It Was You From the Start

The bright light from the sun filled my room. I pulled the covers over my head. I was still tired. I didn’t sleep at all last night. Too many nightmares were haunting me in my sleep.

I couldn’t quite understand what they were. What I could picture was Toby. He was growling. I couldn’t clearly see what it was he was growling at but it scared me. It was trembling, hand clenched in fists bigger than a softball. The big shadow gleamed across the ground towards me. I saw the face. I’d never seen the person before but the face was somehow familiar.

Then I saw Quil. He was looking back and forth between the mysterious figure and me. Subsequently, he kept his gaze on me. His eyes widened with anger and fear, but mostly fear. I heard a loud sound, like something stretching and then cracking. And that was it. Everything got bright. Too bright for me to see.

There was a thud on the door. I tried to disregard it until it happened again.

“Stop banging!” I screamed from beneath the blanket.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were so hung over.”

“Not hung over. Just incredibly tired.”

“Oh, sorry. Then I’ll just go.”

“No, Quil, it’s fine.” I quickly got out from the covers. It wasn’t until after I had, I realized it was too quickly. I stumbled almost falling to the ground. Quil caught me. “Thanks.” I said as he propped me back onto my feet. I figured out my hair was down, though I thought I left it in a ponytail last night. I must have been really scared to be moving so much that my hair fell out. I turned around to see th holder on the bed. I left it there.

“Don’t mention it.”

“I wouldn’t get back to sleep anyway.”

“Too bright? Weird, huh? It’s one of those good days where it isn’t raining.”

“Actually, the brightness wasn’t a problem. It’s the scariness that would keep me awake.” I looked at him. He looked confused. “Nightmares.” He nodded, understanding.

“Do you get them often?”

“Only recently. Since my mom died.”

“Right. I, uh, didn’t mean to wake you. My mom told me to. I told her you’d probably want to sleep, but she insisted you woke up.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, she said breakfast was ready. If I didn’t wake you I would have eaten it.” He chuckled.

“Is my father home?”

“What are you going to do? Ignore him?”

“At all costs. But I was thinking of avoiding him all together.”

“You can’t hate him forever.”

“Not forever, maybe a week…tops. So, is he home? I’m getting kinda hungry here.”

“No, he’s not home. He left for work about an hour ago. He’s not coming home until late.”

“Then I would love to come down to eat.” I picked off my hair tie from the bed and tied my hair up. My hair was super greasy. “And then I’m going to need a shower.”

“Please, you stink.” He teased, waving his hand in front of his face.
“Shut up.” I playfully punched his shoulder. As soon as my fist hit his arm, it felt unexplainably warm. Almost as if it were on fire. I didn’t linger on it, though, because I was so hungry.

“Race you.” He said.

“You’re on.” I said bolting towards the door. As I was running down the stairs, I saw Quil get right behind me and jump over the railing, landing hard onto the floor below. “Quil! That’s so not fair!” I screamed after him. I stopped on the stair, giving up. I knew there was no way I was going to win the race now.

“Then you jump over!” he yelled, “I’m hungry.”

“Forget it, you win this race.” I walked down the rest of the stairs and into the kitchen.

“You forfeit?”

“Yes, and I have the decency to be humane about it. You, on the other hand, look like you’re about to throw a big party, with everybody in Washington because you ran a race into the kitchen.” I said shaking my head.

“Way to suck all the happiness out of the room, Rory.”

“It’s not my fault you’re a sore winner.”

He laughed. “I’m sorry being such a guy.” I rolled my eyes. I sat down at the table and looked at all the food. There was everything one could possibly have for breakfast—biscuits, sausage, eggs, pancakes, waffles. I looked at all the food in amazement. “I know, right?” Quil said as if reading my mind. “And it all is unbelievable good. So, Mom, where’s Rory’s food?”

“You’re going to eat ALL of this? By yourself?”

“He could,” his mother said, eyeing him cautiously, as he started digging in. “But he’s not going to.” She said sternly to Quil. He immediately started taking slower and smaller bites. I giggled, quietly to myself.

I gathered what I would eat on my plate before Quil ate it all. I started taking a spoonful of the scrambled eggs. Just then, I realized how hungry I was. I wanted so much more. So I took another spoonful. Everything else I took many multiple of.

