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As we pulled up to the beach that would be the location of the carnival, I let out a breath of relief. Nearly everyone was dressed in costumes, including many of my classmates. It was good to know that no one would be laughing at me.

"Heather!" an excited tap was coming from my window, and I looked out it once more, to see Emily waving at me, with Sam beside her. Sam looked like… well, Sam.

Authoritative -- large and in charge.
With an emphasis on the large part.

Like the other guys, he was very tall and muscular. Right now a look of discontent haunted his features. His mind was obviously elsewhere, far away from the fun taking place around him.

"Hey, Em!" I replied happily, opening the door to continue our conversation. Emily was another person I had instantly clicked with. We had a lot of things in common. For one, she couldn't hold down a bucket load of food like the others, and she wasn't very tall. And she was very mature, which was very cool about her. We'd been good friends ever since.

Speaking of friends…

"Heather! Come here at this very moment in the space-time continuum!" I shook my head, smiled apologetically at Emily, who just waved me off, saying amusedly, "No big deal."

I jogged over to where Leah was standing, Kristina by her side. "What?" I asked snappishly. I didn't exactly come here by my own standards.

"Have fun tonight. That's an order." And she promptly pulled me toward a booth where you could throw plastic pumpkins at a stack of bottles to try to knock them down, nodding as she went.

After an hour or so of doing everything that Leah and Kristina made me do, I was almost enjoying myself. But what I really wanted to do was go in a haunted house that was up on the mountain. Leah said it was a waste of time; She'd gone last year and it had been pathetic. I argued back, saying that it might've gotten better. But neither Leah nor Kristina wanted to go up on the mountain for something that may or may not be worth it, but I still wanted to. So, while my captors were busy competing against each other at yet another booth, I slipped away, looking for someone who would accompany me.

I saw a large hairy body, and I knew at once that it was one of our numbers. I tapped it on the shoulder, and it turned around, revealing the face of Jacob Black.

"Jake, drive me up to the mountain to see the haunted house," I said in one breath, my tone demanding.

He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. "Pleeaaasseee?" I whined, putting my hands together under my chin, "Thing 1 and Thing 2 have been keeping me hostage all night and I really want to go see the haunted house!"

He laughed at my juvenile behavior and nodded.

"Yippee!" I rejoiced, before running toward Jacob's Rabbit, which was kind of growing on me. Hey, it had character.

"Buckle up, I don't want to be peeling your hyperactive self from the cliffs," Jacob warned me, with a mocking edge in his serious tone.

"Oh please, if we crashed, my hyperactive self would just jump off the cliffs for some last-minute cliff diving." I smirked at him before clipping my seatbelt securely around my body.

"Sure, sure," he mumbled, before putting the car into drive and starting our journey up the mountain.

The entire ride, we were pretty quiet. I was just thinking, about… things. About how Jacob and I had grown so much closer when he had told me the story. About how I had panicked when the thought of his affection crossed my mind. About how he had hugged me happily after I had conquered my cliff-diving fear.

A million things raced through my mind, causing my fur-adorned head to become a flurry of thoughts. I was so distracted that I didn't realize that Jacob had stopped and was standing outside the passenger side door, looking at me with a mixture of concern and chagrin in his eyes.

"Sorry," I breathed apologetically, unbuckling and opening the door, trying to chase away the theories that plagued me. "My mind was somewhere else."

He nodded, and we started toward the elaborately decorated haunted house attraction. It looked like a haunted house should, with boarded-up windows, and peeling paint. Someone had spent quite a bit of time building this, trying to make it authentic.

"How do you like Sam's work?" Jacob whispered in my ear, sending involuntary shivers down my spine.

"It's… scary enough," I whispered back, trying to make him think my shivers were caused by the house, not his sudden breath so close to my face.

He didn't see through my façade, luckily, so he replied carefully. "Don't be scared. Sam just… goes a bit overboard sometimes."

I shook my head, replying, "Being scared is the fun part."

"Okay."

We approached the large building, and I took a breath, wondering what waited inside.

"Wahoo!" I screamed twenty minutes later, running out the door of the house, "That was awesome!"

Jacob just laughed, jogging down to the Rabbit.

"Wait up, Jake!" I cried helplessly.

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Jacob!"

He chuckled and looked back at me, running crookedly down the steep mountain, a dozen paces behind him. I'm not the best at running down a mountain in a dog costume, seeing as it was quite difficult.

Jacob cleared the distance between his body and the Rabbit in about three seconds flat, and I was left struggling, looking like a complete idiot. I heard the Volkswagen start up, and, moments later, felt Jacob’s strong arms removing me from the ground.

“Heyyyyyy!” I wanted him to slow down, not pick me up. “You’re going much too slow, Miss Brown. I’m going to have to transport you to the vehicle.”

I rolled my eyes and dealt with it. It’s not like I could’ve escaped.

He reached the Rabbit easily, as if adding my 100-and-something-or-another pound body had no effect on him. I wasn’t surprised. Like I said, I’d gotten used to his abnormal strength.

He set me down on the ground beside his car, bounding over to the driver’s side before I had set myself upright. I opened the door and got in, in a bright mood, despite having been unwillingly towed by Jacob Black.

The way back down the mountain was also very quiet. The sight of the winding cliffs outside my window couldn’t keep my mind from escaping to the thoughts that had been troubling me. I tilted my head to steal a glance at Jacob. He was looking at me as well, and I grinned sheepishly at him. I couldn’t help it. His expression brought a smile to my face instantaneously.

Wait a second.

I shook my head, trying to figure out what I was thinking. Jacob stared at me with that same mixed expression as before, and I didn’t blame him. I was acting really weird, and I knew it.

I sighed and rested my head on my hand, setting my elbow on the door. Right at that moment, I was the most confused that I had ever been in my entire life.