Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or The Last Best Sunday
Chapter One- Normal's Hard to Fake
"Freedom in a cage - no sun and too much rage
I don't know how much I can take
Push it down inside, but it knows just where to hide
I know that "normal" is hard to fake
Bleeding into life - it's like a thousand knives
Are slowly turning me into this
Why does it have to be like this?
I don't know what's wrong,
It's like I'm too far gone
It doesn't matter anyway
Fear is in my heart- just when I stop it starts
And I can never live this way"
-Stone Sour- "Socio"
Leah Clearwater sighed as she walked through the school doors on Friday morning. It was barely eight A.M. and she already wanted to go home. The whispers and the dirty looks were nothing new for Leah. She was used to it by now.
It was the price she had to pay for being one of three Native Americans in an all white school. The only other Native Americans were her brother, Seth and their friend Quil Ateara.
It didn't help the situation that they were all quite tall. Seth was only fourteen and stood six-one, Leah was five-ten, while Quil Ateara was six-four.
At the moment, Seth was walking behind Leah with his head held high. He was just a freshman, while Leah and Quil were seniors. Seth had such a positive outlook on everything. Despite the situation, he was happy-go-lucky. It ground Leah's nerves sometimes, but Seth was Seth, even she couldn't change that.
Leah stopped at her locker to get her things for the day. A body slammed into her, causing her to drop her things. She sighed, but didn't retaliate.
Lauren Mallory's high pitched nasally voice came from behind her, "Oh, did I bump into you, Leah? I'm so sorry. I guess I somehow missed the giant Indian girl blocking my path. So sorry." She laughed and walked away with Jessica Stanley laughing with her.
Leah picked up her things. Seth asked from next to her, "Why do you let her do that to you?"
"Seth, you know what would happen if I did. Just leave it alone. I'm almost done here, okay? I'll graduate in a few months, I can handle it until then." She told him.
Seth sighed, but agreed with her. They parted ways and went to class. The morning passed the way it did every day, Leah did her work in her classes and walked through the halls virtually invisible. A few whispers and some dirty looks, but Leah didn't pay attention to them.
Leah had a free period before lunch, so she used that to go to the library and study. She sat down at a table and did all of her work in just a few minutes. Once she was done, she stood up and walked around the library. The library had some of their old yearbooks on a shelf. Leah pulled out the one from last year and looked through it.
She hadn't been able to afford the yearbook last year since her father died of leukemia and the family had been short on money. At the memory of her father, Leah's hand reached up and she grasped onto the necklace her father made for her.
It was a carving of a bird. Her father, Harry, had called Leah his little bird. He told her that her name meant delicate, and the most delicate thing he'd held besides her, was a baby bird. Therefore, Leah was his baby bird.
She ran her fingers over the soft lines. Her father knew his time was short when he carved this for her. He wanted to give her something to have after his death. Blinking away tears, Leah released the carving and looked through the pages, finding her friend, Quil's picture quickly. She giggled softly at the dumb smile on his face.
Leah looked at her picture and scowled. She didn't like seeing herself in pictures. Despite being told she was an incredible beauty, sometimes she just felt self-conscious.
She turned the pages until the reached the students with the last name starting with 'U'. Here she found the picture of her ex-boyfriend, Sam Uley. Leah and Sam had shared a beautiful love for nearly three years. They had started dating when they were just freshman. Sam moved after their junior year. Leah had been devastated and was convinced she wouldn't love again after him.
Leah felt the tears welling up in her eyes at the bittersweet memory of Sam. She had talked to him on the phone a few times, but soon fell out of touch.
She flipped back to her picture and looked closer at it. The necklace her father gave her was hanging around her neck. He had died just before the start of Leah's junior year. She was about to close the book, but the picture above hers caught her eye.
It was a pretty girl with black hair flowing far past her shoulders. She had stunning blue eyes in the color of the yearbook ink. Leah looked at the name under the picture. 'Alice Brandon'. Leah vaguely knew who Alice was. On the first day of school, the teachers usually made everyone sit in alphabetical order. Alice was usually a seat or two ahead of Leah.
Alice was a bright girl; she was smart and had an eccentric personality. She was a preacher's daughter and lived in a very strict household. Leah knew that much about her, at least.
Leah tore her gaze from Alice's smiling picture and closed the book. She put it back in its place on the shelf. The bell rang and she gathered her things to leave. Once in the cafeteria she sat down across the table from Quil. Seth joined them a few minutes later.
"How's it going, guys?" Seth plopped down next to Leah.
Quil smiled. "It's going, little man."
Seth narrowed his eyes. "I am not little."
Leah smiled at their banter, but her smile dropped off her face when she remembered that she and Quil would be graduating this year and Seth would be alone at this school. Leah wanted to move somewhere else so that Seth wouldn't have to deal with them. She worked after school at a bar washing dishes and cleaning up, but that wasn't enough to get a house. Her mother was an RN, and even that wasn't helping pay the bills.
Her father had leukemia for years before he died, they were still paying medical bills that insurance refused to cover. Leah wanted to go to college, but that wouldn't be possible in the current situation.
She mostly ignored Seth and Quil's lunch conversation. She went through the rest of the day trying to be invisible, as she always did. After school, she met Quil at her locker.
"Need a ride to the bar today or you walking?" Quil asked. He always offered to give Leah a ride. If it were raining then she would agree. However, she liked the sun, and today the sun was high over the small little town.
"I'm walking." Leah said. She and Quil walked out the doors and started toward the parking lot. There was a shortcut through the woods that Leah used. Seth was waiting by Quil's car.
