I Won't Say I'm in Love

I opened my eyes the next morning and looked at the large pile of clothes on my floor. I smiled. I had tried on every garment and modeled each one for Emily last night. She seemed to be very excited about it and even took pictures on her new camera. Then we had eaten the Cinnabons and did each other’s nails while talking about nothing in particular. It was finally Saturday and I figured all the boys would be downstairs. That one boy, Jacob, seemed to be very interested in me when I got home last night. I wondered why as I got dressed.

“What to wear, what to wear…” I hummed to myself as I dragged myself off the bed and to the clothes. I selected some light wash skinny jeans that were ripped again and again all the way up the leg from the ankle to my hip, and a blue and white striped, one shoulder shirt (Calypso's Outfit). I grabbed all my clothes and walked across the hall to the surprisingly empty bathroom. I locked the door, set my clothes on the floor and hopped into the shower. I let the warm water run over my body as I thoroughly washed my long black hair, courtesy of my white maternal grandmother, the only reason a black chick like me had hair like Pocahontas.

After I was done showering, I dried myself off with a white towel and got dressed in the bathroom. I then hung up my towel and went back to my room. I decided to wear blue and white hightops with my outfit today. Pulling my hair back into a neat, high ponytail, I went downstairs.

My prediction was correct; all six of the overgrown boys were crowded around the adorably tiny yellow table that always seemed to have bright wildflowers in the middle of it. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Emily greeted me with a smile. I returned it and she kissed me on the cheek as I went over to her to grab a plate of breakfast.

“Morning,” I replied smiling. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had kissed me good morning. It must have been years. “Morning, boys,” I greeted as I sat down at the table between Paul and Seth. That Jacob boy was staring at me again.

“Morning?” Jared said. I frowned at him as I chewed my food. “You do know it’s 12:30 in the afternoon?” he asked me. I looked at the clock on the wall.

“Huh,” I said in uninterested acknowledgment. I then went back to eating my breakfast.

“Do you always sleep that late?” Quil asked me. I shrugged my shoulders as I continued to cut my pancakes.

“Depends on how late I stay up,” I countered.

“So, I don’t mean to sound rude,” Embry started, leaning forward, his elbows on the table. “But who are you?” he asked simply.

“Embry!” Jacob, Sam and Emily scolded at the same time.

“What?” he said, shrugging his shoulders. I laughed like it was the funniest thing ever. It kind of was.

“I’m a runaway,” I told him simply. “I had to get away from my crazy family in Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn, New York?” Seth said from beside me. “That’s across the country!” he said. I nodded.

“The farther, the better,” I said, trying to keep the bitter tone out of my voice.

“So your family sucks ass, huh?” Paul asked from my other side.

“Not my family,” I corrected. “The people I’m genetically related to. Those people suck ass.” Everyone just looked at me in silence. At least the boys weren’t brushing off my running away as teenage behavior.

“Well, it sounds like you’re gonna be staying in La Push for quite a while, huh?” Sam asked. I shrugged as I drank down some of my milk. “Have you thought about school?”

“Ugh. I guess,” I said.

“Well, summer’s almost over for the boys,” Emily stated. “You could go to school with them.”

“You guys all go to the same school?” I asked them.

“Only one school to go to,” Embry shrugged.

“Well technically, two,” Jacob corrected. “La Push High School and Forks High School.”

“But Forks High is just filled with a bunch of white kids,” Paul pointed out. “There’s like, three Asians, four black kids and two Hispanics.”

“So whaddya say?” Emily asked, turning off the stove and pulling up a chair next to Jacob. “You wanna go to school here? It starts in a week.” Everybody was staring at me, waiting for me to make a decision.

As if he could read my mind, when I caught Jacob’s eye, he mouthed, “No pressure.” I smiled at him, then looked down at the table.

“Okay,” I said, looking back up at Sam and Emily. “I’m up for it.” Sam smiled.

“Great,” he said. “Now we just have to get you enrolled and you’ll be good to go.”

“I’m bored,” I said.

“Well, whaddya wanna do?” Quil asked.

“Think of us as your fun slaves,” Jared said, making me laugh.

“I kinda wanna go on a tour,” I admitted.

“Well Forks is off limits,” Jared said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Family reasons…” Jacob answered. He was reminding me of someone, but my first few night here had been rather blurred by my illness, and minute details were completely gone.

“Swimming?” I suggested. Seth shook his head.

“There isn’t a community pool for miles,” he said. “We have the Pacific to swim in on those rare days it actually gets warm.

“A movie?” I threw out, this my last hope.

“We can do that!” Jacob exclaimed, quite happily. I laughed.

“Good,” I smiled. “I was starting to wish I had runaway to L.A,” I thought aloud as me and the boys got up, starting to walk outside.

“Why didn’t you?” Paul asked as we walked toward two cars. parked in the gravel driveway

“I hopped on the first plane out of state and it happened to be going to Port Angeles, Washington,” I explained. When we arrived at the truck, I immediately smiled.

"Ooh!” I exclaimed. I ran to the truck and began examining it. “Oh man! I so want a truck like this,” I gushed, rubbing my hands over the body of it. “Whose is it?” I asked, beaming at the boys. Jacob smiled and raised a timid finger.

