Chapter 13

A/N: some Jared perspective here!!

Jared POV:

She sat there with her mouth slack and those baby brown doe eyes as round as globes. I could have knocked her over with a feather, she was so ridiculously adorable.

"Wha…what?" Uttered out of her mouth like she couldn't fucking believe that I believed her just like that. But of course I did.

"You're telling the truth. I believe you." An easy smile spread on my face. This seemed to confuse her more as her eyebrows tightly coiled. That shit made me smile even harder.

"You do?!"

I reached out to touch her soft bronze skin, hoping to help relax her. Kim stared at me right in the eye, which I'm sure were green as grass at that moment. The wolf was feeling strong. I checked my voice to make sure it was was soft and steady for her.

"My wolf believes you, baby, and so do I. He's damn near purring inside me right now, Kim." And he was. I could feel it vibrating throughout my whole body.

Poor Kim was stiff.

"Um, okaaaayyyy."

I shifted over so I could tuck her into me. I knew my scent would help and I also let my hands do their magic, rubbing up and down her arms. In just the past day had figured out how important touch was to her. The girl was like a cat and physical affection seemed to really bring her peace. It worked and I watched a sense of calm wash over her with each stroke of my hand. She took a deep breath in.

"So if you're not freaked out, don't you have like a billion follow up questions for me?"

I did have questions. Since I saw her in the hospital all I wanted to do was pepper her with questions, but I didn't want to overwhelm her or have her wall me off, which she seemed apt to do. She seemed open to me asking now, so I started with a soft but authentic one.

"Where in the future are you from?"

"2022."

I nodded slowly. Not too far away, but a lifetime in itself. "And in 2022, we are together? Lots of kids?" I said this with a large flirtatious grin, brushing my hand over her, now stroking her thigh. God, I wanted her. Being so close to her in the ocean nearly did me in.

"Well, no… I don't know. That's the other part. I'm not from this world, Jared." She pivoted a bit to face me and waved her hands around sharply like everything around us was lunacy.

"This shapeshifter, vampire, imprint world. I think it's some sort of parallel universe thing. In my world, I'm Kim O'Connor and I live in Florida with no paranormal activity. Anna, Alex and my Mom, we all live in Tampa. There are no shapeshifters or vampires, at least that I know about."

This was all new information. The wolf was at attention, letting it all calibrate in his mind as well. We still believed it, my wolf and I. It was completely authentic to us. She was ours and nothing said could disprove that. Still, this was another confounding layer. I sat up a little straighter.

"So, if you are not from this world, how did you know about imprinting and shifting?"

"Well, the worlds may be connected… that's what Anna thinks. In my world this world appeared as a book — a series of books, and then a huge movie franchise." More frantic hand waving. "Years ago. And you, Sam, Paul, Kim Conweller were all characters in those books. I read them in middle school. Parts of it anyway."

I shifted my body back. It was bizarre, but in truth, it was no weirder than a wolf living inside me that I shifted into to kill vampires.

"That's fuckin' weird." It was all I could offer.

"Yeah," She scoffed.

"How did you get here?"

She explained a car accident and then waking up in the woods. I nodded slowly and listened intently. I held her hand as she spoke, slowly sliding my thumb over her fingers.

If it was all true, and every fiber in me believed that it was, that meant that she knew well beyond what I did and how our lives fully intertwined together.

"So, how does out story end?"

She took a long breath.

"The book is not about Jared and Kim. They're side characters. Kim is hardly mentioned at all… Jacob mentions her once or twice when talking about imprinting…"

"Jacob," slipped out of my mouth. We were aware he would eventually phase. Sam had expressed his feelings that he was the true alpha.

"Uh, yeah. The book is really about this white girl from forks and a… it's like a love triangle she has with a vampire and Jacob…"

I couldn't stop myself from chuckling. "Sounds riveting." She let a slow smile play on her face.

"You seem oddly calm about this, Jared."

I started to stroke her hair. A couple months ago I'd have delivered this girl straight to an asylum, but I had a beast inside me holding down the calm fort. I let out a long breath myself.

"It adds up to me. To my wolf." It was my turn to reveal some cards. "I always like you, Kim…always thought you were gorgeous, but as soon as I phased and saw you — or the other Kim or whatever — this feeling inside me, my wolf or I don't know what it was, kept telling me, 'not her, not her, the other one.' I didn't know what that meant, so I just tried to steer clear of you…or, um…her. For both our sakes."

Her eyes widened. "Is that why you blew me off at the hospital?"

I reluctantly nodded, hating the notion that I blew her off, even if it was probably accurate. I was so used to feeling the sensation of 'not her' that I didn't realize it changed. "I had been feeling one thing for so long, but then after I saw you at the hospital it was like my wolf was telling me something new. 'Not her' turned into 'not yet."

I watched her process what I was saying and it was as if puzzle pieces were connecting in her mind.

"And, so yesterday afternoon…in class?" Her voice was shaky.

Yesterday in class. She was asking questions I had been asking myself. What was the switch? What had my subconscious changed for the constant beat of 'not yet' to 'her'? I rattled off my thoughts as they came.

"I don't know. Maybe seeing you stand up to Paul and putting his bullshit in place. It felt like you were maybe… I don't know. Ready, I guess. Like we were ready for each other. It just kept running through my head: She is the one, she is the one, she is the one."

