I Won't Say I'm in Love

"I was brought up differently from the average American child, because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy. -Marilyn Monroe

“Why are you so afraid of taking that next step?” Jacob asked me softly, pushing my limp, wet hair away from my face.

“It’s not just you,” I sighed, pulling away from him and sitting up straight on the branch again. “I don’t like to take any next steps with anyone when it requires trust. I learned at a very young age that you can’t trust anyone but yourself, and so I disciplined myself to keep my distance from everybody. I even learned how to isolate myself from my family. I can’t risk having my heart broken ever again.” Jacob just stared at me for a moment, his brow furrowed.

“What happened to you?”

“It’s a long story,” I warned, unsure if he wanted to delve that far into the inner workings of my fucked up mind, or if I even wanted to. Jacob re-positioned himself on the tree so that his body was just grazing mine, sending a wave of goosebumps to cascade over my skin.

“I’m not going anywhere.” And for the first time in a long time, I knew that someone was telling me the truth.

********

Taking a deep breath, I began a recounting which I knew was going to be terribly painful.

“Okay. This story starts not with me, but with my older brother Brandon. My mom met Brandon’s dad in a casino in Vegas and so, like any clichéd romantic comedy movie, they got married at one of those cheap wedding chapels. It was corny and short, but I remember that Mama told me she was in love at the time. Then Brandon came along, and his dad realized fathering wasn’t really his thing, so he bailed. Which was, y’know, whatever, since he beat the shit out of my mom and cheated on her anyway, so not really a lot of disappointment there.

“Anyway, he left, and Mama raised Brandon all by herself for the first three years of his life. Then she met my dad. He was, according to her, quite the Casanova for the first couple of years—the Eric to her Ariel was how she explained it to me at four. He brought her flowers and sang her to sleep; the whole bit. I have small, barely-there memories of when they used to dance around the kitchen to no music at all, swept up in each other’s presence.

Unfortunately, the bad memories came when I was older, and I remember those more easily and vividly than the good ones.

“Around the time when I was three, money got tight. Real tight. Like, our whole family had begun to get used to the feeling of hunger, and groping around in the dark when the lights got shut off. Rent, water, and money for flashlight batteries and candles were just about the
only things my family could consistently afford. Daddy had a friend who was big in the drug dealing business in our neighborhood, and when he learned about our conditions, convinced my dad that he needed to take a job from him. Originally, it was just to get us money. And once things were looking up—really¬ up—he tried to quit. But it was hard.
He couldn’t get out. And soon, he didn’t even want to.

“The streets changed him. Made him harder. He came home tired and grouchy every night. He and mama got into it more and more often, and the fights weren’t meaningless as they once were. He had been drinking, smoking, gambling…he had started to abandon us. So he stayed away from home. Soon, we hardly ever saw him. He was hostile and so much…colder. He wasn’t my daddy anymore. He was a stranger, and one that none of us really cared for.

“I remember the first time he hit my mom. She was angry that he was always gone, and so she yelled at him when he came home. She told him that she hated him, and that he was terrible father. She called him a bum and a son-of-a-bitch, and other words that I didn’t understand at the time, but I knew were mean, terrible things. The yelling escalated and escalated to a point that Brandon and I had never seen it get to before, until my dad stopped yelling and he hit her. Just one, strong back-handed hit across her face that sent her flying into the table.

“Mama got up, and Daddy said, ‘Unless you want anymore, you’ll shut your mouth.’ It was scary, the way he said it. It was like he didn’t even care that he had just assaulted the woman he used to love, in front of the family that used to mean the world to him. It was scary and threatening. My daddy was officially replaced with this shell of a being.

“Our household deteriorated swiftly after that. Mama and Daddy never argued anymore, because they had stopped talking completely. There was no more spontaneous dancing. No more flowers just because. Our house was full of very lost, very empty people, and our home had crumbled a long time before that.

“Mama put on a brave face though. For Brandon and me. She went to all of our school plays and took us to dinner and the movies. She used the excess money that wasn’t going toward my father’s crippling addictions on us. She didn’t even buy so much as a new dress for herself. Everything she did, every breath she took, every moment she was alive, she dedicated to us and to making us the happiest, most joyful children, even in our world that was ridden with despair and misfortune. After a fight, the three of us would sit down at the kitchen table and play Chutes and Ladders while eating Oreos and milk. Mama had taught me to leave Brandon alone when he cheated.

“She explained to me that Brandon felt bad that he couldn’t help her when Daddy was hitting her. When I asked why, she told me that Brandon was having a bit of trouble in school, and his friends were being mean to him. I remembered them teasing him on the playground. She told me that Brandon deserved to win at something, so why not let it be Chutes and Ladders?

