Paranoia Takes Over

[Wynne Westwater]

“Jake…Are you in there?”

Wynne knocked a few times on her boyfriends’ door. When she heard no response, she looked down the hall. Where had he gone? He left in such a hurry and in such an anxious mood, she began to worry. It wasn’t really like Jake to just run off. Wynne sighed and bit her lip.

She debated whether or not to wait at his door but decided against it. She didn’t want to seem desperate. Wynne walked away from his room and out of the Boy’s Dorm. She entered the girls’ dorm and walked over to her room. She opened the door, walked inside, and then closed the door.

Her desk was the only messy thing in the room. It had about 20 different books spread across the entire desk. She cleaned it off and then, having nothing else to do, laid down on her bed. She lay on her stomach, hugging a pillow, looking at the wall. She sat up, pulled her jacket off and threw it on the side of the bed. She wore a white short sleeve shirt, something she wouldn’t really wear outside. She went back to laying down.

She began to think about Jake. She wondered what was so urgently important that he took off without a glance back at her. She hoped he wasn’t in trouble. Jade had suggested that Wynne spy on him. Turning invisibility would help her find out what he was up to but Wynne promised herself she wouldn’t be like that. If Jake had secrets, he would tell her. Wouldn’t he?

Now she doubted Jake’s loyalty. Great. What was she turning herself into? A possessive girlfriend who could never trust her boyfriend. But what about Hadley, She seemed really friendly this morning. Well, Jake’s allowed to have friends who are girls, right?

“NO! Not right! Especially someone like Hadley. Beautiful Hadley. He’d leave you for her any second!”

Stupid mind. Yea, sometimes it was helpful but right now it was making her paranoid. She couldn’t help thinking Jake would leave her. She didn’t feel even remotely pretty compared to Hadley and Blair. Breathlessly beautiful. Would the lion want the peac ock or the chicken?

Now she was feeling sorry for herself like she had been doing for the last 4 years. She needed to get out of that zone. But every time she felt like this she would always run to Jake. But she couldn’t find Jake, so now what?

Wynne closed her eyes and began to drift into a restless sleep. Bad dreams were bound to come from all these thoughts. She sighed and hugged her pillow.

[Short and crappy but I just got home from work!]

[Jake Wallace]

Jake stalked away, suddenly very angry with Hadley. He knew it wasn’t all her fault that he had come so close to infidelity, but he knew that he was never going to talk to her again. The feeling he had that morning, when he saw something mysterious in her, just turned out to be something very, very messed up. Hawthorne was chalked full of messed up kids, all in the same place, feeding off each other’s tortured souls. There were kids who had been kicked out of their homes, kids who had been picked at by peers like scabs, kids who were probably raped and messed up so bad for one reason or another that they were not yet recognizable as people. Jake was one of the most normal people here. He sort of messed up his parent’s relationship, but that would have happened anyway. His parents were not right for each other. His “accident” just worked as a catalyst in destroying his parents’ marriage. He hadn’t been kicked out of his home, he hadn’t been shunned, nothing. He had been taken out of school a lot, checked on by the nurse, and picked on a little bit, but he experienced no more bullying than most other kids. He managed to have three close friends throughout middle school, one of which he considered his first girlfriend, but she was really just the first girl he had kissed, and she had kissed Troy and Ely too. He was so fricking normal-compared to these messed up little weirdos.

He needed to find Wynne, but first, he needed to change out of these stupid clothes. Maybe burn them with his stupid lighter. He was so going to hell, but at least he knew he was living.

When he reached his dormitory, he slammed the door, and immediately took shower. He scrubbed himself raw, trying to wash away the last couple of hours. He heard knocking on the door at some point, but figured it was Hadley, and the last thing he needed was to see her with only a towel around his waist.

