A/N: Just a quick little note, this story is based off of the BOOKS. Not the MOVIE. If you don't understand certain points in this story, it's probably because you haven't read the books. If you haven't read the books, do yourself a favour and read them. The pages are lined with crack… it's an awesome series.

Recommended listening;;
"Everyday is exactly the same" – Nine Inch Nails
"Vampires" – Fastball
"Decode (Acoustic)" –
Paramore
"Godspeed" – Anberlin
"Comfortably Numb" – Pink Floyd.



Time passed impossibly slow.

Seconds ticked by into minutes and minutes leaked into hours, but each were inseparable from the other; time had no meaning. For all I knew, what felt like hours could have merely been minutes, seconds; I couldn't tell.

There were several instances when I was sure I had seen headlights passing the mangled wreck and I allowed my hope to build each time until I realized I had not seen anything. In other moments, I thought I heard Jeremy speak and I found myself answering before I could stop to tell myself it was silent in the car.

I don't know how long it took them to find us, but when they did my lack of hope – worn and inflated and deflated past recognition -- allowed no room for elation when I felt hands pulling me from the vehicle and saw the flashing, urgent, lights of the emergency vehicles.

I don't remember much between that and snippets of memory which seemed too dream-like to be real.

***

I could feel myself coming through, breaking the surface of the cloudy haze that filled my mind. Anesthetic; it had to be, I could sense the lingering numbness in varied places in my body and feel the dry need for water in my mouth. Rolling over slightly, I blinked several times to clear my vision of the lingering blurry, darkened spots and slowly, as my vision cleared, I realized this did not look like a hospital room at all.

I was home.

Pulling myself out of the double bed groggily, I shivered slightly as my feet hit the cool floorboards.

Home.

Slinking across the hardwood flooring, I headed toward the door on the opposite side of the room. Reaching the door, my fingers loosely gripped the cool metal of the door handle and followed the motions of opening the door.

Passing a small mirror in the hall, I stopped to inspect myself. My hair – which closely resembled a haystack after a windstorm – was practically a non-entity as I scanned the person I saw reflected back at me in the mirror and quickly, the dream theory evaporated before my inquiring eyes. Touching the thick gauzy bandage on my neck, I could see a hint of red through the white; still bleeding. My right cheek was dotted with tiny, superficial cuts, from the glass I supposed.

I was in the middle of said inspection when the shifting of a chair on the kitchen linoleum downstairs made me jump slightly. In my confused daze, I hadn't remembered that I shouldn't be alone. My Uncle would be around somewhere…

Turning away from the mirror, I started for the stairs, each step creaking under my weight as I travelled. It wasn't long before I made it to the bottom of the flight with surprising ease and lack of incident.

Pausing on the last stair, I could see my Uncle from where I stood, my hand touching the railing as I studied the scene before me. Luke sat at the small kitchen table, his elbows propped up on the hard surface, his back turned toward me. Cradling his head deep in the comfort of his hands, the kitchen phone sat off the hook at his elbow and the busy signal echoed in the silence.

"Luke?" My voice sounded strange as it broke the silence, resembling more of a croak than anything.

At the sound of his name, Luke pulled his head from his hands abruptly; a weary look plastered on every inch of his face and thick, dark, bruise-like bags lined his eyes when he turned to look at me. Easily, it looked like he had aged ten years.

"Kasey…" Quickly, he pushed himself to his feet and he replaced the phone in its cradle with shaking hands before turning toward where I stood. "I'm glad you're awake. The doctor said you would sleep for a while, but I was worried …"

"How long have I been-- ?"

"Two days."

Fingering the railing, tracing the contour of the wood slightly with the tips of my digits I processed the passing of time I did not remember before I opened my mouth to begin my inquisition pertaining to the missing hours, the missing days. "Have… have they released Jeremy yet?"

"No. Kasey –"

"We should go see him then, I'll bring him some –."

Running his hand through his dark, messy hair, Luke placed his hands on his hips, taking a deep breath and exhaling noisily, his eyes directed toward his feet. "Kasey," Luke took an unsteady step toward where I stood, his eyes surveying my figure before he spoke. "I think maybe you should sit down…"

Did I look that bad? I had just passed a mirror in the hall moments ago, I wasn't missing anything... two ears, eyes and a nose….

"I can stand…" I murmured, gripping the railing tightly as I tried to grasp the concept of what exactly was happening here.

I hated surprises and I hated the way Luke composed himself now…. I recalled the look on his face from a past memory and could only match it with one moment in memory. The memory of when I had been seven and he had hired a clown to entertain the kids at my make-shift birthday party… only to learn that I was recently settling a deep seated fear of clowns when it was far too late to stop the clown from making his appearance.

Did I mention I hated surprises?

Sighing deeply once more to himself, I watched as Luke hovered closely to where I stood his hands back on his hips but his eyes were trained on me instead of his feet this time.

"Kasey, they tried the best they could… Jeremy didn't…."