“But the thing that hurt us the most, the thing that silently ate away at my mother’s sanity for years was the fact that her older sister hated her. When they were little, they were absolutely inseparable. Mama was always in awe of Mary, and thought she was the smartest, most beautiful person ever. Mary was the only person who understood Mama as they grew up. While everybody else thought that Mama’s thoughts were unsettling and psychotic, my aunt had found a way to make them seem not quite so crazy. She gave my mom’s life a bit of normalcy, something that she desperately needed.

“My aunt was a very religious woman. God came to her in a time when her life was in peril, and my mom told me that he had personally touched her heart. From then on, she promised to follow His word, and persecute those who didn’t. My mama happened to be one of those people. I was born out-of-wedlock, and Aunt Mary saw me as illegitimate; illegal; a bastard. Aunt Mary left Mama to fend for herself after I was born, something she had never really had to do.

“So I, the baby of the family, became my mother’s confidante. She would whisper to me all of her deepest, darkest secrets while she braided my hair, and I felt like the most special girl in the world. However, being four years old, I didn’t know that my mother’s ability to talk to fairies and see people who were never really there wasn’t normal. Or that I was supposed to crawl into her bed when I had a bad dream; not the other way around. I also remember that as the years went by, Mama talked to herself more and more.

“They started out as mumbles. Incoherent and unimportant. Then they turned into one-way conversations, and the conversations got progressively louder. Right before I turned five, she had gotten to a point where she would get into an argument everyday with somebody who wasn’t there. She looked wild as she screamed at the top of her lungs, fiercely arguing with this non-existent being. What are you supposed to do when your mom is yelling at the air? Especially when you’re only four years old? So Brandon and I would watch, unnoticed and helpless, until she stopped.

“And then my fifth birthday rolled around. And that was the night that everything crumbled.

“I remember it being a wonderful party. It was Disney Princess themed, and I couldn’t have been happier. I got a birthday girl crown, and all of my friends were there. I had a Beauty and the Beast table set, The Little Mermaid themes games, and Pocahontas was running in a loop in the background. The cake was gigantic and seemed to be a perfect replica of the castle in Aladdin, complete with Aladdin and Jasmine on the Magic Carpet. I wore a frilly white dress with sparkles and ruffles which I would have gagged at now, but was the most beautiful thing I thought I had seen…until I got my mom’s present.

“It was a doll. But not a Barbie doll or anything like that. It was a real doll. My first one. I named her Julia. It was made of porcelain, and she was wearing a dress that resembled mine, only yellow and silk with lace. She had long black hair that fell in ringlets by her precious, dimpled cheeks. And even though her big brown eyes were painted, I swore they sparkled like stars. They were framed by curly black eyelashes, and I thought it was the niftiest thing how her eyes closed when you cradled her like a baby.

“But the best part wasn’t any of that. It was that she looked like me. Her skin was brown, just like mine. Do you know how hard it is to find a doll that beautiful with actual brown skin? But Mama did it. Just like she did everything. She was magical. The party was just magical. It was after everybody left that things began to fall to shit.

“Daddy got home around 9 or 9:30, which was about four or five hours earlier than he usually did. Mama and I sat up watching Annie and The Wiz, and she closed her eyes and hid under the covers with me at the part when the graffiti people peel themselves from the wall. I had her rewind just so we could be scared together over and over again. Brandon was gone at a sleepover—what eight year old boy wants to go to his little sister’s fifth birthday party?—so it was just me and Mama until Daddy got home. When he got there, Mama told me to keep watching and that she would be right back. The fight started almost immediately.

“She was yelling at him for not being at my party. She was scolding him again about how terrible a father he was, and how dare he even show his face anymore. Daddy reminded her that his money was what paid for the party, which pissed Mama off. Then, things went in another direction. When parents fight like that, things usually veer from one subject to another, just reminding them and us everything they hated about each other.

“It was the worst fight I had ever seen. Brandon and I had learned to block out the commotion, or at least try to, so I kept my eyes locked on the screen, my expression neutral, and my jaw clenched to keep from crying. But when I heard a loud crack signifying that Daddy had hit her again, I had to look over. I waited for him to storm out after that, the way he usually did so that I could go comfort Mama and coax her into watching the movie with me and let her put her head in my lap while I stroked her hair, but he didn’t. He hit her again. And again. And again.

“The blows didn’t stop. My shock intensified as it went on. Mama was screaming and crying and trying to get away, but Daddy wouldn’t let her. I think he was crying too. He just kept hitting her and kicking her, and I sat there…watching. I didn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t. I wanted to, desperately. I wanted to get big and strong and run over and hit him the way he was hitting Mama, but I didn’t. So I just sat and I watched, hating myself more and more as every second passed.

