Mimic | Jacob Black

24. Let's Take It From the Top

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One, two, three, one, two, three.

The sound of the guitar strings reverberated through the open air. It was one of those rare days when the clouds in the sky dispersed to allow warm rays of sunlight to shine down onto the town below. River closed his eyes and relished in the peace as his fingers repeatedly pulled at the strings with no reason or rhyme. He had been playing a lot, but right now, just the basic sounds were enough to relax him. He heard the insects buzzing in the air around him. The warmth from the sun stretched across the grassy yard, heating everything to be almost like a warm blanket, enveloping him, even though he was mostly in the trees' shade. The spots where the sun peeked through the trees heated certain areas of his body, but not to an uncomfortable degree. It was a lot more like being in Phoenix than Forks.

River was lying on the picnic blanket with the guitar resting across his torso as he continued to absent-mindedly stroke the strings.

One, two, three, one, two, three.

His mind always seemed to be running at incredible speeds these days, so being able to shut everything out on occasions like this really helped. In the last couple of weeks, River had noticed more strange dreams. They weren't like Alice's vision, though. In fact, they seemed completely random, having nothing to do with him or anyone he knew or Forks. He never could decipher much out of them. Most of the time he would hear short, random, unmemorable conversations in a murky area he couldn't make out. That included faces, too. But this past week he hadn't had any more.

He had a suspicion that whatever they were, they were related to those voices he had been hearing. He thought so because he only ever heard the voices when he was incredibly worried or anxious or stressed. Maybe these memories were an evolution of that, coming to him suddenly because he faced stressful situation after stressful situation and it just put such a heavy strain on his mind. But things had mostly calmed down now, which further supported that theory since he was seeing the memories less and less.

River's emotions were still all over the place–they had been that way since Bella first shut down. Most of the time it was fine, but sometimes his mind would flare up, seemingly out of nowhere, like mood swings that just happened for no reason. Well, he supposed that was how mood swings usually worked, but it still felt strange. Not like him, more like–

Jacob.

River sighed and opened his eyes as he pulled out his phone, flipping it open and scanning through his contacts until he found Jacob's number. The last message from Jacob was weeks ago.

I'm sorry.

River never responded. He just didn't know how to deal with this. He was waiting to feel ready, but he never did. It didn't seem like Jacob was that eager for a response, anyway. It sounded more like his parting words. Like he expected nothing more from River, but wanted him to know he was remorseful, at the very least. River picked at the strings again.

One, two, three, one, two–

"Hey."

Bella appeared in River's vision. There was a curious look on her upside-down face.

River raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"You okay?" she asked, glancing at the phone.

River put it back in his pocket. "I'm fine."

"I'm always here if you need to talk about it," Bella offered.

"There's nothing to talk about, really."

Bella was quiet for a moment. "He did miss you, I can tell."

Bella had been trying to talk reason into Jacob after their last meeting, but then Jacob stopped responding to her after a few days.