Burning Up (Jacob Black)

Epilogue: The Sun

Jake and I tiptoed through the hall and down the squeaky steps downstairs. Although every other stair gave a little whine no matter how gently we stepped, we still heard Charlie snoring up a storm in his room, so Jake whispered an announcement that we were in the clear. I couldn't see much in the dark. I reached into the blackness where the coat hanger by the front door should be and grabbed the first thing I laid my hands on. It was one of Charlie's rain jackets. I tugged my arms through, trying not to ruffle the fabric too loudly, and carefully pried open the front door. The cold of the night blew in and prickled at my exposed legs—I was still wearing my same shorts and tank top from before.

We climbed into my truck. Jacob instructed me to put the car in neutral and the truck slowly rolled down the driveway in complete silence. My truck sputtered and protested as I turned the key in the ignition. From his open window, we heard Charlie's snores hitch—we held our breaths, awaiting doomsday—but his snores picked right back up. Wordlessly, Jacob and I sighed and smiled at each other. Phew.

A sense of excitement filled the air as Jacob gave me directions. I checked the dimly lit clock in the car. It was just past midnight.

My weak headlights finally illuminated a familiar house. Partially stripping red paint on wooden panels—Jacob's house.

"You wanted us to go to your place?" I asked. I wasn't sure why it was important to go at such a late hour, but I didn't think it was too out of the ordinary.

"...Not exactly," Jacob replied.

We left the truck—I tucked it behind the garage and parked it—and trudged past his house. The thick rain-soaked mud clung to my boots. The cold kept incessantly stinging my legs, but that sensation faded away quickly when Jacob and I exchanged words through our hushed voices. We whispered, grinned, and stifled our giggles until we were out of earshot of his house. Then his normal voice returned, permitting me to speak normally as well. Jacob lumbered forward knowingly through the night.

This path seemed familiar. But the darkness that crawled on the corners of the scene obscured my mind from retrieving the full memory. The night around us was fragile and tender—as if we entered a dream-like reality and if I spoke too loudly or laughed too abruptly the moon would instantly snap back into the glowing white beam of the sun; I would awake from it. The wet, winding grass crackled and folded underneath my footsteps. The shining circle of a moon hung high in the sky, lighting our path like an inverse sun. The white light reflected off the dew permeating the strands of grass. For a while, there wasn't a single sound besides our sloshing footsteps, and our voices interspersed with our occasional laughter.

Then I heard the faint plashing of the ocean in the distance.

"First Beach?" I beamed at my realization, interrupting Jacob midsentence.

His eyes softened, before smiling back at me. "Yep. I'm surprised you didn't guess earlier."

"Hey, don't go insulting my intelligence like that." I snorted.

"Oh, I see. Apologies, ma'am." He rolled his eyes.

The squishing of the grass beneath our feet transitioned into the crumbling of sizable sand pebbles that belonged to the top of the cliff before the beach began. Jacob climbed down the sandy steps first before turning to me and taking both my hands as I hesitantly stepped down the hill. We made our way down until we finally reached the finer sand of the beach.

"Here we are," Jacob announced, both hands on his hips. "First Beach, baby."

"Yeah. At one in the morning." I raised my eyebrow at him.

"Shh. It adds to the mood." He smiled slyly and leaned forward towards me.

I chuckled before slipping my muddy boots off at the foot of the hill. Jacob did the same. In the distance, I spotted the same piece of driftwood—a washed-out white tree trunk—that Jacob once sat on, pondering the ocean.