Preventive • Paul Lahote •

Intro

"Casen, stop it!"

The booming laughter echoed throughout the hallways as the sound of sock clad feet pounded against the hardwood floor. Chasing after the teenage boy inside of her house, Maddison felt a sense of anger wash over her, as her paper hung precariously from the boy's fingers.

"You'll have to catch me first, Maddison!"

The smile that was thrown over his shoulder, the gleam in his big blue eyes, would have made any girl melt. However, Maddison only felt rage, in addition to the fact that the wide smiled boy was her brother.

As thoughts of strangulation and castration ran through Maddison's mind, her chase was abruptly halted. With two strong arms wrapping around her waist, Maddison was pulled back away from her laughing brother and into the arms of his best friend. The vibrating chest that made contact with her back only caused her fury to grow as she kicked and clawed at the arms around her so that she could continue to pursue her brother, and ultimately cause his demise.

"Maddison, calm down!"

The booming voice sounded right in her ear, as another wave of laughter bubbled from his throat. Usually Maddison found his laugh to be melodic and semi- attractive, but right now she was too agitated to care about how close she was to her long-time crush.

"I'm gunna kill him, Paul." She stated as she began to fight against his hold, once more, before eventually giving up with an exasperated sigh. Her brother stood at the end of the hall with a big grin on his face as he waved the stapled pile of papers back and forth.

"Look Paul, I told you the little nerd would get upset if I took her History essay from her. She liked to kill me, until you came in."

Maddison's red cheeks from both anger and embarrassment could be seen by Casen all the way across the hall, and he felt slightly bad as he swore he saw tears pool into his sister's baby blue eyes. As Casen stared down his sister, Maddison decided to take advantage of Paul's relaxed figure with his arms only loosely hanging on her waist, and tugged out of the hold and began to punch her brother in the stomach. With a grunt, Casen bent over clutching his stomach, allowing Maddison to snatch the papers away from her older brother's hands.

"Of course I'd be upset when I worked on this for three weeks! Unlike you, I don't plan on flunking and staying on this stupid reserve forever! I want to leave, and do something with my life other than marry into the tribe and have little Quileute kids!"

Maddison's words caused a pain to go through her brother, as he was well aware of the fact that his younger sister was much more intelligent and favored by his parents and the community while he was just another average teenage boy. However, as Maddison whipped around to retreat back into her room, she didn't see the pained look on her brother's best friend's face. The words making him shy away from the fiery brunette as she stormed by, as he felt his heart breaking.

Paul knew that he could never pursue the youngest Ellison child. For one, she was his best friend's little sister, but mostly because she deserved and wanted better than the simple and basic life that came from living on the reserve.