Chapter 5: Kim's Advice

I woke up around ten, slamming my head against my pillow and tossing on the first clothes I could find. My mom was already downstairs, her eyes searching me as she set down a large bowl and a box of Fruity Pebbles, my favorite cereal. I wasn't hungry, the anxiety and the sleepless nights were affecting me.

"You okay," she asked as she place the milk down next to me with a bottle of apple juice.

"Not hungry," I grunted, pouring myself a cup of coffee.

She absentmindedly touched my forehead gasping, and then shook her head when she remembered I was now constantly feverish.

"Is this about your new girlfriend?" she asked sitting across from me. I hadn't told her about the imprinting, in fact she didn't know about imprinting at all, I tried to keep most of the wolf-world to myself.

"How did you know about her?"

"I know everything about you Jared," she said evenly.

"I had to go to Forks last night for wolf business, but we sort of had a date and I didn't have a chance to call her, and the thing is she's sort of a little… I don't know, tough. I think she's going to be really pissed."

"Aww, no one can stay mad at you, honey," she said touching my hand. "But if you're worried, gifts or flowers always do the trick."

"What kind of gifts?"

"Something from the heart," she said when my dad entered the room.

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. I turned away, it was icky seeing old people kiss; especially when it's your parents.

"Your dad here made me the most beautiful bracelet when we were in high school, John show Jared how to make one of those bracelets you made me. He wants to impress a girl," my mom pressed.

My dad appraised me and winked. "Hold on," he said leaving the room.

It was Saturday but it was probably the first Saturday I've seen him at home on the weekend in over a year. He returned about 15 minutes later with a tackle box and an ancient looking handmade manual.

"Here, your gramps gave this to me when I met your mom," he said passing to me the paper. "Some of it's in Quileute, but they're picture, you should be able to figure it out." He opened the box on the table in front of me.

"Oh look, there's the purple you used to make mine," my mom smiled hanging onto my dad.

"She'll like that purple… with the aqua and the chocolate brown, trust me," she said pointing out the different spools of thread. I wanted to start it right away but first I needed to see her, I was desperate to be near her again, no matter what her reaction.

Images of a catatonic Bella continued to flash through my head as I took the box to my room, checked myself in the mirror and ran out, skipping the car and rushing to her door on foot.

I breathed hard as I prepared to knock but the door opened before I even touched it. Matty came to the door and smiled wide at me, it made him even more lovable.

He was tall for his age, much paler than Kim but with the same wide lips and high cheek bones, which were half hidden behind a layer of baby fat. His eyes were a much lighter hazel than Kim's and his hair was curly and cropped close to his head.

"Hi Matty."

"Hi Jared," he said with an excited glow. He stopped himself almost immediately, examining me with a serious face he couldn't quite pull off. "Are you here for Kim?" he asked with his head titled to the side.

"Yes," I said anxiously looking for her behind him in the open door.

"She went to work. She works all day on Saturdays," he said still giving me the once over.

"Oh," I said lamely.

"What did you want?" He asked, I thought at first he was trying to figure me out, but when I searched his face a little more I realized his eyes were timid and almost pleading.

"I just wanted to hang out," I said taking a seat on the stairs.

"You could hang out with me," he said his little voice not managing to hide the hope. I smiled at him, gesturing for him to take a seat next to me.

"Sure kid, what do you wanna do?" I asked placing my hand on his shoulder. I didn't have anything to do today, the leeches had all left town and I wasn't much in the mood for celebrating with the rest of the pack. He looked at my hand on his shoulder skeptically for a minute but shrugged.

"I don't know, my mom is still sleeping and all the good cartoons are finished already," he huffed. He was really cute when he did that, he reminded me so much of Kim.

"Okay, we can play baseball? Soccer maybe? Video game?" I wasn't really sure what kids liked to do now a days, which made me feel old.

"We used to have Guitar Hero, my dad bought it for me, but mom sold it," he sighed. "Wanna build something with my duplos," he suggested.

