I Never Meant to Start a War

According to Google, it takes about a half hour to get to the small Quileute reservation not far outside of the Forks population. And it was rather accurate estimation, all things considered. There were hardly any street lights around town, and the 101 led right into the small chunk of land belonging to the archaic tribe, but the forest-framed road was still longer a journey than anticipated. Bella and I sat in the cab of her ancient truck the entire time, the radio softly playing in the background of our casual conversation. Both her and I glanced anxiously toward all mirrors along the way, almost as if expecting to find a tail.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of the vampires that loved us chose to follow us to the border.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked Bella, glancing over at her past my big white sunglasses that have more than likely gone out of style, but the sun usually never shown over this small town. She squinted out the windshield.

“Jacob’s,” she said. “We’ll meet with him, and we will more than likely end up going to Sam and Emily’s. And don’t worry—you’ll like them.”

But would they like me?

The thought had been looming in the back of my head through this short car ride. I wasn’t worried about their opinions of my person, obviously, but rather of the way they knew me—the other vampire girl. The other leech lover. No matter what they thought, I had a feeling deep in the back of my mind that this was going to be interesting.

We managed to come across the beginnings of this small reservation only a handful of minutes before we reached our destination: a small, homey reddish brown cabin nestled in between chunks of forest. Bella pulled up to the curb, shutting down the load roar of her truck and letting us finally hear silence, silence enough to hear someone call out her name questionably.

“Bella?” we heard from the direction of the house, and Bella, who was to the front of the car now, automatically looked toward the sound. A tall boy, almost man, stood in the doorway of the cabin that seemed much too small for his toweringly large figure. He was muscular to go along with the height, russet skin pulled tight over the muscles that he flaunted with the absence of a shirt. I frowned slightly but he didn’t see me—he was grinning toward my best friend, running over so that he could engulf her into a hug that swallowed her small frame up.

He looked awestruck. “I can’t believe you’re here!” he exclaimed, sounding like a kid rather than a sixteen year old protector. Bella smiled. “I thought your leech wouldn’t let you come alone!”

“That is why the warden let her go,” I said smoothly from my stop half in, half out of the truck, a small smirk on my face. He hadn’t noticed me at all, and my words startled him. I smiled. “She came with supervision.”

“Jake, this is Marie,” Bella immediately introduced, pulling him over to me as I slipped from the cab. I closed the door and turned around as she said, “Marie, this is Jake.”

“Yes, of course,” I purred, teasingly grinning toward Bella. “This is the infamous Jacob Black.”

It fed to his ego. “Infamous?” he asked me with a small smirk, his eyebrow raising angularly. Bella turned a shade of scarlet.

“Of course; you’re the young, headstrong werewolf intent on stealing the heart of our Bella Swan here. I’ve heard so much about you.”

My name seemed to click in his head. “You’re the leech lover, right?”

“Jake!” Bella hissed, appalled. I would have thought she was at least used to it, or at the most expecting it.

“Yes,” I said, laughing slightly despite myself. “I guess you could say that. And before you get to thinking, no, I am not nearly as biased as them, but not nearly as open-minded as Bella. I am just here for peace of mind.”

“About what?” he asked, and Bella shot me an exasperated look. I almost wanted to apologize.

Without my emotional anchor here, I felt exposed. Lost. Almost, effected, whether by the world around me or the people in it. I played the part that the werewolves would expect of me: aloof. I let myself think it was because I didn’t care what they had to say about me.

But, really, I knew it was the same reason as to why I deluded myself into thinking sunglasses would help.

We all forgot about the phenomenon called imprinting.

I smiled toward Jacob. “Like I said, some are a little biased.”

He looked me over for a long time, irritation flickering in the back of his eyes, but curiosity was stronger. Finally, he rolled his eyes.

“So will you be supervising us for the rest of the day?” His voice was casual, but a flash of pure rage flashed across his face and made his hands shake for a few moments. I shrugged, glancing around.

“Probably not,” I told them. “You two can catch up, and I’ll just wander until I am needed.” I shrugged, and I could tell that I had just won brownie points with this beaming werewolf.

