It seemed to take forever, probably because I was still on the razor blades, but it actually didn’t even take two hours before I was driving north into the undefined sprawl that was part Tacoma and part Seattle. I slowed down then, because I really wasn’t trying to kill any innocent bystanders.
This was a stupid plan. It wasn’t going to work. But, as I’d searched my head for any way at all to get away from the pain, what Leah’d said today had popped in there.
That would go away, you know, if you imprinted. You wouldn’t have to hurt over her anymore.
Seemed like maybe getting your choices taken away from you wasn’t the very worst thing in the world. Maybe feeling like this was the very worst thing in the world.
But I’d seen all the girls in La Push and up on the Makah rez and in Forks. I needed a wider hunting range.
So how do you look for a random soul mate in a crowd? Well, first, I needed a crowd. So I tooled around, looking for a likely spot. I passed a couple of malls, which probably would’ve been pretty good places to find girls my age, but I couldn’t make myself stop. Did I want to imprint on some girl who hung out in a mall all day?
I kept going north, and it got more and more crowded. Eventually, I found a big park full of kids and families and skateboards and bikes and kites and picnics and the whole bit. I hadn’t noticed till now—it was a nice day. Sun and all that. People were out celebrating the blue sky.
I parked across two handicapped spots—just begging for a ticket—and joined the crowd.
I walked around for what felt like hours. Long enough that the sun changed sides in the sky. I stared into the face of every girl who passed anywhere near me, making myself really look, noticing who was pretty and who had blue eyes and who looked good in braces and who had way too much makeup on. I tried to find something interesting about each face, so that I would know for sure that I’d really tried. Things like: This one had a really straight nose; that one should pull her hair out of her eyes; this one could do lipstick ads if the rest of her face was as perfect as her mouth. . . .
Sometimes they stared back. Sometimes they looked scared—like they were thinking, Who is this big freak glaring at me? Sometimes I thought they looked kind of interested, but maybe that was just my ego running wild.
Either way, nothing. Even when I met the eyes of the girl who was—no contest—the hottest girl in the park and probably in the city, and she stared right back with a speculation that looked like interest, I felt nothing. Just the same desperate drive to find a way out of the pain.
As time went on, I started noticing all the wrong things. Bella things. This one’s hair was the same color. That one’s eyes were sort of shaped the same. This one’s cheekbones cut across her face in just the same way. That one had the same little crease between her eyes—which made me wonder what she was worrying about. . . .
That was when I gave up. Because it was beyond stupid to think that I had picked exactly the right place and time and I was going to simply walk into my soul mate just because I was so desperate to.
It wouldn’t make sense to find her here, anyway. If Sam was right, the best place to find my genetic match would be in La Push. And, clearly, no one there fit the bill. If Billy was right, then who knew? What made for a stronger wolf?
I wandered back to the car and then slumped against the hood and played with the keys.
Maybe I was what Leah thought she was. Some kind of dead end that shouldn’t be passed on to another generation. Or maybe it was just that my life was a big, cruel joke, and there was no escape from the punch line.
“Hey, you okay? Hello? You there, with the stolen car.”
It took me a second to realize that the voice was talking to me, and then another second to decide to raise my head.
A familiar-looking girl was staring at me, her expression kind of anxious. I knew why I recognized her face—I’d already catalogued this one. Light red-gold hair, fair skin, a few gold-colored freckles sprinkled across her cheeks and nose, and eyes the color of cinnamon.
“If you’re feeling that remorseful over boosting the car,” she said, smiling so that a dimple popped out in her chin, “you could always turn yourself in.”
“It’s borrowed, not stolen,” I snapped. My voice sounded horrible—like I’d been crying or something. Embarrassing.
“Sure, that’ll hold up in court.”
I glowered. “You need something?”
“Not really. I was kidding about the car, you know. It’s just that… you look really upset about something. Oh, hey, I’m Lizzie.” She held out her hand.
I looked at it until she let it fall.