She gulped. And then she froze again. She kept doing this, letting me in and then icing me out. I had to tread lightly here, I knew it was all delicate.

"What is it, baby?"

She wouldn't look at me now. She was trying to keep me at arms length and everything in me told me to keep her close. With two hands I reached over and pulled her between my legs, and cradled her, and if it wasn't god damn heaven, I don't know what is.

"You need to talk to me, babe. Don't freeze up every time you get a scary thought."

Kim looked down at her sandy feet. "Well, what do you think will happen when… when I go back?" She said it so timidly. Like a child facing reprimand. The wolf didn't like it. He's all primal, biological. I mean he's a fucking animal and he doesn't like the idea of something of ours, our most important thing, vanishing.

I tried to regain composure, bring some human 21st century logic to the table, but the primal beast snapped and an angry "what?!" fell out of my mouth. Kim immediately became defensive and stared at me, I'm sure my eyes were radioactive green at this point.

"I can't stay here forever, Jared. What about the people in my world? What about the Kim of this world? I mean, where the hell is she? Off in some holding cell in the universe? It's not fair…"

"Fuck that." Again, mostly the wolf, but probably some of me too.

Her brows cinched together. "Fuck that?" Her voice was terse.

Me, the 17 year old dude, felt like shit that I was pissing her off and a nervous wreck that she'd be mad at me, but the wolf was howling inside my chest, baring his teeth at the idea of of Kim, this Kim, our real Kim, leaving us. The universe had delivered her to us across time and various worlds, it was clear as day to us that she was meant for this world.

"Babe, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a dick. It's just that the universe brought you here. Here. I didn't imprint on the other Kim. I imprinted on you. You literally traveled through space and time so we could be together. I know what I felt when I looked at her and I know what I feel when I look at you. There is a huge fucking difference."

"I…I…Jared." She closed her eyes and looked back at her feet. All that confidence I had had seen in her when we went swimming seemed sucked out completely. "I'm the other one," She said barely in a whisper.

Now I could feel my eyebrows draw together. My whole face was tight. What made her doubt herself so much? Why did she feel so inferior? I didn't like it, and the wolf hated it. Still, I wasn't going to argue with her. We were in a revolving door with this shit. I sat her up and then popped off the sand, extending my arm out for her to take. It was all I could do.

Kim POV:

To say the car ride from the beach was awkward would be an understatement. I could feel that Jared was displeased, maybe not directly with me, but displeased nonetheless. It all sank like a pit in my stomach. I also felt so detached from myself. One minute I was feeling so self assured and then next I slid back into this apprehensive reluctance.

He turned to me before I could make another move. "It was you, wasn't it?"

I looked at him, lost.

"In my dream? In a teal bathing suit?"

I looked at him and then slowly nodded, confirming what he already knew.

"I had other ones too." He rattled off a few very specific scenes from my Tampa life. Painting a still life of apples in art class, spilling grape juice on a pair of white pants, sharing a huge piece of carrot cake with Anna on my birthday. Just as I had read about him, saw glimpses of his life, he had visions of me.

We pulled up to Emily's cottage again, but this time I could tell there were lots of people inside. Paul, Sam, Emily and another boy was around a table eating.

Jared killed the ignition, but before he got off the car he paused and stared out the windshield.

"What happened to you there?" His voice was soft.

This confused me. "What happened to me where?"

"In your world. I'm not trying to be rude here, Kim." He turned to face me. "I just mean you are this fucking amazing girl. The way you stood up to Paul, that was fierce. And I know you feel the connection me. Why can't you realize that you are the one, my one? Did something happen there? Did someone hurt you?"

My shoulders slunk down. I huffed out some air. "Jared…it's not like that. I mean not directly."

"You belong here." He was so assertive about it, like he knew it in his bones. It felt like a life saver, a Valkyrie delivering me to Valhalla. I closed my eyes.

My mind immediately wanted to go to fear, but I wouldn't let it scare me. I willed myself to allow Jared's steadfast light to guide me. With every ounce of my being I resisted fear and I pushed it out. I wanted to run and wallow in feelings of unworthiness, but I expended nearly every bit of energy I had toward accepting what Jared was saying instead.

My eyes popped open to be greeted by huge emerald pools. I said up straight, wrapped my hand on his cheek and kissed him.

A/N:

Just wanted to say that I wanted to pop into Jared's brain to show him as a flawed character too. In so much YA romance fiction the dude is this strong super confident perfect guy, but even if he's the FMC's prefect guy no one feels like that all the time. And he is a teenager figuring a lot out. Wanted to jump into his POV to delve into that a bit.

Also, Kim is a 2022/2023 teenager -- and in today's day and age teens are super anxious and insecure, even more so then girls in 2005/2006. Kim is layered, but she is a product of her 2022 environment and I wanted to convey that as well. Teenage girls in 2022/23 have more anxiety and lack of confidence than any other group of girls before them and I really wanted to explore that. Even though they are just from 17 years apart the cultural dynamics of their two world are so different. This is probably startling for Jared since he's not use to it.

Next more Jared POV, more interaction with other characters and the Paul/Jared confrontation!