“Finally, after about two minutes of merciless beating, Daddy stopped abruptly and stumbled out, slamming the door behind him. Mama was silently sobbing on the floor, her blood all over the cabinets and the linoleum. I sat there, frozen by fear for a few moments, unsure of what to do before my body took over and walked me to her. She was curled into a ball, rocking back and forth, her sobs violently wracking her entire body.

“Before I knew what I was doing, I lifted her bloody head into the lap of my white dress, ran my fingertips through her hair, and started to sing to her.

“Smile when your heart is aching. Smile even though it’s breaking. Though there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by if you smile through your pain and sorrow. Smile, and maybe tomorrow, you’ll see the sun come shining through for you…

“I sang her the whole song. And when I was finished, I sang it again. And again. It was like I sang it one time for every time Daddy had hit her. I don’t know how long it was before Mama stopped crying, and it was even longer before she picked herself up. Her legs were shaking, and it seemed like every breath was agonizing, but she limped over to the phone. I followed her to the hallway and stood there while she dialed someone’s number. She sat there with the phone by her ear, twirling the cord anxiously.

“I heard the series of beeps on the other end, signaling that the line had disconnected. She whispered her sister’s name into the phone, and it almost sounded painful. She started asking questions of somebody who wasn’t there again. Like, why didn’t she answer? And she told the person how Mary had had that number since they had both moved out from college all the way up until I was born. Mama’s voice kind of trailed off then, as if she had just realized something.

“I always got nervous when Mama started talking to herself, but now even more so since it seemed like her realization had something to do with me. I started to fumble with the hem of my dress, and I started when I realized that it was wet. I looked down at my hand and felt my breath catch when I realized that my dress was drenched with Mama’s blood and I had just rubbed my hand in it. I took a deep breath and rubbed it on my dress, creating another smear of crimson against the crisp, bright white.

“Mama had turned on me by that point, talking about how I was the reason that Mary didn’t answer her phone anymore. That I was the reason that her sister hated her. Mama’s voice had gone vacant, but her eyes were crazed, and that’s when I realized that things were about to go terribly wrong. She was walking towards me slowly, still talking, rambling about all that I had done, and for every step she took towards me, I took one back.

“I kept repeating ‘Mommy’ over and over again, but I wasn’t even sure it was her anymore. She had begun to mumble that it was all my fault, without pause, her eyes locked on me, consistently becoming more and more crazed. I told her that she was scaring me in the tiniest voice I could, and that’s when she snapped. She shouted that it was all my fault one more time before lunging at me.

“I screamed and ran into the kitchen, shaking as I fled from her. I ran to the other side of the table, trying to keep it between us, but it didn’t help. She was faster than me. She ran around it and I scurried. I used the table for momentum, and in my haste, I sent Julia tumbling to the ground. She shattered, her hand one place, her foot another, and her neck had snapped. Her face was cracked, but it was still smiling; it was still beautiful. I was distracted by the destruction of my gift and I stopped for just a moment, but that was the one moment that Mama needed.

“She grabbed me around the waist and carried me to the kitchen counter while I was kicking and screaming. I couldn’t even breathe through my nose anymore, and my throat had become sore. I had only just realized that I was weeping with fear. I had never been so terrified in my life.

“She told me that it was only fair that I should understand how she felt. That I had to feel her pain as well. She kept saying, ‘I have to make you feel my pain…I have to make you feel my pain…’ She was talking to herself, and I couldn’t make any sense of what was happening. She set me down, and I tried to run, but she kept a tight, painful grip on my arm. While I tried to struggle free, she pulled a big knife from the knife block. I stopped, scared into silence. I started to squirm, and it felt like my heart was trying to pound its way out of my body.

“I asked her what she was doing and I begged her to stop. She didn’t tell me, and she didn’t quit. She was quiet as she grabbed my hand and held it palm up, and she was too strong for me to be able to pull it away. The blade of the knife was making its way toward my hand. Time had slowed down. All I could do was watch the knife glint in the yellow light of the kitchen lamp and wait for it to come into contact with my skin. I wanted to be able to have the power to do something else besides wait with anticipation for my mother to harm me. I wanted to have the power to make her stop and to make my mother not be crazy and to make her love me again. But I couldn’t. The knife got closer. I shouted for her to stop once more, trying to touch something deep inside of her; to make her remember me. To make her remember herself. To make her remember us. I didn’t.

“The tip of the blade pierced my palm, and I just stared, unable to even comprehend what my mother—the person besides Brandon I loved most in the world—was doing. And then the pain became so intense, that any and all thoughts were shoved out of my brain. I screamed as she slowly dragged the knife across my hand. I screamed when I realized that the pain wasn’t stopping, but increasing. The blood bloomed like rosebuds in the wound, growing and spreading before it began to flow faster, running down my palm and my wrist.

