"Gen?" My eyelids fluttered. "Gen, you awake?"

"Mmmm." I groaned and focused on the sound of my dad tapping on my bedroom door. "What?"

Before he answered I managed to sit up and glanced around the my room, remembering that I had school in the morning and that I had kissed Jacob Black in the time it took my dad to start talking. Hmmm... Jacob. I wonder if—

"Gen?"

"What?"

I heard my dad sigh. "I have to head out to the campgrounds. There's a missing hiker, animal sighting..." Another sigh. "Can you keep an eye on your sister for me?"

"Um... yeah." I clambered out of bed, trying to keep my voice steady as I ran over his words. "Animal sighting?" I repeated, opening the door to find my exhausted father. "Wasn't there... weren't there some bear sightings last fall? I mean, it's just a bear, right?"

Dad squinted at me through the dark night air, obviously puzzled. "Just a bear, Gen?"

"I..." Crap! I shut my eyes, trying to find some lie, some way to excuse how little sense that question made in a sane, normal world. Something. Anything. Come on, lie. Lie! "I heard those wolves yesterday. There sounded like a bunch of them."

Dad pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. "Right. Wolves, too. Peachy." I gave a nervous laugh. "Just watch your sister, would you? Leave your door open in case she..."

In case she starts having yet another screamfest? "Mmmm," I agreed, blinking sleepily up at him. "Yep. See you later, Dad."

Dad nodded awkwardly, opening his mouth once and then giving a shrug as he realized there wasn't really anything else to say. "Yep."

"Yep." I repeated, smirking tiredly.

He clumped down the stairs and I crawled tiredly back into bed, hoping to return to a dream of Jacob.

...

Instead I got a couple dozen nightmares.

In fact for the rest of the week all I got were nightmares.

Some made sense: vampires eating me, wolves eating Jacob, bears learning to build submarines and eating my dad. Normal stuff. But some of them trickled out of the depths of fears I'd been trying to avoid. Jacob kissing Isabella, Isabella disappearing as she chased after Edward, my dad not being able to see me, Jacob fading away as I ran toward La Push without ever getting there. Things I'd worried about, old hurts... It was like my subconscious saw I'd been happy for a second and was having none of it. By the end of the week I was exhausted and was seeing vampires of the corner of my eye and mentally accusing everyone of being out to get me.

So thank goodness Isabella didn't have one of her bad nights: if I'd heard her scream I probably would have just coldcocked her and called it good. Dad was out most of the week too, searching for something that didn't exist, in danger of something that shouldn't exist. And I was so f***ingtired.

Friday morning I woke up and went through my usual routine. First: a glance out all the windows to see if there was anything outside that shouldn't be. Next I threw on a random assemble of clothes, not bothering to think about it much—a sure sign I wasn't really myself—and glared at my hair in the mirror until giving up and throwing up a messy bun. Then makeup, brush teeth, check out the bathroom window for anything outside that shouldn't be there. Go downstairs to find my twin sister and glare at the breakfast cereal until closing my eyes and grabbing one at random. Wish for a time machine to stop my sister from coming to Forks and ruining my life with her boy stealing, vampire attracting ways. Remember I am trying to be nice to Isabella. Check out the kitchen window for vampire bears. Fall asleep next to the cereal bowl. Wake up to Bella offering to drive me to school.

Most of Friday went about the same: staring out windows, trying not to fall asleep, Cassie and Kate trying to pry more out of me then what I'd accidentally let slip about Jacob Black. After school was practice and I stayed late in the locker room, back in my old habit of standing the hot water and tapping the shower handled to see how hot I could stand it. My head was feeling even more fuzzy, a result of several basketballs to the face due to my slowed reflexes, and I didn't understand at first when the lights suddenly shut off and left me alone and defenseless in the dark.

Luckily, where this is fear I always have anger to drown it out.

"F***ING MOTION DE-F***ING-TECTING F***," I called to no one in particular, feeling around for my towel. Wrapping myself up, I stepped out into the main locker room, only to remember that the detector only worked in the hallway right by the door. With a buzz, the light up of my phone screen on a nearby bench gave me a way to make it there: I quickly felt my way down the row of cold lockers to my phone. "God damn it!"

Biting my lip, I swore through gritted teeth as my heartbeat grew stronger in my ears. You're supposed to be over this, Genevieve. You were totally fine. Why should a couple hours less of sleep through you back into a toddler's fear of the dark? Freaking wimp. I picked up the phone only to drop it and hear it scatter away. Sh**.

