Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight books. I'm only borrowing the characters and will return them mostly unharmed. Except for Quil. He'll be severely shaken up by the time I'm done with him. Italics are Quil's thoughts.

Quil closed the front door quietly as he entered, looking at the disappointed eyes of Claire's mom.

"She's in her room." Nodding silently, he continued on and walked up the stairs hesitantly. The long hallway to her bedroom felt like slow, painful torture. He finally arrived at her door, knocked, and waited with bated breath.

"Who is it?"

"It's me." Silence. Please. Please. Please. Open the door. He waited. I'll count to ten, and if she doesn't open the door, I'll leave her alone. He counted slowly and cursed when he reached the dreaded number. I'll count to twenty, and if she doesn't open the door, then I'll really leave her alone. He cursed again when he reached twenty, but refused to move from her door. Alright, this girl has thirty seconds to answer her door or I'll- the door suddenly creaked open, revealing Claire's pale, withdrawn face.

"What do you want?"

"Claire, please. You have to at least listen-"

"To what?" she questioned angrily. "Got some excuse? Do I really seem interested in that?" She huffed and glared at him. He would have given her a heated answer, but he knew that her anger only covered up what she really felt: hurt. "Why weren't you there? What was so important that you completely missed the stupid art show that you pushed me to enter?"

"Something came up, and I couldn't just leave in the middle of it." Wow, I am screwed. How could he explain to Claire that a group of leeches had been found prowling around First Beach and he and the pack needed to kill all of them quickly? For a moment, he wished that Claire was eighteen, so that Sam would let him come clean to her about everything. He knew that if she was aware of the truth, she wouldn't be angry at him for missing her very first art show. Instead, he was standing in front of a severely pissed off, possibly hormonal fourteen year old. And, he had to lie to cover everything up. Crap.

"Hm. Something came up," she said sarcastically. "Of course. How silly of me." Quil didn't even know what to say. Not only was he struggling to form a coherent sentence, he was staring in horror at the tears gathering in the corners of Claire's eyes. His silence must have further angered her because a torrent of angry words flew from her mouth.

"You didn't even call to let me know you couldn't make it. I waited there like an idiot so that I could personally show you my work! And all you can say is that something came up?! What kind of an explanation is that? Do you-" Quil cut her off before her tirade became unstoppable.

"Claire. Calm down. Are you going to let me explain or not?" Claire huffed, crossed her arms, and plopped down on her bed. She pursed her lips and looked at Quil expectantly.

"I can't tell you much," he began as a semi-lie began forming in his head. "It's a guy thing. Uh… Paul was having a personal emergency and Sam said I needed to be there for, you know, support. I can't say more, and please don't tell anyone I mentioned this to you. I need you to trust me on this, alright? If I could have been there with you, I would have. And I think you know that. I'm sorry. I really am."

Claire felt her anger fading away at Quil's explanation. Still, she felt the hurt at his absence tonight pulsing in her chest. She had really expected him to be there. When Claire came home from school one day and told him that her art teacher asked her to be in the local art show, he had almost burst with pride. He knew her artistic talent was beyond her years and told her so often. Modest by nature and shy in front of strangers, Claire had balked at having a whole wall at the exhibit just for her work. She didn't know if she could handle talking to random people about her inspirations, her techniques, and her paintings in general. Even scarier than that was the idea of people walking up to her wall and simply hating her work. She told Quil that she planned to refuse the art teacher's offer, and he had persistently insisted that she should enter her paintings. "The things we are scared of are usually the most worthwhile," he had said. "And I'll be by your side the whole night. You have nothing to worry about."

Well, she knew how that had turned out. Still, he was partially right: it had been worthwhile. People actually liked her paintings. A lot. At first, many didn't believe that she was even old enough to create such evocative works. One guy had even pulled out his checkbook right there and offered to pay her generously for one of her pieces. She felt warmth and happiness flood her at the thought. Her parents had also shown up for a few minutes and proudly stood near her. Overall, it had been a good night. A great night. Thanks, ironically, to Quil.

Returning back to present time, she realized that she had been silent for a few minutes after Quil's explanation. She looked down at him, as he was sitting cross-legged on her floor, and noted the look of misery on his face. He obviously felt terrible, and she knew that he would continue to beat himself up unless she said something.

"It's alright, Quil. I understand," she said, even though she wasn't fully satisfied with his explanation. "It was one of those unexpected things that are out of your control. And it was a good experience for me to be on my own for a bit." She smiled at him comfortingly.

Quil looked up at her soft smile and felt his insides melt away. He couldn't believe how lovely she was growing to be. He tried to steer his mind away from those thoughts, as they could only lead to other thoughts that he wasn't allowed to have until she reached a certain older age. He instead focused on her wide smile and the look of childlike trust in her eyes.

"Good," he let out a breath. "I was almost positive that I had to buy your forgiveness with a tub of cookies-n-cream ice cream," he teased. Claire's mouth began to water at the thought of her favorite ice cream.

"Oh, you do," she shared nonchalantly. "Full forgiveness will be granted once there is a gallon of cookies-n-cream in my stomach." She gave her belly a rub and looked at him expectantly. He chuckled, stood up, and grabbed his car keys.

"Alright, ice cream monster. Let's go." He slung an arm over her shoulder and led her out of the room. "Will you show me your paintings when we get home?"

"Sure. But after we get ice cream." She hugged herself closer to Quil and smiled.

AN: This chapter has Claire asking a lot of angry rhetorical questions. However, the key question for the chapter was "Why weren't you there?" Anyways, feel free to suggest any other questions Claire could ask. Later!