Approximately deceiving
(she searches after the place that doesn't exist)
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight
(Leah/Sam)
-I-
When Leah was young she thought she could fly. She thought she could jump from the cliff and soar in the sky. It was her dream. Hers only. The dream painted in colors that represented everything she wanted, needed, craved.
When Leah was young she thought this was enough.
When she turned fifteen she learned that sometimes everything is not enough.
-I-
Leah was a girl that loved everything. She loved the waves crashing into the cliffs, the stars dancing in the consuming starry-sky, loved the smell from the flowers, loved the simplicity in the coming and going of the four seasons that was there despite what happened, despite if the line got cut and everything fell in the sea. It wouldn't change. It wouldn't.
She loved to live, loved to see that some things where always there. She loved school even though she really didn't find purpose in the stupid assignments that didn't change anything but she liked it, was a routine and she was a girl that found the exceptional treasure in this. It was not much but it felt like everything. She was content with her weekday, with her life, with everything and saw the painting in colors and not in black and white; she saw the pure and artistic parts that in others' eyes were invisible.
Carefully, as time passed and she learned more and more (she thought) she built the tower that was made of stone and therefore was inextinguishable. One day it would reach the sky, the dancing nimbuses and lurid sun.
When she met him, one look, one glance, one smile, (him), the tower fell over her.
-I-
There are different kinds of love in the world we humans so selfishly call "ours". They exist but they don't shape your life, your future, your sanity, in the same way, but either way, one can't exist without the other. You can love your friends, care for them, being there, trying to erase the fence and take them to the place where they smile, where they can't see the demons crawling beneath their two legs – and it's love. It's love. But it's not the same. It will never be the same. Before, Leah Clearwater thought that but she doesn't anymore. She loves her brother Seth and wants him to be there forever. But it's not passion, it's not craving, it's not sulking after the flame that exists behind the solid walls of the desire, appetence. No, it's not. Because she knows that Seth will be there forever. They're bonded and therefore he can't masquerade into water and swim away when she doesn't notice. But it's different with him. It's different with Sam. Even thought he stands there in the corridor, leaning on a wall, looking, gazing, smiling she is still scared that he might slip through her fingers like sand. No matter how much he gives it's never enough. Therefore he is a drug and when you're addicted to a drug you only want more. You must have more. Despite how many kisses, deep, passionate kisses and entwined fingers and words and promises it doesn't feel enough.
And one day the addiction leads the car over the edge – you take more and more and at the end of the road – overdose. The only difference is that he leaves before that happens.
-I-
Leah changes from a girl that sees beauty in her own reflection, sees that she is fine and she are and that she doesn't need anything else, to a craving girl that hides under the sheet because she doesn't want to face the reality. The black, wrathful, maligned reality.
And she stays there so long that she doesn't even remember that she has changed.
-I-
The wave crashes and she gulps and slowly the surface rises over her head and she feels herself sinking. Sinking. Figuratively. She loves him so much. Loves him more than words can explain, love him like there is resting a loaded bomb inside her that soon will explode. And he shapes her life, so sharply, so drastically that she doesn't want to return to the one she has been before. That life was gloomy and dark and filled with black dots but this is colorful, beautiful, perfect. But love comes with a price and she learns this as soon as she starts to crave for his brown eyes in the school, in the corridors, in the class, everywhere. Craves for his warm hands and gentle smiles and ability to calm her down only with the simplicity of putting letters together to words. He knows what to say and knows what to do. For her, he's inerrant. No one can replace him. No one (she states) knows her like he does. It's like poison and his lips taste like morphine and she can't behave herself. It's love. It's love indeed.
But when you are at this age, when your fairytales fly and wishes dance in the sky you don't understand that there is always an end on the book. You don't want to know it, you shove it away because you can't handle the fact that not every story has a good ending.
(But you don't listen, no, you don't listen because in your world everything is perfect-
and you don't want to understand that your world doesn't imply on others'.)
-I-
"When you say that you love me does it feel real to you?" she asks curiously as she flips side in her notebook, pen behind her ear, fingers drumming on the table. He looks at her and says nothing. He often does that when she asks stupid, needless questions to him since he always, always, tries to answer them anyway.
For her. Always for her. And that's why she can't… can't… can't…
"Of course," he simply replies and looks up from the book that he's reading. She glances at the binder and reads a writer she never heard of before. "You don't have to worry so much. Tell me, why do you worry? Are you afraid?"