"Gen?" A flat voice called out with the creak of the door.

Lights flooded back on.

No one but me and my sister.

Isabella blinked at me in surprise when she walked into find me basically hugging the lockers wearing only a towel. I could only blink back: the lights had pretty much blinded me and I was still trying to mentally locate my phone.

"You forget I drove you this morning?" Bella asked.

"Yeah..." I grabbed my bag from the bench and then did an awkward sit and scoot around to get over it without messing up my towel. I found my phone at my feet, battery and battery cover another foot away. "Be right out."

Bella nodded and slipped out, followed by me a couple minutes later. I powerwalked to her truck, finally turning the phone on to try and see who had messaged me to make the phone light up in the first place. I finally got to the text as she drove out of the lot, immediately distracted as I saw Jacob's name and the simple text he'd sent.

'Free tonight?'

I swept my wet hair back and thought back to how little effort I'd put into my appearance that morning. I also realized I'd been putting off talking with him since the incident and suddenly had a huge need to see him.

Bella raised an eyebrow as stopped at a red light and glanced over to see the conflict on my face. "Who's that?"

I looked away and shoved the phone into my pocket. "No one."

"Jacob, huh?" Bella said, now sounding strained.

"Mmm."

"He seemed happy to hang out with you last weekend." Isabella added after I failed to elaborate.

I took the phone out and flipped it open to look at his text again, remembering I should answer. "You saw him?"

"He stopped to see—to say hi on his way out." Bella told me. She glanced at me again. "Gen... Gen, I just..."

"Forget it." I told her, putting the phone away.

It turned out to be a rather hypothetical order.

...

Instead of texting Jacob back, I ended up rearranging my room again. A bookshelf over a window here, bed tucked away in a corner there, then a check outside to see if Dad's home yet. He wasn't. Well... Laundry?

I gave up on laundry after a few seconds, screwing up my face in annoyance as I grabbed a sweatshirt that had once belonged to Tyler Crowley and tossed it, only to find the one that technically belonged to Jacob. I grew more irritated with myself as I stared at it: we'd kissed. That was a good thing.

Just like going to spring dance with Tyler was a good thing? A voice replied. Like Paul texting you that he needed you was a good thing? Where are they now?

I sat down in the middle of the room to scowl at the sweatshirt, only to realize I was right in the area of where we'd had our little slow dance. Only I could try to clean my room and find myself reminiscing about all my failures in love, I thought ruefully. Though it was better than backtracking into mindless spurts of terror like I had been the rest of the week... I nodded: I'll take the heartbreak over the fear for my life thank you very much.

Except now my brain was going back and forth like a crazy never ending car wreck.

You shouldn't have kissed him.

Was that a noise outside?

What if he's not ready for a relationship?

Don't you dare look out the window again. There's nothing there.

"UUUUUUUUUUUGH." I buried my face in Jacob's sweatshirt and groaned in the most obnoxious manner possible. As I sat, I heard my phone ding again and I knew it was Jacob. Had I even read his other text? Did I want to read the next? Did I have any f***ing clue what I should do to show him I cared without ruining everything I wanted? Was there any way this didn't end in a heartbreak just as bad as Bella's? Distraction. Distraction, distraction, distraction. Why is it that I can never just relax: I always have one thing looming over me. And now it's two things, shadowing my life with fear. Where is a problem that I can actually solve?

I need a puzzle.

Quickly I stood up, throwing Jacob's sweatshirt onto the bed without another thought. Scooping up my basketball from where I'd apparently tossed it beside the door, I sprinted down the stairs, past my sister moping lonesomely in her bedroom, past my dad's unusually empty couch, and out onto the driveway.

"Swan dribbles down past the truck. She's going for a 3-pointer!"

What had been the deal with Edward? How did even a weirdo like him get messed up with red-eyed, bloodthirsty vampires?

"She shoots! She misses."

And what about the animal attacks? Again? And who would go missing this time, murdered by a thing that shouldn't exist? Would it be Dad? Bella? Me?

"Oh, Swan gets the rebound! Passes to... Swan!"

Or would it be the ever innocent Jacob? Or Billy? He'd also seemed a little to knowledgeable: was he already tangled up in things? Or Paul who had...?

Oh, god, Paul.

Who had run out of the forest to save my sister, who had climbed out of the ice hot to the touch.

Sh**.

Well, I'd asked for a puzzle.