“Mine,” he answered. I smiled even wider. I jumped into the bed of the truck getting a leg up on the tire. I walked forward and then leaned on the cab of the truck, smiling down at Jacob.

“I want one of these, only bright blue,” I told him. I hopped out and stood by the truck. “And then, I’m gonna write a bunch of Marilyn Monroe quotes all over it and I wanna find a little kid to help me paint pictures on it,” I kept explaining. I found it was quite easy to talk to Jacob.

“You have it all figured out, huh?” Embry asked, ruffling up my hair as he and the other two boys walked to what seemed to be Paul's car. I smiled and nodded. Jacob was about to get into the driver’s seat when I saw something.

“It’s a stick shift?!” I exclaimed, running over to the driver side. “Oof,” I huffed as I tripped and hit the ground. But I scrambled up and stood next to Jake. He nodded.

“Yup. Only type I drive,” he said.

“Impressive,” I teased, nudging him in the shoulder and humoring him. “Can I drive?” I asked, smiling wide at him. He looked at me like I was crazy.

“Are you crazy?” Jared asked me from inside the car. “You did NOT just ask Jake if you could drive his truck.”

“Yeah, nobody is ever allowed to drive Jacob’s car,” Seth said. “EVER!” Jacob was still looking at me skeptically.

“Pleease,” I begged. He didn’t say anything, but just narrowed his eyes at me. I sighed.

“Pleease,” I begged softer, clasping my hands together and giving him the puppy dog eyes. He sighed and seemed to be softening a little bit, but not enough. I bit by bottom lip and put on my best puppy dog face. “Just this once?” I mouthed. He raised his eyebrows at me, on the verge of making a decision. “It would make me really happy…” I whispered. Now it was all a matter of winning the staring contest. Finally, he gave up. He rolled his eyes, threw his hands in the air and walked over to the passenger side.

“Yay!” I squeaked, doing a little happy dance.

“Get your cutesy butt in here and drive before I change my mind!” Jacob ordered, grinning. I smiled at him and slid in. He gave me the keys and I started the car.

“Off we go!” I shouted as we pulled out of the driveway.



“What to see, what to see…” I murmured to myself as I tapped my chin and looked up at the list of movies at the theater. Just then, my eyes lit up as I saw a movie I knew I wanted to see. “Oh I know! How about we go see Letters to Jul—”

Paul cut me off by putting his mouth close to my ear and murmuring, “If you say Letters to Juliet, I may have to hurt you. And I think I may be coming to like you. Don’t ruin it.” He stepped back and stood behind me with the rest of the boys.

“Okay…” I said. I looked for another movie which I quickly found. “Oh! What about Just Wright?” I suggested.

“No,” Seth said simply from behind me. I sighed agitatedly.

“Okay, what about Sex and the—” Jared immediately stopped me.

“Don’t even go there,” he growled menacingly. I huffed out.

“Well what do you guys wanna go see?” I challenged, spinning around to face them. “Something like, The Crazies?”

“Well, if you insist!” Jared said, pretending as if I had suggested it. All the boys walked up to the ticket vendor and began to purchase their tickets for the horror movie.

“Ohhh…” I whined, nervously dancing in place and toying with my hands, turning around to watch as they bought their tickets.

“What’s the matter?” said a voice from behind me. I turned around to stare Jacob in his warm brown eyes making my heart skip for reasons I didn’t quite understand.

“I don’t like scary movies,” I admitted to him in hushed tones.

“Why not?” he asked, smirking at me.

“Cause they’re scary!” I shouted, waving my hands up in the air. “I thought that was obvious!” Jacob shook his head and laughed. I just pouted and crossed my arms at him.

“C’mon, let’s go buy your ticket,” Jacob said. He placed his hand on my middle back and turned me around, steering me to the ticket vendor.

“Jacob will you buy it for me?!” I begged, stopping so that Jacob had to stop too. He looked at me questioningly, then laughed.

“Why?” he asked.

I looked at the lady in the window, scooted closer to him and whispered, “She looks like the bloody lady from the commercial for the movie we’re gonna go see.” He looked at her, then back at me.

“How?” he laughed in my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. I sucked my teeth and stomped away from him.

“I don’t know, she just does!” I whined.

“Hey! When you guys are done whispering nothings to each other or whatever you’re doing, meet us in the theater, huh?” Paul shouted from the snack bar. All of the boys then headed into the theater. Jacob sighed and looked up at the list of movies again.

“Tell ya what,” he said. “The boys have all already gone into the movie theater. Probably won’t even notice we’re gone.”

“And we’ll be…where?” I questioned, stepping a bit closer, slightly intrigued by the conversation.

“How ‘bout we go see Toy Story 3?” he suggested with a shrug.

“Sweet!” I screeched. I grabbed his hand and dragged him to the vendor to buy our tickets. “Two tickets for Toy Story 3 please,” I requested as calmly as possible.

“That’ll be $16.70,” she told me. I began to reach into my Invader Zim wallet to grab my money when Jacob slid it under the tiny half circle from behind me. He passed extremely close to me, his arm brushing mine when he handed her the money.