When he stepped out of the shower and dressed in new clothes, he was like a new man. He really was-he didn’t even own any pot at this point in time. He had resisted a girl who came onto him so strongly, that when he came out, he was a hero. He couldn’t even remember bringing up the subject of kissing, he only remembered Hadley saying she was going to kiss him, and him walking away. What a hero. What a good boyfriend. He gave up pot and resisted all kinds of pretty girls all in one day. He knew, somewhere, this wasn’t exactly true, but whatver. What a good boyfriend-if only he could tell Wynne.

He really wanted to tell Wynne how good he was now, but that would also mean he would have to tell her that he did smoke pot and he did almost kiss another girl. He could almost imagine that scene. He would tell Wynne in a rushed voice that he smoked pot last night but now he didn’t have any, and then he almost kissed Hadley Chase-he was this far from her face, but then he walked away, and now he was here with her and he loved her and everything was going to be okay! And he would only know something was wrong when he saw the betrayed look on her face, and said, “You smoked pot?” or something in a soft voice. It was one of the scenes you had seen fifty times in a movie, and it never really came out good for the new-and-improved man or woman. So why tell her? She wouldn’t want to know, so he was doing her a favor.
He walked towards the girls’ dormitories, but more out towards the grounds so he could see if she was there. Nope. There were only a few people left. His next guess what her dorm room. He began to make his way over there at a brisk pace when something stopped him-

What if she had seen everything? Wynne could be invisible if she wanted, and if he was her, he’d totally follow her around whenever he wanted (preferably when she was changing and stuff, but whatever). Had she ever done that before? It wasn’t the first time he had thought she might have been following him, but he never found her actually invisible-but, you know, that was kind of an impossibility. He shook the thought away. If she was following him, or had been following him, he would find out soon enough. He ran to the Junior Girls’ Housing, and then stopped in front of her door. He had three choices: knock, barge in, or enter quietly.

She was spying on him, right? So even if she wasn’t there, he could just…have a poke around…maybe steal some of her underwear or something. But if she was in there, then there was pretty much no way he was going to even be able to open the door without her noticing-but why would he want to? Well, he’d have to open the door to find that out.

He turned the knob and eased the door open, slowly and quietly. He thought at first that she wasn’t there, but he was mistaken-there she was. His heart leapt as it normally did when he saw her. He figured she had already noticed someone was there, and that it was probably either him or Jade, if Jade ever cared enough about her friends to check on how they were doing. Her face was in her pillow. Never one to miss a chance to ruin what would otherwise be a quiet moment, Jake jumped and landed above her, on his hands and knees.

“Wynne Westretarded, I think I love you.”

[Wynne Westwater]

Wynne had never introduced Jake to her parents yet. She had the honor of meeting his parents already. Well that night was interesting. She really, truly thought that his parents were going to throw her out of the house. The way Jake talked it up, she seemed to be a sexy, dirty little stripper, whore. It was the most awkward night of her life but also, one of the funniest.

She couldn’t help but laugh a little when Jake called her his Sexy Little Devil. Strangely, it made her feel good about herself. She knew that when Jake called her all these names, secretly, his “sensitive” part was telling her that she was Beautiful. However, she didn’t think his parents, or half his parents, really understood the “naughty” little joke. She had met Jake’s mom. Portia Cunningham. His parents had split awhile ago. She had yet to meet Jake’s dad and Jake had yet to meet her parents.

It’s not that she didn’t want to introduce Jake to her parents; the timing just never was right. Wynne’s parents were high-class parents. Always wanting the best for their sweet Wynne. They didn’t even know Wynne had a boyfriend, a serious one at that. Wynne wanted them to meet Jake but she was sort of scared at what they might think.

If Jake made comments, like the ones that he made with his mom, Wynne didn’t know what her parents would do. Her dad would probably chase Jake around the house with a knife, her mom would be crying hysterically about how her little girl was a dirty prostitute, and her brother and sister would be laughing their stomachs out.

Whatever the case was, hopefully if the two of them were still together, this summer she was telling them she had a boyfriend. She wondered how they would react to the news. She didn’t know whether or not she would tell them what he was. Little bits at a time.

