Not Your Enemy

When Tobi got home, the first thing she did was run up to her room and got dressed in her practice clothes that she missed dearly. Her head was racing with pleasant thoughts of Jasper and how Emmett caused Ruby to blush for the first time in a long time. Tobi was proud of her best-friend for showing a different emotion other than the cold shield she put up for everyone else. It seemed to Tobi that the second day of school was better than the first; she was even in a good mood when Jessica was ‘whispering’ about her to her friends.

Tobi grabbed her ballet flats, her cell phone, and iPod before rushing out to her car and driving toward a small dance studio just a couple of miles from her house. The drive was quick because Tobi hadn’t really been sulking like the other times she had resorted to dancing out her emotions; the young little French girl was just dancing out the energy she had remaining.

After she had entered the small building, Tobi waved at the children’s instructor and motioned to the performance stage, “Puis-je utiliser pour un couple d'heures?” (Can I use for a couple of hours) she asked, using her native tongue with a fellow French-American who happened to land in Forks. At first, Tobi found that really weird because Forks wasn’t that popular of a place for people all over the world to want to end up, but somehow that woman did. They were first introduced by her mom, and Tobi had taken a liking to the woman at once.

It was like it was fate for them to have a bond so strong.

“Suffit de faire attention, vous ne voulez pas vous tordre la cheville comme la dernière fois,” (just be careful, you don’t want to twist your ankle like last time.) the young, yet older, woman responded while adjusting one of her student’s legs.

Tobi nodded and rushed into the empty room and onto the large stage. She put her iPod’s headphones over her head and lost herself in the music. It didn’t matter what the song was, she somehow turned and jumped gracefully over the stage with each beat of her music and kept the perfect tempo. Her lips moved silently with the words, yet when the songs slowed down she was forced to rest because her mood didn’t call for slow.

She slowly took her headphones off and lay back on the stage with her back on the cold tiled floor. Clapping was heard from just a couple of feet from the stage and Tobi looked up to meet the proud eyes of the woman who had taught her to dance in the first place, “Good job, Ma petite danseuse!” (my little dancer)

Tobi grinned, happy to please the oddly familiar woman, and stopped the music still blaring from her headphone speakers, “I was just winging it, but, hey, I learn from the best.”

My instructor, Clarice, walked to the edge of the stage and motioned from Tobi to get down, “It’s time to close up now, and I think it’s illegal to leave a minor unattended in a building like this.”

Tobi almost said ‘it’s happened to me before’ but refrained because, frankly, it wasn’t Clarice’s business and too many people knew already. She just nodded and jumped off the stage in all her sweaty glory, “Can I come back this weekend?”

Clarice nodded and walked over to check the emergency exit door, “I missed you the past month, so you better be here bright and early for your punishment.”

“Will do,” she called back before running out of the theater and toward her car in the parking lot. It was already dark when she got into her car, and she knew her mom was going to kill her when she walked through the front door. Tobi tried to drive as fast as she could and ran a red light on accident when she was trying to beat the yellow light, “Merde!” she swore when she realized what she did.

Well, her mom was also going to kill her when they get the ticket in the mail.

Tobi was just parking in her driveway when her cell phone buzzed. She looked at it and rolled her eyes when she saw her sisters number and picture on the front screen, “Yes, Butt fuck?” she answered like usual.

“Mom said you better be home by the time dinner is done or your cell phone’s being taken away,” Hannah responded as if she wasn’t just insulted. That was their relationship, Tobi would try to tease Hannah like a big sister should but Hannah would act as if she didn’t care. Tobi knew why; Hannah just didn’t accept the older girl as a real sibling because they were both adopted.

Holden accepted his life, Hannah was the polar opposite.

Tobi got out of her car and rushed into the house without another word; her phone was practically her life. She waved at everyone, including Ruby who was watching something on TV with Holden, and went upstairs to shower. After she rushed a quick bathing into her hectic schedule, she went to her room for her lighter and to charge her cell phone.

“Where were you?” Ruby asked from her doorway, “you left me here with Pervy Paul and Suicidal Sandy.”

Tobi laughed and sat on her bed, “I went to dance!”

It was obvious Ruby was shocked because Tobi only danced when she was either completely miserable or extremely happy, and the latter was most obvious. “You danced?”

Tobi nodded and lay back on her bed, “Oh today was so perfect! I just hope tomorrow is just as good, and maybe this weekend we can go to the beach or something if the weather allows us to and we can go shopping and ma-“

“You little son of a bitch,” Ruby laughed, tackling Tobi in a hug and straddling her waist, “tell me who he is or I swear I’m going to tickle your ass until you do.”

