eight | rebound

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EMBRY PICKED CALLIE UP FROM WORK SATURDAY AFTERNOON. Paul had told her to let him know whenever she needed a ride, but she was mindful not to ask him for one very often. Even though he never said so, she could see how tired he was whenever they spent time together. She still hadn't asked him about the whole thing with Sam and Jared, and honestly, Callie wasn't sure if she ever would. She and Paul were getting along again, and she had missed having him around, and she didn't want to ruin it by potentially causing an argument. Any time Sam Uley and the rumors came up around Paul, he got offended and was instantly angry. As a result, Calliope made it a point not to mention any of that when they were together.

Still, the fact was, whatever Paul had going on in his life was taking its toll on him. He was tired all of the time, and Callie felt guilty whenever he was her ride for work and she could see the bags of exhaustion beneath his eyes. Despite Paul literally telling her that she could bother him whenever she wanted, Callie tried to avoid it. She wanted him to get some rest.

And so, Callie had started to take the morning shift at the diner on Saturdays and Sundays. It worked out, because she had to be there by 7:30 and got off by 3:30. Since Embry's mom worked thirds, Callie's weekend hours weren't an issue for Embry to borrow his mom's car, and she was always sure to replace the gas he used for her.

On this particular Saturday, Embry stopped by and picked Quil up on the way to Callie and Jake's. They'd heard about her cousin rebuilding dirt bikes with Bella Swan, whom Jake had apparently said was his girlfriend― which wasn't true, but Callie didn't bother pointing that out― and the boys wanted to check it out for themselves. 

"Think she's using him for a rebound?" Quil asked when they pulled into the Black's driveway and saw the old rusted truck already parked in front of them. "From Cullen?"

Callie sighed and slid out of the car, smoothing over the skirt of the waitressing uniform she had to wear for the diner. "I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind," she answered truthfully.

Embry rolled his eyes. "Come on, guys. Jake is a definite step-up from Cullen. That weirdo doesn't have nothing on Jake."

"That's not the point," Quil said.

"The point," Callie informed Embry, "is that if she is using Jacob for a rebound, he's going to be heartbroken. Jake's had a crush on her ever since we were kids. He was ecstatic when he found out she was moving back."

"Okay, so he had first dibs and Cullen swooped in like a little thief and stole his girl," Embry deduced matter-of-factly. He shrugged. "The way I see it, Cullen was the rebound."

Quil and Calliope exchanged a look with each other before shaking their heads. "Once again, you and the point aren't even on the same plane."

He scrunched his nose up in distaste. "I'm afraid of heights. Why the hell would I want to be on a plane?"

Callie laughed. "He wasn't talking about an airplane, Embry. He meant, like on the same level, you know, like―" She stopped when she saw the look of confusion on his face, and laughed again as she ruffled his hair and walked past him. "Never mind."

With nothing else to do, Callie followed Quil into the garage, with Embry trailing after them. "Yo, Jake, you in there?" Quil called out as they entered. They found Jake sitting next to Bella in front of the two dirtbikes he was rebuilding, and he stood up to greet them with a smile.

"Hey. Guys, this is Bella," Jake introduced, gesturing to the pale girl who offered them a small, timid smile. "Bella, this is Quil and Embry, and you obviously already know Callie." 

Calliope offered Bella a small wave, although she couldn't help but remember the last time she and Bella had spoken, when the Swan girl told her off and slammed her bedroom door in Callie's face. "So, the bike-building story is true," Quil said, gesturing toward the stripped-down bikes. 

"Oh, yeah, yeah, I taught him everything he knows," Bella joked. 

He smirked. "What about the part where you're his girlfriend?"

Bella stared at him, her eyebrows raising. "Uh... we're friends, I don't..."

"Ooh! Burn!" Embry told Jake with a grin on his face. 

Jacob's cheeks flushed in embarrassment. "Actually, I said she's a girl and a friend," he lied, trying to save face in front of his crush.

"Embry, do you remember him making that decision?"

"Nope."

"So you guys have girlfriends. That's awesome," Bella said, speaking up for Jake as he simply glared at his friends.

Callie laughed. "Not quite," she told Bella.

"Right," Jake chimed in with his cousin, smirking. "Quil's actually taking his cousin to prom." He and Callie laughed together, Embry even joining in as they all looked at Quil with amusement clear on their faces.

