Hope torture

I found her diary underneath the tree

And started reading about me

The words she'd written took me by surprise

You'd never read them in her eyes

You don't know the song but you like it. It was by a group called Bread, she tells you, and you both laugh about that, cause you've been eating a lot of those earlier - bread.

It's Quil and the Clearwaters' initiation night as new members of the pack. The night went just like the others - eating and then intense story telling but this time it's more emotional.

The night's still young and nobody wants to go home yet, maybe except for Leah. Your dad had the sense to bring the portable radio along and a couple of burned CDs, oldies mostly. Any other time, you and you're friends would have scoffed at the songs and whine about how lame it is but what with some of your friends bringing their lady love along nobody complain. You smile to yourself realizing that, yeah, you also have your "lady love" with you. Jared pulls Kim on the other side of the bonfire to dance, Emily followed suit dragging Sam along. Then somehow you thought it was a good idea so you ask her to dance.

It was a starless night but the moon is out and you're holding onto each other for dear life 'cause you don't really know how to dance and so does she, obviously. She has her hands awkwardly wrapped around your neck while you're too big hands are holding her waist, ever so lightly, cause she just looks so fragile you're afraid you might break her.

You've both been "dancing" or more like swaying from side to side-talking, laughing or basking in comfortable silence, just listening to the song. You've been like this for a while now and you hear your friends (thanks to your super human hearing ability) snickering about how you both look stupid. You don't care and somehow you know so does she. She's just as determined as you to make this night last as long as possible. You feel her hands straining to keep their hold on your neck, you're just too tall, and so you stoop a little bringing your face closer to her.

You can't believe it. Did she just blush?

She looks to the ground, hiding it from you (or at least you think so). You just smile. The song's still playing and you wonder if she wants to stop "dancing" when it ends. She doesn't like it when things start stepping out of the friend zone. You decide you'd ask to take her home after the song before things could get awkward and uncomfortable.

The song ends but she doesn't let go of you.

A Stevie Wonder song is coming on.

"This song sucks." You say, testing her.

She laughs and says "No, it doesn't."

So . . . you still get to have one song with her, huh.

"This is like one of the cheesiest song, ever." You complain, pretending to still want to put up the argument.

She just smiles and puts a hand on your cheek, mimicking the song, exaggeratedly.

You are the sunshine of my life.

She laughs and you just smile.

That's why I'll always be around. She mimics again.

You know the next lines and you look her in the eyes, intently.

You are the apple of my eye. You mimicked in a whisper.

Forever you'll stay in my heart.

The grin leaves her face and is replaced by a knowing look. Of course, she knows. She has always known and anytime now, she'll pull away. She doesn't like it when you're being more than friendly. But she doesn't pull away.

She smiles. She always finds it easier to smile around you.

"I thought you didn't know the song?" she asks.

"I said I don't like it, doesn't mean I didn't know it."

The song goes on.

Though I've loved you for a million years

And if I thought our love is ending

I'd find myself drowning in my own tears

Ooohhh woooh woooh. . . . . .

You are the sunshine of my life, yeah . . .

That's why I'll always stay around

"You are, you know." She tells you.

"Huh?"

She laughs, "The sunshine of my life."

You don't know what to say. Well, what do you say when someone tells you something like that?

"Sun . . . shine . . .?" you ask, confused.

"Uhm. More like the sun really." She tells you, so casually, like it's no big deal, really, that she thinks of you that way.

The sun? Of her life? She's telling you you're important to her but just exactly HOW important? Cause being someone's sun is a big thing, right?

You were looking at her the whole time that she looks away and just stares at your shirt. She can't exactly look beyond you, what with your height and everything. You could see that she regrets telling it to you now.

"Well . . . that's good to know . . . ., "you stutter. "Because I was just thinking about the song and . . . how you're exactly kind of . . . You know . . . the ap-"

She cuts you off when she hugs you. She's now standing on tiptoes, burying her face on your neck. That was totally unexpected so it took you a while to hug her back. You pull her closer wrapping a hand around her waist and another on her head. You breathe in her familiar scent, her hair always smells like strawberries. Then you stoop a little more so her feet can touch the ground. You stay like this for the whole song and the next after that.

She doesn't have to hear it anyway, she already knows. You've already told her- when she told you to go find another girl, you've told her you can't cause you only see her even when you close your eyes and try to see someone else all you see is her.

These are the times you usually take advantage of things, the times where you can assert yourself to her but you don't feel like doing anything right now. You've been fighting really hard to keep her human since the day she came back to you, fighting real hard so she would choose you. You've always known that she loves you more than she claims to but there are times that you doubt that, that maybe she does love you like a friend, like family, like she says. But this is not one of those times 'cause you could hear her heart beating , fast and relentless, her hands not wanting to let you go. You pull her closer, telling her she doesn't have to; she doesn't have to let you go.

Now, more than ever, you are sure as hell that she loves you the way you love her and nothing else matters. Not time, not werewolves and vampires, not that bloodsucker and the fact that she's going to go back to him and forget all about you the moment he steps into the picture, not even the fact that she wants to be a bloodsucker, too, to be with him. None of that matter right now cause you know she loves you, she's in love with you.

This is the time where you can't help but hope, hope to God that maybe; just maybe you could be enough. You and a homemade garage and used cars and scrap metals and second hand motorcycles and La Push and First Beach. All of it, you just pray would be enough for her to decide to stay with you forever-maybe not forever but for a lifetime. You can't give her forever; you can't give her a lot of things so you just hope. That's all you could do-hope and keep fighting . . . for her.