Our Battle Cry

Aria's POV

It's been three days since that night when the Cullen's had come over. Nothing to exciting has happen. Oh! Except for the fact that Sam's made one of the guys be with me every time I leave the house. Or Sam isn't in the house, basically at all times unless I'm in my room or the bathroom. It wouldn't be that bad if I got to pick who was with me, but of course I'm not allowed to! Sam assigns the guys to me. Mostly it's been Embry, Jared or Seth. One time it was Paul, but I punched him for making a crude comment about Phyleesha, I was texting her, so he hasn't been with me since. That was two days ago.

Right now, I'm sitting in the living room bored, watching TV. Jacob, Embry, and Quil are here. It's still a little awkward with Jacob. However, we are talking more and getting along a bit better than when we first met. But things still get pretty awkward with us, especially whenever I ask someone about the Cullen's. That someone is usually Seth. Since he tells me anything that I want to know.

"Ugh! I'm so bored!" I said while hanging upside down on the couch. My feet are right by Quil's ear so I keep moving them by him and he freaks out. It's funny.

"Why don't you go finish that song? You said that you wanted it done before your friends got here," Embry told me. And yes, the guys do know that I do the music for me and my friends to sing to. Only Embry knows about me writing songs. I don't know why I told him, I think that it's because he reminds me of Emma so much. Every time we hang out, I feel like I'm back home.

I had called the girls yesterday and told them that I missed them a lot. We were able to get permission for them to come visit within the next week or so, so I was a pretty excited about that.

"Or you could stop putting your foot by my ear! Stop it!" Quil said while smacking my feet away from his head. I kept doing it and laughing.

20 Minutes Later…

"I'm bored! This movie is boring! Someone should do something cool!" I said while kicking my feet. By now Paul and Seth had joined us in the living room. The boys had decided to watch a movie. I don't know which movie but it was boring. I started ripping up a piece of paper and throwing it and them. It was funny to hit Paul with them because he would glare at me and then look at the TV.

20 Minutes Later…

The only ones in the house now were Sam, Jacob, Paul and Embry. It was around 2 o'clock and nothing was happening. I was in my room, I had just finished showering and was attempting at curling my hair. I wanted to go to the beach. I always loved the beach. It was the place that my family went to every summer, I would play with my brother while mom and dad sat and watched and laughed at us. I finally finished with my hair and used a little bit of hair spray to keep the bottom curls. I looked myself over in the mirror. I was in white shorts, a light blue lace tank top, and one of those long vest/jacket things with no sleeves. It was actually sunny and semi-warm for once so I wanted to play the part. It was summer after all.

As I went down stairs I saw Sam talking on the phone to someone. He didn't look too happy so I figured that he was talking to the Cullen's. I wanted to tell him that I knew who they were talking about but I couldn't. After everything that had happened between us, I couldn't betray him like that. I waited patiently for him to get off the phone. Once he put it back on the receiver, he looked at me and sighed.

"Hey Aria. What is it that you need?" he said while sitting at the table with a pop.

"Well… I was wondering if I could go to the beach?" I looked at him with hopeful eyes. He started to say something and it looked like no. I was desperate to get out. "Please Sam? I've only left the house like twice in the past three days! And one of the guys was always with me. please?" I did my signature puppy dog pout. He was starting to agree with me when someone walked in.

"Fine. But Jacob is going with you." He said while looking behind me.

"What?" two voices said at the same time.

"It's that, or you stay here. I'm not risking anyone's life Aria," he said while looking at me.

"What do you mean risking someone's life? I asked.

Sam hesitated but then said, "Nothing. But he's going with you or you're not going at all."

I huffed and pouted, "Fine." I walked to the door and grabbed my blue flip flops. I was out the door when I realized that I didn't really know which way to get to the beach. I started walking in the direction of where I could faintly hear waves crashing against the rocks.

