one runaway boy

♡

SOMEWHERE, in the state of Washington, situated on the edge outside Forks city, the beach of La Push holds huge, crashing waves underneath the sky of clouds. The stone coloured ocean is alive and powerful today, sending heaves of water clattering onto the shore, transforming into foam as it drifts along the sand.

And, amongst these strong ripples, you can find a girl with fiery red hair in a wetsuit, spending her free time on a body board drifting between the cold currents, breathing in the salt air and observing the small world around her through the stinging of her blue eyes, thanks to the salt in the splashes of seawater overcoming the girl entirely, sending waves over her head and drenching her as she floats.

Gianna Hart, well known around La Push for two reasons - one, that she's the strange red-head who had moved here with her mother at the age of thirteen, which had kind of been a huge deal considering the small population of the village and the rare amount of newcomers it claimed over the years. The second was purely due to the amount of time the girl spends in the rough waters - in fact, it's a given that if you were to visit the beach of La Push, you will most likely see a red headed girl out deep floating over huge waves or crashing beneath them, depending on the size of each riptide.

Which is why, on this particular early Spring day, nobody is surprised to see Gianna Hart far out into the ocean. However, she on the other hand, is completely taken aback at the sight of a particular person turning up - especially since he knows perfectly well that she is here.

And that person is Seth Clearwater.

Here's the deal with Gianna and Seth - they've been quite good friends, at least, up until now. Of course, that was before everything happened with his Dad, which caused him to become quite secluded, as well as Gianna's thing that happened - of course, Seth doesn't have a clue about this thing - how could he? He's not a wolf. And she's never gonna tell him about it, so he won't have a clue.

Because Gianna knows far better than to drag him into it. He doesn't need to know about this freakish imprinting business. Hell, she'd be super creeped out if she was human and some boy from her class told her he'd imprinted on her. Seth would feel the same, no doubt about it. So he doesn't need to know.

Anyways, it was shortly after his father died had Seth become quite isolated from everyone else - which, of course, is understandable. In fact, Gianna can't blame the boy at all for his sudden distant game. She'd already known him quite well, because he too, made regular appearances at the La Push beach. Not to mention the classes the two shared at school. But, it was only a month or so ago when the news was revealed that his father, Harry Clearwater, had suddenly passed away due to a fatal cardiac arrest.

Gianna's heart broke for Seth, and his sister Leah, of whom she's also gotten to know during her time of living in La Push. In fact, she'd even partly known Harry herself, when he used to give her rides home from the beach, if she was too tired to walk and her mother was caught up with work. The man had always been optimistic, jolly and just purely kind - traits of which had so obviously passed onto his son. And for such an affectionate man to die so suddenly, it was bound to leave a strain on the rest of the village. Especially on those who had been lucky enough to have known him. And, most importantly, his two children and wife of whom he'd left behind.

Gianna sits up straight on her board, looking over at the boy with interest. She might be far from the shore, but she can still definitely tell - it is indeed Seth Clearwater.

The boy strides towards where a group of boys reside at the end of the beach, all in the midst of some kind of game that involves a ball, (Gianna's far out in the sea, she can't tell exactly what it is, okay?) casually looking around in wonder of who had decided to visit the beach today. Gianna finds herself staring, and immediately curses herself out for it, once she becomes aware. Of course, you can't blame her - it's all a lot to take in, and this weird imprinting thing only makes her even more baffled.

She soon realises Seth has spotted her, and so gives her classmate a small wave. But the thing is, he doesn't wave back. Instead, the boy stops walking, his eyes fixated on the red-headed figure out in the sea - and completely freezes.

Gianna frowns. Perhaps he hadn't recognised her. She gives him yet another wave, but the boy continues to stand still for a few more moments, before stumbling backwards slightly.

It's then Gianna feels a huge wave crash over her, and she quickly grips ahold of her board tightly, ducking down as the water shatters over her head. She becomes drenched, yet again, and large droplets of water escape the ends of her hair in a rapid flow as she rubs her eyes, ignoring the slight sting the salt gives them. She then looks up, back towards the same place as before. But Seth is no longer there.

The fiery haired girl scans the beach, wondering where he had vanished to, and after a few seconds, she catches sight of a black haired boy heading back the way he came. She doesn't need to see his face to know who it is.

