There's Always a Catch

When I awoke, I had some major grovelling to do, to Emily obviously. I got myself ready, feeling refreshed today, and jumped into my truck and drove to Emily’s. I pulled up and noticed that Paul’s car was here too and somehow, I was even more excited.

I knocked on the door and it opened immediately, showing my the friendly face of Seth Clearwater.
“Casey, you’re here early!” he says happily and I shrug and give him a greeting hug. Seth led to me to the living where Emily, Sam, Paul, Jared and Leah were. I smiled softly at Paul who sat up straighter when I walked in.

“Em? Could I talk to you?” I say just above a whisper. Emily nods and gives me a warm smile, my guilt worsened.
We went into her and Sam’s bedroom, Emily sat down and patted beside her.
I take a seat and take a deep, reassuring breath.
“I just wanted to apologize about how I acted yesterday…it wasn’t your fault. I blame my hormones and stuff. I really didn’t mean to yell at you” I say, hoping desperately she would forgive me.

Emily shakes her head, amused. “Casey, I was never mad at you sweetie. I understand, but if it helps, I accept your apology.” and I almost cried with relief. I rushed and hugged so tightly, she almost couldn’t breathe.

We talked some more before we went back out and the guys instantly started talking, pretending they hadn’t listened in. I was about to sit down opposite Paul when he reached his arm out, without a word. He took my hands and pulled me close, and made me sit on his lap. I was now feeling self conscious that I weighed a ton on him. Paul wrapped his arm around me and pulled my legs up across the arm chair. I was quite comfortable actually. No one said a word as Paul and I sat like this.

He strokes my hair and I leaned against his shoulder, embracing his warmth. My stomach stared at me and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I wish I had come here before I got pregnant, before I even met my ex.
I wish fate could have given me the easier option, yet I knew life wasn’t that fair.
Paul murmured things to me, telling me to relax and I nodded but couldn’t do it. I was so worried at what would happened when I actually had the kid.

“Paul, we’re going cliff diving! You coming?” Jared asks cheerfully. Everyone looked at us. Paul glanced at me and shook his head. He wasn’t going because of me, I felt even guiltier.

Even though I didn’t want to go up to the cliffs in this freezing cold weather and I didn’t want to sit there while they all the fun. I knew, I couldn’t let Paul stop having fun.
“I want to come!” I say suddenly and Leah looks at me as if I was insane.

“Casey, you’re-” Leah prepared to say.
“I’m not going to jump obviously, but I want to watch. I’ve never seen you cliff dive” I say, hoping they’d take pity and let me.

“Casey, it’s cold out there. We’ll stay here and watch movies and stuff” Paul says, looking at me gently. I shake my head defiantly.

“Well you can sit on your own, I’m going with them. You in or you out?” I tease and Paul rolls his eyes, knowing he had no choice but to join in.

“Fine, but you’re putting loads of layers on” he warns me and I giggle, feeling warm inside and touched that he cared so much for my wellbeing. And the baby’s.

“To the cliffs!” announces Seth. Emily decided to stay, well Sam told her to stay but she didn’t seem to mind. I must admit, I admire their relationship it was so full of love, protection and security. It was perfection almost. I wanted that.

After layering myself with three of Paul’s sweatshirts, which I’ve never seen him wear, a coat and scarf. We were allowed to leave. Emily told us to be back by Lunch and Sam promised they would be.
The walk up the cliff was agony, my back was killing me and I almost considered walking back but I saw Paul’s face, growing excitement as we neared the edge of cliffs. He glanced at me and gave me that caring smile that I adored. We were walking side by the side, at the back of the group because I was the slowest walker and Paul refused to leave me. Not that I minded.

We were getting closer at proximity and I could feel his warmth radiating through the coats and sweatshirts. I feel my cold hand be entwined with his large, warm one and he interlaces our fingers slowly together as if testing our limits. I knew I should push him away and not lead him on but it felt so nice, so right to be like this with him. I tightened my grip which gave him the signal that we were okay to do this. While holding his hand my brain thought of so many things as to why I should explain to Paul why we couldn’t get romantically involved. Yet my heart was saying one thing, loud and clear.

Do it.
I had listened to my heart once when I first met, him. I took the biggest risk and believed him and loved him. I had just about go it together and I was going to stupidly do it again, but this time with Paul who I’ve only just met yet I felt such strong feelings for him it seemed impossible.

I wasn’t sure if I loved him but I definitely felt something more than friendship and I knew by the way we were holding hands, Paul felt the same. I knew that this couldn’t last, I had a kid on the way and I had to raise it on my own just how I planned. Paul would have to wait, I would have to wait.

My happiness wasn’t that important anymore. It was about my baby.

“Paul! Casey! Hurry the hell up!” Jared shouted and we quickened the pace, and finally reached the top of the cliffs. It was a beautiful view, despite their being no sunshine and the clouds were covering the sky with it’s grey dullness, it was still breath-taking.

“Wow” I say in appreciation and Paul smiles at me, making me feel even more in appreciation, of him.

“I HATE YOU JARED!” the bellowing voice, of Seth was heard. Jared had just pushed him off. I gasped, worried.

“Will he be okay?” I ask panicking slightly. Paul and the others chuckle as if I just said “Can I jump?” but I asked again anyways.

