Truce
Summary: I never thought Leah would call a truce into action. But she had. I wish she hadn't.
It was a beautiful day outside and I was just washing the dishes. The boys had just torn through there and ate everything. I'd have to go shopping again tomorrow.
It was less than a week till the wedding, but I didn't care. I wasn't nervous, I was happy. The day was finally almost here. I'd been waiting for this for the past 2 years. It was finally happening. The only thing that will bother me is Leah drooling over him even though he'll be married.
I sighed and turned to put a stack of plates away but jumped and gasped when I saw Leah standing by the doorway. I let out a nervous laugh and put my hand over my heart.
"Oh my gosh, Leah, you scared me." She smirked and walked over to me. I winced away, half afraid she was gonna slap me or something. Her smile looked hypocritical, like it meant to come across as true, real, and happy, but it looked more like a traitorous one. Instead she took the plates from my arms and put them back where they were supposed to be put. She's taller than me and can put the whole stack up there right away. I have to place each one up there separately because it's too high up.
"I would never do such a thing." She smiled at me and walked over to the sink, picking up the drying towel and looking over at me expectantly. I walked over slowly, wondering if she was going to pull the butter knife out of the soapy water and stab me with it. But she didn't. We washed dishes in silence for a few minutes. Before I knew it, they were done and not a word had been uttered. It was an incredibly awkward silence.
"Em." Leah spoke so suddenly. And she was speaking to me, not at me this time. It took me by surprise. I looked at her.
"Yeah, Leah?" She bit her lip. I narrowed my eyes and focused. Yeah, we hadn't been friends in a long time, but I knew that she only did that when she was nervous. What could she possibly be nervous about?
"I'm sorry," she blurted out suddenly, looking at me with wide, apologetic eyes. My jaw fell open, my eyes wider than hers.
"Sorry?!" I yelled. "You're actually APOLOGIZING to me?!" She nodded and hung her head in…was that shame?
I paced back and forth around the kitchen, not sure how else to respond. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to fathom what brought this on.
"I just want you to know that I'm over Sam." Leah spoke so quietly I could barely hear her. "I don't want him anymore. Any guy that causes a girl this much pain isn't worth her time or effort. And yes, he might still love me, but it's nothing compared to the way he loves you. So it's time to keep walking. But it's time to let you guys walk on your own."
I stopped and stared at her. When I spoke, my words came out choked. "When…where did this come from?"
I looked at her. She looked back. Then she stood suddenly and walked over to me. And then her arms were around me and holding me in a gentle hug, the heat radiating form her body. I rested my head against her shoulder. I had missed her. I had missed this. The sleepovers. The playful teasing. The tea parties. The smiles. I had missed it all.
"I'm so sorry, Em. I'm so, so sorry. You don't deserve this."
My eyes flung open. I pulled away and looked at her. Her hot hands rested on my shoulders. She looked at me, a deep sadness in her eyes. But I was confused. I mean, why was she sad?
"Don't deserve what?" It came out as a whisper. I couldn't speak the words in a regular voice.
"Deserve this." She held her hands up and motioned to the house. "You don't deserve this…crazy, twisted fairy tale ending. You deserve a regular one. One without a husband that can literally rearrange your face without any effort. One without vampires and having to feed a dozen hungry wild animals every day. You're too nice to deserve this ending, Emily. Just like I'm too mean to deserve it."
I tilted my head to the sad, wondering how she had thought that through. I guess I could see where she was coming from, but…
"I don't mind," I said. "I love Sam, and he loves me. He didn't do this on purpose." I pointed to my face. "Just like you said, without an effort. And I like having all the guys around. It's better getting a fairy tale at all, instead of not a speck of one."
She looked at me sadly and shook her head. "Why are you feeling sorry for me?" I asked.
"Because, Em, you're stuck with this FOREVER. Always. For as long as you live. It's only Sam. That's it. You have your whole life planned out. You're chained to the wall. You're stuck here. The thing is…I said earlier that I was gonna let you and Sam keep walking together, that I'd leave you alone. That's just it, Em. I can run. I can go wherever I please. You can't. Sam is walking with you because that's all you can do. He's keeping pace with you, because he loves you. You can never run ahead of him because he'll be right next to you. You're chained to him. Forever. You'll be at home taking care of his kids. You won't go back to school and be a teacher just like always wanted. Your life is stuck like this from here on out.
"And I'm sorry. I've been laying awake for days thinking about this, what with the wedding coming up and everything, I want to be completely over Sam before he marries you. And it got me to thinking how lucky I am that he didn't imprint on me. Because then he'd always be one step behind me. I could never just take a weekend away with the girls, when I get some girls. Because he couldn't bare to be without me for that long. I couldn't do anything without hurting him. I know that, somewhere deep inside him, he wishes he had imprinted with me. He still loves me. He just loves you more, because fate wants him to. He cares about you. He loves you. He loves the way your hair smells like flowers and the way you run your fingers through his hair and smile when you kiss him. But he misses my high heels and my blow jobs, and he misses my long hair just as much as I do."
I stared at her, rage running through my veins. The nerve she had, telling me that my future husband wishes she'd give a blow job. What's wrong with my blow jobs? I never knew that I to compete for Sam's preference in blow jobs…
"Leah…you…you're…I…he," I stammered. I was fuming. What was she thinking? I knew this was just a joke. She's such a…
"Look, I know I sound like a real bitch right now, but I'm just…out of my mind in pity for you. You and Rachael and Kim and Nessie and Claire…Claire! She's only 3! And her twisted fairy tale is already waiting for her!" She shook her head and frowned. "I'm so sorry, Emily. I'm sorry I'm telling you any of this. It's very wrong of me…"
"You're damn right it's wrong of you, you whore!" I don't know what came over me, but it felt good to yell at her. She was mad at me that whole time, and I could be mad at her now.