When Wynne first learned what Jake was, she was a little afraid but she was relieved when he told her he could control it. Jake was a werewolf. Wynne had never seen him as one or witness any behavior differences that could happen closer to the moon. He was in control of it. She didn’t get to see him every night but still, every one here has a flaw.

Drift, Drift, Drift. BOOM! And she’s awake.

Wynne jumped a little bit when she felt her bed sink then rise back up a bit. Someone jumped on her bed. She turned over, eyes still closed and opened only one. When she saw his face, she smiled. She closed her eyes again and turned back over so her face was in the pillow again, hiding her mouth from him so he didn’t get the chance to stick his tongue down her throat that was more crude then romantic.

“I think I love you, too.”

She said, face still in the pillow. She curled into a little ball to protect herself from him.


-poke-
Going to get a shower
-nods-
I'll be back soon!

[Jake Wallace]

“She’s alive!”

Jake cried, sitting up on his heels and throwing his arms above his head. Beneath him, Wynne twisted back into her pillow. When she admitted to her pillow that she might just love him, Jake threw his head back, stuck his tongue out, and twisted his nipples. “You’re making me hot, girl!” He yelled, grabbing the sides of her mattress and pulling them up and down. He hit his fist against the wall so that the girls on the other side would pound back at them. “What? What? What now? What now? You have been owned, Way-Way. That is right. Owned. Call me Admiral. Call me Captain.”

He catapulted himself off her bed, but not before smacking her ass. He shook the bed as hard as he could, hoping to scare the other girls in the building, to make them think they were wildly making love. He threw his body against the wall and shouted, “Jesus Christ! You like it rough, ho!” He then collapsed into her desk chair, scooted it back to her wall, and shouted “That was AWESOME!” at the people who were hopefully on the other side. He sat like that for a while, head against the wall, and then scooted away and stared at her.

“You tire me out, Wynne Westard. Touché.”

In their Freshman year, when Jake had shown off by freaking out along the same lines, Wynne didn’t know whether to be scared or humored. He remembered once, on the day of the full moon, in their Controlling Your Powers class, pretending to morph horribly into WereJake. He loped over to her, dragging one of his feet behind him, and rumbled, “Help me…holy crap….ow, it hurts…” He had stifled a smile at her horrified look, ignored the teacher’s calls of “Sit down, Wallace!” and ran off outside the classroom, where he began to shout and bark and make all sorts of grotesque noises. The teacher was waiting, his eyebrows raised, for Jake to stop it, until he was forced to bring him back inside the classroom himself.

Jake stared at her, his eyes unfocused. He was thinking about what he should tell her. Part of him figured he should fess up, while the other part of him asked, “Confess what?” He scratched his eyebrow, then leaned back in the chair and yawned, stretching his arms up over his head. He didn’t want to complicate things, but he did owe her an explanation as to why he blew her off earlier. He breathed in through his nose, and squinted at her wearily.

“So I got another two detentions. That was why I left earlier. Professor Alderson is such a bitch, I swear to God. I didn’t do that first assignment, right, so she gives me a detention. She said I had to get it in by yesterday or I had a second detention, and I didn’t turn it in, because I’m willing to give up like one night or lunch period, and like, she gives me two! She hates me just because her homework is so pointless and because I actually point that out to her. And anyway she said she’s going to contact my parents if I fail her class this semester, and my dad’s being a total ho right now. Ever since you met my mom, and my mom told him because she was like, showing off or something, he’s been like, ‘Hey, son, when am I going to meet that girlfriend of yours,’ and I’m like, ‘Uh, I don’t know, Dad, when you stop acting like such a perv and stop walking in on Eric’s girlfriend when she’s changing.’ I totally know he does it to her on purpose, it’s like, that would be okay for me to do, but like, he’s like fifty. And he’s an assfuck.”