Quil's gaze narrowed. "Yeah, that's still a riot." He reached over and ruffled up Callie's hair, causing her to swat his hands away with a laugh as her hair got messed up. "You want funny, Black?" He asked, turning to Jacob. "I'll give you funny."

As they started wrestling each other, Embry looked between Calliope and Bella. "I got five bucks on Quil."

Bella snorted. "You're on."

Callie shook her head with a smile. "You guys enjoy. I need to go take a shower, because I still smell like the diner." Patting Embry on the shoulder, she stepped over top of Jake and Quil as they wrestled on the floor and left the garage. "Thanks for the ride, Em."

"Anytime, Cal."

× × × × ×

THAT AFTERNOON WAS THE LAST TIME EMBRY HAD SPOKEN TO CALLIE, or even Jacob and Quil, for weeks. He missed school for a week, stopped answering their phone calls and avoided them in general. Callie was hurt by this, and she didn't understand what any of them could have done to have earned this sort of treatment by one of her closest friends. 

When Embry came back to school, he was sporting a new haircut and a tattoo on his shoulder that matched the one Sam, Jared and Paul had. Embry had taken to hanging out them, which made absolutely no sense to Callie. He had used to talk just as much crap about Sam Uley and his 'cult' as Jake and Quil did, so they didn't get why he had a sudden change of heart. Callie had asked Paul about it one afternoon when he gave her a ride home from work— asked him if he knew why Embry had suddenly started avoiding her and wouldn't even speak to her. "It's not you he's avoiding, Cal," Paul had told her. "It's the questions."

But that answer didn't tell her much of anything, nor did it make her feel any better. Calliope had gotten out of Paul's truck with a quiet 'goodbye' and hadn't bothered to look back at him as she walked inside her house. For the next week or so, she ignored Paul's calls and texts. 

Calliope Black did not like secrets. Especially when they were being kept from someone that you're supposed to be friends with, someone you're supposed to trust. She knew there was some sort of secret revolving around Sam's little group, but didn't want to dwell too much on it just because she was glad to have Paul back in her life. But Embry's dismissal of their lifelong friendship really did a number on her. And so, she decided that if they were going to keep secrets from her or avoid her entirely, then Callie was just wasting her time.

Jacob was just as bothered by Embry's dismissal as Callie was, but he had Bella to distract him. Callie either spent her time working or hanging out with Quil occasionally, but most of her time was spent in her room again. He wasn't sure whether she was studying, or painting, or just laying and listening to music, but Jake didn't like that Callie was closing herself off again. It took some convincing, but eventually he managed to talk her into going with him and Bella to test-drive the dirt bikes he'd fixed. Callie sat quietly while Jacob and Bella conversed, not wanting to impose on their conversation as she pulled out her earphones from her pocket and started to untangle them.

"Is that Sam Uley?" Bella asked suddenly, distracting Callie from her task as she looked up and looked in the direction Bella pointed in. Sure enough, over on the cliffside overlooking the waters, Sam was there— and so was Paul, Jared and Embry.

"Yeah," Jacob answered her glumly. "Him and his cult."

"Don't call them that," Callie mumbled half-heartedly, watching as a laughing Embry and Paul wrestled with Jared and pushed him over the cliff's edge.

"Oh, my God!" Bella quickly pulled the truck over on the side of the road, jumping out of the vehicle as she stared with wide eyes. "Did you guys see that?"

The two cousins climbed out of the truck together, walking up behind her as she jogged across the road to get a better look. "They're not really fighting, Bella," Jacob explained with a laugh. "They're cliff-diving. Scary as hell, but a total rush."

"A rush?"

Callie nodded, hugging her arms around her torso to try and maintain some body heat. "Yeah, but most of us jump from lower down."

"We leave the showing off to Sam and his Disciples," Jake added bitterly.

"You have some kind of beef with them, or something?"

"I don't know," Jacob answered with a shrug. "They just think they run this place. Embry used to call them hall monitors on steroids... now look at him."

Bella turned following Callie's gaze back over toward the cliffside. "That's Embry?" She asked in surprise, just now recognizing the lanky figure of the boy. He had grown taller since the last time she saw him. "What happened to him?"

