Give Me Love

Being a senior in high school naturally meant I was going to slack off a bit in my classes. All of the teachers had grown to accept that in the course of their careers. However, today I found it ten times harder to focus on class. It was last period and no matter what class I was in, Seth managed to sneak into my head. Even my dopey chemistry lab partner, Taylor, noticed.

“Hey, did something happen over the weekend?” She flipped her artificial blonde hair out of her eyes. For whatever reason, her parents let her bleach her whole head to a dark blonde. Don’t get me wrong, it looked great on her, she had dark eyes and pale tan skin, the blonde highlighted all of that.. But I knew that if I ever came home looking like that my dad and probably my brother and come to think of it, Jake and Uncle Billy too, would kill me right on the spot.

“I tried to see what was up with Collin,” I shrugged. “You know he skipped school again today?” She raised her brows as our teacher, Mrs. Totten, released us to partner study for the test on bonding metals with nonmetals tomorrow. Easy stuff.

“He’s turned into one of those Hall Monitors,” she said it like a fact but I nodded anyway.

“Yeah. He has.” I sighed and looked at my binder full of notes and worksheets. “Do you need any of these to borrow?” She nodded and began to sort through my binder, copying what she needed. I let my mind wander, something that usually was a bad idea. Of course, my mind drifted back to Seth.

He was a Hall Monitor too. I openly sighed, though Taylor was too absorbed in the notes to notice. Collin was one, Seth was one, Jake too. Basically that whole group of people from Sam’s house, they were all Hall Monitors. That was the name for Sam’s little crew of jacked, tall scary guys that never seemed to come to school; and when they did they slept in classes and didn’t get in the slightest bit of trouble and glared at anyone who tried to talk to them that wasn’t in their little group.

To say they were intimidating was an understatement.

“Whatever, just focus.” I said outloud to myself, though Taylor again didn’t notice. It wasn’t like I really cared, we weren’t really friends, just classmates.

That’s how almost all of my relationships were; they were just my classmate or just someone who lived on the Res. I didn’t really have friends. Okay well, I had friends, but I didn’t really hang out with people from school. I mostly hung out with Collin, Jake, Quil and Embry... well I did. Now they were all always busy at Sam’s.

Before I could really pull together my thoughts the final bell rang and kids began packing up. The school day was over, I’d made it through alive. I chuckled to myself as Taylor handed me back my papers and thanked me. “No problem, call me later if you need any help?” I offered and she smiled and said she would.

I sighed and collected my things into my backpack, it was old and worn, I’d had it and used it every year since I was in the seventh grade. It had personality, Dad liked to say. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Collin as I moved out of the classroom and in the direction of the front of the school. I walked to and from school, it was only fifteen minutes but I usually had Collin to walk with.

Now that I thought about it, I walked a lot of places. Walking was good for you though, so I guess it was good that I walked everywhere. I sighed, I knew I was just trying to distract myself with stupid thoughts as the phone rang and rang, eventually I just hung up. I heard a pair of feet scramble behind me and someone was calling my name. I turned and saw Embry waving his big hand at me and calling to wait.

When he caught up he immediately brought me into a hug and I returned it, “Hey stranger.”

“Hey,” he responded with a grin as he let me go and we began walking to my house. “Mind if I come over? We haven’t hung out in a while.”

I sighed in happiness, “Sure, you can help me study.”

I motioned to my backpack and he scoffed. “Or we can do things that are actually fun.”

I laughed and nudged him, “How’ve you been?”

“Alright,” his face fell a bit and his brows drew together. “I miss hanging out with you, Kara.”

Something about his tone was off, “Well we’re together now, do you want to order a pizza when we get home?”

His eyes sparkled a bit at the mention of food, “Sounds awesome.” A silence fell between the two of us, and I could see that Embry had something on the tip of his tongue he wanted to say. “So, the other day... You came to Sam’s..”

I sighed, “Yeah, I did. I was looking for Jake and Collin.” A rush of memories from the day before flooded my mind. Flashes of all of the shirtless guys, the shocked faces, the smile of Seth. I shook my head and turned to look at him, “What’s going on?”

He gave me a faked face of confusion, “Nothing?”

“I know something is going on with you and everyone else.” I said with my arms crossed.

“Can’t we just forget about that stuff?”

I shook my head, “Are you guys doing drugs? Drinking?”

Embry let out a loud round of laughter before realizing my question was serious. “Of course we’re not!”

“Then explain to me why he’s never home and got so big so fast!” I threw my arms out in desperation.

Embry chewed his lip as he answered, “It’s called being a teenager.” I still wasn’t satisfied but I let it go. We were rounding the corner that lead to both my house and the Black property.

The two houses were divided by a patch of woods and a field that I usually walked around. It was still pretty nice out, it had only rained in the morning so the fields weren’t too muddy. I moved to cut through the field but a growl erupted from the wooded area closer to Jake’s house. My eyes widened, my blood was instantly filled with adrenalin as I turned to Embry who was taking off toward the sound.

“Embry?” I screamed his name and ran after him. Images of bears or mountain lions filled my head as I got my cell phone ready to call 911.As we got closer I saw a shredded pile of clothes surrounded by torn up grass and the group of guys from Sam’s house along with one of the tallest girls arguing with each other.

I rounded the corner and saw the blur of a body and then a form rush away. My heart skipped a beat and I stumbled a bit as Embry tried to get the attention of everyone. “Guys, what’s going on?!” Embry shouted over all of them and they seemed to notice the two of us.

The guy named Sam turned quickly and angrily to face Embry and myself, “Jacob’s gone. Seth is saying he’s going too.”

At the mention of Seth’s name my eyes instantly began to search for his kind face but he found me first. He ran up beside me and took my hand in both of his, “Are you okay? Did you see anything?”

I wanted to say I hadn’t. But I did. Maybe it was my eyes playing tricks on me. Or maybe my cousin had just turned into a giant monster.