“I watched in horror as the blade kept going, mutilating my tiny hand. As soon as the blade had finished its seemingly endless journey across my skin, I tried to wrest my way from my mom. She grabbed me again, and kneeled down to look me in the face. ‘Don’t you understand? I have to do this, Calypso!’ she told me through clenched teeth. Tears were sparkling in her eyes, and she sounded pained. She began to drag the knife through the same wound, and another scream ripped through my body as I sobbed. I had given up on trying to fight it, and just waited for the nightmare to end.

“My mother pleaded with me as she dragged the knife across my hand. By the third time through, I felt faint and I fell to my knees. My mother’s own sobs were shaking her entire body, but despite that, her hand stayed steady. By the fourth time, I wasn’t sobbing anymore, but just letting the tears stream down my face. After the fifth time, she stopped. The conclusion I came to was that she had cut me one time for each year of pain I had caused her. With a scream, she threw the knife into the sink, sending little drops of my blood to scatter in the kitchen, like bloodied dandelion seeds.

“She slid down the wall before placing her head on her knees and weeping. I had stopped crying. The pain in my hand was still fierce, but it was a superficial wound. One that could be healed with medicine and bandages. It would scab, then heal, then scar, and eventually fade. However, the wounds that this experience would leave on me were invisible. Untreatable, and so they would fester and continue to cause me pain and become a burden on my life. This was all unbeknownst to me at the age of five though. I was just concerned about my mother.

“I stared at her for a few moments, sobbing against the wall, curled into a ball, as if to shield herself from the world. She looked so small and so vulnerable. Again, I stepped up and took the role of the adult to go and comfort her. I walked over, stepping over the shattered fragments of my doll, and sat down next to her. I took her arms and wrapped them around me before holding her as well. She placed her head on top of mine, hugged me tight, and cried. I cried too, but I didn’t have the energy to sob the way Mama was. I was too tired

“And I wanted to be strong for her. As much as she terrified me, I wanted her to trust me and love me, the way I still seemed to trust and love her. We sat and cried for a while before there was a knock at the door. It wasn’t so much a knock as it was a banging. The people at the door asked if anybody was home. The voice was gruff and urgent. Mama and I froze and looked at each other, unsure of what was happening or what to do. The banging came again, harder this time. It said, ‘THIS IS THE POLICE! OPEN UP!’ My eyes flew open wide.

“ ‘Mommy, we have to answer,’ I told her. I knew we couldn’t ignore the police and get away with it. Mommy started to cry again.

“‘We can’t,’ she moaned quietly, afraid they would hear her. She told me that they were going to take me away from her. The police banged again, and we looked toward the door. She told me that we had to hide, and so before I could say anything, she scooped me up and ran as fast as she could toward the stairs. She darted up them three at a time, her eyes frantically scanning for somewhere—anywhere—to hide us. It was when we reached the landing of the second floor that we heard the police bust in.

“I started to scream, but Mama closed her hand around my mouth and ran to the spare room; our play room. She took us to our gigantic chest full of dress-up clothes. She stepped in and pulled me in too, pulling clothes over us after she closed the top. After she had burrowed us deep in the clothes, she pulled me as close to her as possible and kissed my head over and over again. She kept whispering ‘I love you,’ into my hair. By the way she was crying, I knew that she knew this wasn’t going to work. She knew that the police were going to find us any moment. I think our hiding place wasn’t so much a hiding place as it was a temporary sanctuary to give a final goodbye.

“She began to softly whisper the lyrics of ‘Smile’ into my ear as quietly as possible. I snuggled closer to her and closed my eyes, pretending that Mama was singing me to sleep in my room, the way she did every night. We eventually drifted away from the chaos ensuing around us, and Mama just kept singing like everything was going to be okay.

“We were snapped out of our trance when we heard people coming into the room. I could hear the closet door slide open as they looked there, and the ruffle of bed sheets as they looked under the bed. Mama pulled me closer to her, because she knew they would look here next. Sure enough, the chest opened and someone began to move the clothes around. I felt my foot exposed to cold air, and knew that the clothes covering it had been removed.

“There was a woman’s voice that shouted she had found us before she began digging deeper into the chest. She had eventually removed everything and revealed my mother and I, holding on to each other for dear life.

“‘NO!’ she screamed as a second person helped the first woman pull her up. I held on to my mother, my tiny fists clenched around her clothes. I screamed when I felt the first woman grab me around my waist and pull me away. My mother was screaming as loud as she could, and struggling against the police officer to get to me, the same way I was struggling against the woman. I kept screaming ‘Mommy,’ as if my hollering would set one of us loose. I was scared of these strangers, and just wanted my mom to hold me.

