You & I Collide

Paul

When a werewolf loses control of himself (or herself – sorry, Leah) in a fit of anger, he (or she) explodes, phases, transforms…whatever you want to call it. That’s the instinctive action for anger. Happiness – you can celebrate as a human, or go running off into the woods as a wolf, prancing along, joyful as ever. But what about sadness? What do you do when you feel your heart breaking inside of you? Maybe not of your own personal pain, but from the pain of someone else’s pain. The pain of someone you love.

Or fear. Fear is a much better word than pain, though I felt a ripping agony shoot through me as I watched the fear flicker across Rachel’s face.

“Paul,” she gasped. “Do you know what this means?!”

I tried to lighten the moment, make a joke. “Uh…it’s officially hunting season?”

She frowned. “This isn’t funny. I’m serious. Paul, this could start a war. A bad one. And I…”

She stopped, wondering if she should say anything else.

“You what?” I asked, making my voice gentle as I slipped an arm around her shoulders.

Rachel let out a sigh and ran her hand through her limp blond hair. When her side bangs were pulled back from her face like that, you could really see how she looked like Jacob. Those warm, brown eyes…that soft, rounded chin….

“And I don’t know what I’d do without you, Paul. I’d be all alone, waiting for you to come home. And then…if…if you didn’t….” She said no more, but she had already said it all.

Tears flowed down her cheeks, hot and sticky and wet. One of them landed on my hand.

Oh man. No, no way. This was too much. Seeing Rachel, my Rachel, like this was the closest thing to unbearable that I knew. Her agony tortured me, and soon I was holding her tightly against me, to keep us both in one piece. We had that in common. Despite my being a werewolf and all, with the super speed and strength, whenever I saw Rachel like this – torn and broken – I felt like I was crumbling, too.

I’m not sure how long we sat there, wrapped up in each others’ arms, but it was a long, long time. I nudged her gently when I noticed that the sky was darkening to a deep black and blue. Like a bruise on the Earth.

“Come on, Rach. I gotta get you home to Billy and Jake or I’m gonna be dead. Maybe even literally. You know how overprotective of you Jacob can be. Thinks I’m gonna pull another Sam and Emily, always on edge. Idiot.”

I sighed. Jacob had been…well, difficult since I started dating his sister. Always worried that I might hurt her if we got too close and I lost it. He was worse than a father when his daughter starts dating. Over-reactive freak.

But I knew that Jake was just concerned about his sister’s safety. I knew it, deep down inside. Yet that little bitter part of me reamed him out for it more often than not.

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed, bringing me back to reality. “Let’s go.” I could hear the evident desperation in her voice. She didn’t want to leave me. She was afraid to be away from me, knowing what I had to face, now.

Rachel said nothing as we walked out of the woods and into the open. I could hear soft music being played from inside the open window of the Uley house. Classical music, with lots of violins.

I climbed into the driver’s seat of my dark blue Chevy. It was sleek and shiny, and gleamed in the light. Rachel hopped into the passenger’s seat, still silent. Empty.

The road to the Blacks’ house wasn’t very long, but it sure was bumpy. I bounced in my seat, my head almost hitting the ceiling on one especially large bump. Rachel flopped around, too, but had no annoyed expression on her face. No emotion at all. I started nibbling on my lip. If I left her now, even just for one night, even if we could see each other again in the morning, it would hurt her. It would pretty near kill her.

A lazy, pestering, idiot like me didn’t deserve someone as good as Rachel. She loved me way too much, and I loved her back. We belonged together, but she was too good for me at the same time. Being apart from me would pain her greatly, now that she thought that maybe, just maybe, our time together was limited. That I would fight the vampire and not come back to her.

She loved me, which was beyond my understanding, and I couldn’t help but feel like she deserved someone better. No. I knew she did. But I was selfish, and I kept her all to myself.