This didn't sound like a clown story; this didn't sound like anything remotely like that memory at all…

"… They couldn't…." His sentence was fragmented, as if the words fought to overcome some deep want to keep the truth sealed away it seemed. "Kasey, Jeremy… passed away early this morning… the blood loss they couldn't – "

"Where's Jeremy?" No. The warm tears prickled at the corners of my eyes as I asked the impossible question. I really didn't want the answer, but I couldn't help but ask the question. He couldn't be gone, there had to be a mistake… not my Jeremy. No…

"Kasey, honey…" Luke shifted closer, slowly, carefully…

"Where. Is. Jeremy?"

Even through the lingering haze, I could hear the alarm and urgency in my own tone as I repeated my query slower, more poignantly. Luke had to have heard it too because I could see the warring emotions playing across his face as he looked at me. If I had been thinking about his emotions, I would have felt bad for him… the messenger, the bearer of bad news….

"Kasey, please just sit down and we'll…"

"No."

"They tried, Kase…" Luke stumbled over his words, a consolatory tone weaving through each of his words as he took a precautionary step toward me.

"It hit on my side of the car…" I could feel my legs trembling, feel my knees losing strength as the unfamiliar voice verbalized what I was thinking … this wasn't fair, this wasn't possible, I shouldn't be standing here, Jeremy should be…

"They said you were lucky…."

I could see his lips moving, but I was no longer paying attention, I couldn't pay attention… I couldn't breathe…

Suddenly a numbness – one unlike the forgiving wash and grasp of anesthetic – crept up my legs, spreading quickly with the flow of blood until my entire body was senseless. The last thing I saw before a complete darkness washed over me was my vision turning sideways and the floor rushing up to greet me.

***

I didn't go to the funeral.

I didn't want to say my good-byes. If I didn't see him lying there like that in the casket I could deny it, if only for a little bit longer.

If I didn't see a cold, soulless vessel, I could keep him. I could keep my Jeremy as he always had been to me; alive, full of an impossible radiance that had once seemed inextinguishable to me.

In actuality, I didn't do much for the next few weeks; pulling myself from bed for anything other than necessity seemed pointless. The sun rose and the sun set and it wasn't long before I lost track of the days; the beginning of the days were marked only as the point in which I became so restless that I could not sleep anymore. The end of the day was noted when my uncle trudged through the door and made a varying array of noise shuffling around the kitchen downstairs for food. I ate little, spoke even less and soon cut school completely from my schedule; life didn't seem live able and as some sort of punishment for my transgression, I was made to live it, made to live in a hell with no foreseeable end.

Day in and day out I was left behind to suffer the beat of a heart and the pain it caused when it tried to go through its normal functions though it was broken.

***

The lines passed beside the car in a repetitive, almost hypnotic blur, melding together at points and breaking in others as I watched with a sort of fabricated fascination … it was just a mess of dashes and lines really, but I knew I was in no mood to start a lively conversation so I continued to watch them pass…

The weather seemed to reflect my feelings. Rain and cloud cover, it felt too dark to be day but too bright to be night; a twilight of sorts…

My silent rebellion lasted a little over the two week mark according to a rather determined Luke. Despite my own resolute attempts to stay locked away in my room forever, Luke seemed to be planning otherwise. Of course I hadn't made it easy for him to go through with his plan. I was stubborn to the very core, my father's daughter… that was scathingly apparent. Unfortunately, Luke was his mother's son and my father too had earned his obstinate nature from the matriarch of the Calder family. Fire against fire… a war of redundancy, a battle of attrition that pitted immovable force against immovable force. As far as I could recall, I hadn't given in, but it wasn't difficult to see – sitting in the passenger seat of Luke's 2002 Mercury Cougar, school bag at my feet – that I hadn't won this round.

I hadn't been keeping track of the time, so when – after an immeasurable amount of seconds and minutes – the car slowed and turned, rolling lazily over several speed bumps, I couldn't help but look up.

School.

The first thing to hit me was that every aspect -- right down to the 'Welcome to the Home of the Indians' sign draped over what I assumed to be the entrance -- of the building screamed institution.

Pulling slowly to a stop, Luke shifted the car into park right in front of the red brick building almost pointedly.

"It's uh –." Luke was the first to break the silence with an awkward clearing of his throat, pausing mid-sentence to shuffle around the bunch of pamphlets and computer print-offs scattered in the backseat in search. "—Scappoose High."

"I know it's far out from where we're living right now, but I think this is what you need, what we need right now."

What I needed…?

Luke pressed on casually however; he must not have noticed the internal echoes of his words playing across my face… my reaction.

"Phil Moore's daughter, Layla, goes here."

The name rang a bell somewhere in the back of my mind and though I couldn't place a face with the name at the moment, I was sure I'd recognize her when I saw her.

"She's offered to show you around until you get the hang of it here…" Luke informed, shifting slightly in his seat. "It's small, not a lot of kids, so it shouldn't be too long until you're settled. They're in the swing of things already… "

In the swing of things… so my arrival – in the middle of January – would be extra noticed; Wonderful.

