Chapter 53: A very difficult chapter to write. The direction I want to take the story in is getting a bit complicated and I`m not that great of a writer to do it smoothly and without mistakes. Anyways. Thanks so much for sticking by me and the story and I hope you enjoy this. It`s really hard trying to write in the mindset of a teen and not a 26 year old woman. Happy reading and have fun reading.
"Jacob!" I shouted over the car park of the school. He turned his head over to look at me ever so slightly and fixed me with an barely disguised angry stare. I faltered slightly in my path towards him but...this was Jacob...
I made my way up to him and tried to look into his eyes. It was horribly difficult.
"I`m sorry about last night." I said, taking in his sleep deprived eyes.
"Me too." His angry pout was back.
"I...I want to ask you something Jacob." Despite the innate sense of fear that was coursing through me I took his rough hand in my own.
"You want me to leave you alone again?"
"No...I want to ask you to be my boyfriend again...if you want I mean..."
Jacob stared at me a long time. A long, searching look. Like he was trying to see into me. If it was what I really wanted.
"Do you really think I`ll say no to that?" Jacob whispered.
"I`m serious about you Jacob. Crap...if...if you wanted to skip school today and get married I would fucking do it! I`d do it! Because I..."
I couldn`t finish. Jacob had his mouth on mine, burying what I was going to say into the back of my mind.
"Let`s skip school today...let`s get married..." He breathed into my ear. "Lets do it."
Looking into Jacob`s face I was overwhelmed with happiness. Pure, undiluted happiness. This was it. This was really it. Jacob took my hands and kissed them.
"Your heart is beating so fast." He laughed happily. "I love you. I love you so so much! My sweet Sonia. My beautiful girl..." Jacob broke off and cupped my face.
"And I love you. Why not make it official you know." I giggled. Jacob led me over to his bike as the warning bell rang for the start of classes.
"Let`s go before we get caught." Jacob`s eyes sparkled with mischief as he got on.
"Like that would stop us." I climbed on after him.
"Jacob...let`s go to James Island. Lets do it there." I said into his ear as he drove us out of La Push. Jacob slowed down and stopped the bike.
"James Island? Why there?" He asked puzzled. "How can we get married there? Do you really think we can get a reverend up there?"
"We can get married the old way. And if we were doing a religious service then I would want a priest, not a reverend." I smiled at him. He looked unconvinced.
"How can we get married the old way? I mean, we don`t do things that way anymore Sonia."
"Who says we can`t?"
"It`s not the same."
"Do you think it`s any less valid? I`m your spirit wife. What I want to do today is commit myself to you today, for forever. The Quileute way."
"The Quileute way? Really? So I should give your mom a present of some canoes in exchange for you?" He smiled faintly. "Or I can just kidnap you." He smiled more broadly now.
"It means so much more to me this way Jacob." I said seriously. "We can go afterwards to a church and have it legally recognized."
"We could. But we`ll go to James Island today. After we graduate, we can get married for real."
"But we are getting married for real!" I maintained, getting seriously disappointed in Jacob. Why couldn`t he see it that way? I was trying to commit myself to him in the most special way ever and he was acting like he was humoring me by doing it. What difference does it make anyway if we got married in a church? We were basically saying the same vows.
"If I`m your husband Sonia, I`m taking care of you. There can`t be any secrets between us. We go to that Island and you`re telling me everything that`s going on. I won`t budge on that."
"I`ll tell you as much as I can." I promised.
"Everything."
"As much as I can. I promise."
"Tell me something now." He pushed. My mouth went dry. Think Sonia Think!
"There...there is something out there, like a malevolent spirit, who wants to hurt the Quileutes."
"The thing in the cave?" He said as more than a statement than a question. I nodded.
"Who is it?" He asked. My heart was beginning to pound in fear. I knew I couldn`t tell him everything. I promised I wouldn`t and here I was ready to spill my guts out. I`m so weak it`s unreal.
"I don`t know." I mumbled, to the ground.
"You know. Come on Sonia. Tell me. I`ll protect you." He took me in his arms and I didn`t doubt that he would. Why not tell him.
"The spirit of..." I was cut off by a horrible furious howl of a wolf. Christ...I think I`m having a heart attack. Jacob sprang in front of me, arms outstretched, head darting in all directions.
