Song: So Close - John Mclaughlin

As Adelaide drove home, she couldn't get that odd conversation out of her head. What did a treaty have to do with a wedding? And in all honesty, what kind of people even made treaties even more, besides politicians that is? Jacob had said that she was his best friend, yet he wasn't even going to her wedding. Was it because he was in love with her, or used to be that is? Adelaide mentally slapped herself. Why was she getting caught in the affairs of someone she didn't even like? Turning onto her street, she groaned. There sitting in her driveway was a silver Cadillac. Parking next to it in the driveway, she sighed. This was either going to be mildly pleasant or a disaster.

"What are you doing home?" Adelaide asked, throwing her keys onto the kitchen counter.
"Jury took a recess," Her father answered, not looking up from his laptop.
"Where's mom?" It wasn't that Adelaide cared, but she'd thought she'd be pleasant.
"She's on a business trip in Ontario. Have you heard from Phillip?"
"Not since my graduation. Why do you ask?"
"I was just wondering. He's probably working a lot, you know how doctors are. Why couldn't you be more like him? He's successful."
"I'm only eighteen dad."
"By the time your brother was eighteen, he knew what he was doing with his life, that boy has direction!"
Adelaide rolled her eyes. And so it had started. Adelaide's father was always comparing her to her older brother Phillip. It was always Phillip this, and Phillip that. In their eyes, he was perfect. He was successful, was the star quarterback in high school and college, had a wife, one kid and another on the way, an apartment in Manhattan, and was a surgeon at a hospital in New York. That was her father. Her mother was another story altogether. She didn't compare, she just yelled and kicked Adelaide out.
"Well, I'm going back to the office. If Phillip calls, tell him I said hello." And with that, her father was out the door, in his car, and pulling down the street. She looked longingly out the window. The sun was a rare present in this town, and it was still early in the afternoon…

Adelaide hiked through the thick forest. The trees had refused to let any sun show through, making it all rather dark. A thick silence engulfed the forest, not even the birds chirped. Flip-flops were clearly not the shoes to be wearing in the forest. She'd been hiking for several hours when she started to believe she was lost. Stopping in her tracks, she looked toward the way she had just come. She could probably manage her path back home. This was the most sensible route. She then looked in the direction she was heading. It was unmarked, and had no indications as to where it would lead. This wasn't sensible, she could be out here for hours, days maybe, if she continued the way she was going. Though her mind pleaded to go back, her heart, something she had recently given up on listening to, urged her forward. Before she knew it, her feet were continuing their path into the unknown.

She had barley taken twenty paces when she thought she could make out voices up ahead. She quickened her pace, praying they would stay. It started to get brighter as the cover of the trees began to lessen. She soon stepped out of the trees and into a brightly lit clearing. This was clearly where the voices were coming from.
"Adelaide!" A voice called from behind her. She was suddenly pulled backward, falling into strong arms as two glittery figures rolled, wrestling, to where she had just been standing. She looked up to see Scott's familiar face. Yet something was very different. He was sparkling as though he had just jumped into a vat of glitter.
"Scott?"
"What are you doing here?" He nearly growled. Within the blink of an eye, he had now pulled them both to the shadows of the forest.
"I don't have to explain myself to you," she retorted, folding her arms, looking him square in the eye. His eyes were not hazel today, they had darkened. If Adelaide hadn't known better, she would have believed they had turned black. Scott stared back into her crystal blue eyes. They stayed like that for sometime, silently daring the other to be the first to look away, though neither would.
Scott sighed, "This is ridiculous Adelaide."
She didn't respond.
"You shouldn't be here. Please, go home."
"It's a free country isn't it?" she snarled. Anger pulsed through her.
"It's not safe here Addie!"
"I don't see any man eating lions. And besides-"
"Don't call you Addie. Please go home Addie." Every time he told her to go home, a new wave of rage surged through her body.
"I'm not leaving. And every time you tell me to leave, makes me more inclined to stay." She brushed past him and back into the clearing where two men were standing, smirking.
"Who's this Scott?" The buffer one asked, the biggest smirk plastered to his face.
"I'm Adelaide. Who're you?" She answered before Scott could get a word in.
"I'm Emmett, and this is Jasper. We're his brothers. So you must be the girl he keeps talking about." Jasper elbowed Emmett in the ribs, though Emmett didn't seem phased by this act.
"Thank you for making things sufficiently awkward Emmett," Scott remarked sarcastically before turning back to Adelaide. "If you won't go, will you please tell me why you're here?"
"Well, I was going to spend the day alone at the beach up in La Push, but then Jacob Black came around and started bothering me, so I left and didn't feel like being at home, so I decided I might check out the forest. Good enough reason for you?"
"What did he want?" Scott growled.
"I don't know, annoy me I guess," Adelaide answered offhandedly. "He was talking with some girl about a wedding though…" Scott, Emmett and Jasper exchanged meaningful glances. "Am I done being interrogated?"
Scott laughed, "Yes, you are."
"We're going to head back. You coming Scott?" Emmett asked.
"Yeah, I'll catch up."
"Too bad it's sunny, next time there's a storm you should bring Adelaide!" Emmett called as he and Jasper disappeared.
"What?"
"Oh, don't mind them," Scott replied offhandedly. He looked at her for a long moment. "You really don't want to go back to your house do you?"
"Not particularly," Adelaide muttered, kicking a rock. "It seems like you want to be with your brothers, so I'll leave."
"Wait." He grabbed her arm, catching her as she turned to leave. She looked up at him. "I see them everyday. They won't miss me. Although, something tells me I'm missing an entertaining fight at home. But I'll stay."
"You don't have to."
"Why are you suddenly being pleasant?"
Adelaide stopped. Was she letting her guard down? Why had her façade left so quickly?
"I'll try to remember to be slightly more cynical," she retorted.
"Don't get me wrong, I like the pleasant Addie, but I've kinda grown to like the cynical, sarcastic Addie."
They were standing in the middle of the clearing, and he was unintentionally still holding her hand from when he'd stopped her. The coldness of it seemed comfortable, familiar. The stood there, staring into each other's eyes, almost as if they were staring into each other's soul. Their faces were inches apart, all noise faded until it was barley existent. His lips were centimeters away from hers.
"I should go," she whispered. She was unsure if the emotion in her voice was fear or regret. She pulled her hand from his and dashed into the forest, leaving him standing in the meadow.

Lost in thought, Adelaide turned on music and shut her bedroom door. Scott was everywhere, all the time. Everywhere she went, he was there too. But every time she saw him, she felt something. And she secretly hated herself every time she did. For the last two months, she hadn't allowed herself to feel anything. She'd been living in a numb void, behind the walls she'd built around her heart. Every time she saw Scott, her heart would jump, cracking the solid wall she'd worked so hard to build and keep intact. Tears began to pour from her eyes. She was betraying herself. Crying was a sign of weakness. She had promised herself she wouldn't cry another tear over him, the boy who caused her to throw herself into the void. She willed herself not to listen as her heart willed her to take the most forbidden of fruit.