"No," she spits back before she actually analyzes the question. But really, is it really okay for her to lie? Like this? Lies are the beginning of the war, when they grow and swallow the reality and change the picture to something else. But how can she know? He probably has secrets too. Everybody has. Secrets are a part of yourself, the problem is that they can shove you from behind and force you to pick a road that doesn't feel comfortable for you. "Or maybe a little," she later admits and gives him a faint smile. "But you don't have to worry about it."
He doesn't answer to that one either. Only looks at the window, at the glowing sun that's slowly pacing down and closing in on the horizon, at some boys in too big shorts that are busy trying to impress on some girls in mini-skirts and visionary paintings in their faces. When she looks at this, slowly closing the notebook in her lap, realizing, she understands that he's different. He's the same age but acts like he's an adult. Maybe he is.
(And she can't help but wonder what made him this way.
Maybe she doesn't know him at all.)
-I-
She wants to hate Emily Young. She wants to hate Sam Uley. But in reality – the world she lives in – she understands that she doesn't hate them. But hatred is a feeling that creates something spontaneous, a reaction and she needs a reaction. Really, how could it turn to this? Emily and Sam? Her Sam? Why? Didn't she mean more to him? Did she do anything wrong? Didn't he feel the same way? One thousand questions circulate around in her head, hitting, trying to drag out an answer that doesn't exist. Not in her world. She doesn't know anything.
She feels rage but can't let it out. She becomes stubborn and selfish and lingers in the past where it's not natural to linger since you can't change the previous. But she somehow finds comfort in the past (not a positive one) and when she slams her head at the pillow, crying, her heart bleeding white dust, she wonders if there's an end of the tunnel. Therefore she doesn't see it. She's blind and has a hole in her stomach, a bleeding, engulfing hole that opens and kills her from the inside when she thinks about him, about them (which she does every minute, every second.) She tries to shove him away, turning in her bed, pushing the image of his warm smile and brown eyes down the hole to Neverland. It doesn't work. It comes back. He comes back. Everything comes back.
And when she looks at Emily's face, the scars, the gentle smile and acceptance she gets reminded that she has lived in a lie. He has created a sea of lies and shoved her down under the surface.
(And she let him.)
-I-
"I'm sorry," Emily says and reaches out a hand but Leah doesn't take it. I'm sorry. You can be as sorry as you want. It doesn't give me Sam back. It doesn't repair my dream. Because my dream doesn't exist anymore. It's null, empty, hollow. Leah understands that she's unreasonable and entangles herself in the equation without an answer but she's angry and she wants to hurt Emily. But she wonders if she does. Probably not. Emily understands. That damn Emily Young understands everything and even though she cares for her cousin (because she probably does) she accepts that no one is to blame. And sure, that's true. It isn't Sam's fault that he imprinted on Emily and left Leah behind but it's Sam's fault that he threw the net over her and feed her with lies. She can't accept it. She won't accept it.
(She won't accept that the world isn't shaped after her.)
"I know," she simply mutters and turns her head away, glaring down at her two extremely dirty sneakers because she doesn't dare to look Emily in the eyes.
(She's scared. She's frightened. She's a coward.)
"And Leah, nothing will ever change. I'm sorry. But you have to accept that."
You have to accept that. Easy to say, hard to put in action. It's hard to forget when his face appears when you close your eyes, his words, his promises ringing in your ears like a mantra that never end. Never, ever ends.
Leah has to accept that. But that doesn't mean she does it.
-I-
When will she learn? It's a repeating question, circulating in her head slowly but persistently. When will she forget? When will she move on? When will she look back and this and see it as a distant memory that doesn't mean anything?
(She doesn't know.)
-I-
"You have pretty eyes."
That day when she learned that she only needed him she got on a carousel that spun around for eternity. It would never stop and she couldn't get off.
She got on the ride without a ticket.
-I-
It burns, it tints, it sins, it gnawing through her skin and drags her down the hill to the place where nothing exists. And the only thing she can do is to ignore.
When she finds out that she's a werewolf she thinks that's the key to this solution.
(It isn't.)
She isn't afraid when Emily tells her that Sam is a werewolf – with the same dismal voice with corns of grief and regret and broken hopes that Leah will move on – Emily tells her that Sam isn't like you and me. But Leah isn't afraid, no, she isn't afraid because it doesn't mean anything. The only thing it means is that Sam has lied. That's the only thing she sees, the only things that matters.
