting the worst. "A skirt? Sophia, have you looked outside? It is very clearly pants weather." Actually, it was more like rain-pants weather, but I didn't have any of those. I might have to get some with the climate around here, though.

"Okay, okay," she grumbled. She hung the skirt back in our closet with practiced movements, and came up with a pair of jeans. I reexamined the outfit. Blue top, white camisole, dark jeans. I could deal with that, especially now that the skirt was out of the equation.

I turbaned my hair with the towel and put on the requisite clothing. Sophie looked incredibly pleased with herself.

"Oh! Can I blow out your hair?" she squealed.

"Do you want to point a blow dryer at my head for half an hour?" I asked rhetorically. I wasn't exaggerating either, as she well knew. My hair was just that thick.

"Like you have anything better to do," she shot back. Without waiting for confirmation, she grabbed the hair dryer, and, wielding it like a weapon, proceeded with the dauntingly slow task of drying my hair.

After a few hours had gone by, even Sophie had run out of things to suggest to me, many of which I'd flatly refused. Face mask, anyone? I was completely polished; Sophie was starting to really scare me with her precision in the makeover field.

When she was finally done, I proved that underneath the make-up and nail polish I was the same person. I made myself a sandwich, while I read. It was a talent I had cultivated over the years.

The book I was reading managed to keep me from thinking too hard while I waited for Seth to come. I curled up on a couch and wasted away several relaxing hours.

All of a sudden, the doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes after five. Wow, punctual. I leaped up and almost sprinted to the door. I was too late.

My father, all five feet nine inches of him, was staring up at Seth. Here we go again.

"Why don't you come in?" he said, trying to look friendly and intimidating at the same time, a look that he couldn't pull off.

Seth, of course, agreed good-naturedly and walked into my house. As if things weren't already embarrassing enough for me, my brothers chose that moment to reappear from their video games. They stopped when they saw Seth and looked up.

"Dude, do you play basketball?" asked Dan.

"No," Seth said, unfazed. "I don't really play sports."

"Guys!" I hissed. "Please?"

"Who are you anyway?" Chris demanded.

Just then, Sophie chose the worst moment possible to appear. "That's Seth, Haley's boyfriend," she said. Very smart allecky of her. I'd thought she was on my side, but apparently she was just on the side that allowed her to have more fun.

Seth didn't seem to mind the use of the word 'boyfriend' though. Truth be told, I think he looked even happier at the mention of it. My dad didn't.

Then my mom made her appearance, possibly the only one of the Adams family who was normal, probably because she only married in. I breathed a sigh of relief.

She stuck her hand out and shook Seth's. "It's nice to meet you, Seth." She smiled again charmingly.

"Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Adams," he said.

"Call me Linda," she replied. "Mrs. Adams is my mother-in-law."

"Maybe we better go," I offered. "Don't want to miss the movie." I sounded fake to my own ears. I just wanted to get out of there.

"Sure," Seth said. He glanced at me, seeming to sense my awkwardness. "You ready?"

"Yep," answered, trying not to sound too relieved.

I turned back as we walked out the door. My entire family stood assembled like they were standing sentinel. My mom gave me the thumbs up and mouthed, "He's cute!"

I smirked and shrugged my shoulders. This was already starting to get less awkward. Hopefully, I wouldn't be hitting a plateau anytime soon.

"Are you okay?" asked Seth once we were in the car, his family's again.

"Yeah, I guess I'm just not used to them being in my personal life. The whole meet the boyfriend thing's never really come up."

"You mean you've never dated anyone before?" Seth looked surprised. I didn't remember this question in the "getting to know you" talk on the beach where we'd first met.

"No," I looked down. He was looking at me incredulously. I had no idea why. Then again, he wasn't affected by the weird anti-boy vibe that I seemed to unknowingly give off. Not that it mattered now.

"No one?"

"Nope. Have you?" I asked. I was trying to get the spotlight off of me. Then again, because of the whole imprinting thing, I doubted that would happen.

"No, never seemed to be much point. We're not allowed to tell anyone outside of immediate family who already know that the legends are true, and imprints. It would be sort of weird to not be able to tell a person you're going out with that you're a wolf. I won't have to worry about that now, though." He smiled and I grinned back. My mind was blissfully empty of the guilt at the back of my mind most of the time. Even if he didn't have that strong attraction for me, that would've been enough reason to be around him.

"I see your point. So, um, how is your family?" Pathetic conversation topic, bravo!

"They're great. I think my mom's on a date with Charlie Swan, the police chief. He's Nessie's grandfather, if you remember her. The half-vampire?"

The details of the story he'd told me in the woods came flooding back to me. It seemed incredibly far-fetched. A girl falling in love with a vampire and a werewolf, choosing the vampire, having a supposedly impossible baby with said vampire, and having the werewolf imprint on the kid. Then having some vampire royalty come in and try to kill them all. Now I was supposed to believe that some small-town cop was involved in this, too. Wow, my life was getting complicated.

"Yeah, and her mother is Chief Swan's daughter Bella?" I said for clarification.

I was regaled with Marvelous Wolf and Vampire Adventures during the rest of the car ride. Honestly this stuff was so unbelievable, they could make a best-selling book out of it.

Before I knew it, we'd pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater in Port Angeles. That was fast.

Seth appeared at the passenger door and took my hand. I knew one thing; I was never going to suffer cold hands in the winter when I was with him. "Let's go," he suggested, and we walked hand in hand to the ticket booth.