I grinned, I still had a giant box of duplos in my basement. I was a duplo/lego master growing up and I took my building blocks seriously.

"Sweet! I got a ton of duplos at home, oh shit, the lego tower. Okay, we gotta make a chart, I have some grid paper and more supplies at home. We gotta head over there first, where are we building this? Do we have secure surface to build the base?" Matty was smiling even wider than before, and I knew then that I had found a brother, a fellow plastic architect.

*:*

After raiding my house for all the equipment and grabbing a stack of sandwiches from my confused mother, we headed back to Kim's in my car. Matty was quite the chatter-box when he opened up to you, but I didn't mind, he was funny as hell and he occasionally mentioned Kim.

"Kim's going to start working on Sundays too, maybe you can come over sometimes. With all of these duplos we can build a whole damn city! Oh man, Kim is going to freak, she loves forts. One summer we slept in a fort in our backyard for three days. She said it was cuz mom's old boyfriend Kyle was creepy, but I know she just liked it cuz it was wicked," he didn't stop for a breath.

"My friend Jordan gave us this Spiderman tent last year and sometimes when mom is sick she puts it in her room and we camp out. She said for Christmas she'll buy a bigger one so we can both sleep in there and maybe we can camp in the caves. She's scared of the caves though so I know she's lying, but I think she might really get me the tent," I added that information to the log.

Kim fact # 15: she was afraid of the First Beach caves.

"My dad took me to the caves once, they're awesome, they had these like icicles hanging all over, but they weren't cold, they were like made of rock," he rambled as I unpacked the car.

"Stalactites," I corrected, evaluating the grass in the backyard.

"Huh?"

"The icicles, they're called stalactites, the ones that come from the ground are called stalagmites," I explained.

"Oh. Hey Jared?" he paused as we started to sort the colors in piles.

"Yeah," I prodded, focusing on the yellows. We had a similar method of preparation; it was sort of like watching a nine year old me.

"Could you take me back to the caves some time?" He asked trying to sound nonchalant.

"Yeah, of course! We can go with Kim, cure her of her fears," I said smiling.

"Jared?"

"Yeah, Matty," I chuckled looking back at him. He was serious again, his fist were clenched a little.

"Do you like her?" He asked, his demeanor changed automatically, he was serious, the man of the house.

"Yes, I like her very much," I felt like I was talking to a dad before a first date. He eyed me again, smiled wide, and continued to sort.

"That's cool. Gross, but cool."

We started by building a base, which Matty insisted needed to green. We took a break around two and chowed down on my mom's three cheese subs.

I grudgingly gave one to Kim's mom when we went inside to wash our hands, she was sprawled across the couch watching re-runs of The OC. She hadn't drank in a few hours, which I knew by the repulsive smell of it seeping out of her pores.

At just past six we were almost done with a full on duplo castle when I smelled her. Her natural musk, coconut, and lime were mixed with frying oil, and fish. It wasn't unpleasant but it made me hungry again.

I wondered what my mom made for dinner and if Kim would agree to come over with Matty to try it. She shouldn't have to cook if she worked all day. I hurried to finish the top of the fort, making sure it was finished before I left the little guy and threw myself at Kim's mercy. My heart beat hard in my throat as I watched her slow progress up the driveway.

"Can I talk to you, Jared," she said evenly. She threw down her keys, her purse and removed her work baseball cap with a smiling purple fish before motioning for me to follow her.

"I'll be right back, Matty," I called to Matty.

"No he won't, say bye bye Matty," she screamed not looking back. He sighed, shrugged his little shoulders and waved goodbye with a frown.

My legs got heavier as she walked further from her house, not bothering to look back at me. When she reached the end of the street she finally turned to face me. I was expecting to see fury, anger, rage, but what I got hurt much more. Her eyelids were heavy and she looked pained. She avoided my gaze when she spoke.