"And he imprinted on me," Emily tries again, wiping away a brown strand of hair from her blue eyes, pupils slowly following the hearing person. "He didn't choose me. Do you understand that?"
Of course she does.
"I don't mean that you don't have right to be angry but you can't change fate. It looks like this and he didn't want to do this."
"I understand."
She clips with her eyes and separates her lips without saying anything.
"But it doesn't help me. I understand but it doesn't help me. Why couldn't he imprint on me? Why? Why?"
Why?
She's filled of grudge, of trash of all the things she can't forget and that's why she doesn't really care that she's not a human like everybody else that roams in the sales of that stupid high school. Not even when she transforms, when she feels the bones changing forms, cracking, fur drilling out from her skin like needles, muscles growing limp and pain like agony because it's a pain she can handle. She can't handle love. But she can handle this. She can handle the pain when her eye globs feel like they're going to fall out from the eye-lockets, when she bites herself in the leg because she wants to replace the pain of transforming with something else, blood rushes, she wants to run away and never come back but it's manageable, it's makeable. Some things are, some things are not.
Later when she moves it feels lighter, like she's going to fly. Suddenly she remembers the wish she had when she was small and empty of sorrow – that she wanted to fly. Fly from the hill. Maybe she can do it now. Maybe. She takes a few steps with her paws, one million pieces of impression slips past her eyes, her nose filled with scents so many she can't put them in folders. But it feels good. It feels great. She is relieved. She increases her velocity and kicks up clod from the soft ground. Lifts her head and stares at the horizon, at the one million stars dancing over her head.
Then she notices something worse than an army of arrows pressing through your skin, open wound, killing, killing.
"Emily, you don't have to worry about Leah. Because for me it's only you. She will learn."
One hand. Hand on cheek. Tear slipping down the soft skin.
"I don't want to hurt her."
"You don't. I do. Don't worry, Emily. I love you. That will never change."
"I lo-"
No. No, no, no. She runs faster, pushing the pain in the earth, erasing. She doesn't want to hear it. She can't hear it. No. No, no.
(No.)
After that day she starts to think at her ability as a curse.
(And she uses it to create evil.)
-I-
She looks at the bonfire she has created, with flames licking wood and turning it to white dust, at the warmth that rises at the sky like thin fingers, a huge contradiction to her cold puddles under her eyes. Why doesn't this leave her alone? Why can Sam leave her alone? Now she has to deal with his thoughts, with his damn caring for Emily and inability to love her and it plays in her mind like a movie on repeat. She wants to burn down the world and create a new one, she wants the world to be torn apart and started from scratch, she wants to take one breath and not feeling the scent of his tongue, his lips.
The walls fall of the building and slam in the ground with a thud. She just stares and knots her fists, still with her falling tears that will never stop, never ever stop.
"I love you." Why can't it be for her? Why can't someone say that to her and mean it. Actually mean it?
(It's like a wave is crashing and you want it to remain the same-
But when the wave is broken it's gone forever.)
When she turns around and leaves the flame to deform the natural environment she finds herself staring at two brown eyes that is the last (besides Sam's) she wants to see. Not here, not now, never.
"What the hell are you doing?" Jacob Black asks and cracks an eyebrow and his calm appearance tells her that he isn't really concerned about the risk that the wood is going to become crisp you put on the plate for dinner.
"Nothing," she mutters and tries to walk away but he grabs her hand and loops her closer, so that her eyes meet his. She narrows her eyes and struggles to move away from him but he simple won't let her. She doesn't understand why. Jacob is the last person that she wants to explain her complicated struggles with, simply because he would never understand.
(Or would he?)
"You really think burning the city to nothing will solve anything?" he asks and let go of her wrist and his low, monotone voice doesn't expose his true intentions about this. She doesn't like that.
She lifts her hands and moves one step back, tongue dancing across her dry lips, eyes rolling. "What are you gonna do about it? Calling the firefighters?"
He rolls his eyes as an answer to her sarcasm. "I exaggerated. But really, what did you plan with this?"
She lets her hands fall and clips with her eyes as to remove the remaining tears. To be honest she doesn't really know if he sees that she's crying or not but if that's the case he chooses to ignore it and treat her with the same childishly humor that she finds both amusing and irritating. "Nothing. Are you deaf? I wanted to start a fire okay." Why does it sound so exaggerated, foolish, when she's telling him about it? "To burn down some of my emotions. But you don't understand that. So go away."
