Early Imprint [Book 3] ✔️

36 • Pretty Rocks

QUIL'S POV

I stared at the turbulent waves beating against the shore. I had come to the beach for one reason and one reason only. Once I got here though, I realized I couldn't go through with it.

The pain I was in was crippling. I collapsed to the sand, my willpower finally giving out after spending what little energy I had left to walk to the beach. How would I be able to move on from this? Claire didn't want me in her life. What was the point of living now? I didn't know how I could survive.

I looked around the area and almost doubled up as more pain hit me. Now I understood why Embry had left the area. The memories of Claire in La Push would haunt me forever.

Even at this beach, I was consumed by images of Claire. This was the place I had taken her to after she had almost drowned when she was three. I had wanted to help her get over her fear of the ocean. She ended up splashing me with buckets of water and demanding that I pick pretty rocks for her. This is where she told me about her first kiss. Where we'd had our discussion on sex when she was almost 12, and I'd been forced to confess I had slept with someone else before I had imprinted.

Not that I had told her about imprinting or what it even was then. I should have told her. Maybe she would be by my side right now if I had. After the "sex" talk, our relationship changed. It was soon after our discussion that Claire started to act differently towards me. It wasn't even a couple of years later that she had even begun to practice her flirting skills on me.

And it was on this beach where I had felt desire for Claire for the first time. It was in the exact spot I was sitting in now that I had rubbed sun block on her incredible skin all those summers ago. It had been in that moment I realized how much I wanted her. How my feelings were changing from friends to something more, even though it would be a couple more years before I realized I was in love with her.

But in the end it didn't matter anyway. Claire had rejected me. I'd probably never get to see her again. I wondered if she even came back to La Push. I had watched her leave, but I hadn't bothered to look to see if she'd come back. What was the point? I couldn't be with her anyway. I couldn't even go near her because she told me not to. Oh god...how was I going to survive this?

Although it was cloudy, I knew by the darkening sky that the sun had just set. It had also started to rain, which was just fine by me. It matched my miserable mood perfectly. I drew my legs up towards my chest and rested my elbows on them, clasping my hands together in front of me.

It was strange. Even though I was in incredible pain, I could still feel the pull towards Claire. She didn't want me in her life. She had chosen to sever our connection. You would think that I'd get a break, or feel some sense of release. Instead the pull seemed to get stronger.

More than anything, I wanted to phase right now and go running. I even felt like I was going to phase at any minute but for some reason couldn't. I could feel the telling heat all over my body, especially along my spine. My skin felt like it was being stabbed by sharp knives. It was painful, just like the first time I'd phased.

And yet, I couldn't change into my wolf form. I had phased right after Claire had left me this afternoon. I'd secretly watched from a distance to make sure she got back to Sam's okay. And I watched her leave the reservation, but when she left, I'd changed back into human form. Now I just wanted to phase back to my wolf self and take off. But I wasn't able to. Something was preventing me from leaving. It was like the wolf was stuck inside of me and no matter how angry or tortured I felt, I couldn't phase.

So now I was stuck on the fucking beach in the middle of a goddamn rain storm, and I didn't even have the energy to go home. My body was stinging painfully, my head felt like it was going to explode, and my heart felt dead inside my chest. And all I could do was sit there. So was this how it was going to be for the rest of my existence? A worthless lump of nothing wasting away, lost in my memories?