The stars are burning bright [jacob black story]

The stars are burning bright [jacob black story 03]

When the alarm sounded that morning I was already awake. I had been that whole night. I slowly moved my hand over to my night stand to shut it off. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to replay last night's events.

It took an extremely long time to get home; longer than I had expected. And the whole way there I kept hearing howls. It sounded like there were wolves all over La Push--and that creeped me out. I'd never heard a wolf, of any kind before. And last night, it sounded like there were at least ten.

I shuddered slightly to myself as I thought of the horrible wails. Not to mention, the other noises...

I felt another chill down through my spine as I remembered the noises I'd heard last night. The scrapping on my window, yet again--not to mention the even louder howls. The howls sounded as if they were coming from my front yard.

But of course, I was just being paranoid.

But it wasn't just the wolves and scrapping on my window that had caused my night to be horrible. It was the phone call I'd gotten at around one.

I pulled my phone off my dresser and called my voice mail. I held the phone to my ear and replayed the message. For the hundredth time.

"Teg," said an oh-so-familiar husky voice. "It's Stephen. Look. I know that you are probably hating my guts right now. But...I just wanted to tell you that I made a huge mistake. And that I miss you...a lot. Call me when you get this...I-I love you."

I bit my lip and closed the phone. How could he do this to me?

After he cheated on me.

After I moved.

How could he do this?

I contemplated calling him back all night...but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

And I wasn't sure if I was ever going to.

It was just too hard. It was too hard to even think about him--much less, hear his voice...

It was too hard to hear him say he loves me.

He loves me...

I shook those thoughts out of my head and pushed myself off the edge of my bed and headed downstairs to get something to eat. Maybe that would clear my head.

I heard my brother already blasting music and getting ready. I scowled in his direction. I hated morning people. And I especially hated people who had more than an hour of sleep the following night.

I walked down and the stairs slowly. And when I finally reached the kitchen my mom was already sitting in there, her arms folded in front of her on the kitchen table. Her expression looked anything other than polite.

I cringed at that look. It always meant she was pissed about something.

Great, what'd I do this time?

Then it suddenly clicked.

She was pissed because I left early last night.

I needed to think of an excuse, quickly.

"Good morning, Tegan," My mother breathed, pronouncing every word correctly.

There was venom in her voice.

"Morning..." I mumbled, looking down.

She cleared her throat, trying to think of the correct way to phrase whatever she was about to say. "Care to tell me where you went last night?" She asked bluntly.

I raised an eyebrow at her, heading over to the cabinets to get a poptart, "Oh--I felt sick. So I left early."

She shook her head and muttered something, "Tegan, that was very rude--Mr. Black went to a lot of trouble throwing that for us."