Attraction

73.

The fog covers most of the air making it hard for any human to see through it today, but it isn't as difficult for me now than it would have been given what I am.  My eyes flicker to the left from outside of looking out of the window to see Paul who is opening his car door. He insisted on going to get my car this morning after I wrote the address down for him, it's only been a few days so hopefully my car windows aren't shattered and my tires aren't slashed. After watching him drive away completely out of sight, I grab my charged phone and call my mom, three rings go by before she answers.

"Willow?!" She sounds relieved, my eyes would surely water right now if they could at the sound of her voice.

"Hey mom," I try to keep my voice from breaking, I'll need to come up with a really good reason for why I have so many missed calls from her. "I'm so sorry I didn't answer the phone—"

"How are you feeling? Quil and Layla told me you had the flu" She interrupts, bless them both.

"Oh, much better" I tell her, trying to sound convincing. I really don't like lying but it's beneficial to her life. "Paul made me chicken soup"

"That was so kind of him, did you tell him you don't like this chicken soup? Please tell me you ate it anyway" She continues to pry, I run my fingers through my hair.

"Of course, I ate it" I clear my throat. "How have things been?" Changing the subject is better than continuing to lie.

"I've just been busy with work, but other than that nothing much has changed. I'm glad you're feeling better," She tells me, "I've been talking to my manager about moving to Forks by next year, I think they are going to transfer me" A grin spreads across my face.

"Really? That's great!" I chirp, maybe when she does see me again she won't be too curious as to what I am. I would hate for her to get dragged into all of this.

"I'm very excited about it, too. But I know you're still recovering from being sick so I won't keep you. Get some rest Will, be strong for me, okay?" She tells me. Something in her tone makes me question if she knows exactly what's going on for a moment, I push away the silly thought. She couldn't know what's going on, not really. Even growing up my mom always told me the Quileute tribe's legends were just stories, she's never believed they were real and neither did I.

"Okay, mom. I love you"

"I love you, too" Our phone call ends while I set my phone down, a heavy breath of air leaving my mouth.
After snacking on a few salted chips and reading arbitrary posts on Google, I grow bored and decide to grab my camera and go to the forest. Maybe taking a few nature pictures will give me something to do to pass the time, something to do until I can figure out a way to show up to work without wanting to use my manager and every other human there like a juice box. It doesn't matter that my car isn't here, I don't need to take my car anyway nowadays. My sturdy walk to the woods seems to go by quickly even if I am just walking, running my way would surely catch any humans attention and cause a lot of trouble for me. The smooth click that comes from the camera is satisfying to hear, three Polaroid photos in and I'm still managing to catch some fantastic angles given that I've been climbing to the tops of trees. Birds, elk, the cliffs, the sky, all captured into pictures that I can keep in a photo book forever. Now that I really give it some thought, Paul and I barely have any pictures together at all which makes me feel displeased. Sure we have our Christmas picture together but I want more pictures with him, I want to capture as many memories with him as I can, I want to look back on our photos years from now despite the fact that aging isn't going to happen for me now. Still, keeping and making memories with Paul is important to me.
The ring of my phone almost startles me while I walk back up the hiking pathway to make my way back to my apartment in the slowly dying fog. As I press the phone against my ear and wait for Paul to speak.