“What are you talking about?” Tobi asked, looking up at her friend with amused eyes, “there is no ‘he’.” That’s when Ruby proceeded to tickle Tobi to the brink of wetting herself right then and there on her mattress. Tobi shook her head and tried to fight it but couldn’t and ended up shouting, “Jasper Hale!” loud enough for the person watching her house to hear.

“Damn it!” Jasper hissed to himself when he heard that he was the one to make Tobi happy. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her being happy; he just didn’t want to be the cause because that would eventually mean that she had fallen for him. He slowly backed away from the house he had been watching and rushed home to be in solitude of his own room.

“She can’t love a monster like me,” Jasper whispered to himself while shaking his head, “you can’t let her.”

“Let her love you Jasper,” Alice said from his door, “I’ve told you a million times that she needs someone like you in her life. You’d never hurt her like you think, and she’ll always be as happy as she is now.”

“I’m a monster, Alice!” Jasper bellowed, glaring at his ex-wife for being so naïve, “I can’t go a single day without thinking about the taste of her blood and the thought of me killing her is continuous.”

“But what about your thoughts of holding her?” Alice asked, walking further in the room with a set goal in her eyes, “Edward tells me everything you think of her, Jasper. Why can’t you see that you need her just as badly as she needs you?”

“Because I don’t need anyone,” Jasper hissed, turning his back on the small brunette, “and I’d rather be alone now and forever.”

Ruby smirked as she ate her dinner and stared at Tobi the entire time. After Tobi had revealed her tiny crush to her best-friend, Ruby wouldn’t let her forget. It was like that every time because Tobi never had a boyfriend and a crush was a big deal because it was rare.

“Can I stay over tonight?” Ruby asked, looking away from Tobi for once and at Saline.

Saline nodded and looked at the girl she counted as a third daughter, “Sure, you and Tobi are about the same size so you can borrow her clothes for tomorrow if you want.”

Ruby nodded and looked back at Tobi, who looked back, and stuck her tongue out before mouthing ‘you’re stuck with me for the rest of the night’.

Tobi laughed and rolled her eyes. Once dinner was over, Tobi lent her friend some clothes and waited for her to leave for her shower before she would call the number that texted her the night before. It was bugging her that he would keep her number after so long, but she had to stand up for herself while she still had a small amount of confidence left.

It took four rings before a husky voice answered, “I knew you couldn’t resist the offer.”

A shutter violently went up Tobi’s back and she resisted the urge to vomit after flashbacks of the taste and feeling of that night came back to mind. She shook her head and walked over to her window and, in a hushed voice, she said, “I was just calling to tell you that if you ever text shit like that to me again I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Oh, what’s with the change of emotion, sweetheart?” he asked in a taunting voice, “you looked all too eager to take me up on my offer that night”

“Go to hell,” Tobi hissed angrily, “I was drunk.”

“But you were willing, and your callback just shows that you want more.”

“Shut the hell up,” Tobi commanded, tired of his mind games but even more tired of how his voice sounded over the phone. She hated to admit it but he sounded a lot sexier over the phone than he had in person just two years before. It made her want to puke, “why are you doing this to me?”

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said huskily. Tobi knew what was going on at that point in time and the flashbacks crashed into her harder than before.

She sat on the bed with both boys in front of her. The alcohol was at its peaking effect and there was nothing she could do about it. Tobi smiled lazily up at the boys and motioned the taller one closer to her; she had found him very attractive and craved his lips at that moment. As they kissed, Tobi felt his hands trace circles around her back and one happened to make its way up her shirt. She wanted to stop when her bra came undone, but as she muttered into his lips she knew he didn’t understand her.

She didn’t even understand herself.

“Just back the fuck off, okay,” Tobi said before closing her phone and turning around to look into the dark eyes of Ruby. “How long have you been there?”

Ruby shrugged and dried her hair with the towel in her hand, “Long enough to know you were talking to that creep that won’t leave you alone.” Tobi shook her head and grabbed the lighter off her nightstand before flickering it on and off out of habit. Ruby looked at the fire with a raised eyebrow and dropped the towel in Tobi’s hamper, “If you don’t control yourself, you’re going to start a fire one day.”

Tobi shrugged and smirked wickedly at her best-friend, “That’d be beautiful, wouldn’t it?”