Callie tuned out their conversation, watching as Paul and Embry started to wrestle around with each other again. She could see Sam saying something to them, and Paul said something in response, prompting a laugh from Embry as Paul turned toward the cliffside. He started to run toward the edge but halted in his tracks suddenly, his gaze aimed straight at Callie, who was still hugging her arms to her chest as Jacob and Bella talked behind her. She turned away from his gaze and walked back toward the truck. "Are we going to test-drive these dirt bikes, or not?" She asked as she passed by her companions.

Bella glanced at her retreating figure in confusion. "She's taking it pretty hard," Jacob explained to her quietly. He squeezed her shoulder and followed his cousin back to the truck. "C'mon, let's go."

Once they reached the trails Jake planned for them to test-drive the bikes on, he pulled them out from the back of the truck. Callie got on one, barely listening as Jacob taught Bella how to control the dirt-bike. "Have you done this before?" Bella asked her, looking at the russet-skinned girl who sat on the dirt-bike next to her calmly. She had never pictured Calliope Black to be the kind of girl to ride dirt-bikes.

"Bella, I grew up with Jacob, Embry and Quil," Callie told her, as if the answer were obvious. "Of course I've done this before." In fact, things like dirt-bikes and four-wheelers were the only things Callie wasn't afraid to drive, seeing as how she never had to drive them in traffic, and they were smaller than cars, vans or trucks.

Jake nodded. "Right, and she's gonna ride next to you, so if you have any questions, Callie can answer them."

Apparently, though, Bella didn't have questions. She took off instantly, Callie scrambling to follow after her and pick up enough speed to ride next to her. "Bella, you might want to slow down," she called over to the girl over the sound of the engines.

"No, I want to go faster," Bella called over to her, spurring the dirt-bike to move quicker along the path.

"Bella, I'm serious!" Callie exclaimed, keeping her own bike next to hers, but the older teenager wasn't listening. "These things are hard to control when you're first starting out and—"

Bella's dirt-bike swerved suddenly, and Callie tried to move hers out of the way, but she wasn't fast enough. Bella's front tire hit the back of Callie's front tire, throwing the whole thing off. Callie lost control of her bike and it jerked to the left, crashing into a tree. The collision caused Callie to fly off of it, and she landed with a harsh thud, skidding across twigs and dirt in the woods just off to the side of the dirt path. Bella lost control of her bike as well, the entire thing tipping so badly that she fell off of it, rolling across the opposite side of the dirt path and accidentally smacking her head against a large rock.

"Shit!" Jacob cursed, sprinting down the trail as fast as he could. Bella was the first one he reached, the only one he could see at the moment, since Callie had been flung off her bike off of the trail. 

"I wanna go again," Bella said as soon as Jacob reached her and knelt down to check on her.

He scowled. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"I wanna go again."

"No!" Jacob snapped at her. "Forget it. No more bikes." He looked up at the bleeding wound on her temple and frowned. "Man, your head."

Bella's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and she reached up, wincing as soon as her pale fingers touched the wound. "Ow." Her eyes widened when she saw the blood. "Oh my god, I'm sorry!"

"You're apologizing for bleeding?"

She hesitated. "Yeah... I guess I am."

"It's just blood, Bella. No big deal." He yanked off his shirt and wadded it up, giving it to her so that she could press it against her temple. "I gotta find Callie," Jacob told her before she could say anything else, hurrying off in the direction he'd seen his cousin be thrown in.

Callie was sprawled on the forest ground about ten feet off the trail, clutching a deep gash on the side of her arm as she stared up at the canopy of leaves above them. "Jesus, Cal," Jake said, dropping to his knees beside her. "You okay?"

She shot him a blank look. "Do I look okay?" Callie huffed. "I swear, one of these days, your fascination with Bella Swan is probably going to get someone killed." Jake snorted at her words, shaking his head at her, and Callie groaned as she forced herself to sit up and take a better look at her arm. "I think I might need stitches."

Jacob helped his cousin up to her feet and they headed back over to where Bella was still sitting up next to the large rock she had hit her head on. "I'll take you guys to Sue's so she can check you out," he decided. "If we go to the hospital we'll have to say how it happened, and if my dad or Charlie finds out we were out driving dirt-bikes without permission, we're all toast."

"Agreed," Callie said, not even wanting to think about how pissed Billy would be. She already had to worry about finding a way to explain what happened to her arm— but if she was being honest with herself, Callie was probably just going to beg Sue not to say anything about it, and then wear long sleeves to cover it up.

Knowing her uncle, however, he'd most likely find out about it either way.

Great.

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