during first period on monday, dakota was minding her business doing her math homework when embry and quil got her attention.
"psst." quil whispered. "dakota."
"what?" she murmured back without taking her eyes off her paper.
"what'd you get for number five?"
"negative twenty-two."
quil turned to embry, who shrugged with a confused look on his face. "i got seven-hundred thirty-three."
quil picked up his pencil and wrote down -22.
"guess what day it is today, dakota." embry blurted.
"what day is it, embry?" she asks with the least bit of interest.
"chinese food in the lunchroom!" he exclaimed, causing quil to make a fist with excitement.
"wow, what a great day it is then!" she says sarcastically.
the boys roll their eyes at her sarcasm before going back to their work. embry suddenly gets bored after five minutes and starts talking again.
"so, dakota, what'd you do this weekend?"
"not much really." she responds. "finished a 300 page book, worked on a biology project, went to sam uley's house for dinner."
this causes her to get both their attention. "woah woah woah, you went to his house for dinner? what?!"
"yeah, paul was leaving for his house and i had no plans, so i went with him. it wasn't bad. the lasagna was amazing."
"what was it like?"
"did he leave any drugs out?
"was jared there?
"did it look like anything suspicious?"
she rolls her eyes. "guys, seriously. the most dangerous thing about his house is the fact that he's growing eggplants the size of his arms. he's harmless."
"what? sam uley is not harmless. i know you did not just say that." quil snaps.
"guys, please just end this. i'm sick of you always talking about him." she snaps back.
"okay, fine." embry nods. "but are you going back to his house anytime soon?"
"well, his fiance said i'm welcome anytime. but probably not, since i'm gonna be so busy with the spring exams coming up."
quil drops his jaw, about to say something, but embry beats him to it. "exams? i thought those weren't for a couple of months!"
she gives them a concerned look. "try three weeks."
they look relieved. "three weeks is plenty of time. why are you already studying for them?"
"i just want to get the best score i possibly can." dakota says. "i don't know, i just want a fresh start here, you know?"
embry looks puzzled. "no, we don't know. why do you want to be different? you seem normal."
she pauses for a second. "yeah, i know. nevermind, forget i said anything."
they look even more confused but they don't push an answer out of her. that's what she liked about them. sometimes they knew when to shut up.
the teacher asked for the homework right before the bell rang. dakota gladly handed hers over and said bye to the boys before heading off to her next class.
lunch was the same as usual.
dakota walked with embry to lunch then was quickly abandoned so he could go get sesame chicken with an egg roll. she sat herself with quil and jacob, who were already helping themselves to the chinese food.
after embry sat down with them, jacob spoke up. "hey, my dad's ordering a pizza tonight. you guys wanna stop by?"
the boys say yes then look to dakota to see her answer. she looks puzzled. "oh, me included?"
"i mean, bella's going out to dinner with charlie tonight, so she's out of the question. do you want to be her replacement?"
"oh, i'm no one's replacement." she states. "but i guess i can make it tonight."
after lunch, she went to AP biology, where she found the desks arranged in a different way. when she sat down, a boy sat right next to her, smiling at her in the process. the bell rang and the teacher handed out a paper to every two people. he told them about a project they'd be working on for the entire week and told them to choose partners.
dakota looked at the boy who sat next to her and smiled back. "do you wanna be partners for this?"
"sure." dakota replied. "i'm dakota."
"i know." he says. "my name's kai. let's get started."
after school, dakota went straight home with paul. she made herself a snack, did her AP homework and also worked on her portion of project, then went to the living room to find paul and sam talking.
"oh, uh, hey sam. hope i'm not interrupting anything." she says without a care.
"no, i was just leaving." sam says, standing up from the couch.
"are you going somewhere?" paul says noisily.
"yes, i'm going to my friends house."
"you have friends? who?" he questions.
"jacob black."
sam, who was just about to open the door to leave, stops in his tracks. "do you know where you're going?"
"oh, actually no. i just figured paulie would give me a ride."
paul sighs loudly and dramatically. "dakota, i'm tired. figure it out yourself."
"i can drive you." sam blurts.
"are you sure? you'd have to give me a ride back too."
"i'll just drive paul's car. i have stuff to take care of with billy."
dakota hated the idea of an entire car ride with sam, but she had no choice. she couldn't get out of it now.
the entire ride took ten minutes, but it was the longest ten minutes of dakota's life. she and sam mostly made small talk, considering the fact that she was too scared to ask him any personal questions that might offend him.
when they arrived and got out of the car, sam threw the keys to her and said, "i'll just walk home. you know the way okay?"
she just nodded in response, confused as to why he was walking home when it would most likely be an hour back on foot.
she walked up to the door to the tiny house and was greeted by an adult with a cowboy hat in a wheelchair.
"hi, you must be dakota." he stuck out his hand. "i'm billy black, jake's dad."
"thanks for having me." she replied, then looked around for any sign of her friends.
"the boys are in the garage." billy said before pointing out to the garage.
she smiles before walked away to the garage. right before she gets there, she notices sam lurking in the distance, waiting for dakota to enter the garage. she shudders.
she shakes off the weird occurrence and walks through the garage, near where she can hear the boys having a loud conversation.
"hey guys." she greets them. she gets a lot of scents while walking through the garage, like sawdust, concrete, and pizza. but her favorite smell was embry's signature scent, which smelled like if autumn was a candle.
they're all sitting on a couch inside, laughing and eating pizza. they stop when they hear dakota's voice.
they all say hi and go back to their conversation. dakota sits right next to embry and opens the pizza box to find it empty. she turns her head to embry and gives him a look. he shrugs and mouths "sorry".
the rest of the night went by quickly. they watched a movie, talked about school, conspired more about sam and his 'gang'. jacob also mentioned this girl named bella, who he's so obviously obsessed with. dakota rolled her eyes every time she was mentioned.
by the time she left, it was almost eleven. embry walked dakota to her car, even though she insisted he didn't.
when she got home, she carefully walked through the door, thinking she got away with being late for curfew.
the living room lamp turned on and dakota jumped at it. she realized it was only paul sitting cross legged as if he'd been waiting ages.
"uh, hi." she says.
"you're lucky i covered for you. dad usually doesn't take us being late so well." he says, getting up in the process. "goodnight."
she ignores him and goes straight to the phone. she dials amara's number then presses the call button, waiting a few seconds before she finally picks up.
"kota? what's wrong?" she asks concerned, voice a little raspy.
"oh, nothing, i just miss you." she says. "did i wake you?"
"yeah." amara replies in a sad voice.
"aw." dakota says, acting very meaningful. "maybe you shouldn't leave the phone in your room, dumbass."
"oh, shut up. so what have you been doing this week?"
"not much. girl, i have so much to catch you up on, so don't expect to go to bed anytime soon."
"whatever, just spill."
hi everyone!! just wanted to say if you have any suggestions for my writing pls lmk! i'm open to constructive criticism.