Early Imprint [Book 3] ✔️

13 • Claire's Story

CLAIRE'S POV

The very first memory that I had was of Quil. I remember being trapped under a wave of water. I remembered the fear I felt; the terror when I couldn't see the light, or when I couldn't take a breath. And then I felt Quil's warm arms around me, protecting me. I couldn't remember a time when Quil wasn't in my life.

He was like a brother to me when I was little. I had loved him like I love Cora and Nick. But unlike with my siblings, I had always wanted to spend every moment with Quil. I used to cry myself to sleep at night because I would miss Quil so much. Sometimes, when I couldn't sleep, I would look out my bedroom window and would see the "reservation wolf" hiding in the woods. I had nicknamed him Barnaby. And I always felt better knowing that when Quil wasn't there, Barnaby was.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped looking at Quil as my brother and began to look at him as my friend. I would talk to him every few nights on the phone. He must have been bored listening to my petty elementary school dramas, but he never complained and always seemed as eager to talk to me as I was to him. When I didn't talk to him or see him, I would get this anxious feeling. He became a security blanket to me. I needed to have him around all the time.

The very sound of his voice soothed and comforted me. I remember when my family took a trip to Florida. We had gone for two weeks and no matter how much fun I had, I still longed to see Quil. My parents had only let me talk to him one time, and then they tried to keep me busy for the rest of the vacation so that I wouldn't mope for him. I had overheard my parents say one night while we were on our trip, that it was unhealthy for me to be so obsessed with "poor" Quil at my age. When the vacation finally ended and I got to see Quil again, it wasn't until that moment that I felt like I was truly home.

And then my feelings for him started to change again. The first time I noticed him as a man, I think I was almost 12-years-old. Cora had been given sex education at school and had given me all the gooey details about it. I had thought I knew something about boys, because I had kissed my 6th grade boyfriend before the end of the school year. I realized after my talk with Cora, that I didn't know anything. Hearing the details of sex freaked me out. I couldn't think why anyone would want to do that.

And that was when Cora said she would bet money that Quil had "done it" before. I hadn't believed her...Quil, my Quil...would never do something so...adult. So the next time I saw him, I had feigned in interest in sex and asked him about it. I didn't think that he would admit the truth, which was that he had in fact had sex before. It was such an adult thing to do and that was when I realized for the first time that Quil was an adult. More importantly, Quil was a man.

I didn't know how to act around him after that. Why would a man want to be best friends with a silly little girl like me? I didn't know what to say to him anymore. I became shy and unsure of myself, when I had never acted that way around Quil before in my entire life. And worst of all, it really bugged me that he had done that with some faceless girl. I never knew why it irritated me so bad; all I knew was that I didn't like it.

Then when I was 13, I witnessed Quil save a woman from drowning. She had thanked him by kissing him, and I had wanted to rip her hair out. More importantly, I realized that I wanted to be the one kissing Quil. I had quickly grabbed his hand and had given the woman my best "back off, he's mine" look. And to my humiliation, Quil ruffled my hair and called me "kiddo" in front of my competition.

After that, I did everything that I possibly could to learn about the opposite sex. I started reading every article I could find that discussed sex and how to attract guys. I started experimenting more with makeup and started wearing form fitting clothes. I would practice different poses and different walks for hours at a time; all in the hopes of attracting Quil. Not that he ever noticed.