Discover Twilight

chapter vii

His crying becomes more clear, confirming my worst nightmare. My mother, Allison Tala Swan, finally has lost her battle and I never got to really say goodbye or introduce Sam to her in person. At first I sat there staring at the damp walkway as students passed me on their way inside the school building, the crying didn't start until the initial shock wore off.

"I'm so sorry Kody. I'm coming to get you now," Sam whimpers in my ear.

He stays on the line listening to my crying and cursing God until he pulls up to the front of the school in Paul's Jeep. He jumps out of the passenger side, carrying me bridal style to the backseat, eyes all puffy from crying. I couldn't tell if he was crying for me or for the loss of the birth mother he'd never got a chance to know because his father took him away then left Sam alone with a woman he would begin to consider his mother. Before closing the door I grab his wrist and put Bella's keys into his palm, confusing him with the action, "Here. Can you put these back in Bella's truck across the lot with a note telling her I had to go home. Don't say why, I don't want to ruin her birthday."

He grimly smiles at me and walks across the lot to Bella's faded red truck. Watching him, I pull my knees to my chest and see that the driver, Paul, was looking back at me via the rearview mirror. "Find my pain amusing? Or is it that Little Miss Blonde Princess' life is falling apart and you get a front row seat?" I spit at him targeting my anger at him, though he doesn't deserve it. This time.

He turns his body to fully face me, showing his sympathetic looking eyes and snorts, "No your pain isn't amusing. I was looking at you like that because I admire you. You just lost your mom and your first thought is to not ruin your cousin's birthday."

"Oh...sorry," I mumble, embarrassed by my anger driven assumptions. The pit of my stomach felt as though it was lit ablaze and it was suddenly very hot in the Jeep. Like Hell's fire was centralized in the small vehicle of the sixteen year old seated in the front seat.

"Don't be sorry, it's a good quality to have Little Uley. I am sorry about the circumstances though," he apologizes turning back to face the steering wheel. He's been awfully kind to me for once, why was he here anyways because he should be in school right now.

"Wait, shouldn't you be in school right now? I know only one of us can afford to miss some school," I comment as Sam climbs back into the Jeep. Sam looks between us, unsure of what's going on because this is the first time that we've been alone together without someone having a bloody nose. And by someone, I mean Paul.

Paul couldn't stop himself from laughing at my shaded jab, smiling at the passenger, "Damn, Sam are you sure you two are related? Because she's mean and apparently smarter than I am, so she suggests."

His comment makes me laugh and earns a veiled look of fear from Sam, like he expects one of us to explode at any moment. Which I find both funny and concerning, seeing that I'm the one who lost their mother and he's more concerned about the truant driving the car. After five minutes of excruciatingly uncomfortable silence I ask for them to turn on the radio which Paul reluctantly does, softly chuckling at the request as if the need to break the silence was such an odd desire. Against All Odds by Phil Collins began playing after the commercial, my mom's favorite song. I sadly hum to myself until they park the car in front of Sam's house and I sprint out into the woods to have a moment alone to grieve.

"Dakota! Stop! Stop! Slow down!" The pair of boys yell after me in an attempt to make me stop my forward progression but my feet kept moving, with or without my say so. The need of space and remembrance being my body's fuel for the movement.  

By the time I'm deep in the forest, far from Paul's Jeep and Sam's house, I'm alone in a small patch of moss covered trees. I can hear the two barrelling through the branches and shrubbery, trying to match the pace I was sprinting at. Seeing them a few yards away I sit on a fallen tree with my head in my hands. 

 "Damn you're fast for someone your size," Paul pants, leaning over to catch his breath.

Sam, took a deep breath in, sitting on my right, laying his hand on my knee as he tries to give me some type of comfort, "Look, I know that this is hard but if you're going to grieve, you need to do it in a healthy manner because in our family bad things happen when we have bottled up emotions."

Normally his large, calloused hands are very warm against my skin but at the moment they're cold. Like the first time I introduced myself to Edward and Alice, feeling as though he'd just stuck in hand in the freezer before touching me.

For whatever reason the words "in our family" didn't sit well with me. I shake off the nineteen year old's hand, shooting him a hateful glance as I pushed myself up off the fallen tree I'd been seated on and stomp back in the direction we came, "You may be my brother but don't sit there and act as though you know what I'm going through. You didn't know her, Sam. She was my best friend and the only person who was ever truly there for me. She and I went through a lot of shit in the past seventeen odd years. Sam, I knew from the age of 3 that she could die at any time. Three, you're supposed to believe your parents are indestructible at three. I'm angry, no I'm beyond angry. Angry doesn't even begin to cover how I feel right now. I'm pissed that she wouldn't let me be there for her at the end and that she died alone without knowing you." I push my way past Paul and kept running until I reached the front door of his home.