SENSELESS : Jacob Black

07

I wake up the next morning surprisingly spry. The first thing I do is reach for my hearing aids. I can hear the echoes of people chatting, like shapes in the fog. Once I turn them on and put them in, I look over at the table.

"Morning," Embry says, waving over at me.

Turning, I see both him and Jacob at the table. They are already dressed, and Jacob still has his glasses on. I've not met a blind person before, but I had assumed they would wear their sunglasses less frequently. They are less useful than hearing aids, and I don't wear them all the time.

I wipe the sleep out of my eyes. It's crusty and thick. There are the dried remnants of drool on my chin that I try to scratch away.

"You look like you slept well," Embry says, gesturing up to my messy hair.

"Yeah," I say. "Where's Quil?"

"He's just getting dressed," Jacob says. He feels along the table until he grabs his glass of orange juice, which is barely filled, and brings it up, shaking, to his lips.

"He's not hungover?" I ask. The guy had like nine beers last night. At least, I think it was nine. Most of my memories aren't the clearest.

Jacobs snorts, and orange juice bubbles up in his glass. He puts it down and coughs.

"None of us really get hangovers," Embry says, moving from the stove to pass Jacob a napkin.

Jacob rubs the napkin over his lips, before curling it into a ball and putting it down.

"Here," Embry says. He plates the last of the pancakes, a ginormous stack, and turns the oven off. "I'll go check on Quil."

He runs upstairs and so I make my way over to the table. I sit across from Jacob, careful not to touch and startle him this time. Now, for the first time, we are really alone. In the light of the kitchen, with no distractions, I get a good look at him.

He's broader than the others. His jawline is chiselled, and he's clean-shaven. His cheekbones are strong. Everything that isn't muscle is bone. He looks hard. He looks rough.

But the silence between us is beginning to kill me.

"So," I begin, looking him over, "where did you go to school?"

"Quileute Tribal School," he says.

I plate him a pancake, "I passed you some food, just so you know. Do you want syrup?"

"I'm okay, thanks," he takes his fork and knife and, carefully, begins to cut up the pancake.

We sit in silence, my fingers playing with the edge of the tablecloth. Before I'm halfway through mine, he's already done his first pancake. I pass him a second and a third. I'm beginning to get used to how much these guys eat. I wonder if Jacob struggles to work out, given how clumsy he is generally.

"High school seems pretty cool," I tell him.

"Well, it was a K to 12," he tells me. "It was small. You kind of know everyone."

"That's still people to know," I was only surrounded by four families growing up. There were 18 of us in total. That was my whole life before coming here. "I only knew like, two kids my age."

He pauses, and turns his head backwards. "What's taking them so long?"

As if on cue, Quil and Embry make their way downstairs. They are giggling to themselves.