One of the boys from the group Seth had been walking to gets up - Gianna assumes he's the oldest (he seems to look it), and she watches as he swiftly follows the Clearwater boy until he, too, is out of sight.

Suddenly, Gianna feels the eyes of all the other boys on her, and she turns to see her gut instinct had been correct - all are watching her curiously with a piercing gaze, not even trying to be discreet. The girl looks away, overwhelmed with the feeling of uncomfortableness, and instead lies her stomach forward on top of her board. She turns it smoothly to face the waves, and begins using her arms to paddle, the current starting to take her out further to sea.

She remains distracted for a long while after the strange encounter with Seth - if an encounter is what you could even call it. Gianna doesn't know what she could've done to make Seth act that way. She doesn't know him too well, truth be told. He was just simply a friend from school.

The only thing that springs to mind is something that makes her insides squirm - but there was no way he could know, right? No way... Gianna doesn't know much about this shapeshifting business, but she's sure those who'd been imprinted on wouldn't know unless they were told..?

She really hopes it's not the case, because she doesn't want to make things awkward between her and Seth. She really hopes it won't.

Gianna's starting to get quite annoyed at the futile aspects of being a wolf, now.

What the fuck is imprinting anyway? It's not useful, is it? Wolves don't necessarily need it, so what's the point? She and Seth are literally fifteen, his main focus in life is probably ensuring he wins whatever game it is he plays with his friends, and yet the wolf inside her is immediately like, 'marry him'. What the fuck?

Gianna won't stand for it. She's had enough of all this uncontrollable shit happening - first the move, then her becoming a shapeshifter, and now this. No way. Gianna's not going to let some wolfy claim control her - so, as far as she's concerned, this imprinting business means nothing. And she shall continue being friends with Seth Clearwater, nothing more.

Still, she doesn't know if Seth could have any idea about this mess - she doesn't know a lot of things, to be completely honest. She's still new to all this - sometimes she still shocks herself when she shifts into a wolf, so you can imagine how the girl deals with everything else - to put it simply, she doesn't. She doesn't deal with any of it properly, in fact she tries to ignore the problem, as if it were going to go away, like a wasp that keeps buzzing around your ice cream in the summer, or a horrible stingy cold you get in the winter.

Gianna's starting to see her mother's reasoning for moving her to a place where apparently another tribe of wolves lives. There's no way she is going to be able to do all of this alone.

The only thing now is finding out exactly who the Quileute tribe are.

♡

NOW, SOME MIGHT THINK that because Gianna's a wolf, she might've given up on dressing up nicely, by now. Well, they're wrong. Entirely wrong.

And so, getting ready for school, she stands in front of her wardrobe, examining what clothes she can see and attempting to put outfits together in her mind.

Gianna knows most people don't pick up on clothes - they might compliment your coat, or something, but they never truly take the time to scan your entire outfit up and down and make a judgement on it - unless she turns up in, like, a halloween costume or something, most people would look past her outfit.

But she still takes great time and care into what she wears everyday - sometimes it's added stress that could be easily avoided, but it's just how her mind works. She loves clothes. If she can wear some nice clothes and have a pretty hairstyle to match, maybe even some makeup if she has the time, then she has the confidence to push herself through the day. Gianna thinks that if she can feel good enough about herself, then she won't be reminded of the fact that she's a literal wolf - and she can forget about it for a while, at least whilst she's at school.

She can be the beauty instead of the beast, just for a while.

Her method seems to have worked, so far - so today, she picks out one of her favourite pink shirts with a black print on it, saying 'you have to be a wolf to catch a wolf'.

She knows. She knows, it contradicts the whole idea of her wanting to forget she's a wolf for a while - plus, it's not very discreet at all - but, Gianna will always love it. She thinks it's funny, it's a perfect representation of her sense of humour. In fact, she doesn't really remember where she got it from, it was somewhere from one of the small shops on the edge of La Push, not long after she found out she was a shapeshifter. She'd found it hilarious, and bought it immediately. Now she wears it for the irony - is it irony? Gianna's not sure, she's not good at this stuff - but sometimes she'll catch herself feeling down, perhaps about a grade, or whatever the challenge is the school has thrown her that day - but then she'll look in her reflection and start to chuckle to herself, because she's literally a wolf. An 'F' on her Chemistry test is the least of her problems.