“She kept screaming, ‘My baby! Give my baby!’ as she was dragged out of the room and down the stairs. A second police officer came in and helped remove her. The woman who was in charge of me held my clean hand and followed the men as they escorted my mother outside. I kept screaming for her, hoping that maybe if they heard just how much I needed her, they would let her go.

“‘Calypso!’ she shouted as the two men carried her to the police car, with the back door open and waiting. They put cuffs on her, and tried to get her into the car. I’ll never forget the last words she said to me. As they tried to push her into the vehicle, she said, ‘Calypso, don’t ever forget—don’t you or Brandon ever forget—’

“The men pushed her into the car, but just before they closed the door, she shouted the last words:

“ ‘I love you!’ Then the door was slammed shut, and the car pulled off.

“‘MOMMY!’ I called after her, freeing myself from the woman’s grip. I started running after the car, as fast as I could. I figured that if I set my mind to it, I could catch up. That’s what Mama told me; if I set my mind to something, I could do it. I even outran the lady chasing me.

“But I just couldn’t catch up to that car. It kept getting further and further away. I knew it was going to be gone soon, and so I caught the gaze of my mother, who was staring at me through the back window. At the last moment, I stopped and screamed through my sobbing and my panting, ‘I LOVE YOU, MOMMY!’ Then the car turned the corner. I sank to the ground and cried, hoping that maybe if I cried hard enough, I could turn into a puddle and disappear into the sky.

“The police woman eventually caught up to me. She sat beside me, and pulled me into her, holding me. Surprisingly, I not only allowed her to, but I threw my arms around her neck, hugging her myself and crying into her shoulder. She picked me up and carried me away.”
I came out of my story slowly, gradually absorbing where I was. It was the rain that slowly brought me back to the present. I had gotten so wrapped up in my reminiscing that I had forgotten that I wasn’t five, but seventeen. And that I wasn’t at my house in Brooklyn, New York. I was sitting in a tree with Jacob Black on a rainy night in Forks, Washington. Even my scar had an echo of the pain that it felt all those years ago when it first came into existence. I realized that my cheeks were slick with tears, and I dried my face on my shirt. Clearing my throat, I got ready to finish the story.

“I woke up the next morning in a hospital bed, unsure of where I was at first. When I came to, the first thing I registered was the sterile smell of a hospital, and the quiet busyness of the hallway. I took note of the bloodied gauze wrapped around my right hand, and an IV pumping blood into me. The happenings of last night came rushing back to me, and I blinked against them. I felt a strange pressure on my left hand, and turned my head to see the police woman from the night before. She had her head on my mattress and was holding my hand, sitting beside my bed. I figured she must have been there all night, keeping me company and making sure I was okay. I squeezed her hand and she woke up, looking around until her eyes finally landed on me.

“I asked her where my mommy was, and she sighed and took her hand from mine to re-do her ponytail and pull back the flyaway blond hairs. She told me that my mom was at the police station. I knew that the police station was where they took the bad guys in shows, and so naturally, I was both confused and scared for my mom. When I asked her why, she said they had to find out whether she was innocent or not. So, I asked her what the word ‘innocent’ meant.

“She said, ‘It means we have to determine whether she’s a good person or not.’ So, I told her that my mommy was innocent, sure that this whole misunderstanding of her virtue should be cleared up soon enough. The woman reached over my bed and very lightly touched my injured hand. She asked me if Mama did that to me, and I told her yes, unsure what this had to do with her innocence. ‘Then she’s not innocent,’ was her response.

“That frustrated me, because her definition and what I had told her wasn’t adding up. I understood that my mom had harmed me. But not because she was a bad person. I knew even then that she had done this because of something far beyond her control. It wasn’t because she meant to hurt me. It was because my mommy was different. I later found out that she had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and thrown into a mental institution.

“I repeated her definition of ‘innocent’ to her, trying to get clarification. She again agreed with me that ‘innocent’ meant whether or not you were a good person. So, again, I told her that Mama was innocent. She told me that it wasn’t that simple, and I started to cry. I told her that my mommy was a good person. That she was the best mommy in the world. That she did my hair and we played House together and she took me and Brandon to the movies and played Chutes and Ladders with us. And so, the lady responded by saying:

“‘Good people don’t always do good things.’

“‘But I love her,’ I told her, hoping that maybe that would change things. She told me that my mommy loved me too, but that might not be enough to keep her from hurting me again. I started to cry harder, and I just kept shouting at her. ‘My mommy is innocent! My mommy is innocent!’” I looked up at Jacob, through the pleading eyes of that desperate five year old who just wanted somebody to believe her.