He doesn't. He stands firm. And it's then, when she looks in his eyes again, those brown, warm eyes that's now edged with cold metal, that she finally gets that he understands.
(Everything.)
Because it's the same as with Bella.
"I'm sorry," she later murmurs while playing with one of her strands of hair, looking, gazing, he just kicks at the rocks on the ground.
"Of course you are."
"No, I mean it, I shouldn't have said that-"
"It's okay," he snaps, then cracks his lips into a grin. "Leah, it's okay."
And the flames are dancing like elves in fire-red dresses behind them, without them understanding they're only a part of the chain she has created.
-I-
Bella Swan. Sam Uley. Jacob Black. Leah Clearwater. They are in the same situation.
And she feels anger rising in her throat when she comprehends that Jacob is like her, the only difference is that he knows how to not to let his problem affect others.
But she doesn't. Oh no, she doesn't.
-I-
She starts following Jacob after that conversation, not that she feels something particular for him, more because she wants to understand how he avoids the pain from having Bella choosing Edward over him. He has the ability to make her smile and she likes the attitude he uses against her even though it's not the best if you want to solve anything. But he's different and Seth likes him too and then it's good enough for her. She wonders how much Seth understands – he isn't a kid no matter how much she still thinks he is – but knows that it's more than she wants to receive. He isn't stupid. That's the last thing he is. And she understands that her pith-black attitude towards this world of colors must confuse him too and she feels something hugs her heart at that thought, that conclusion because it's the last thing she wants. Seth is her brother, her everything, and after they lost father due to the fact who they were, they were werewolf and it made his heart stop and that's why she's going to follow him to the end of the world to make sure he isn't alone.
It's not very polite dreaming off when someone is talking to you, she hears Jacob think and she merely snores that this, walking off towards the shore, her fragile paws sinking through the mire.
Excuse me but I was thinking.
About what?
Nothing for you concern.
Come on, you don't have to be a harpy; there is nothing wrong with you.
It is easy for him to say that, some things are easy to say but words are just words, they don't mean anything. She widens her eyes and tries to spot him but he's too far in the woods, camouflaged by the night's claws and deep fog. Apparently he chooses to cut the link between them to give her time to think but really, she has nothing to add. Of course there is something wrong with her because there have to be a reason why she's the only female shape-shifter, why Sam chose to imprint on Emily instead on her, why she treats everybody like scum, why she doesn't find the end of the tunnel, why she's stuck and can't get out. She's wrong, wrong, wrong and no words can prove otherwise.
Now you're doing that again, he frowns and she grits her teeth, because he has no right to comment on her thoughts no matter how wrong they are. Think about something funny for a change.
About what, genius? She spits saliva on her paw and later rubs it behind her ear.
Well, dunno. Star Wars?
What's that?
You don't even know that? She can hear him rolling on his back in the wood, laughing at her incomprehension.
No?
Yoda? Darth Vader? Rings a bell?
Don't you think we have bigger problem than I don't know a stupid cartoon?
First it's not a cartoon. Second it's not-
She can't help but laugh. And it's a sound that doesn't fit well with her mood, it's burry and sounds as misleading as laughing when you get killed. But she likes it. She likes it.
Shut up, Jacob.
-I-
The dorks called humans always search for more, more stars in the starry sky, more clouds in the sky and forget it's about quality, not quantity.
-I-
"How is it going with your feelings for Bella?" she asks and Jacob simply glares, because this is a topic stated as prohibited and therefore off-limit for her.
"I don't have to talk with you about that," he snarls and moves away from her, legs crossed and muscular fingers around the glass filled with coca-cola. He always acts like this when she wants to close the bond between them and she's sure that he has to talk about Bella since she gnaws and gnaws on her and he can't resist. Jacob Black feels the same as she does. Maybe more. Maybe it's worse, deeper. Because Sam imprinted. Bella didn't. She still chose Edward instead of Jacob. It has to be worse. She complains but he doesn't and that's the difference. She knots her fingers and feels the urge to punch Bella in the face for making him feel like this, destroying him, playing with the keys in front of his eyes but doesn't let him grab them to the door of freedom. She traps him and knows it as well as everybody else. (Even Edward.) And they still let her do it. Why?
"It's not easy, is it?"
"Stop stating the obvious," he snaps and turns his visage to the plate of fruit on the table, where plenty of satsumas rest and he observes them like they were as exciting as a football-match. "And besides, shouldn't you think more about your problems than mine?"
