Animal Attraction

[Erin’s Point of View]

The next day I got up early to go into work. My mom said I wasn’t allowed to take the car because of my ‘running away’ episode. I didn’t run away. I just went to the cliffs. Woman worried too much. So, Sean had to drive me to work and I kept telling him where to make the turns and at every light he would ask if he should turn. After the second light I knew he was doing it to annoy me. Thanks to Sean I arrived five minutes late for work. I slammed the door shut.

“Be back at four, Sean,” I told him as I bent over to look at him. He only moved the window up and grunted in response. Men and their grunting as if they were animals. Jared had not called me and after my first message yesterday I felt him a dozen more. I was going to bug him until he would get tired of my voice. I wanted to know if Paul’s words were true. I needed to know if he really was joking or not.

It was really stupid of me do doubt him. I had never seen him so pissed and hurt in my entire life of knowing him. Not even when I shoved worms in his pants when I was eleven.

Mr. Markey scolded me for being late and gave me a ten minute lecture about being responsible and taking a job seriously. I rolled my eyes and he yelled at me for that and told me I was a rude girl and had no respect for the elders.

“Is that it?” I asked. “May I go do… whatever you had planned for me?”

Mr. Markey narrowed his eyes at me. “Didn’t your father ever teach you respect?”

“He was too busy being six thousand miles away, Mr. Markey,” I said bitterly and his face changed.

“Your parents are divorced, that explains a lot,” he said.

It was my turn to narrow my eyes. I wanted to curse him out, but I was too nice for that. He had no idea about my life and he was right to assume my parents were divorced but in fact they were never close to any kind of altar.

Mr. Markey sighed and placed his hands on his hips and ‘tsk-ed’.

“Let’s see, why don’t you make sure that every book is in their right genre?”

I nodded and headed towards the back of the bookstore. I took out my MP3 and started to listen to music. I hummed some of the lyrics. It got to the point where I was singing out loud and dancing a little.

“It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss Now I’m falling asleep And she’s calling a cab While he’s having a smoke And she’s taking a drag Now they’re going to bed And my stomach is sick,” I sang and the part about only being a kiss was kind of ironic.

It started with a kiss between me and Paul and it was supposed to only have been a kiss. It wasn’t supposed to end up like this either. I wasn’t supposed to grow feelings that I had murdered and buried down. I wasn’t supposed to be in bed with my enemy. I was supposed to live free and not have to worry about caring about Paul. I liked it better when I didn’t care for Paul… that’s a lie.

It wasn’t that hard to move books around because Mr. Markey didn’t get many customers so a lot of the books were in order. When it came to lunch, Mr. Markey gave me ten bucks to eat, but he said he was going to deduct it from my check. I took the ten bucks and crossed the street to a Mexican fast food restaurant.

I walked inside of the restaurant and at the same time my phone went off. I looked at the ID and smiled when I saw that it was Jared. I flipped open the phone.

“Ah, the man lives, what the hell, dude?” I said.

“Erin, where are you? I’m outside the store and I don’t see you,” he said.

I walked out of the restaurant.

“That’s because I’m across the street, dork,” I laughed and saw as he turned around. I waved at him. “You look mad, what’s wrong?”

“Just a little fight with Kim,” he sighed as we continued to talk on the phone while looking at each other.

“What about?” I asked. “Anything I can help with?”

“Not really, but thanks for asking,” he said.

“Let me cheer you up with some TACOS! We love TACOS,” I said.

He laughed and I knew he would agree. He crossed the street and we closed our phones. We walked back inside of the restaurant. I ordered three tacos, a soda, and a churro… hmm… churro. Jared paid for his own food because he ordered a burrito (which is huge by the way) and five tacos and a extra large soda.

“Sometimes I wonder if you’ll die of a heart attack, then I remember you can’t, ha!” I joked, but it didn’t seem to amuse him. “Is this about Paul?”

“Yeah, it is, Erin. You laughed at him?” Jared said incredulous.

“It was a funny joke, Jar. Me? His imprint? He was just yanking my chain,” I waved my hand dismissively.

“Erin, we’re truthful to each other, right? I mean, I told you something big about me even though I knew I would get a beaten if you knew,” he said turning extremely serious.

“I know, we’re tighter than those dude with the white tigers,” I said.

“You do know they separated right?”

“You know what I mean,” I said.

“Right, well… do you have any feelings towards Paul that doesn’t end up you putting him in a ditch dead?” Jared asked.

A week ago, less than a week actually, I would’ve said ‘No, hell no’… now, I hesitated. I hesitated because of all the recent events with Paul. The first kiss and the ones that followed after that one. The way he worried about me and how he saved me from falling down a cliff and how he took care of me when I hurt my foot. Sure he only carried me, but the Paul I used to know would’ve never cared.

Jared took my hesitance for an answer and smiled.

“I knew it, you--”

“I hate him, Jar. Do you think I’m going to forget years of torture?” I asked him. “Even if he truly imprinted on me, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference towards my hatred towards him.”

Jared frowned. “But, you--”

“Jared, think about it. Me and Paul? We’re like an atomic bomb just waiting to explode. We’re too different and we would end up killing each other,” I said. Our order was called and we picked up our food and sat back down.

“So, you seriously don’t have any good feelings towards Paul?” Jared asked.