When I reached the beach I was so happy. I ran until I was about ten feet away from the water. I then started spinning in circles like a little kid. I felt so free. I could faintly hear laughing behind me but I didn't care. I looked out at the ocean and sighed. The sun was high in the sky and I could feel the rays hitting my face, the sand underneath my toes, the slight breeze in my hair and the ocean mist hitting my legs. I was so content I didn't want anything to ruin this.

Jacob's POV

I was watching her spinning around in circles. She looked so happy. Like she felt connected to the world at that moment. I smiled and chuckled a bit when I saw that she didn't have her shoes on. She looked so beautiful. Her hair was cascading around her face in big loose ringlets. Her jacket was flying around her. I had the sudden urge to go over to her and pick her up and just hold her. I guess I can't deny it any longer. She's my imprint. No matter what, she'll always be my imprint I thought as she stopped spinning and held her arms around her. I slowly walked up behind her and stood next to her. I snuck a look at her and caught her eye. I looked back at the ocean and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry." I said. I didn't want to see her face. I was so scared that she hated me for how I treated her the first two weeks that she was here.

"What are you sorry for? You haven't done anything to me. You've barely spoken to me," she said. It killed me to hear her say that.

"Exactly. I shouldn't have acted like that towards you. I should have tried to be nice, or something. I shouldn't have ignored you like that. And for tha—"

"It's okay. You don't have to be sorry. It's not all your fault. I wasn't exactly trying to hard now was I?" she turned to face me. I reluctantly turned and face her too. It was then that I realized just how short she was. She had to of been at least 5'4"

"Can we start over?" I asked

Aria's POV

He looked so sad when he was apologizing. I didn't want to give into the pull that I felt towards him, but it was slowly winning. I knew that if I didn't give in than he wouldn't get hurt. Maybe we could be friends. And just friends. Until I can talk to someone about this I thought as I looked at him.

"Yeah, we can start over. Just none of that reintroducing ourselves okay? I hate that," I told him. He laughed at me. I couldn't believe it! He was laughing at me! "Fine, I see how it is." I was pretending to be mad. He fell for it.

"Wait, I'm sorry I didn't mean to—" he didn't get to finish.

I had pushed him when he wasn't paying attention and he stumbled back a little bit. I booked it. I was about ten feet away from him when I could hear him running to keep up. I took a wide turn to my right to avoid him. We were both laughing. He finally tackled me and we were in the water. I stood up and looked down at my clothes. I was soaked. But it was only the front of me. Jacob was soaked from his stomach down. I giggled. We were standing within a couple of inches of each other. He reached out and put his hand on the back of my neck. My hand instinctively went to hold his wrist. I didn't realize it but we were slowly moving closer to each other. Suddenly a wave came crashing over our legs.

The cold water shook me out of whatever trance I was in. I shook my head and moved away from him. "I'm sorry. I just can't. I'm so sorry," I said. I took off, running away from him and back towards the house. I passed Embry and Jared on my way onto the path that led me back to the house. Once inside I saw Emily first.

"Aria? Oh my, what happened sweetie? Aria wait! Aria!" she said.

I ran up the stairs and into my room. I just wanted to dry off and figure everything out. Why did I almost let him kiss me? What the hell is going on? Vero Amante isn't meant to do this. It's only supposed to help your powers, which are connected to our emotions my thought process was like that all night. I noticed that the winds were acting up. I can't go down that path again. I won't. No matter what, I won't let myself get hurt all over again, never again.

I sat down on my bed and started thinking of the past. I took out a scrapbook that my friends put together for me a while ago. I looked at the first page. It was of our first performance. Where we all meet and became friends. I flipped to the middle and stopped at a certain page. It was a bunch of pictures of me and a guy. At the top it read: Aria and Damien, the cutest couple alive! I wanted to tear that page out of the book. He had hurt me so much. I walked over to the window and looked outside. It had picked up even more. I tried to calm my breathing but I looked out at the tree line and thought that I saw something. I looked closer and could vaguely make out the silhouette of a person, and person with the same body as Damien. The last thing I remembered before passing out from screaming was the eyes that broke my heart.