She froze at that, though. She looked up at me, her face blank. "Me? Me?" She started to laugh. "I'm not the one that jumped into bed with my best friends' boyfriend the day after he broke up with her, Emily! How stupid are you? How naïve can you be? This is not okay! You're stuck! You have nowhere to go! Right here! This is it! This town! This is all there is for you! Sam! That's it! You can never have a one night stand! You can never do a body shot with some random stranger at a college frat party! You can never have a really hot cowboy teach you how to ride a horse! Those are always dreams that you've had since we were teenagers, and you haven't done any of them! Now you'll never get any of them done! It's too late! Time's up!"
She ran her fingers through her dark brown hair. She was growing it out again. She sighed and looked at me.
"Well there's always time to dream more dreams, Leah. Sam is my dream now. He always will be. And I know that he's yours, too. And I'm not sorry about that. I hope your memories of him haunt your sick memory for the rest of your life and that it'll bring you hell every day of forever, even when you're burning in hell!"
I breathed heavily. She stared at me, her arms at her sides. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She closed it and shook her head. Then she lifted her head, and I was surprised to see tears.
"Did that feel good? It should. All the guys love yelling at me like that, calling me a whore and stuff like that. They love making me feel horrible about myself. I think it's a hobby." She let out a sad laugh and looked away, scratching at her elbow and shuffling her feet. I tried not to feel guilty. "They love taking kicks at me, because they think it doesn't hurt. Well, I'm running out of comebacks. I just let them now. The numbness is kind of wearing away with each word, you know?" She wiped her tears away and looked down again. "I promise I'll make it to your wedding, though. And then I'll leave you and Sam and everybody alone and go start somewhere else. And it'll be like I never existed. But it'll work a lot better this time, because, unlike when Edward left, everybody will actually forget about me and nobody will miss me."
She stood there a second. I stood there, tears rolling down my face and my mouth hanging open. I had never really put myself in her shoes. I never knew that's what the guys said to her. I never knew they treated her that badly.
She turned and walked to the door. But she stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She turned to look at me.
"I really am sorry," she said. "And I might never come back and I probably won't talk to you at the wedding, but…" she chewed her lip and twisted her face into a terrible grimace to fight the tears. The last words she ever spoke to me came as a whisper. "I'll always pity you. And I'll always have you in my thoughts."
With that, she left.
It was the day of the wedding. Leah still wasn't here. I was too busy to notice. I had told Sam and the guys what she had said to me. They had been even more upset than I had been.
I smiled as I looked into the mirror. I looked perfect. White dress, white heels, fancy updo, tulle veil. This was one dream that was staying the same.
The ceremony went on without a hitch. Leah had never shown up. I didn't care. This was my perfect day, and it was better this way. She probably would've screwed it up if she had been here.
All the boys came to my place afterwards. Sam dragged my bags out to the car as I hugged all the guys. They all said they hoped we'd have fun on our honeymoon (but not too much fun, from Paul). Sam had been giving all the boys those man hug handshake/hug things when we saw her protruding from the fog that the rain had left earlier.
We all looked closer, surprised to see Rosalie coming towards us with something in her arms. As she continued approaching us, the object in her arms became more clear.
It was Leah. She was in her orange bridesmaid dress. Orange had never really been her color, but it looked fabulous on all the other bridesmaids, so of course I ordered those. I knew if I got any other color, Leah would outshine me yet again. We all looked closer. And then Seth was the first to gasp.
Rosalie let a growl through her lips. We all tore our eyes from Leah to her. Rose looked sad. And angry. Like she wanted to kill us all right there. But nobody phased. All our eyes went back to Leah.
The only thing we could see now was the tan noose that stood out against her pale copper skin. Her head hung back, totally unsupported.
"When Leah wasn't at the wedding, I got suspicious. She had told me how she wouldn't miss it for anything. But…whatever you guys said to her this morning must've really been her breaking point. I found her in Mr. Trolley's barn 5 miles up the road. She hung herself from one of the beams." Rosalie looked down at her for a minute. Then she looked back up at us.
"Well, have a happy honeymoon, you lovebirds."
I could barely see her through the tears, but when I looked up at her, she stared at me, her jaw locked, her eyes on fire, and her heel-clad feet shoulder width apart. She shook her head back and forth a few times and then she turned and left, Leah still in her arms.
Seth was the first one to start sobbing. After that everybody did. Even Paul.
Sam and I never went on a honeymoon. We just went inside and had comfort sex. I gave him a blow job, but he started crying in the middle of it, and I knew that what Leah had said was true. He was always thinking of Leah. I didn't give him anymore after that.
We had three kids, all wolves and protectors of La Push now. One of them was a girl. Leah Rose. The two biggest bitches that anybody ever knew. And our favorite.
And I'm on my deathbed now, looking back on this and realizing that everything Leah said was true. Sam doted on me non-stop, even more after Leah left. He had nothing better to do. If I got up to go wash dishes, he'd follow me. If I sat down to take a rest, he'd sit down next to me, staring off into space. Neither of us was ever really happy in our marriage after our wedding day. We rarely laughed and when the kids moved out, we stopped the act altogether. But I let him continue to follow me. He'd help me around the house as I got older. He stayed young. He never made any effort to stop phasing. I knew that he was waiting for me to die so he could see if he could try again. To try to live without me. To try to find someone who gave blow job's like Leah did.