A few days passed, and your classmate still hadn’t returned your notes—the same notes you had trusted him with when he’d missed class. You needed them now. Desperately. They were your outlines, your careful annotations, your late-night summaries. And yet he had them.

It gnawed at you for days. By the time you arrived at Forks High School, it was the only thing on your mind.

You waited near the entrance, scanning the parking lot, the halls, the clusters of students drifting in and out. You barely knew Jacob beyond shared classes and the routine of lending him assignments whenever he fell behind. Lately, though, he’d been different—more distracted, more absent. Always surrounded by the same tight-knit group from the La Push Reservation, boys who walked with him into school and lingered with him long after the final bell.

Minutes dragged by before he finally appeared.

He didn’t look for you. Didn’t acknowledge you. Instead, he slipped easily into conversation with his friends, laughter rising between them like you weren’t standing ten feet away waiting for something that belonged to you.

Your patience snapped.

Without fully thinking it through, you crossed the distance between you. You called his name—but he didn’t hear. So you reached out.

Your fingers brushed his hair.

The reaction was instant.

The laughter died. Conversations stilled. Every pair of eyes turned toward you—and toward him. The air shifted, heavy and sharp, as though you’d crossed an invisible boundary you hadn’t known existed.

Jacob went rigid.

In that suspended moment, you realized too late that what you thought was a harmless attempt to get his attention carried a meaning you didn’t understand. Among members of the Quileute community, certain gestures aren’t casual. Within their traditions—particularly the significance surrounding braids—touch can symbolize romantic or intimate interest. It isn’t something done lightly. It isn’t something done publicly.

And you had just done exactly that.

“It’s you.” he muttered finally, voice tight. “The one with the notes.”

He couldn’t quite meet your eyes.

He didn’t look angry—just caught. Exposed. You hadn’t meant to embarrass him, but you had. In front of his friends. In front of everyone. The misunderstanding hung thick in the silence, and you felt heat creep up your neck as realization dawned.

All you’d wanted were your notes back.

Instead, you’d stepped into a cultural line you didn’t even know was there.