"Jacob...who was..."
"Quiet! Someone`s phasing back!" He said harshly.
Sure enough, I heard heavy footsteps threading through the leaf litter of the forest floor. Mr. McBride! He looked livid. He was shaking.
"Stupid!" He spat out at me. "You had to do only one thing and you couldn`t keep your mouth shut could you? Stupid idiotic girl!" He advanced towards us.
"Don`t you dare speak to my imprint that way!" Jacob growled, advancing on Mr. McBride, showing him his full height and strength.
"And you! I knew I shouldn`t have shown you my memory. You just had to leave her be."
"Mr. McBride...Jacob doesn`t know anything." I defended, scared shitless. Jacob pushed me more behind him.
"That`s what you think girl. He has been sneaking behind your back. Gleaning whatever information he can about what`s happening."
"And why is that so bad? What affects her affects me and visa versa! I have every right to know what`s going on!" Jacob yelled.
My mind was reeling. So Jacob had been sneaking behind my back. When he promised he wouldn`t and everything. He didn`t trust me to do this on my own did he? I felt suddenly sick.
"If you only knew...this was bound to happen..." Mr. McBride shook his head sadly. "This was meant to happen..." He backed into the woods. "There is nothing I can do to stop this now..." His face was twisted in self loathing.
"Listen! Don`t fucking walk away when you`ve made all these allusions to things that are supposed to happen. Tell us out straight!" Jacob demanded, leaping forward and grabbing Mr. McBride by the arm. In a blinding blur of movement Jacob was thrown twenty feet in the air and landed in a heap on the other side of the road. Feeling a horrific, dizzying pain in my head I realized that Jacob must have been knocked unconscious.
"Jacob!" I barely managed to get out, while falling onto all fours in the mud. A warm hand took my own. Jacob...I need to go to Jacob.
"I tried Sonia. Honestly...I`ve tried. You can`t stop fate." He lifted me up and sat me on a tree stump. "When the time comes, don`t blame yourself. When the time comes, I`ll make sure you are safe." He cast Jacob a quick glance before turning back to me. "Don`t tell him anything Sonia. It won`t help. It will make things worse. He...Utlapa already knows what you are doing. He`s trying to speed things up." He sighed and stood up. "Be strong. Be brave. I`m sorry." He retreated back into the woods and disappeared.
Shit...shit shit shit shit shit! The pain in my head began to ease as Jacob stirred on the other side of the road. Mr. McBride...he came back and now he`s gone again. But, but what he said, his ominous warning...it left me feeling ill...and scared beyond belief. You can`t cheat fate...but what was my fate? My fate was tied up with Jacob`s wasn`t it? It worked that way didn`t it? You can`t cheat fate...My dreams...was what Utlapa telling me real? Please God don`t let it be true! I couldn`t bare it if Jacob...turned on me...which sounds like it would happen if...if I didn`t stop what was going to happen.
Mr. McBride, what he said, he said he would protect me. He said I shouldn`t blame myself. It things went tits up then who could I blame but myself? Jacob...he wouldn`t let me go would he?
"Sonia...Sonia are you okay?" Jacob asked me groggily, getting up and grimacing. He held his arm, which swung at a disgusting angle. He popped it back into place with an awful noise that made me cringe. "Are you okay?" He asked again, coming up to me.
"I`m okay." I said with no emotion in my voice. Jacob crouched in front of me and placed his warm hands on my muddy knees. "How `bout you? You banged your head awfully hard." I gently ran my index finger over a rapidly healing cut on his forehead that extended into his hair.
"I`ll survive." He smiled weakly at me before looking into the woods. "Two wolves are patrolling now. I can`t hear that old bastard! How the fuck did he sneak up on us without me hearing? That`s the second time. It won`t happen for a third." He vowed.
"When was the first?" I made Jacob look at me. "Tell me. No secrets remember." I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Me and Jared were looking for that cave two weeks back almost. We...we saw you and Kim."
"Me and Kim never went looking for that fucking cave!"
"It was you when you were a kid. McBride showed us." How the fuck was that even possible? How is any of this possible though. But that was the least important thing happening at the moment.
