Love Before Loyalty

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

These past few days have been torture. I wake up, go to school, come back to my room, and sleep. Every time I see Seth, he doesn’t look up, he is depressed. I know it. Sometimes at night, I hear a strangled howl. I know it’s him. I try to avoid him, but in this small town, it’s impossible.

Everyone in the family and pack know what happened. Rosalie hates me even more. They have all distanced themselves from me. Well all except Alice. She doesn’t give up. She keeps trying to get both of us into the same room together alone. I always sense it though and bail immediately.

I try to keep myself in my room at all cost. I am deep thought, thinking about my current predicament. I have been doing that a lot, reflecting while contemplating on my miserable existence.

Seeing Bella appear at my doorframe snapped me out of my thoughts. She gave me a small smile and said, “Come on, Carlisle wants to speak to you in his office.” She led me down the hall to Carlisle’s office. I was surprised to see that he wasn’t there. “He’ll be here in a minute. Don’t worry.” She told me

A minute later, when I was deep in thought, someone stepped into the room. It wasn’t Carlisle. “Hey Carlisle, Bella said you wanted to tell me something?” Once Seth stepped into the room fully, the door slammed behind him. “You two are not coming out until we hear that you have solved your relationship problems!” Bella shouted through the door.

“Don’t you think this is a tad bit- oh I don’t know- EXTREME!” I shouted back, “You both realize that I can crack this door open like a toothpick right?” “Yeah, but it’s Carlisle’s door. And you wont do that to him” Alice smartly replied. Urgh! No matter how much I didn’t want to admit it, she was right. Carlisle has been nothing but nice to me, I’m not going to break his door.

I sighed and gave up. My eyes glanced towards Seth. His eyes were adverted to the floor; his hands wrung together, standing awkwardly at the side.

After a long uncomfortable silence, I couldn’t take it anymore. “So… what’s up with you?” I looked straight at him. “Erm… you know, stuff…” He replied. Well, that’s nice. “Listen, we need to talk, but not here. They are all listening in.” I said. Seth nodded in agreement. “But how are we going to get out of here? They locked us in.”

I can easily unlock the door with my skill, but I had a feeling Alice would be out there. I opened up my mind block and thought EDWARD! I was sure I had his attention then. I want to talk to Seth without any eavesdroppers. Do you think you could distract Alice for a while Seth and I go to the river to talk? With that, I closed my mind up again.

After a while, I heard Isabella call out to Alice. “Alice, Edward’s taking me out tonight, could you help me get ready?” A second later, Edward’s voice flooded my ears. “They’re gone! You’re free!” I used my skill to unlock the door and signaled Seth to follow me. With a dumbfounded expression, he followed me out the door.

We walked to the river in a comfortable silence. When we reached, I turned to Seth and said. “Listen, I like you, I really do. I have never felt this way before, it kind of scares me really. But I can’t. I have some crap I need to clear up before anything happens.”

“What can’t you do? Imprinting on you doesn’t mean you have to marry me! I mean I’m only 18 for pete’s sake! All I want is to be there for you! Can we do that? Be friends?” What he said made me feel like he just stabbed me in the heart. Like he rejected me. If I’m right, it’s called ‘Friend-zoned’ by teens these days. A part of me did want to marry him; a part of me wanted us to be more than friends.

I snapped back into reality. Friends. That’s all we can and will be. I need to free my sisters. I nodded and stretched out my hand, “Friends?” He took it and smiled, “Friends.” I could see his smile was forced though.

“So friend, since you haven’t seen much of forks yet, wanna go with me on a da- friendly outing around town?”

I nodded and smiled, “Lead the way.”