And well, in terms of keeping things discreet - the writing's small, so Gianna doesn't think it's a problem. Plus, nobody's going to see her shirt and be like, 'it mentions wolves, she must be a wolf!' are they? She also owns a shirt that says 'devilish' and nobody thinks she's Satan's spawn or anything - despite her friends always saying her red hair is the mark of the devil. But that's just her friends making ginger jokes.

Anyways, she matches her shirt with a pink mini skirt and uses a scrunchie of the same colour to tie her hair half up and half down. Gianna decides to use some mascara and lip gloss too, today, because she has double math first thing and so she needs the extra boost. Plus she got some new lip gloss last week and has been obsessed with it ever since.

The first two lessons of the day drag, just like Gianna had assumed they would. But, after that, she has English - Gianna likes English, she's quite good at it. Or perhaps she likes it because she sits next to her two best friends, so they have the opportunity to chat and mess around. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Seth Clearwater's in her English, too. Gianna feels slightly uneasy at this, and so decides to avoid anything to do with him, the best she can. She still doesn't understand how just simply waving to him made him leave the beach, and honestly, she feels slightly embarrassed - even though she doesn't know what for. She really, really hopes he doesn't know about her weird imprint thing. If he does, she might just shrivel up and die.

Okay, bit dramatic, Gia.

They're watching Romeo & Juliet in their lesson today, much to Gianna's relief. She's not a huge fan of the text, but she thinks it's because she's had to study it too much. Everything becomes boring or annoying if you have to study it.

However, her English teacher has chosen the nineteen ninety six adaptation, and so Gianna will quite happily sit and watch it, considering she pretty much just gets to stare at Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo for a while. Her two friends, Vanessa and Liv, completely agree with her, and all three lean their chairs away from their desks and against the wall in the back right corner of the class.

Liv and Vanessa both befriended Gianna almost immediately after she arrived in La Push, much to her surprise. It wasn't that she thinks she's incapable of making friends or anything, oh no, but class sizes in the school on the res are extremely small, so Gianna had considered befriending people might be slightly difficult.

But she just seems to click with the two girls, they were all like different versions of each other, complete as a trio. They share the same sense of humour, and the same interests. Gianna finds it hard to explain, but they just work. Like Charlie's Angels,

"Are you gonna cry through this whole fucking movie?" Vanessa hisses at Liv, who wipes a small tear from her eye and sniffs. Gianna snorts.

"It's sad!" Liv replies.

"It's a movie!" Vanessa emphasises. Gianna starts to laugh, now. "Oh my god, Gi, get the tissues,"

Gianna lifts her school bag up, still laughing, and hunts around for a small packet of tissues. She eventually finds them, and throws them to the left, past Vanessa and into Liv's lap. She gives her a small smile, and opens them up.

"Don't worry, Liv," Gianna mutters. "Just ignore the plot and focus on how gorgeous Leo looks,"

"Gia, he's literally about to die,"

"So?"

Liv doesn't seem to get Gianna's point, and so the red head gives up, leaning back in her seat and facing the front, before letting her gaze drift about the rest of the class.

She locks eyes with a boy sitting across in the back left corner, and freezes, for a moment.

But Seth gives her a small smile, and a wave, and Gianna becomes even more baffled. Wasn't he running away from her just a few days prior?

Despite the frown that has unconsciously swept over the girls expression, Gianna forces a polite smile and waves back, which seems to please Seth, for some reason. Gianna doesn't know what game he's playing, but it makes her quite uneasy.

She turns back to the front, ensuring she will not make eye contact with him, yet again.

Little does she know, this is the first of many complexities that seem to stem from Seth Clearwater.

A/N: Not Seth being confusing already 😭

I just wanted to say I know the last time I published a chapter for this story it was in like August, but I promise I'm going to be doing more regular updates! I've got a timeline and plan ready, and I can't wait to get properly into the story! Also Gianna and Seth already have my heart and they haven't even spoken to each other yet wtf but he's a sweetheart so

I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you thought!

<3