Fever

“I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early girl,” Jasmine called through the passenger door window.

“With Mr. Heinz?”

Jasmine grinned, “Bye Kay.”

When I turned around to lift up my bags, I saw the curtain twitch from the front of the house. In less than five seconds, the front door was open and my mother was standing there with a dishtowel in her hands, wringing it tightly.

“Hey Mom,” I said brightly, dragging my things forward.

“How was your trip?”

I motioned towards my bags, “Do you have to ask?”

“I hope you didn’t spend all of your savings.”

“There’s still some left, I promise.”

She held a look on her face like she wanted to say more, scold me on wasting my money or lecturing me about the value of saving. But she continued to wring out the towel and then followed me quietly through the front door where I abandoned all of my bags to greet my father.

“Hey kiddo,” he grinned, enveloping me in a hug, “Waste your money?”

I ignored his statement and moved my eyes to the television where the news was on, as usual, “Hey, have there been anymore bear attacks?”

“The sheriff thinks that he needs to start patrolling the forest, these bears are dropping so fast. They even found a few cougars and some deer,” he sighed. “I don’t know why they can’t get state animal control to take over this situation. Soon this bear will have no more game left to eat, and it’ll come strollin’ into town.”

“Oh...”

“Ed! Kayla, don’t listen to your father. He’s just being paranoid,” my mother interrupted.

“I’m not trying to scare her, Denise, I just want her to aware. I don’t want my daughter to be on the five o’clock news,” he argued.

“Ed!” she smacked him with her cloth. “That’s enough.”

“It’s okay Mom, I’m fine.”

“No one should be talking like that,” she huffed. “You should go unpack your things and probably lay down, you look tired.”

“Yeah, sure Mom,” I agreed halfheartedly.

I grabbed my bags and dragged them into my room, wondering solely if my father was being honest. If there were some savage grizzly in the forest on a killing spree, wouldn’t that mean Jacob and his friends would be in danger? We’re big boys, we can handle ourselves, Jacob’s words reverberated in my head. Only a man wouldn’t worry about a savage grizzly bear that was ripping apart all the animals in the forest. I had the phone in my hand before I knew I was going to call him and after peeking out my door to make sure my mother was still in the living room with my father, I dialled the number I knew off by heart.

“Hello?”

“Jacob?” I asked quietly.

“Kayla, hey. I wasn’t expecting a call from you.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t intending on calling either.”

“What’s the occasion?”

I peeked back through the crack, “I need to see you right away.”

“Thought you’d miss me.”

“Can you meet me somewhere?”

“Sure, where do you want to meet up?”

“How about school? It should be deserted on a Sunday night.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“I’ll meet you there in half an hour, okay?”

“Half an hour – sure.”

I hung up the phone, my heart pounding in my chest, and tossed it onto my bed. After a quick glance in my mirror, I realised that I looked like I had been sitting in a car for four hours. I was wearing sweats and my Dad’s old high school sweater, and my hair had a mind of its own. But despite my haggard appearance, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jacob and his friends. I had to get it into his thick skull that it wasn’t funny to parade around the forest with a killing machine out there.

I let out a few deep breaths and then left my room, trying to act nonchalant as possible. I grabbed a pair of my sneakers and was in the midst of putting them on when my mother came to tower over me, the dishtowel still in her fist.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“Mom, I’ve been squished in a car for hours, I need to stretch my legs,” I groaned as best as I could, keeping my eyes firmly on my shoes.

“But you just got home, don’t you want to relax?” her tone became less threatening.

“I’ll be gone for an hour, tops.”

She let out a defeated sigh and swiftly turned back towards the kitchen. My father was still immersed in the television, enough to let me sneak out the door without another crazy bear lecture. As much as I loved his concern, he really was scaring me. The whole town was surrounded by forest so thick that you would never see danger coming. I made it a point to walk almost in the middle of the road so that I would have at least a few moments warning if a bear tried to attack me.

As much as I would have liked to laugh at my paranoia, I knew that it was necessary. Seeing those bears on television, torn to pieces, was sickening. I could imagine watching the television and seeing Jacob’s beautiful face slashed by grizzly claws. My stomach tightened and I started to walk faster, my eyes shooting to the edge of the woods every so often, just to make sure there were no glowing eyes peering out at me. But the feeling of being watched had become so permanent that I assumed I was just losing my cool. I wasn’t crazy or paranoid, that was Jasmine’s department. Yet I couldn’t help but feel that after all this time, I wasn’t ever really alone.

I arrived at the school sooner than I expected, breathing roughly as I clutched my side. I peered up and down the street for Jacob, but there was no movement on either side. I passed the parking lot and peered up the sides of the school, more so to make sure that nothing scary was ready to pop out at me. Although meeting at the school was a good idea, being there alone, waiting for Jacob wasn’t as comforting as I had originally thought. In the dark, the campus had shadows that never stretched across in daylight, and the trees stood thicker and taller than I remembered. I had the urge to run home, to leave this building fear and just run all the way back to the comfort of my room. But a rustle of branches brought me back to the present and with baited breath, I waited until Jacob’s silly smile pronounced itself.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he chuckled.

“You could have been a savage grizzly!”

“I could have, but I don’t think I look too much like one, now do I?”

“Do you even have the news channel?” I asked a bit too panicked. “Because honestly, look at some of those pictures? What if I turn it on tomorrow and you’re next? Or Quil’s next?”

“Kayla…”

“I don’t care what sort of allure the forest has, or how boring it gets in La Push, but you can find other things to do than tempt a hungry bear! A hungry, crazy, vicious bear that would love nothing more than to rip you to shreds! “

“Kayla…”

“And really? The woods? Can’t you be normal teenage boys and play video games or play sports? Anything but go into the forest and bait this mons-“

The rest of my speech was cut off by Jacob’s lips and as soft and warm as they felt, they couldn’t put out the worry in my heart. I could feel my eyes water from the cold air and when he pulled away, I stared at him with pleading eyes, begging him to listen.

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt,” I said quietly. “Promise me you’ll stop gallivanting in the forest, please.”

“Kayla, you need to understand-“

“No, there is nothing to understand. I don’t want to have to worry about you getting eaten on the five o’clock news! There’s no excuse for that.”

He stared into my eyes, looking for something past all of my worry and concern. Why couldn’t he just say he would? If he cared about himself at all, he would stop. If he cared about me, even in the slightest, then why couldn’t he just say he wouldn’t?

“If I promise you that I won’t go into the forest, what do I get in return?”

I scoffed, “Seriously? You want to barter?”

He shrugged his shoulders, “Promises are pretty important deals, and they’re hard to break. I need to know my interests are at hand here.”

“You won’t die or get disfigured, for one,” I laughed half-heartedly, “and because it will make me happy knowing that you’re not being ripped apart.”

“All right, all right,” he smiled, “I promise.”

I leaned forward and gave him a peck on the lips, “Thank you.”