“He’ll be fine, we’ve had years of practice of this” Sam assures me and I nod gently.
“Here, sit here Casey” Paul says and takes me to a huge boulder that was near the edge but not too close that I’d hurt myself. Paul wrapped his arm around me and I leant in, we watched the others jump off. When Seth finally appeared again, not appearing to be out of breath as he got here quite quickly.

I urged Paul to have a go.

“I’m fine, I’d rather watch” he insists. I roll my eyes and nudge him.
“Paul! Go jump off the cliff!” I say and I realize how I worded it, I giggled and Paul laughed too.

“Come on Paul. I’ll look after her” Seth encourages and I smile gratefully at him. With some more persuasion from me, Paul decided to jump. He took off his shirt and handed it me. It was so warm.

His body was literally a work of art and I couldn’t help but look a second longer than necessary. Paul smirks at me.

“Like what you see Casey?” he teases and I roll my eyes but my cheeks burned slightly.
“Just jump” I mumble and Seth took Paul’s place where he sat before. Paul stretched slightly, and I saw the tattoo that all the boys and Leah seem to have on some part of themselves. I was going to ask Paul later why that was.

Paul turned around and faced me, he gave me a smile that sent flutters in my stomach. He was so beautiful, did he not realize this?

“Seth, bring her down after I’ve jumped” he calls and Seth nods whereas I merely stared at Paul, waiting anxiously for him to jump, and survive.

Paul winks at me before turning back around and doing a flip in the air, diving right over. I gasped with amazement and rush to the edge, with Seth holding me back slightly. Paul dived all the way down and for a minute I thought the currents would wipe him out. But they didn’t. The water splashed and soon a head of black hair popped back up. He looked up and waved, Seth and I waved back. He made it.

Paul began to swim back, Jared, Leah and Sam cheering for him. Seth looks at me and smiles brightly.

“He’s a bit of an expert at cliff diving” he jokes and I laugh. We turned to make our way down, and Seth brought up Paul again.

“You know, you’ve really helped him” Seth says suddenly and I stopped walking, completely speechless.

“Me?” I ask incredulously. Seth grins widely and nods.
“Yep. You. Paul use to be such an ass to everyone, well except Jared and Sam. He was a bit of a player too but now, ever since he met you. He’s being…a decent guy” Seth confides and I found it hard to believe Paul was really a horrible person before he met me. I did believe that he would be a player though, girls would drool over him.

“I don’t see why you’re thanking me. I didn’t do anything” I insist, as I stepped over an overgrown tree root.

“Exactly. You didn’t need to, just by you coming here changed him. It changed everyone” Seth says and I was touched by his words.

“I don’t get why I made some an impact. I’m just some knocked up chick” I say sourly and I feel Seth pull me back gently and looked at me with firmness.

“You’re not some knocked up chick Casey. You’re a kind, funny, honest, sweet, beautiful girl. Whoever did this to you is some insane jerk and the fact that he didn’t even have the decency to stand by you during this is a heartless thing to do.” he says passionately and I could feel my eyes well up.

“Thank you Seth, that means a lot to me” I whisper, and he pulls me into a hug and I embrace it tightly. As we walked back, our friendship being much stronger I couldn’t help think of what Seth had said about Paul.

Paul was a player, so would he play with my heart too?
Or had I really changed him?
--
“There she is!” Jacob said, as he saw Seth and I walk out of the forest finally. Jake had been hanging with Bella today, so I was surprised to see him.

“Jacob!” I say and hug as a greeting. I hear a cough slightly and I turn around and see Paul, his head soaking wet but he was wearing fresh clothes.

“The dive was amazing! I want to go cliff diving as soon as I’ll be able to!” I say and I notice Paul smile, the frown.

“Well, that’s a long time yet” he says, sounding edgy. He didn’t want me to go diving, obviously.

“Speaking of time…isn’t it Lunch?” Jake asks and soon Emily’s voice is heard. Everyone piles in and we dig in our feast. As I took a seat beside Paul and Leah, a much smaller portion to them, I began eating when I felt something kick inside of me. A proper, firm kick.

I dropped my fork with a clatter. Paul looks at me panicked, and worried.

“Casey? What’s wrong?” he asks me.
“The baby just kicked! It kicked Paul!” I squeal in shock feeling happiness overwhelm me. Paul seem to sigh with relief.
“That’s so cool!” Leah says and I grin somewhat with pride.
“Is that the first time?” Jake asks me and I nod. I almost jumped up and down with excitement.

Then my baby did it again “Paul!” I squeak and I grab his hand automatically and put it on my stomach, the baby kicked again and it made me giggle.

“It tickles” I whisper to Paul, uncaring that everyone was staring at our intimate moment. Paul’s hand was under mine and his smile widened as he felt the kicks.

“Wow. It’s so real now” Paul says and I nod, smiling softly at him. I couldn’t help feel pleased that Paul was so excited as well.

“I have to go tell Carlisle! Come with me?” I ask and Paul nods eagerly, completely ignoring that he disliked the Cullen’s. So we finished up our lunch, Paul and I rushed to the Cullen’s house/mansion and told them, Carlisle was thrilled for me and I felt so content and loved, despite the fact that none of these people were family.

It felt like they were.
And that’s all that mattered right now.