Just as they reached the parking lot, a red truck drove past with a group of boys in the bed of the truck. One of them through a water balloon at Leah and yelled, "Yeah, baby, show us those boobs!" The balloon hit Leah in the chest, causing water to soak the front of her blouse. The boys laughed and drove off.
Quil clenched his fists, but Leah just said, "Fuck them. Don't worry about it."
She looked up then, and right into the eyes of Alice Brandon. Alice was standing next to Rosalie Hale's car with Rosalie. Alice was wearing a blue dress that flowed past her knees and had a white jacket over it. Alice's blue eyes were filled with sympathy for Leah.
Leah looked away, not wanting the white girl's sympathy. She marched across the parking lot, ignoring the stares, laughs and her brother's shouting at her. She walked into the woods to get to work. She slipped in the back door of Johnny Reb's Boot Scooters bar and went to the employee room to put her things down. Only a few waitresses worked here aside from Leah and the bartender, who called himself Reptile.
Leah peeled off her wet shirt and pulled on a clean one with the bar's logo on it. She went to the back to start washing the beer mugs that Reptile had piled up for her, as he did every day. He paid her seven dollars an hour. He'd pay her less if he could get away with it.
As the night dragged on, Leah witnessed the customers become more and more intoxicated. It sickened her to see how they acted. At the same time, she wondered how she would act if she got that drunk.
She had drunk before with Sam. Hell, she had done a lot of things with Sam. He had taken her virginity. Gentle and patient, he had been that night. Sam had been incredibly in love with Leah, so he would do anything if it would make her happy.
Leah groaned internally as her two least favorite people walked in Johnny Reb's. They were called Jim and Cal; they were two boys that had grown up here, and hated the Native Americans. They always went out of their way to target Leah when they came in the bar.
They sat at the bar talking loudly with Reptile and the other patrons. Around eleven the town's sheriff, Charlie Swan came in with a deep frown and sad eyes. There had recently been an election to choose the new town sheriff, in which Charlie Swan had lost to a man named Carter Jennings.
Charlie took a seat at the bar and Reptile promptly put a beer in front of him. Charlie reached out and pulled a piece of paper off the wall next to Reptile. The paper had the words 'Re-Elect Charlie Swan for Sheriff' printed black in bold print.
Charlie put the paper face down on the bar and took a swig from the beer bottle. Leah kept busy in the corner washing the tables. Johnny Reb's was the only bar in town, so it was a hotspot for the townspeople, especially on a Friday night like tonight.
Reptile spoke to Charlie, "Fucking bullshit about Jennings winning that election, Swan."
Charlie didn't answer, just nodded and took another swig of the beer. Reptile poured him a shot and said, "It's on the house, sheriff."
"Thank ya, Reptile." Charlie answered. At that moment he looked up to the two men sitting next to him. "Jim, how ya doing boy?"
Jim looked at him for a minute before comprehending that someone was speaking to him. "I'm all right."
"Haven't been using any explosives to fish, have you? Old man Cullen says someone's been throwing dynamite in the lake and scaring off his fish. You sure you don't know anything about that?" Charlie said.
Cal answered, "No, sir. We are law abiding citizens."
Jim laughed. Charlie narrowed his eyes and stood up. "Be seeing ya, Reptile." He said. He shot Leah a quick glare before walking out the door. She shrank back from his glare and looked away. She turned her head and looked right at Jim and Cal. They were staring at her, which made Leah uneasy. She looked away and quickly went back to work.
Leah was careful to stay away from them and only came to the bar when Reptile yelled for her. Finally, Jim and Cal stumbled out of the bar. Leah breathed a sigh of relief that they didn't bother her at all tonight.
Reptile asked Leah to take the trash out, which she did without a complaint. As she gathered the bags to haul outside, she had this strange feeling that she should stay inside. Or ask Reptile to come with her, he would refuse, but it wouldn't hurt to ask. Leah didn't listen to her instincts. The second she stepped out the back door of Johnny Reb's Boot Scooters, something in her heart told her that everything was about to change.
Leah stepped out the back two with a bag of trash in each hand, the sun and warmth from earlier in the day was gone. Rain was pouring from the sky in buckets. Leah gritted her teeth and started toward the dumpster.
She threw the bags inside and started back to the bar to grab the other four bags that were waiting for her. She suddenly slipped in a puddle and fell to her ass. She groaned and started to stand up when she heard laughter. She froze.
"What's the matter, did you fall down, pretty girl?" A cold slimy voice asked.
Leah didn't answer. The source of the voice stepped into her line of vision. She saw that it was Jim, which meant Cal wasn't far behind him.
"Yeah," a second voice said from the shadows: Cal. "A pretty little girl sitting in the mud, that's not very nice." Both of their speech was slurred, Leah had seen Reptile serve them tonight. They had both had too much to drink.
Leah started to stand when a fist hit her in the side. Before she could recover, she was hit again in the face, this time. A kick to her knees and she fell into the mud. She was kicked in her side, her back, her chest and her face.
Unable to see because of mud, rain and blood in her eyes, Leah was able to feel everything. She felt the pain in her entire body. Her head was throbbing, and her vision was blurring even more.
She felt herself being lifted somewhere, but she couldn't hang on to reality any longer. With the last bit of energy left in her body, she reached up to touch the necklace her father carved for her. Leah gave herself over to the darkness and passed out.
A/N: So there's the first chapter, let me know if I should continue. There are pictures on my profile of what everyone looks like, check those out and let me know what you think of the characters. This story is based off of a movie called "The Last Best Sunday". Thanks to my friend, CullenGurlsDoItBetter for her help on this. She convinced me to post it, so here it is. Thanks! Lurve you!
I will probably be posting about once a week, if you want to know when I'm about to post, you can follow me on Twitter. There's a link to that on my profile. It's RL_Loveless
~Loveless~