"Look, Jared thanks I guess, for hanging out with Matty, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't come back," she said calmly. I didn't like this calm Kim, I almost wished she was screaming.

"I really like him though," I said hoping I could tap into her soft spot for him, but I wasn't lying.

I didn't spend the day with him because of, or for Kim— I did it because I liked him, because it was fun and not complicated and because I liked listening to him ramble and making him smile.

"Yeah, okay, whatever. You can't get to me through him and he's had more than enough fucked up father-figures in his life letting him down." I saw a spark of her anger flicker behind her eyes but she remained eerily calm..

"I'm sorry about yesterday, I had to work, there was an emergency," I mumbled, it sounded lame even to me.

She didn't deem my excuse worthy of a reply. Instead she stood perfectly still, watching me with tired eyes, eyes that bore into my soul. I couldn't handle looking at her anymore and I scanned her perfect frame, taking in bright yellow uniform. I cocked my head to the side seeing the name written in block print on her tag.

"Susie?" I joked. She didn't smile instead she gestured for me to leave and spun on her heels. I grabbed her arm reflexively but the cold sneer that lit her face made drop it instantly.

"Yeah, I'd rather asshole and perverts didn't know my real name or address," she stressed taking several steps out of my reach.

"Jared, this isn't going to work. My life is just too damn complicated; I don't have the time or energy to spare for guys. So just leave us alone okay?"

"Kim, I'm really, really sorry. I don't know what I could possibly do to make you believe me, to trust me—"

"I don't trust anyone," she muttered under her breath before shouting a final goodbye over her shoulder.

My mother had always emphasized respect for women. If a woman told me to leave her alone I should, no means no but leaving her at that moment felt final and I couldn't care the thought of not being Kim's everything.

I circled the block and cleared my eyes of the frustrated tears that fell without my permission. When I finally made it back to her home and I scaled the trees to my favorite vantage point, I heard her chatting with Matty..

She was talking to Matty out of sight. "Did you eat?"

"Yup, Jared's mom made us these sandwiches, they had three kinds of cheese in them. I didn't even know there were three kinds of cheese, Kimmy. They were good, his mom is nice, she's really pretty too. When you and Jared get married-"

"Whoa there Matthew, don't get your hopes up, okay? It's just you and me for the long haul," she cut him off pounding up the stairs. His tiny footsteps followed.

"He really, really likes you though. He told me," Matty insisted from her door. I could see his profile as Kim threw herself on top of her bed. He closed her door without another word but didn't retreat to the living room. They seemed to have a routine and I watched, kicking myself, but unwilling to look away as she stripped out of her uniform and all too soon covered herself with a bathrobe.

Matty was still talking on the other side of the door. "He's really nice too and smart. He knows all about cave icicles, they're called stalactites. Did you know that? And he said he was going to take me to see them cuz you're too much of a sissy," he said as she opened the door to face him.

"I'm not a sissy and again don't get your hopes up, he's not coming back. You don't know him or what he even wants. But, look, if you really want I can get Crystal and her brothers together and we can go next Sunday before I start my new Sunday shift, okay?" She said her voice softening as she looked down at him.

"Maybe he just wants to be my friend," Matty said sounding hopeful. She walked past him and I lost sight of them. My ears sharpened and I listened to her pad down the hall and into the bathroom, Matty still following, stopping at the door again.

"He wants to my fuck friend," she whispered.

"He what?" Matty called out.

"Nothing. Listen Matty, you don't understand this yet, you're just a kid, but you have to learn this some time. People aren't like in the movies, they aren't all good and caring. You can't just trust everything everyone says and you can't expect them to do anything for you," she said turning on a steady stream of water.

"I wish I could tell you that at least we could always trust our family, but that's not true either," her voice was heavy with hurt when she said this and I was dying to hold her, to comfort her. "That's not our life but we got each other, and I'm sorry if that's not enough, but that's all we got."

His weak little footsteps lead back downstairs and I listened as Kim got stepped into the shower and started to sob.