“Jacob, my mommy is innocent,” I sobbed, my body shaking uncontrollably. “She’s innocent! She is, she is, she is!” I started shouting it, angered by the pity that sat in his eyes. He didn’t believe me. Just like the police woman. Just like Brandon. Just like everybody else. He thought she was a bad person too.

“SHE’S INNOCENT, JACOB! SHE’S INNOCENT! I LOVE HER!” I hollered at him, wanting him to believe me more than I had ever wanted anybody else to. Jacob shushed me and pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly against his chest. I struggled at first, still shouting at him, but my declarations slowly morphed into pleading sobs as I held him back. I figured that if I repeated it enough, somebody would finally hear me. Mama would finally get to come home. It worked for Dorothy when she wanted to go back to Kansas; why shouldn’t it work for me? I just wanted my mommy to come home.

My sobs turned into whispers, my whispers turned into silence, and then everything turned into a dream.

Jacob’s Point of View

Calypso eventually fell asleep in my arms, mumbling, “My mommy is innocent. She’s innocent. I love her. My mommy is innocent.” Holding on to her, I carefully and expertly hopped from branch to branch until I could finally hop to the ground. Once I hit the forest floor, I made my way back to Sam and Emily’s house, still holding Calypso.

On the way, I realized that I was a complete asswipe.

The whole entire time that Calypso and I had been flirting, I had just assumed that she was toying with me. I had convinced myself that she had been stringing me along like a lovesick puppy, enjoying the way she could use me and my undeniable feelings for her to entertain herself. I had let myself become so angry at what she was doing, that I hadn’t even stopped to question why she was doing it.

She was seriously fucked up when it came to love. It wasn’t as if she took pleasure in kindling my hopes into a roaring fire before quenching it, only to rekindle it so that she could do it all over again. She just didn’t know what to do with that fire, or the one that was roaring inside of her as well. So she stopped both of them and tried to move on. She was scared, and had every reason to be. Everyone that she had ever trusted—her mom, her dad and her brother—had betrayed her, leaving her broken-hearted and without even a shoulder to cry on. Her life and her sanity were ruined when she was five, and she had to learn how to cope with it all by herself. She taught herself how to block herself off from relationships, and how to isolate herself from anyone who threatened these self-defense tactics.

Because that’s all it was to her: self-defense. She had learned to only rely on herself, and herself alone. She had no idea what to do with me, or how I made her feel. So, naturally, she tried to block me out, to keep her distance from me the way she had with every other person in her life. But what she didn’t know was that she was never going to be able to get rid of me, no matter how hard she tried. I simply wouldn’t let her.

When I walked through the doors with Calypso, everyone decided it would be fun to go, “Awwwh…” in unison. I grinned and rolled my eyes, walking around the table full of boys to the stairs.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” I told them as started up to the second floor, taking two at a time. Once we entered her room, I turned on her bedside lamp, making sure it was at its dimmest setting. I had a feeling that she would be having some pretty vivid bad dreams tonight, and if she woke up, I didn’t want her to wake up alone in the dark.

I also decided that, unless I wanted her to catch a cold two weeks before her birthday, I should probably strip her of her soaking wet clothes. Bummer.

“Hey, Calypso,” I whispered gently as I shook her awake. She took in a deep breath and looked up at me through drooping eyelids. I chuckled quietly, unable to help myself from laughing at how sleepy she looked. “Don’t freak out, but I have to take your clothes off. Do you mind?” She just shook her head and sat up, her eyes closing again and her head lolling forward. I stifled another laugh as I walked over to her dresser and picked up an oversized Betty Boop shirt, one that looked like it would at least fall below her butt.

Laying it on the bed, I walked back over to her. I quietly whispered for her to lift her up her arms and she mindlessly did as I said, her eyes remaining closed. Unthinkingly, I grasped the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. I thoughtlessly tossed it into her dirty clothes bin and turned back around to put her sleep shirt on when the brain in my head shut down and the one in between my legs jumped into high gear. All I could think was the fact that I was seeing Calypso’s boobs.

They were still in a bra—a plain purple one that complimented her brown skin tone beautifully—but they were magnificent. It seemed to be a push up bra, supporting her top half and making it seem extremely voluptuous and ready to spill out of its constraints. I had seen her breasts this exposed before when I had somewhat accidentally walked in on her changing, and the night that I had convinced her to wear the new lingerie that Alice had given her. But never had I been able to stare so outright before.