“I got this,” he told me quietly, flashing me a smile. She gave us the tickets and the two of us walked to the snack bar.

“Wanna just get two small popcorns?” I asked him while we waited in line.

“I don’t want a whole small,” Jacob argued, looking down at the ground. He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet. I looked at him skeptically. “What?” he demanded.

“Have you seen yourself lately? You and the boys never stop eating! ‘I don’t want a whole small?’” I teased, nudging him in the shoulder. He blushed and looked down again.

“I’m not that hungry,” he admitted.

“Wanna just share a medium then?” I suggested. He shrugged.

“That could work,” he agreed. He looked back at me and I smiled at him as we stepped up to buy our snacks. I couldn’t help but think that it was the “share” part that got him more than anything. We bought the popcorn and two large boxes of Junior Mints. Then, we walked right past the theater playing the one o’clock showing of The Crazies and walked into theater seven playing Toy Story 3.

Jacob’s Point of View

Every time I looked down at Calypso, I wanted to rub my lips all over her milk chocolate skin. Real chocolate obviously wasn’t enough for me anymore, considering I didn’t even finish my Junior Mints. She had her head on my shoulder and was watching the movie intently, my arm around her shoulders. It seemed to almost burn and that was saying a lot considering the fact that that my body was usually overheated anyway. My heart was palpitating and I was pretty sure it wasn’t because of the suspense of the movie.

We watched the movie onto the end where it became kind of sad. Almost a little scary…if you were six. I felt something wet drip onto my leg. I looked down at Calypso’s face and saw a tear come from her eye, joining the rest that had slid down her face and onto my lap. “You okay?” I whispered in her ear. She quickly wiped her face and sat up, sniffing her nose.

“Yeah,” she insisted, nodding.

“You know they’ll be okay, right?” I asked her. She nodded.

“Yeah, I know,” she lied. I grinned at her and put my arms around her shoulders so she had to lay her head back on my shoulder. Her tears spilled onto my lap once again, but I didn’t mind, simply because they were her tears. I brushed all the hair away from her ear that was facing up.

I then leaned down and whispered, “It’s a kids’ movie. They’ve got to get out of it safely.” I sat back up and saw her smile. She nodded and we both continued to watch the movie. By the end, she was crying again.

“Are you crying again?” I asked her softly. I couldn’t help but smile. She sat up and frowned at me playfully.

“Yeah,” she admitted as she wiped her tears. “But only ‘cuz I’m happy.” I nodded as I wiped a stray tear from her face. Both of us continued to watch the movie for the remaining five minutes, and then walked out of the theater.

“So what did you think of the movie?” I asked her as we filed out.

“I loved it,” she said smiling, throwing away the empty popcorn bucket. “Much better than The Crazies, I’m sure.”

“I’m glad,” I said. And I meant it too. I felt like I had just climbed Mt. Everest, and all because I had made her happy. I tossed my basically full box Junior Mints into the trash, but right before it disappeared into the garbage, Calypso’s hand had snatched it right out of the air. I wasn't able to help noticing a long scar that stretched across her palm.

“That would have been a waste of chocolate!” she exclaimed, popping a candy into her mouth. I laughed.

"Hey," I began. "I know this isn't any of my business, but...where did you get that scar from?" I asked. Calypso looked up at me, her face impassive. I saw her swallow.

"Um, my mom. Some shit went down a long time ago...no biggie." I could tell that this was, indeed, a biggie.

"Calypso, what—"

“Let’s just get to the boys,” she insisted, interrupting me as we headed out the doors. She sped ahead to Seth and Jared, both leaning against my truck, glaring at us.

“Where in the hell were you?” Jared demanded.

“We went to go see Toy Story 3 instead,” I said, winking at them. Calypso pushed right past the two, sliding into the passenger seat of the car.

Yeah. Who’d wanna sit in a scary movie and have a girl clutching onto you the whole time? That’s just stupid! Seth thought sarcastically.

Exactly. I’d much rather have to comfort her at all the sad parts and come off as sensitive all at the same time, I retorted with a smug smile.

Touché, he gave in. I smirked at him. He just rolled his eyes and got into the backseat of the truck.

Once everybody had piled in, I slid into the driver’s seat, next to Calypso. She was looking out the window as if she was upset about something.

Is Calypso okay? Jared asked.

I think she’s reminiscing about the times she had to stop her mother from killing her, I told him bitterly, unable to keep the anger out of my thoughts from the idea of someone hurting Calypso.

Are you serious? Jared asked in shock. I turned on the car and began to drive us to Emily’s house.

As a fat man's heart attack, I promised.

Jeez. She said it was bad, but I wasn’t sure if she was just being a drama queen or not, he admitted.

I remember Emily saying something about her mom being a nut, Seth contributed.

Well, I think we can safely say she’s not simply a drama queen, I said, ending the conversation. I looked over at Calypso and she looked away from the window and at me.

“Anybody else hungry?” she asked. She smiled at all of us, but I could tell there was something behind that smile. She was hiding something, and I was determined to find out what it was.