Jacob

Please R&R! :)

Going to school on the reserve wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. I was in all of Jacob’s classes; I think that was done deliberately because they expected him to babysit me. I didn’t care. I just didn’t want him to be away from me. The girls mostly wouldn’t talk to me, but Jake’s friends kept inviting me to sit with them for lunch, which was nice. Most people seemed to warm up to me after they saw me eat something to prove that I wasn’t undead. The teachers weren’t too bad, either; they tolerated me and my grades were okay. Overall, Jacob was right. No one asked me any questions, and as the school year wore on, they did seem to get over it.

I was feeling braver and more independent than I had in a long time. Jacob still checked my bedroom every night for monsters, but he didn’t stay until I fell asleep anymore. He needed to get some rest, too. Sometimes I’d go to the window and wait for a moment until a wolf would appear to reassure me that someone was with me. I’d wave shyly, then climb back into bed. My dad seemed happier and less worried about me. He liked it that I was hanging out with Jake again. Billy still wasn’t talking to me much, though. I figured he was still mad at me for hurting Jake so much when I left.

Jake was different now and I didn’t like it. I missed the old Jake; the new Jake seemed half-sad all the time. As much as the native girls disliked me, they loved Jake, and he seemed to thrive on their attention. He didn’t flirt with me anymore and as time marched on, I realised that he never would again. I’d lost him and we were only ever going to be just friends. By March, I’d started dreading May and June because I knew everyone would get prom fever. Everyone would be making plans and buying dresses, except for me. I also dreaded having to have some awkward conversation with Jake about how some girl had asked him to go with her, but that he’d found a friend of his to take me. I decided early on that I wasn’t going to go and made plans to rent myself a stack of movies instead. I figured that since everyone else would be out that night, the dvd choice at the corner store would be unusually good.

Everything happened exactly like I thought it would, except that La Push didn’t have a prom. Like clockwork, on the first school day in May, I passed by two guys in the hallway who were talking about the beach party they were going to have at the end of the year. Then I heard someone else say the word, “pow-wow.”

“Yeah,” Jacob said as he drove me home that afternoon after school. “We have a big pow-wow instead of a prom. It’s not as lame as it sounds,” he laughed, “I promise. There’s always a big beach party, too, that goes late into the night.”

“Can I go?” I found myself asking, “Or is it not for outsiders?”

Jacob looked surprised that I’d said that. “Of course you can go, Bells. You’re graduating from the same school as us. You’re no outsider.”

I leaned back in the truck seat and watched the trees fly passed us as we left the reserve and hit the highway. “Yeah, right, Jake,” I snorted.

Jacob sighed and shifted gears. “The other girls usually wear summer dresses,” he said, trying to be helpful. “Y’know, nice dresses, but not like the prom dresses that the girls in town wear."

“What do the guys wear?” I asked. “No tuxes, I take it?”

“No,” Jake snorted. “You couldn’t pay me to wear one of those, even if I would look great in one.” He laughed and I found myself laughing with him. “The guys just wear a shirt and tie for the graduation, then when we go to the pow-wow, we wear traditional costumes and dance and sing. It’s great.”

“Sounds nice,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound as wistful as I did.

“Bert wants to ask you out,” Jacob smiled. Something pinched inside my chest. Here was the talk.

“I don’t want to go anywhere with Bert,” I said. Bert creeped me out. He was big and strong and the way he looked at me was kind of scary. He also smelled like cheese.

“Bert's a good guy,” Jacob said. “You could do worse.”

“Thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes, “but I’m just going to get my diploma, then I’m going to rent some movies and stay home that night. Maybe I’ll get wild and nuke some popcorn.”

Jacob looked disappointed, but he just nodded and gripped the wheel with both hands. “If that’s what you want,” he said as we turned into my driveway.

It wasn’t what I wanted at all. “Who are you going with?” I asked as I got out of the truck.

“I hadn’t thought about it yet,” he responded, looking me dead in the eyes, like he was waiting for me to say something.

“See you tomorrow,” I shrugged, heading up the driveway to the house.

“Bells!” he called, suddenly. I turned around to see him leaning out of the window. There was a strange look on his face. “You should really go with Bert,” he said. “It’ll be better than sitting at home alone. I promise!”