Stealing Butterflies

Chapter Twelve

I used to think I was a gangster.

Really. In eighth grade I had baggy pants and wore a doo rag on my head and everything. I even borrowed one of my mom's gold chains, and wore that all the time, too.

It lasted about a week.

See, everybody (mostly my mom) complains that I can't stick to anything. But hey, I've been a werewolf for a whole year. Two, actually, come next month.

Jacob says that doesn't count because I was born this way, don't have to try, blah, blah, blah... but I disagree. You know, it takes guts to continuously go out there and willingly chase after vampires. Seriously, just read over that statement several times, and you get pretty freaked out.

I know it's in our "blood" or whatever, but I think that saying is quite stupid in and of itself. If I were to cut my skin, would confidence pour out? Um, no. I'm the kid who took four months of constant begging to even begin learning how to read.

It wasn't for a reason that actually makes sense. Like, I was scared of looking stupid or failing. Nope. It was because I thought the words would come alive and attack me if I pronounced them wrong.

Yeah... Sorry. I can't really explain where that one came from.

Anyway, Jake's just still angry that we didn't dress up as superheroes last Halloween like he wanted. But hey, I thought we made pretty hot drag queens.

If he just would have gone and bought the costumes, then we wouldn't have had to raid Emily's closet in the first place.

We could have realistically cut out the capes from some old t-shirts or something, but we were really late. And besides, I'm not patient. Or observant.

I'm really not observant.

But I'm positive. Really positive.

Most of the time anyway.

But I don't think anyone can be positive when they're stuck in a car for five hours driving in a thunderstorm, while their mother in the passenger side crying and you're being forced to hold a pet goldfish in a plastic bag. That's happened to me before.

Really, I think Claire could've had her birthday without that stupid fish (appropriately named Floppy) and she would have been perfectly happy.

The same feelings apply with a drunk person passed out in the back.

Maybe I should explain:

On the morning of Sam and Emily's wedding, most of the guys (plus Maddy) were half asleep. Considering our cake adventure, regular patrol rotations, and our late night stint of movies and Collin pretending to be a stripper, that was pretty impressive.

Sure, we had bags glued under our eyes and our hair looked like it had been attacked by a rogue gang of bed bugs, but we were standing upright and were dressed up in suits, ties, and the whole shebang.

Everything had been going well, so far. Kim, the dutiful Maid of Honor, was running around, making sure that all persons of the wedding procession, flowers, and every other tiny detail were present and accounted for.

I thought everything, was fine, until suddenly, she screamed.

"Where's Delilah?"

Once again, super sensitive hearing, sucks.

"Line up. Line UP everyone!"