I stared at Jacob for a long time. I was fucking furious but I wasn`t going to let him know that. Fucking Mr. McBride! Can`t anything remain private anymore? No wonder Jacob and Jared were being all understanding now. Urrghhh! They were snooping behind our backs. Jacob was trying to get me to tell him what was going on and all the while he knew more than he was letting on.
"He showed you... Huh..." I nodded my head, swallowing the bile that had risen up my throat. Mr. McBride...he didn`t trust me either. He left me in the shit again.
"You can trust me Sonia."
"Stop fucking saying that Jacob. It`s getting old. You don`t trust me though." I stood up and wiped my muddy hand on my jeans. A huge drop of rain hit me squarely on the nose. Surprise surprise, it`s raining again.
"I do trust you. It`s just that this shit is driving me crazy!"
"And you think it`s a walk in the fucking park for me?"
"I just want to help you."
"You can`t."
"We were supposed to get married today." That sounded so fucking weird that I just wanted to laugh.
"I know."
"Are we...still going to?"
"We can. We can do it your way."
I must be the dumbest bitch in the world but I was still going through with it. I was going to do it his way though. If he didn`t understand how important it was for me to get married on James Island then...then we shouldn`t be getting married in the first place. I turned away from him and stood by the bike.
"So you don`t want to go to James Island?"
"No."
"The sea`s going to be choppy so we`re better off." He got on the bike. He didn`t even realize how important it was to me did he?
"Where should we go now?" I fought hard to keep the bitchy hardness out of my voice.
"To Sam`s. I need to talk to him about what happened. And get him to call the school I suppose."
"Cool." I mumbled. Cool? What a god awful day. I just want to go home and sleep.
"I`m sorry about today. I really am." Jacob twisted around to look at me.
"It`s...fine."
"It`s not but if you say so."
"I said so. Come on, I`m getting pretty cold."
"Kiss?"
"Huh?"
"Kiss me?"
I did as he asked and kissed him. When he was satisfied he gave me a peck on the nose and brought us to Sam and Emily`s. What was up with him? How could he act so calm after what happened? Why was he asking for kisses after all of that? What the fuck was up with me? I was totally losing my mind. I didn`t have the heart to tell Jacob now that I didn`t want to get married after I literally proposed to him! I get myself into these messes. I heap the shit on top of myself. I wasn`t hurting him again by telling him I wasn`t ready.
When we got to Sam and Emily`s Jacob phased almost immediately to go and find Sam and probably try and find Mr. McBride, leaving me to answer Emily`s a million and one questions. Emily called the school and let me use all her hot water for a shower. I sat in her pyjamas in the kitchen while she washed and dried my clothes for me.
"So why did you and Jacob skip school? Planning to go on some wild adventure?" She asked brightly.
"We were going to get married." I told her, in the same voice I would use as if I was commenting on the weather.
"What?" Emily spluttered over her coffee. She looked in shock.
"It`s no big deal Em." I frowned at her and took a sip of my hot chocolate.
"No big deal? Are you for real? You are just kids!"
"We know what we both want Emily. Why wait?"
"Why wait? Because you have another year of school left Sonia. Because there are still issues between you and Jacob that need to be addressed, that the two of you keep on sweeping under the rug."
"We love each other."
"I know you do. But sometimes that isn`t enough. What about after you get married? Are you planning on living together? How do you think your mom and Mr. Black will react? They`ll go ape shit."
"I was thinking about that...we`ll keep it a secret until we graduate, then we can live together. Have babies and stuff."
"It won`t remain a secret and you know it. Just think about it. You have plenty of time. The rest of your lives."
With Emily`s words I burst out into tears. In an instant her arms were around me. No we didn`t. I knew it. I knew I only had my Jacob for a while until he was snatched away from me. I knew I had little time left with him until whatever was supposed to happen happens. And whatever anguish I was feeling now would be nothing in comparison. Why not make the most of what we had now? Why not let me have my Jacob dream for a while? If it was a lie then I don`t care. I lie to myself all the time. When I tell myself that I`m strong enough to stand up to Utlapa. When I tell myself that I am worthy of being part of this pack. When I tell myself that I am something better than the daughter of a criminal. What damage can one more lie do? Just as long as I know the truth then it won`t hurt as much, would it?
Remember to review and tell me what you think. It makes the story better. Besos.