When all the food was gone, I was still a little hungry, so I got up, reaching into a cabinet and pulled out the cereal my dad always had for me here, and a bowl. I grabbed a spoon out of the drawer and the milk from the fridge and sat down at the table. I filled my bowl and ate it quickly. When I was done, I was still hungry, so I poured myself another bowl. I took a spoonful and put it in my mouth.
I looked up and noticed Quil and Karen were staring at me.

“What?” I asked after I swallowed.

“Mom, she ate more than me, and it still looks like she’s hungry.” I rolled my eyes again.

“So, what are you doing today, Quil?”

“I don’t know. I was going to find Paul and Embry. But now I don’t know. I don’t wanna leave Rory all alone up in her room.” He looked at me.

“Why don’t you take her with you?”

“I don’t know if I want to.” Quil said as if I weren’t even there. “I mean, I’d love it if you’d come with me, but I don’t think you’ll enjoy what we’re going to end up doing.”

“Cliff diving?” His mom asked.

“Yeah.”

“With Sam?”

“Yes…” he said impatiently.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to intrude.” I said, a little frightened by what they did for fun. “You should go with your friends. I still need that shower and Dad said I need to get a job if I wanted to keep the car.”
“That reminds me.” Karen said, getting up from the table and walking into the small living room. She came back with a small box in her hand. “I think you could already guess what it is, but here it is anyway.” I took the box from her after taking another bite of my cereal. I opened it and saw the keys at the bottom. “Your father wanted to give them to you last night, but then…” I winced. She probably understood why, and knew I really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Thanks.” I said quietly.

“Quil, why don’t you take her out to her car? You know, to show her where it is and bring it up front. Then you can go with your friends.”

“Fine. Come on, Rory.” He said getting up and putting his plate in the sink.

“But I’m not done, yet.” I looked down at my cereal bowl. I was only half way done with it.

“Well, let’s get a move on. Everybody’s waiting for me.” He looked serious, but I knew he was joking.

“Give me a sec, will you?” I took five more spoonfuls of my cereal, walked to the sink and poured the rest down the drain. I turned around and saw him sitting in his chair as before head down on the table, snoring loudly. “Drama Queen.” I said as I slapped the back of his head. He shot up, a surprised look on his face.

“Maybe you shouldn’t eat so much. Girls like you sometimes worry about their weight.” He said getting up and walking towards the door. I grabbed the key off the table and followed.

“What are you saying? You’re not saying I’m fat, are you? I asked as we stepped over the threshold. I followed him towards the backyard.

“No, it’s just…” he trailed off looking for the right words. “The way you eat, you don’t seem to worry about how much you ARE actually eating. You don’t seem to worry about anything to tell you the truth.”
“I worry about a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Making friends here. My dreams, if they’re saying something.”

“What are they about?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me. There are a million things about me you wouldn’t believe. Tell me one about you.” I looked down at the key in my hand. “Come on. I won’t tell anybody.” I looked up, first at his face. It looked serious. He was expecting an extremely truthful answer. I didn’t know if I wanted to tell him about the dream that badly.

The second thing I looked at was the direction in which we were walking. I saw ahead a car. It was an old mustang I couldn’t guess the year, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to think about it. It was red, not one of my favorite colors, but I’d have to deal with it—the paint looked fresh.

“This is my car?”

“Told you she was pretty. This is one of the best cars Jacob has ever fixed up.”

“Jacob?”

“You might meet him tonight. Stress on the word might. It’s very possible he won’t be there. Jacob is great with cars. He gets an old car you’d never think would run again, and builds them mainly out of scraps he finds at the dump.”

“Sounds like he’s gone overboard on being a guy.”

“I guess you could say that, probably even to his face. He’s weird like that I guess.”

“How am I going to get the car to the front of the house? I don’t think this thing will go off road.”

“This is where I come in.” he held out his hand, palm up. I looked at him strangely. “Keys.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to bring your car to the junk yard and ask a bunch of troublemakers to hit it with a baseball bat.”

“So not funny.”

“You’re right.”

“What are you going to do with my car?” I asked him sternly.

“Bring it up front.”

“Oh.” I said simply. I felt stupid. I wasn’t thinking right. I handed him the keys. “I’m going to take a shower. Um, just leave the car out front and put the keys on the table by the front door.”

“Okay.”

“Will I see you at lunch?”

“I don’t know. Depends on what’s going on with the guys. They might be going to Sam and Emily’s. I might stay with someone cliff diving. It’s extremely exhilarating.”

“Okay, so I’ll see you whenever.”

“Whenever.” He agreed.