“Nope, in fact I’m letting you decide what dress color I should get for Prom because the challenge is off,” I said as a matter-of-factly.

Jared’s mouth hung open. “You’re backing out on a dare?”

I nodded. “It’s not worth all of this drama.”

“Well, it’s a good thing Paul has moved on, right?” Jared said and winked at me.

“What? He already moved on?” I asked quickly.

He nodded. “Asked a girl on a date tonight. That doesn’t bother you, does it?” He raised an eyebrow as if to challenge my will.

I was going to be strong so I shrugged. “Dude can do whatever he wants with his pathetic life.”

But in the back of my mind I was cursing whichever girl was going out on a date tonight with Paul. I was wishing her a painful death. Maybe death by white tiger, it would eat her face and leaver her disfigured, that would be cool. After lunch with Jared he told me about the vampire situation and really warned me about being out at night alone. He really didn’t want to see me get hurt.

I returned to the bookstore and Mr. Markey told me I was going to mark in the new incoming books. He took the suggestion I said and ordered a lot of Young Adult books. I wasn’t surprised to see that a lot of the books were about vampires and the supernatural. I saw a book about fallen angels called Hush, Hush and just with the title I wanted to read it. The books would arrive in a week. He told me to make new space for the Young Adult books.

A few days passed since I had lunch with Jared. Because of the vampire thing, I rarely saw Jared and I was stuck at home with my ‘family’ when Mr. Markey didn’t need any help at the book store. Paul never came around. I never saw him and Jared would tell me about him without me asking.

I honestly didn’t want to know what he was doing. It kind of hurt he moved on so fast. More and more days passed and I became accustomed to the routine in my life. Everything seemed to have a schedule, even when I wanted to piss off Angie to get some fun in my life.

Three weeks after the lunch with Jared, on a Saturday, I knew I had to get out of the routine. It was my day off, so I wanted to go to the cliffs and take a few dives. Sean wanted to come along, but Angie stayed home because she didn’t want me there. I didn’t blame her. I would’ve probably thrown her over the edge.

I changed into my diving clothes and pulled on the daisy duke shorts that I tore for Paul. Sean was ready to go, we decided to go walking instead of taking the car.

“So, you’re an adrenaline junkie,” I joked.

“Cliff diving is definitely wicked,” Sean said with a grin.

I laughed. “You said ‘wicked’ and I thought of Ron from Harry Potter.”

“God, I hate anything with Harry Potter because you Americans go right to that instead of the other wonderful movies,” he said bitterly.

“Uh… Mary Poppins? James Bond? Oooh… Orlando Bloom!” I joked.

I laughed. He didn’t. I rolled my eyes.

We made it to the cliffs and the second I heard the booming voices of Embry and Quil I stopped walking.

“What’s wrong?” Sean asked and looked at the pack.

“Let’s come back another time,” I said I didn’t want to see Paul.

“Why?” He asked as he looked back at me.

“Because those guys are assholes,” I hissed.

Sean turned around to walk back with me, but I heard someone…

“Half-breed!” Embry called out.

I stopped walking and turned back around slowly. My hands were fists and before anyone could say anything or do anything I ran towards Embry. He and Quil didn’t see me coming until I was three feet away from him and I swung my fist and made contact with his jaw. I cursed as soon as the pain went through my hand. I cradled it between my legs as I crouched over and hissed in pain.

“Fuck!” I yelled.

“Erin!” I heard Jared. He was all wet which meant he had dived before Sean and I had arrived. He walked over to me. “What happened?”

“She hit me!” Embry said as he rubbed his jaw.

“And you shattered my hand!” I yelled back.

“What did you do, Embry?” Jared asked. “She wouldn’t have attacked you if you didn’t say anything.”

“He said ‘Half-breed’,” Sean spoke up.

I groaned as I looked at my hand. It was swollen and Jared touched around and looked for broken bones. I hissed painfully when he touched around the middle of my hand.

“I think it’s broken, we need to take you to the hospital,” Jared said and turned to Embry with a death glare. “You fucking moron, Paul is going to murder you.”

I literally saw Embry gulp.

“And I just got better from the fight a few days ago,” Embry whined.

“You should’ve thought better before saying that stupid shit,” Jared spat.

“It was the nickname HE gave her!” Embry said.

“My other hand isn’t broken, Embry, I will risk breaking it to just hit you!” I growled at him dangerously.

“Let’s take you to the hospital,” Jared said as he walked me and Sean to the hospital.

“Should I call your mum?” Sean asked.

I shook my head. “The hospital will, don’t worry, you don’t have to come.”

“I want to come,” Sean said as he followed Jared and I to his car.

I sat in the front passenger seat.

“Why did you get pissed that he called you ‘half-breed’?” Sean asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I grumbled.

“Humor me, Erin,” Sean said.

I sighed and looked back at him. “Are you an outcast back home?”

“No,” he said.

“Then, you really wouldn’t understand. Because my mother, for a very long time, didn’t tell anyone who my father was I was called ‘bastard’ and when they found out my father was British meaning I was half white they called my ‘half-breed’, there. Because I’m half British and half native American I’m known as a half breed.”

“That’s mean, even for my standards,” Sean said.

“Not for Paul,” I growled.

“The guy you were making out with on the porch like a month ago?” Sean said.

I nodded.

“You have some serious problems if you made out with the guy who made your life a living hell.”