Twilight and its characters belong to SMeyer. No copyright infringement intended.

AN: This is the first of several drabbles that I will be posting. The prompts will be at the top and none of them will be related (or at least they are not at this time). Each story will have a a small part at the beginning with genre, rating, character(s), and word count.


Prompt from: TR's Weekly Fanfiction Flash Fic Challenge.

Prompt:

Jealousy: "A sentiment which is born in love and which is produced by the fear that the loved person prefers someone else" (Littre).

Or

"I don't want to lie anymore."


Title: Second Best

Genre: Drama

Rating: T

Character: Emily

Word Count: 501


She wasn't sure when she first started feeling the persistent green monster within.

Perhaps it happened the summer when they were both 15 and the boys flocked around her cousin while they ignored her. Or maybe it was when the one and only reason why she begged to stay in La Push every summer asked Leah out and not her. Or maybe it was the day she realized fate had betrayed her.

She scowled at herself in the mirror. Her face attempted, but failed to twist itself into the look she desired. It was just another thing that helped to feed the monster within.

All she had ever wanted was to be loved and needed. What she had gotten was a ruined face, chapped hands from constant cooking, cleaning, and baking, and a man that she could barely stand.

If she had been smart, she would've run. She wished she still could, but her near-dying (even though he'd been the one to hurt her) had nearly killed him. Instead she had become a sadist, relishing in fate's cruel jest.

"I don't want to lie anymore," she said to the woman in the mirror she barely recognized.

She kept thinking if she spoke the words they would become easier to say. It never worked. She had been saying it for months. It circled in her mind like a litany.

But every time she tried saying it aloud and to those who needed to hear it – it came out wrong.

"Sure, I can mend that."

"Let me make you a plate."

"You must be tired – sit – I'll take care of it."

It was official; she was nothing more than a doormat. The pack expected her to take care of them. They showed up at Sam's place all hours of the day and night. It didn't matter how tired she was or how much she longed to scream "NO!" and stamp her feet in frustration, she had become spineless.

An even smaller shadow of the person she had once been. She had always felt that Leah was like the sun. Her cousin's beauty and personality had overshadowed her for as long as she could remember.

And even though fate had made Emily special – it made Leah even more so. Emily may have the love and devotion of Sam, but with that came a lifetime of slavery.

She wished she could be Leah. Wished she could do something other than stay at home and wait for Sam to come home. Wished that she had a choice and wasn't just second best.

The elders had lied; she didn't really get a choice. When faced with choosing the woman he loved and the woman he could share everything with – he had picked the latter. She had resisted until he tore her face apart and only then did she betray her best friend.

"I don't want to lie anymore," she whispered a final time before heading to the kitchen to start another day in her monotonous life.

Someday.

FF_10482258_1 06/24/2014 7:44 PM