Bella looked a little uneasy. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s okay. Do you have your phone?”

“Er,” she said, and spent a moment looking for it until she finally located the small silver phone in her coat pocket. She held it up and I rolled my eyes before smiling, turning and looking around at the unfamiliar territory.

Don’t get me wrong, having grown up in Forks, I have visited the territory around it at least once, but not well enough to be able to walk around without fear of getting lost. Jake noticed my lost expression and smirked.

“The beach is that way,” he said, pointing to his right. “Basically, it’s the only interesting place to go unless you want to wander around the forest. Which I don’t recommend.”

I nodded and had another couple of minutes of conversation until I bid my goodbyes and went on my way, listening to the silence and feeling the cool chill of the wind rolling off of the water. The shore stretched out in front of me before I had time to comprehend that I had arrived, the cliffs looming off to the side like a constant reminder of the twists and turns of my life lately. I didn’t like that I was interrupted in my viewing of nature by my pessimistic mindset.

The shore wasn’t as I expected it—sandy, but rocky, and I winced as a sharp pebble or perhaps even rock dug into my heel, my shoes hanging from my hand’s loose grip. I found a spot on the deserted beach and sat down, staring out into the horizon, at the light gray sun and where the murky water met in the sky, at the strips of sunshine dancing across the water. It was a beauty that mankind was slowly and surely destroying.

I remembered a promise, and pulled out my phone.

It barely rang once. “Marie?”

“I’m not dead yet,” I teased Jasper a little dryly, but I felt a small smile on my lips nonetheless. He breathed a sigh into the phone, and I could imagine him relaxing whatever tense posture he had been sitting at since our departure.

“What took you so long to call me?” he asked, and I was a little taken aback by the question, seeing as Jasper was never usually the type to sound so possessive. What Alice was seeing must really be frightening him. I played it off as if I didn’t notice his change in character.

“We basically just got here. You should know enough about Bella’s truck to know that we took all the time in the world to get here.”

He chuckled slightly, and I kind of smiled.

“I’m sitting on the beach,” I told him, breathing in the salt air as a breeze of it whipped around me. I breathed out. “This is the only beach I have ever been to, did you know that? It’s peaceful here. Almost entirely deserted, apart from me. Blue sky, blue ocean, rocky sand . . . It’s very picturesque.”

“Are Bella and the mutt with you?”

“Not far away,” I fibbed somewhat, closing my eyes as another breeze played at my hair, smiling to myself and wishing I could stay here forever. But I couldn’t, and I knew it. This was werewolf territory—this was the one place where I wasn’t welcome. “In any case, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Jasper sighed at my attempt to ease his nerves, something I had been trying all day today to do. But I felt a smile playing in his words as he said, “I love you, you know that?”

“How could I ever forget?” I laughed, biting my lip. “Jazz, I have to go, okay? I’ll call back when we’re about to leave.”

The atmosphere seemed to shift to another emotion even when I wasn’t in his proximity, and I felt a hint of fear, a hint of annoyance, and a hint of jealousy. But his voice sounded content and soothing when he said, “I’ll be eagerly awaiting your call, darling. I love you.”

“I love you too, Jazz,” I whispered before I closed the phone, and the only thing that bothered me was that it felt like a lie.

~*~

Before I had gone off on my own, Bella and Jacob had given me an address—a number and a street, but no instructions to turn right or left or what have you. And it didn’t seem to occur to me until this moment that La Push was a strange place. I didn’t recognize where I was, and the street signs floated through my brain like I suppose written words would to someone with dyslexia. I seemed to be going in circles, wandering, lost. I didn’t like the feeling of being lost.

I took a deep breath as I neared an intersection, and I gazed over at the street signs being broadcasted on the rusty stop sign—La Push and Quileute Heights. I needed the latter. Perfect. I turned the sharp corner, thick with leaves and shrubbery pervading into the walking space.

And I walked right into someone.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” I gasped, a knee-jerk reaction as I looked over to see who was now side-stepping me, coming to a stop too close, awkwardly close. I made my mistake—one simple, careless, unidentifiable mistake—I looked up into his eyes.