Dog Days

- screamed. Panting heavily, I threw myself from my bed and stomped into the bathroom. Everything sounded so loud, so fucking loud. No one was awake, I knew, because as I stood at the sink and stared at myself in the mirror, I couldn't hear Mom thumping around in the kitchen. What time is it? I looked through my bedroom window across the room. Fuck, it was still dark outside.

I turned the faucet on and let the water get as cold as possible. My skin glistened with sweat, and I felt my stomach churn and tighten. I had nightmares all the time, but this one was really bothering me. It felt so familiar, like a word that was on the tip of my tongue but that I couldn't remember. I splashed my face with some water and turn the water off with a loud squeak. And instead of going back to bed, I head straight to my closet and get dressed for the day. It was Friday, the last day of the week and the only thing that I had to look forward today was -

Oh wait. Nothing.

With a heavy sigh, I grabbed my jacket and went down the stairs quietly. The clock chimed five o'clock as I entered the living room. I hated that clock – it was Dad's stupid idea to get it. He traveled to Germany on business years ago, and thought that getting the family a Cuckoo clock would be funny.

I was laughing the hardest. That clock never failed to piss me off, with it's loud and obnoxious cuckoo! cuckoo! It drove me insane. The only reason I hadn't thrown it against the wall yet was because Mom wanted a piece of Dad to remain the house, even if he was a twat and left her for a younger, uglier, fatter Asian woman by the name of Leona.

I hated Dad for what he did. He ruined our lives. And I wasn't going to let him win by ruining his fucking cuckoo clock. Oh man, did I want to, but if I smashed it against a wall, he would know that he broke my mother's heart, that he tore apart his family. And that twat wouldn't feel an ounce of remorse.

It was wet and dreary when I stepped outside. At five o'clock, it didn't surprise me. In fact, I was used to it. I left the house at odd hours of the day more than anyone knew. It was how I was able to escape from reality. I loved the wet smell of the air, the way that it stung my lungs. The dew would stick to my skin, like tape that you tear off but don't need. I had no idea where I was going, but it felt so good to be outside with no distractions, without the rush of air as cars drove by faster than they should. There were no dogs barking at me as I walked by the fences.

For the first time in a long time, I felt peaceful.



“Where'd you go this morning?” My twin brother Caleb plopped his lunch tray beside me on the table and pulled out a chair. “Mom was like, freaking out.”

“Oh come on,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Seriously. I do that like every single fucking day.”

Caleb smirked, and shook his head. “I heard you talking in your sleep last night. Another nightmare?” With a grimace, he picked at his lunch with the plastic white spork held delicately in his left hand. “God, this is disgusting. What is it?”

I rolled my eyes again. With Caleb, eye rolling just seemed to be a given. “It's inside out manicotti, dumb ass. Don't you listen to the announcements during the homeroom?” I took a large bite of my hot dog, and looked around the cafeteria. A lot of kids who lived on the Rez went to Forks High, mostly because they had a better curriculum and more activities. Caleb and I only went here because Mom didn't want us driving out to Forks everyday just to go to school, even though it was only ten, fifteen minutes away. The only kids who went to the high school on the Rez were the kids whose parents were really gung-ho about the tribe, and the legends. When we were little, Dad would always tell us the legends of the Quileutes. My family was full blooded Quileute, but Caleb and Dad were the only ones who believed the legends. I always took them to be stories, something that the tribe elders made up to make us feel safe, or some shit.

But honestly, the idea that a bunch of steroid injected men turned into giant wolves was ridiculous.

Caleb wanted the legends to be true so badly. When we were little kids, he always wanted to play wolves. He would creep around the house on all fours, jumping out from behind the couch when someone walked by. He never scared me, though. When we played wolves, I was the hunter, and I always won.

“You look like you're going to kill someone,” Caleb said quietly, poking his lunch again. His black hair fell into his eyes, hiding his face.

“Maybe I am,” I said with a smirk.

He looked at me sideways, and shook his head. “Seriously, Isa.”

All of a sudden, it was like the parting of the red sea. The lunch room grew dead silent as four guys walked in, carrying trays fulled to the max with food. They towered over everyone else, and could take down a grizzly bear with just so much as a twitch. No one knew how they got to be like that. I remembered last year, they were just a bunch of lanky, skinny boys who didn't really have any social skills. A few months into school, though, they started getting sick. One by one, they left school and were gone for months. It wasn't until this year that they came back, and they had definitely changed.

“Jesus,” I heard one of them say. “I'm never going to get used to this.”

They walked toward Caleb and I, but I prayed to God – or Zeus, Mother Nature, whoever – that they wouldn't decide to sit any closer to us. And of course, I would have the worst luck, because the four Steroids sat at the table adjacent to ours. No one had spoken yet, and I wanted to throw the table over and jump and shout – whatever I had to do to get these shitheads to fill the silence.

I stood up from the table, forcefully throwing my chair back as I did so. Caleb looked at me curiously, and I winked at him as I dumped the rest of my lunch into the giant trash can near our table. “See you at home, bro,” I said. “I'm out of here.”