They were amazing in a way that was almost impossible to describe. They had an air of fantasy about them, the way they seemed to defy gravity and what with them appearing to be completely smooth. But they were real too, which made them that much more endearing. For example, one of her breasts appeared to be bigger than the other. And although they seemed to float on air, they didn’t have any kind of obvious boob job look about them, which was attractive on porn stars, but not real women (in my opinion). And there was a long, faded scar across her right one, something I intended to ask about when I had a better, more
appropriate excuse for why I knew about it.

I was compelled to touch them not only with my hands, but with my mouth and my chest. I was torn between just laying my head on them and feeling her warm flesh pulsate beneath my ear to the beat of her heart, or to rip her bra off and—

I turned and took a few steps away, shaking my head and reawakening my head brain and turning off my other one. Certain places were already becoming excited, and I didn’t want it to become visibly noticeable.

After taking a few deep breaths and calming myself down, I turned around again and put the shirt on her before I could even have time to naively convince myself that I could handle another look. I helped her out of her shorts and couldn’t help but smile again at her cotton Elmo underwear with Thursday printed on them in what was supposed to resemble a three-and-a-half year old monster’s handwriting. It was Monday. After quickly and gently towel drying her sopping wet hair—unable to help myself from littering tender kisses all over her head in the process—I helped her under the covers and tucked her in.

Before I left, I knelt beside the bed and held her hand for a moment, just looking at her. I soon realized that I was holding her right hand, the one with the scar. It didn’t stretch all the way across her palm, because her hand was bigger now than it was when she was five. Where the scar started and ended represented the width of her palm at that age, and it was so, so tiny. I looked back at her face and imagined her younger, only a child and being forced through that kind of pain by her own mother. I shuddered at the thought of it. She lived with that pain every single day, and still managed to be one of the brightest, most optimistic people I knew. Calypso was so much stronger than I—or anybody else—had ever realized.
I gently kissed her scar over and over again, thinking that if maybe I kissed it enough, it would disappear, and take all of its bad memories along with it. It didn’t work, and so I stopped.

“I promise, Calypso, that I will never hurt you like that,” I whispered into her palm. “Ever.” Leaning over to kiss her forehead, I got up to leave, but was pulled back when I felt Calypso squeeze my hand.

“Where are you going?” she asked me groggily, her eyes still closed.

“I have to go talk with Sam and the other guys right now,” I told her quietly.

“Come back, okay?” she whispered, rubbing the back of my hand with her thumb. I smiled.

“Always,” I promised. The corner of her mouth twitched before she let her hand drop and the
Land of Dreams reclaim her. I sighed contentedly as I walked down the stairs, my stomach calmly simmering with happiness.

“Aww, did you two make up?” Paul asked me in a condescending baby voice. I just nodded, trying to keep a smile from splitting my face in two. Even Paul couldn’t get me upset right now.

“Well, that’s good. Because we have some bad news,” Sam stated, getting right to the point. I looked at him, my brow furrowing. I plunked back down to earth from Cloud Nine, anxious about what was happening.

“What bad news? We haven’t had any bad news since the Volturi last came to town,” I asked. After hearing that thought out loud, my eyebrows knit together. “Is it them again?” Sam shook his head.

“Not quite…but it is a vampire problem.” My eyes widened and I tried to focus on keeping my breathing steady, suspecting something terrible.

“And does this vampire problem have anything to do with Calypso?” I asked them, keeping my voice level. All the guys exchanged wary glances, setting my teeth on edge while I awaited their response.

“There seems to be a new vampire that has taken some sort of an interest in Calypso, yes,” Sam cautiously answered.

“What?” I hissed, my fists clenching together as tight as they could. “What do you mean it’s ‘taken some sort of an interest’?”

Sam sighed, obviously not wanting to continue. “I mean, it’s been stalking her for a while now. My heart rate quickened as I raised an eyebrow at him.

“How long is ‘a while now’?” I asked in a low voice through clenched teeth, feeling my muscles involuntarily flex.

“About a month now,” Jared finally admitted after about three agonizing seconds of nervous silence. I slammed my fists against the table, making it creak under the sudden exertion.

“THERE HAS BEEN AN UNKNOWN VAMPIRE STALKING MY IMPRINT FOR A MONTH NOW AND I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT IT?” I roared, standing up abruptly and disturbing a few of the remaining dishes on the dingy tabletop. All the guys shushed me, waving me down and casting furtive glances up the stairs.

“Do you want her to hear you, dumbass?” Quil asked under his breath. Although I was still blindingly furious, he was right. The last thing I needed right now was to have to explain to Calypso how I had been keeping her in the dark about who I am. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly in and out of my nose, focusing on quenching the little flames that had flickered to life in the pit of my stomach. After a minute or so, I was able to stop my body from shaking and actually talk.

