Young Forever

Chapter Nine

***Jacob***

I just wanted to get out of here.

I don't know where I would go. Just somewhere where the pain no longer existed. I was supposed to stand firm, and the only way I could was to stand as a hollow shell. Deprived to listen to the people who knew my mother. To try my best to hold my composure and not fall apart. All of this while supporting my father, who is now in a wheelchair.

When he awoke, they broke the news to him that he had lost his wife of twenty years, and that he was now paralyzed from the waist down. I've never seen the man cry, and I never wanted to. But to see someone as strong as he was, break down in tears, made me so god damn soft. My father needed me more than I needed him because I knew from then on, our lives had changed.

Not only was I grieving, but now I could turn into a giant wolf without knowing how to control it. Anger usually triggered it. But how could I not be angry when it felt as if my world had turned on me. As much as it upset me that everyone in this room pitied me, I made an effort just to ignore them and think about the moments I had spent with my mother.

It was something none of us could prepare for, and my dad wasn't ready to let go -I wasn't ready to let go. But standing in that cemetery, just made everything feel so real. With the rain coming down like showers, it really felt as if my mother was somewhere in heaven trying to wash away all of the pain for a new day. At least that's what I could pray to only feel.

It did help that I had Seth and a few of the others to comfort me, but it didn't make my worries go away. I had to fix myself in some way. Or at least get back on my feet. But then there was the thought of Edward.

I really couldn't understand why it bothered me so much. I was only beginning to get to know him, and yet, it felt as if I had known him for a lifetime. And now, he was leaving. Not only would I be burying my mother, but also soon, it would be him. I'd have to find some way to get through all of this -to prepare myself.

Everything going through my head bothered the shit out of me.

I couldn't stay, and yet I couldn't go.

Like I said, I wanted to leave. To run or something.

After changing back from being a giant wolf, I was sure that was just a hallucination. All I wanted to do was escape from this place -to run and escape from life, and it's decisions. I so badly wanted that freedom.

But everyone hovered.

Seth was concerned. I told him to let other's who mattered that I needed my space. I needed time.

I didn't know where I was going, but I just drove. I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. I couldn't tell myself to stand strong anymore when all I wanted to do was scream. The tears just barreled down my cheeks like waterfalls. My head hurt, and it felt as if my chest was about to burst from my heavy breathing. I had to stop. I had to let it out whether I liked it or not.

Then the memories flooded my thoughts like a tsunami. My mom holding me on the stormy nights when dad would be coming home late, or when my sisters would bully me, and she would give them shit for being so cruel. The times she would always cook my favorite snack when I would feel down, or when she would sing me to sleep when I couldn't sleep.

Most of them were of her and my dad. She always explained how happy she was to find her soul mate and how dad felt the same. We were the perfect family in their eyes, and somehow, we were.

They loved each other unconditionally, and they hoped that my sisters and I would find exactly what they had. It was my mom's dream. Lately, she would go on about how and when I would find the love of my life, but she would never say 'wife.' I always wondered, but I think she expected in some ways before I had.