Blood Moon (Paul Lahote)

Twenty Six: Birthday

I was awake. Lying flatly in my bed and staring at the ceiling for a good 15 minutes until I decided to get out of bed. Paul was already out of my window and on patrol this morning. He left the bottom drawer of my dresser ajar, his pants and shirts out in the open. I rolled my eyes and closed it for him. Slipping on a shirt from my dresser, I picked the blankets and pillow off of the floor next to my bed and put them inside of my closet. He's insisted on staying with me for the past week, not leaving me a second alone with a vampire in the house. We haven't slept in the same bed yet, and I've never uttered more than two words at a time to him since the day we met with the Cullens. I stared at the blankets on the closet floor and thought back to last week.

"Oh my fucking god!!" I groan, snatching the scarf off of my neck and slamming it onto the floorboard of the car. I flung the door shut and took Emily's jacket off of my back and threw it right on top of the scarf. I threw myself back into my seat and flattened my chest with my arms. "This is so unfair!"

"I know." Paul calmly says, making my face even hotter. He gets into the drivers seat and starts the rabbit.

"How dare he calm me down!" I fume, now realizing that one of the vampires was to blame for my sudden change of mood in the woods. "That leech wanted to look into my head so badly, and I let him! He got what he deserved! Maybe if he respected people's privacy he wouldn't have gotten "hurt"." I say, adding air quotations as I vented.

"Yes, it's unfair. I know." He says as he takes off, heading back to La Push.

"I'm not moving." I grit, trying to hold back the fire in my voice.

"That's not up to you anymore." Paul argues and looks as if he's straining himself to not grip the steering wheel.

"So, I can't make decisions about my own life anymore? That's how this whole imprint thing works?" I growl.

"You know that's not what I mean." Paul says, shaking his head with his voice still sounding as smooth as a stream. "I'm doing this for your own protection."

"I won't allow it." I spit through my teeth. "You can't make me move."

"Cailyn, I will drag you out of that house myself." Paul booms, his voice an octave lower than I've ever heard it before. I knew it was supposed to be a threat, but I used it to prove my point even further.

"Do it then!" I shout. "See which side my dad takes! I doubt it'll be yours. What are you even going to tell him?"

"That you want to move in with your mom." Paul shrugs and I was fuming in anger.

"That woman is not my mom!" I exclaim. "She might be my biological mother, but what the hell has she ever done for me besides given me a stupid fucking hug?"

"She's been through more than you can imagine." Paul says, still calm. I wished so badly that he would yell at me. Get in my face and tell me to shut the hell up because it's what I deserve. I wanted him to argue back with every bone in my body. I wasn't even thinking about how careless I was. He's never had problems controlling his anger around me but I didn't even think of it. He could have snapped and tore me to shreds at that moment and I was dumb enough to not even remember that the boy next to me could turn into a gigantic wolf. "She thought she was doing the right thing."

"She ruined my life!" I yell, not wanting to hear her excuses. Now tears streamed down my face. "Imagine." I choke, trying my best to hold back my sobs in order to get the words out of my mouth. "Imagine... how much easier my life would've been if I'd just grew up with all of you in La Push." My voice cracked at the last word. He reached out to touch my hand but I quickly smacked it away. "Don't touch me." I say and wipe my tears with my hands. I faced out the window for the rest of the ride back to Emily's.