She gapes. Isn't that going a bit too far? "I'm trying, okay but I want to-"
"Listen Lee," he continues, now sounding softer, fully lips glowing from the light slipping through the window. "I know it's hard but you know what – it will mend."
She cracks an eyebrow. "When?"
"Do I look like a living encyclopedia? Someday. And it's the same for me."
"Do you know one reason I despite being a werewolf?" She lowers her head, now touching a subject that pains her as much as the fact that Sam is not here with her.
"No?"
"I can't have children."
-I-
Memories of her past slip through her mind. Fresh. Like it was yesterday. Sometimes she thinks it is. And her forced link with Sam offers her new images of his love for Emily and she closes her eyes and tries to breathe more calmly because on the inside she knows he doesn't want to do this. It pains as much but it isn't his fault. He hurt her but it wasn't on intention. She wants him but not like this. Maybe Jacob is right, maybe she can move on. Not forget and she will not love somebody like she loves him but maybe that's okay. Maybe she can live with this. Sam has lied but he's not an evil person. He doesn't give her fake hope like shoving her down a pit filled with lions and telling her that they're not hungry. He isn't like that. And it's okay.
She remembers his warm kisses, strong arms wrapped around her waist, sweet words and touching fingers but maybe one day it will vanish. Slowly. She hopes. That's all she can do.
It's not over but it has started. And she has to realize that, realize that she can't find a solution to create the answer she wants. Life isn't like that. No, life isn't like that.
Some things vanish and some things remain.
(And Sam wants the best of her.)
(But Bella thinks more of herself than of Jacob.)
-I-
"No, I don't mean to hurt him, I swear Leah, I don't, I don't."
Pathetic excuses, dripped in the denial, that she's not the white angel with dustless wings Edward wants her to believe she is. Leah moves forward and ignores Bella's tears because she can cry all she wants and it doesn't help Jacob and Jacob is damn better than any stupid bloodsucking stalker like Edward is and always going to be. Bella's in a hard situation but she has to understand that not everything can change to suit her wishes. The world isn't like that. It will never be like that. "You do. Why do you tell him you love him? You give him hope and then crush it."
"No, I don't mean it, I don't do this to hurt him I-"
"You hurt him. You know you hurt him. Still you continue to do it."
"But no," Bella cries with her face wrapped in tears, open brown holes and she tries to cry for some resolution which Lean isn't going to give her. "No, Leah!"
"Leave her alone," she then hears a voice, a cold, ice-daggered voice filled with disgust and she understands that its Bella's living shield, the man with the perfect face but nothing more and she wrinkles her mouth, noticing him standing there in front of Bella. "You don't have any rights to do this, Leah."
"I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for Jacob."
"I know but you push Bella too far. Leave. We have other problems than trying to deal with your opinions." He's solid and turns his back at her, pushing her out of the sphere containing him and Bella. And Leah knows Jacob has no chance. Jacob is not a part of them. He never will.
And for the first time in years she lets her tears fall for a situation not created by herself.
-I-
"That was stupid," Jacob later remarks but doesn't sound disappointed or irritated or something at all. He just walks besides her with his eyes focused on the horizon and she slowly slips her hands in her pockets, glancing, dreaming. "Still, I appreciate that you care for me."
She playfully rolls her eyes. "Really?"
"No."
"Thought not."
She inhales and tries to spin further on a certain straw when he suddenly stops and lays two fingers over her mouth. He moves closer and his eyes are locked with hers but there's nothing romantic about his gestures.
"Leah, I mean it, thank you."
She grabs his wrist and pulls it away from her face. "This isn't like you."
"This isn't like you either. Starting to forget Sam?"
"No. Starting to forget Bella?"
He laughs. "No."
And she hasn't. She will never forget him. But it's easier now. Somehow, Jacob (the last person she thought she would have a friendship with) has taught her something that makes it possible to pull a sheet over the bleeding hole. It's there and it will always be there but it's makeable.
She closes her eyes and remembers the last scene.
"Emily, why do you trust me? I hurt you."
A soft smile, dancing over her face, eyes warm and caring. "Because you didn't mean it. And I trust you. I trust you more than anyone else."
"I will be there for you."
It hurts but it doesn't kill. She can live with it. Maybe.
-I-
When Leah was young she thought she could fly.
And today she knows that she can.
(Without Sam.)
-I-
fin
N/A: Thank you for reading my story and if you find some grammar/spelling issues please let me know so I can fix that :D I hope you like this!