Jake finished bitterly. He always referred to his brother Jake as Eric, because that was his middle name, and Jake went by Andrew when he was with his family (except his mother, who insisted on calling them both Jake). When he was at his father’s house over the summer, his father goosed his stepmother in front of them, and then probably purposely took the towels from the bathroom before Mimi took a shower so that he could see her run across the hall, dripping wet and naked. Even Jake, who had like, a million times more sperm than his father, didn’t go all creepy on Mimi like that-especially because he had seen more than enough over Christmas.

Jake hadn’t gotten along with his father since he came back from the camping trip when he was thirteen. His father was such a jerk to his mother, and then he stopped talking to Jake for a while. When he did start talking to Jake again, he pretended to be all uptight and fake about how he was okay with Jake’s “problem.” One time, over the summer before Sophomore year, Jake peed on his dad’s sheets and told him he accidentally morphed and, when you’re a wolf, you can’t really control your bodily functions. His dad, stuck with being Acceptance Man, patted him on the back, and said, “It’s okay, son. Don’t worry about it. We’ll work on it.” What was there to work on? And how did he not realize that the only thing an uncontrollable werewolf did was piss on his bed? He didn’t stop to think about the fact that the werewolf hadn’t broken or touched anything. Jake had called Wynne to complain, during which he said, “I could take a shit on the carpet right in front of him, and he’d be like, ‘Don’t worry about it! Don’t worry about it!’”

Not only that, his stepmother was ten years younger than him (which was still old), and botoxed the crap out of her frigid face every couple of months. She called her appointments with Dr. Wrinklesfree her “Pseudo-surgery.” What the hell was pseudo-surgery? Apparently, it was when Karen Ginger-Wallace had a needle shoved in her face to smooth out the creases.

Not that his mother’s family was much better. Between their hairy armpits, incense, hemp shirts, condoms, and lack of bras, his mother’s family was pretty embarrassing too. But at least their hearts were in the right place. His mother hadn’t forced everyone to sit down and listen to Enya, or made creepy comments about Eric’s girlfriend. Eric had even told him that if their dad put his hands in his pockets when his walked behind Mimi again, he’s break his wrists.

“Anyway, I have to clean up my shit and move into the Team house. I’ll help you if you need later. See ya.”

And with that, Jake gave Wynne a swift kiss on the forehead, and departed.

[There’s my transition to like the Debriefing House]

[Wynne Westwater]

She laughed into her pillow but quickly grabbed the sides of the bed when he started to pull the matress up and down, off the bed. She turned around to look at Jake. She laughed a little and tried to push him off the bed.

“You…are going…to….break it!”

She yelled, laughing a little. She had to admit, she loved Jake’s sense of humor. No matter how immature or childish he was, she loved him for it. She placed her hands over her eyes when he began to pound on the wall, yelling into the other room. She couldn’t help but smile. However, she did feel her cheeks getting red. Everyone in this school must have thought that had done it at least 20 times, the way Jake talked it up.

She felt him jump off the bed and she sat up and looked at him. She smiled and bit her lip. She smiled at him and shook her head.

“I’m so happy I’m moving out of here and into the Debriefing House.”

She looked over to the wall.

“I’m sure there happy too.”

She stood up, grabbed her jacket and pulled it on.

“You know, that won’t impress any of the people in the Debriefing House. They have sound proof walls.”

She smirked a little and sat back down on the bed.

“I think you tired yourself out Jake Wallace.”

Oh yes, she remembered freshman year when he acted like an idiot in class. Wynne was horrified at first, then embarrassed, then honor that Jake noticed her. Jake seemed to be thinking about something. Wynne looked at him and tilted her head. She listened to what he had to say about the detentions.

“You got another one? Look, I can help you with the homework, you just have to try a little.”

She looked at him and smiled slightly. When he began to talk about his family, she just listened to him rant. She knew almost everything about his family. When he finished, before she could say anything, he stood up. Right tonight was the move. How could she forget? She nodded and smiled when he kissed her forehead.

“See you soon.”

[Sucks but it’s my ending and I’m feeling lazy today..]