Now that I had the time to think about it, I recalled catching him fussing over school pamphlets for the past couple of weeks; pamphlets which he was quick to hide in the rare moments I ventured from my self-imposed solitude. I'd overheard him debating the best course of action with his work buddies and had remembered being informed quietly of impromptu meetings with "clients" (more appropriately called principals now, I was sure) to see if I'd missed much of the curriculum thus far and if they'd be willing to allow a late transfer. I just never thought much of it, never thought about the pamphlets and the phone calls or the meetings; it was hard to think of such things when you didn't want to think about anything anymore. I really should have seen this coming now that hind sight was kicking around…

"If you… can't stay here, I took the day off. All you have to do is give me a call and I'll be here to get you…"

Looking up at the school through the rain dotted, tinted car windows, I sighed lowly. I knew what he meant; he wanted this to work out, he needed this to work out because after this, I was sure that he didn't know what to do with me. After this, I didn't know what to do with me…

Shifting in the passenger seat, I set my eyes forward, staring through the windshield into the student parking lot momentarily. Taking a slow, steady breath in the silence, I took hold of my backpack and quickly reached for the door handle before my nerve could leak through my fingers. Cracking the door open, I slid out of the car and slipped my arms through the straps of my bag; a new feeling, a feeling of reality mixed with utter fear, raw and unrefined pulsing through my veins, rising to greet me.

This was going to be an interesting day to say the least.

***

I found the front office with relative ease, placed exactly where one would expect a front office, to the right of the main entrance. A lovely sounding receptionist, Ms. Cole, was quick to help once I wandered through the heavy, squeaking doors… I supposed that the blank look pressed upon my face and the slow movements – unsure and precautionary – were a dead give-away though. I was given a schedule, not unlike the one from my old school, and handed a map while Ms. Cole helpfully explained the quickest route to my first class, AP Biology with Mr. Britt. With one floor, I was sure it wouldn't be too difficult to find my way to the next classes so I tuned out the latter part of her directions.

By the time I ducked out of the office – map and schedule in hand along with a school newsletter – the school had come to relative life. Once empty, the small foyer was a small bustle of groups of chatting teens, some noticed me and others didn't… either way I just stared at the map clutched in my hands, it was easier than catching the staring eyes.

Following the directions Ms. Cole had offered, AP Biology was not difficult to locate, just two short stretches of locker lined hallways away from the main office.

Ducking into the classroom after two giggling girls, I headed for the teacher's desk immediately, my schedule at the ready. I was sure he'd be expecting me nonetheless… not many people transferred in this late…

Approaching the desk quietly, I studied Mr. Britt quickly; a rough looking man with a scruffy beard and large bottle lens glasses… in his pudgy fingers, he held a copy of some large text, his eyes darting across the page as students dropped assignments on the corner of his desk. As they wandered away back to their desks, their eyes lingered slightly on my figure…

Unfolding my schedule, I furled the paper slightly in hopes to catch his attention and though he may not have been able to differentiate it from the furling papers being handed in, I supposed my shadow or my hovering finally caught his attention.

Glancing up at me from his book, Mr. Britt begrudgingly stuffed an old receipt in the pages to save his place, dropping the text to his desk before scanning my face for only a moment.

"Ah, yes; Ms. Calder, is it? It's wonderful to have you…" Mr. Britt grimaced, taking the schedule I extended toward him with some amount of annoyance. Lovely, sarcasm…

As he looked over the already creased piece of paper through thick lenses of outdated glasses, I could feel the eyes on the back of my head, on the side of my face, staring…. In my chest, my heart picked up pace, beating erratically as I forced myself to stare – eyes unseeing and unfocused – at the stuffed owl sitting, stuffed meal in its talons, on the edge of the vintage desk. I was so concentrated on ignoring the feeling of being watched that I hardly heard his next words or see the text book he brandished at me. "Ms. Calder? Here's your text book. You can have a seat next to Mr. Cullen. Alphabetical order if you don't mind…"

Snapping my eyes up to his rough face, a puzzled look crossed my visage for only a moment. He was throwing me to the wolves so soon? "Uh- I'm- Sorry?" I croaked as quietly as was possible; though the chatter in the classroom was still a lull of mish-mash voices, I could tell my new classmates were listening.

"Mr. Cullen. Take a seat next to Mr. Cullen. Second table from the back on the right, alphabetical order Ms. Calder…" Mr. Britt sighed, handing back my schedule and shooing me away from his desk with a dismissive wave of his hand after I had slowly taken the book from his hands.

Taking my schedule I tucked it safely into my jacket pocket and slowly turned away from the desk; if I could stay at the front of the class, chit-chatting with the teacher – as unpleasant as he seemed -- I would… but it was now or never I figured. This had work; there was nothing else… after this there was nothing…

Turning away from his desk and starting down the center aisle almost reluctantly, I kept my eyes on my worn sneakers for a small while until I mustered up the courage to tear my eyes up.

Glancing up to locate my seat, I caught a pair of eyes staring without shame, staring with such intensity that I felt them burning right into mine… if looks could kill, I was sure that I would have died right there, under his glare, his dark eyes boring right into my soul.




A/N:
You know the drill, R&R please.

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