“Why am I only just now learning about this?” I questioned, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Because we didn’t want you to take preemptive action before any of us knew what was going on,” Sam answered, obviously relieved by the fact that I was calming down and was now able to somewhat listen to reason.

“And what is going on exactly?”

“Well…” Seth started, looking around the table for anyone who possibly wanted to tell me instead. When there were no takers, he continued. “He seems to follow her 24/7, really only going away to hunt. I don’t know who taught him this, but he’s obviously aware of the vegetarian vampire diet, and he hasn’t killed so much as one human as long as he’s been here. But even when Calypso’s alone and vulnerable—like taking a jog by herself or
something—he still doesn’t attack. Doesn’t even make a move to.”

I blinked, thrown off a bit by that. I couldn’t understand why a vampire would be stalking Calypso as vigorously as this one, and never go in for the kill, as horrific as that thought may have been.

“What do you think it means?” I asked the guys, wanting their input.

“We think it means that the vampire just has a crush on her,” Embry answered. My eyes flew open.

“What?”

“Think about it, Jacob,” Sam said. “Why else would he follow her constantly, yet never make any move toward her?” I did think about it, and he was right; I couldn’t come up with any other conclusion.

“Well, what’s our plan?” I asked, pulling myself together. Everybody looked at each other, obviously confused.

“Our plan for what?” Embry asked, just as confused as all the others.

“Our plan for killing the damned thing,” I clarified. They all just looked at me.

“Jacob, right now our plan is to just keep a very, very close eye on it until we see a reason to attack. But for now, we can’t kill it,” Sam explained.

“Why the hell not?” I asked, feeling myself getting angry again.

“Because it hasn’t shown any intentions of being violent toward Calypso or any other human
in this town.”

“And besides, it would just put us in the Cullens’ bad graces again,” Seth added.

“Oh, shut up, Clearwater. You just like being their little lap dog,” Paul snapped.

“Not even! I just like not having to fight with them anymore. It’s perfectly fine that I like to live peacefully with them, unlike you, who’s always trying to pick a fight. You’re like a puppy that needs to be neutered,” he retaliated.

“I’m sorry, are you calling me the puppy of the pack—?”

“Can you guys take this outside, please? We’re trying to handle adult business here,” Quil requested over their incessant bickering.

“Quiet. Both of you,” Sam ordered, silencing both Paul and Seth.

“Can I at least know what the disgusting bloodsucker looks like so that I can keep an eye on him too?” I asked. Sam sighed.

“That’s the thing. Remember the invisible vampire you ran into the other day?” Sam reminded me. I nodded warily. He shrugged and gave me a meaningful look.

“It’s him?” My teeth clenched again when he nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded, beginning to get angry again.

“Like I said, Jacob, I wanted to prevent any preemptive action you might have felt inclined to take.” I growled under my breath, trying to calm myself again. Sam sighed.

“Look, Jacob. I’m sorry. We’re sorry. We just had to be sure of what was happening before we let you know. But now you know, and now you know not to kill the vampire—no matter how much you may want to—unless you are sure that it’s going to attack Calypso, or anybody else.” I took a deep breath, suddenly feeling exhausted.
Sam must have sensed it, and told us to go home and get some sleep. We all dispersed, but I just drove my car a few blocks away and parked, waiting until I thought Sam was asleep. When I snuck back into Calypso’s room, she was in the middle of a dream. She was tossing and turning, muttering what sounded like, “There’s no place like home…there’s no place like home,” which eventually turned into, “Mommy come home…Mommy come home…”

Taking off my shirt, my socks and my shoes, I burrowed under the covers with her. She violently jolted awake, gasping for air and clutching at the sheets. I started, shaken for a moment by how disturbed she looked. Before I could say anything, she felt around for something and whimpered, “Jacob?”

“Shh, shh…I’m here love. I’m right here,” I whispered to her. I brushed back a few damp strands of her hair that were sticking to her slightly sweaty forehead before pulling her close to me and rubbing her back. Almost immediately after I had taken her into my arms, Calypso stopped trembling. Her breathing became regular again, and her muscles relaxed. She pressed her body against mine, and I could feel her frantic, fluttering heart slow to a normal
speed, and finally beat in perfect unison with my own.

“You won’t leave me, will you, Jacob?” Calypso asked after a few minutes. She was obviously floating in that space between sleep and consciousness, unaware of what she was saying. I decided to humor her anyway.

“Never ever,” I answered.

“Why not?” I smiled.

“Because there’s no place like home. I’m home when I’m with you, Calypso.” I looked at her, sleeping against my chest, her arms wrapped around me, and I knew that it was true. I felt more at home with Calypso than I did with anyone else. Calypso’s mouth turned up into a gentle, dreamy smile. She fell fast asleep in my arms.

Right where she belonged.