Blood Moon (Paul Lahote)

Twenty Two: I'm Fine

"Nice punch." I compliment as I sit down next to him and cross my legs and arms. I focused on evening my breathing so I had something to do.

"Thanks." He says and stretches out his hand in front of himself, his knuckles turning a deep cherry red.

"So why did you do it?" I ask and he wipes his face with his other hand in frustration.

"I don't know." He answers and folds his hands together while leaning forward. "I just saw red...I'm still not sure what happened. Then after he called me that, it took all of me not to rip him to shreds....I'm sorry." Then he looks at me straight. His chocolate eyes shining brightly into mine. I've always noticed how pretty he was but at this moment, all I could think about was how beautiful he really is. Before I realized what I was doing, our lips collided together.

He grabbed by my waist and pulled me so that I was straddling his lap as he kissed me roughly. He slipped his tongue into my mouth and we fought for dominance, as if this was something that we both wanted for a long time. My hands creeped up from his neck to his hair, somehow trying to pull him closer than he already is. The space between us evaporated and my heart raced. Every inch of my body is melting into his and my thoughts are completely lost in our kiss. I knew this wasn't enough, but it was already more than I've ever dreamed. Then he slowly started to lay me back on the couch, now he was on top of me and grinding against me. He started to move down to my neck and sucked on my sweet spot and butterflies formed in my stomach. Panic set in an I freaked out from the sudden feelings I was having. I couldn't catch my breath and I felt like I was suffocating. I didn't even have to say anything to him before he quickly pulled away from me.

My chest felt tight and I can't catch my breath. My vision blurred and my head is spinning. I was still laying on the couch with my hands covering my face when he pulled me onto him. I hate people seeing me cry but my body feels paralyzed. He starts trying to calm me down.

"Listen to my breathing." I hear a voice far away. "Match your breaths with mine." I fix my breathing so our chests fall and rise at the same time and soon my sobs fade away. And the voice starts to become clearer. I forgot about him for a second until he startled me by wrapping his arms around me tighter. Nobody has ever seen me like this before, my last panic attack was in my car by myself. I feel embarrassed and frustrated that he's seen me like this and I hop off of him and onto my usual corner of the couch. We sit in silence for a moment and I sulk in my embarrassment before I hop up and get a drink of water from the kitchen. He soon follows behind me.

"Are you okay?" He asks. I gulp a drink of my water.

"I'm fine." I answer while filling my cup back up.

"Are you sure?" He presses. "You had a pretty good little panic attack back there-"

"I said I'm fine Paul!" I snap and I walk over the the fridge to pour myself some grape juice. I hear a knock on the front door and rush over to open it but the boys walk in, not needed an invitation. Em walks in with a huge stupid grin on his face and he pulls out a ziplock bag full of bud. He opens the bag and the room fills with the scent. I know it's gas.

"Nice." I say while smiling, then all sit on the couch while I break up the weed on one of Bella's books that were sitting on the coffee table. "Hand me the papers." I say and stick my hand out. I wait for a second for them to hand me the papers then I look up and they're all looking stupidly at each other. "Did you not get papers?"

"I told you we should have bought some papers stupid." Ateara whispered to Em, which annoyed me.

"Ya see..." Em starts and adds a little chuckle. "You didn't specify that you needed me to buy you papers." After he said that I wanted to throw the book and weed I was breaking up on the floor.

"Yes, I did Embry! I said 'buy me a half and some papers.'" I groaned as I clenched my teeth. I wanted to punch Em's dumbass so hard and I could see all the boys worry, and it pissed me off even more.

"It's fine Cail, we'll find something else to smoke with." Jake whines.

"Or we can just go out and buy me some papers." I say. "Hand me the leftover money." I look at Em and he throws his hands up.

"There isn't any." Ateara said in a whisper. At this point I was fed up and the way they were acting, especially Em, was pissing me off even more. I threw the book from my lap to the table.

"You got fucking scammed dumbass." I say and smack Em on the face while I walk to the stairs. "Smoke that shit yourselves." And I walk up the stairs and slam the door into my room. I punch the wall, which makes a loud bang and leaves a little dent. I hope the boys are clearing out by now so they didn't hear it. My heart is racing so I sit down on my bed to try and calm myself down. After a couple minutes of sitting there I look down at my hands, which are shaking. After a couple seconds of waiting to see if I hear anyone downstairs I open the door, only to find Paul. "Why are you still hear?" I grit.

"They just sent me to check on you before we leave." He talks calmly but it doesn't help my anger, in fact I'm angrier I than I was whenever I opened the door. I realized that my fists where clenched when I caught his eyes darting to them. I unclench my fists before I spoke.

"I'm fine." I say as cooly as I can. And I try to hide my anger and anxiety as best as I can.

"You don't look fine, you're shaking." He argues and I hate him for pointing out my shaking hands. I try to pretend that I'm normal as best as I can so he can leave. "You really worried me back there, if you need-"

"I don't need anything Paul!" I shout. "And I don't need you to worry about me!" I thought that would make him leave but he didn't even flinch and that made me even more angry at him. "GET OUT!" He still didn't move. At this point I was trembling with anger. I took a step towards him and pushed him towards the stairs, hard enough so he stumbled back a couple steps. He shook his head at me before heading down the stairs.

After waiting in my doorway till the front door shut I made my way into my dad's room to look for a cigar. Luckily there was an opened pack right by his dresser with a good amount still left in it. I took one along with a lighter and went into Bella's room to grab a book then went back into my room.

I sat on the bed, my hands still shaking, and rolled myself a blunt with the cigar. I pulled the chair from my vanity and sat down next to the window while I opened it. The window squeaked before finally budging open after a couple tries. I took a shaking breath before lighting the blunt and pulling.

A/N: Sorry I haven't published in a while, things have been crazy, but I'm working on the story again and I'll be posting more often.