Til' The Love Runs Out

'A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you.' - Brigitte Bardot

I looked up to Jacob Black, Embry Call and Quil Ateara almost my entire life. I thought they were the coolest guys on the rez. I wanted to be like them for as long as I could remember and now I was. We were a pack, we were brothers. We were friends.

I still look up to them and I still want to be like them. But things have changed. They have grown older and they have imprinted. Quil imprinted on Claire when I was still 15, and Embry and Jacob hadn't imprinted until later, but now they had someone.

Paul, Embry, Jacob, Sam, Quil, Jared, they all had someone. I wanted to be like them. I wanted someone of my own. I wanted my imprint.

My mom believed it would happen. She knew it would. She believed me and Leah would but there was doubt. I doubted it. I was 18 going on 19 and I hadn't imprinted yet. I have waited for 4 years, and I wanted to be hopeful, but I was growing impatient and getting bitter.

I wanted my imprint and I wanted her now.

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"Your second cousin is getting married Ami." I rolled my eyes and looked up from my computer to me mother, who was standing by the table reading a wedding invitation. She had stared at it for a while and soon she put it down and looked over at me.

"You need a man malen'kaya devochka. A good man." I sighed and closed the laptop, focusing all my attention on my mother.

"I am not a little girl mother and I don't need a man. I have a long time to find one." My mother, my Russian mother, thought that I needed a man, at the young age of 22, and needed to be pregnant. Married or not, she just wanted grandchildren.

"Ameliya, dorogaya, darling I want grandchildren before I am too old to enjoy them." My mother was beautiful and I wondered if she was a model before she had come to America. She rarely spoke of her time in Russia, and rarely spoke of my father, who was Native American.

"Mat' ya ne imet' detey v 22!" I spoke Russian and English, my mother made sure I knew the language of the old country, should I ever want to go back there.

"YA umru bez kakikh-libo vnukami." I rolled my eyes and ignored my mother who went on her with her business and left me alone. I opened the laptop again and went back to my work.

"My mother is crazy. My mother is insane. My mother loves me. My mother loves me." I frowned and massaged my temples, feeling frustration running through my entire body. My mother really did love me, she made that obvious, but she sure had a messed up way of showing it.

"My dolzhny sdelat' poyezdku, chtoby uvidet' Kim i pozdravit' yeye lichno." I loved my mother to death, but she really did drive me crazy sometimes.

"My zhivem v chase yezdy mat'!" We lived an hour away from Kim and my mother made it out to be a long and dangerous trip that needed to be taken with caution. Anytime we went anywhere that was a longer than half an hour, my mother would say we needed to be ready.

"And we are not going today!" I was met with silence, no words coming from my mom and I was glad she wasn't fighting me on this. If she was, I would surely lose. My mom was stubborn, proud and she was great at arguing. She almost always won.

Translations:

Мать я не иметь детей в 22!: Mother I am not having children at 22!

YA umru bez kakikh-libo vnukami: I will die with no grandchildren

My dolzhny sdelat' poyezdku, chtoby uvidet' Kim i pozdravit' yeye lichno: We need to make a trip to see Kim and congratulate her in person

My zhivem v chase yezdy mat'!: We live an hour away mother!