Defying Gravity

Gym. I hate gym, especially when it’s out side, running laps around the field, in the heavy rain.

But that’s what normally happens, when you live in La Push, barely any sunny days at all.

So here I was trailing behind, I wasn’t last or anything, I just couldn’t be bothered to run fast like Jared, so I kept it at a steady pace.

All of a sudden, Josh Jones came running up behind me and accidently hit the back of my foot, with the front of his. One minute I was flying through the air and the next I was faced down on the wet, cold compacted grass of the field floor.

I lay there for what seemed like an age. Not wanting anyone to see how embarrassed I looked at that moment. Then I felt two strong, muscular arms pulling me up off the ground.

I turned my head to thank Jared but then couldn’t even speak. It wasn’t Jared at all, he was nowhere to be seen. Instead I saw Paul; he was looking at me, soaked through from the rain.

“Are you ok?” He had a worried look in his eye, like he actually cared if I was alright.

“Yeah, I’m fine” I added “Thanks for… helping me up”

“It’s no problem; he shouldn’t have been running that close behind you anyway.” He pointed at Josh, who was now on the other side of the field.

“Come on; let’s get you to the nurse’s office.” He picked me up and started walking off the field and back up to the school.

“No it’s ok, I fine.” I tried to get Paul to put me down, but he wouldn’t budge.

“You have a huge cut, going down the side of your leg, you need that checked out. So stop moaning and let me carry you there.”

I didn’t say anything I just grunted and allowed him to carry me. I was humiliated enough for one day.

By the time we got to the nurses’ office, I was boiling. I knew Paul’s skin was warm, but I was boiling myself, like I had a really bad fever. Was it something to do with the cut I just didn’t know? It seemed to come over me all of a sudden.

I felt really strange, it was like I wanted to be sick and my stomach was hurting so bad that I felt like something was eating me from the inside out. I couldn’t stand it, I felt like I was going to explode.

Paul took one look at me and placed me back down on my feet.

“I need to go home right now.” I said walking towards my car.

“Oh no you don’t, I’m not letting you drive home not If you feel as ill as you look right now.” He took my keys from my hand and walked over to the driver’s side of my car.

I didn’t protest, to be honest I didn’t feel like I could, so I just got in the passengers side.

The drive felt like forever, even though my house was only ten minutes from the school. We didn’t talk on the way to my house we sat in silence. Paul would just glance over to me to every once in a while but I was in too much pain to respond to his looks.

What was wrong with me? Why was I in so much pain? And could anyone even go through this much pain?

I didn’t have any answers to my questions.

Finally we got to my house. I got out of the car, not caring if Paul followed me or not. The rain had made a mud pie of the front so I decided that it would be easier if I went around the back. Of course no one would be home at this time of day and I was glad of that.

I was almost by the back door, when I heard Paul come up behind me.

“What are you still doing here?” I yelled at him.

My hands flew up to my mouth. Why had I said that, I didn’t even want to yell at Paul. What’s wrong with me?

I turned back around to face Paul, again.

“Paul, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I just said that to you”

I couldn’t stop shaking it was like was body was in vibrate mode. I held my hands to my face embarrassed as I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

All of a sudden there was a sound a bit like an explosion, but not quite. It sounded a bit like the popping a balloon with a pin, but much, much louder.

At the same time as the explosion sound, my body felt like it had been hit with a bomb. I hurt so badly that for a minute there I thought that I was dying.

I looked down at my body, to find that my body wasn’t there anymore.

It was replaced with white animal. Instead of hand there were large paws.

I looked at my reflection in the glass of the back window and the reflection I saw wasn’t me it was a large pale coloured wolf.

I didn’t know what was happening; I was scared I didn’t know what to do. This couldn’t be real. Things like this didn’t happen it was against nature, but if it was against nature why was I a huge, hairy wolf.

I looked over to see if Paul was still there.

He was. He stood in the exact same place. His face didn’t look scared it just looked calm.

He walked up to me, with both of his hands held up in the air.

“Stay calm, all you need to do is, stay calm and think about being human, ok? Just stay calm.”

He placed his hands on either side of my face and took deep breaths.

I closed my eyes and did the same. It felt really weird; it was like my body was shrinking back to its normal size.

I opened my eyes, to find my self back to normal. Paul s
still had his hands on ever side of my face. Was I so hot that I was delusional? I looked up into his face and he was staring right into my eyes.

I became totally unaware of everything around me all I could see was him. I was afraid to look away deep down I knew that nothing would be the same again. It was like gravity wasn’t holding me down anymore, it was like Paul was.

Paul was the first to break the eye contact and I wish he hadn’t.

His cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I think you’d better get changed… before someone sees you.” He said looking up at the sky.

At first I didn’t know what he was talking about, and then I looked down at myself.

I wasn’t wearing any cloths. I grabbed the keys off Paul and ran into the house, so that no one could see me, so that Paul couldn’t see how embarrassed I was.

I got dressed and walked down stairs. Paul was leaning against the door frame, of my back door.

I walked over to him. “I want answers and I want them now.”

“Not here, come on I’ll take you over to Sam’s and he can explain it all to you.” He said walked back to my car.

So Sam had something to do with this after all.