Memoirs of a Cynic: A Twilight Fanfiction
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters.
Author's Note: So, you might think this is about Leah, but it's not. Story of my life, only mildly tweaked in some places. I guess ex-boyfriends have some use, as inspiration, anyways. xD
Leah had been resigned to the fact that life sucked her sophomore year in high school.
That was the year Sam had dumped her, seemingly out of the blue, for her dear cousin Emily. Who was, Leah grudgingly admitted, quite pretty; but she was very girl-next-door, which shouldn't have been very appealing next to Leah's exotic looks (or so her best friend Jennifer had told her), except that it, you know, was. For Sam anyways. She had watched her cousin turn him down again and again with savage pleasure, which was almost good enough to make up for the fact that he dumped her. Until Emily had stopped rejecting him, that is.
With a male's complete inconsideration for timing, of course, he had dumped her before school. He didn't actually have enough money to pay for the gas, but he had always drove her to school, starting from when she had told him how nauseated and claustrophobic the bus had made her feel. It was there, in his beat-up, old Chevy, that he had dumped her. He had been tapping his fingers against the steering wheel nervously when Leah asked him what was wrong, and he said "I'm about to make you hate me." There had been a long silence before his excuses came tumbling out.
"I'm sorry Leah, I really am. Please don't think that it's anything you've done, because it isn't, and there's nothing you could have done to make this turn out differently. I just…" he groped for his words. "Don't want to love you anymore. And I couldn't go on saying 'love you too' whenever you said it, because I don't. Really, you're amazing, it's just…" He trailed off again.
"It's just that you're nothing but a two-faced man whore," Leah said. Only she hadn't actually said it, just wished she had, and she figured that was going to be the number one regret in her life, ever. Because shouldn't she be allowed to say something? Anything? Do you want to add 'we can still be friends' to that internet cliché? But she hadn't said anything, just got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her, and went into the building, and when she passed Jared—Sam's best friend, one year behind him, and now a junior—she had shielded her stinging eyes with one hand (like he wouldn't be able to see her, wouldn't recognize her) and wrapped one arm around her waist like she could hold herself together, and went to the bathroom.
She had started her period sometime during the car ride to school, though not heavy enough to have stained his passenger seat, which would have been funny, if mildly mortifying. But anyways, as always, it made her feel like crap during normal circumstances (seriously, can guys tell when the absolute worst time for a girl to get dumped is, or what?) and so, Leah locked herself into a bathroom stall and cried until her body racked with the sobs, which didn't accomplish much except giving her a migraine in addition to the cramps.
So, because of Sam, she ended up late to her first class, which was Geometry. When she walked in, she could feel everyone looking at her eyes, which were watery and red-rimmed from crying, and apparently she looked bad, because Mrs. Ainsley didn't even make her sign in the tardy book, and she was a strict teacher at the best of times. At the worst, she was down right mean. So she took her desk in the front right of the class and put her head down, and spent the whole period pointedly ignoring Jennifer's "what happened?" looks and notes that she passed from her position three desks away.
Anyways, what Leah spent the whole class thinking about instead of triangle proofs (really, when were you ever going to use them?) was her prom dress. According to her figuring, she had bought the dumb thing exactly thirty-nine days ago. It had been ridiculous, long and frilly and full of flounces, but Jennifer had like it, and to tell the truth, it had made Leah feel like a princess. So she had closed her eyes at the check out when the woman scanned the tag, and wordlessly handed over Sue's credit card, which she had graciously lent exactly for this purpose, and then went to customer services to ask about the return policy.
It had only been thirty days, but Leah wasn't particularly worried. Checking the return policy had been a stipulation set by Sue of using the credit card, and she wasn't supposed to have bought anything unless the return policy covered the full forty-six days until prom, since if Sam dumped her, she was too young to go by herself. But seriously, who would still have nice dresses a month from prom, and anyways, Leah was one hundred percent positive that she and Sam would be together. They had gone to prom last year, had been dating since she was a freshman—what could happen in forty-six days that would demolish a relationship that strong? Emily, that's what. But she didn't know that at the time, and so she had bought the dress.
Now, after what Leah had gone through, she seriously doubted that Sue would actually prosecute her for having gotten a dress with only a thirty day return policy. But sometimes, well, her mother just seemed to have odd priorities. So near the time when the bell was going to ring, Leah drug herself into a sitting position, picked one of the pieces of folded up paper that littered her desk, and wrote, want to go to the mall? i need to return my prom dress, and then passed the note back to Jennifer, who had read it and then looked up at Leah with a look or horrified understanding on her face, and nodded.
So when the bell rang, Leah had made a beeline for the health aid's office, where she sat on a hard plastic chair until some kid with a sinus problem had gotten off the phone. She dialed nine, then Sue's cell phone number, and something about how scratchy and pathetic her voice sounded, probably from a combination of her on-and-off crying during geometry and the pain from the cramps and the migraine headache and the way her lungs felt as if they were peppered with shrapnel and her broken teenage heart, prompted Sue to agree to send Henry to come pick her up, even though she didn't have a fever, and school was something Sue was a bit of a stickler on.
When she got home, Leah prepared to spend the day alone and molding her composure into something that at least resembled stable. She took a long, hot shower and shaved her legs so that they were smooth, and put on lotion (not the scent that Sam liked) so that she smelled good. She the proceeded to paint her toenails and put on a miniskirt, and the highest pair of heels she owned. At the last moment, she decided to add leggings so that people didn't think Sam had turned her into a hooker, or something.
Leah felt beautiful, though her chest was still constricted, when Jennifer arrived, earlier than expected because she had skived off English to make sure they got to Port Angeles in time. She thanked God for the umpteenth time that her best friend could drive, unlike her, and she tried to stay upbeat and joking the whole ride there, though as often as not she just came out sounded bitter. Jennifer had the radio turned up loud, and Leah had tuned it to some country station, which Leah normally didn't like but, she had to admit, had a decent way of viewing breakups. When they got to the mall, however, Leah's mood darkened. The store manager had gently refused to allow her to return the dress, even though Leah had explained the whole situation to him and made a show of crying in the middle of the store.
After this incident, with prom a week away, Leah had no choice but to manipulate her way into going. Of course, she didn't get to go with her first choice, which would have been Sam. Or her second choice, which actually would have been Jared, simply because he was Sam's best friend. Petty and mean, she knew, but he was cute, and nice, and had readily accepted her, a little freshie, when Sam had started dating her, and teased her with nicknames that made her blush from her elbows up. Hell, Leah didn't even get to go with her third choice, who was merely a nice guy in her chemistry class who would have at least taken her to the La Push prom.
No, Leah went to the Forks High School prom, where Sam didn't even get to see her all dressed up and beautiful while he was lonely in a corner somewhere drinking punch (Emily had yet to actually accept him). She went with an acquaintance of hers who was pretty much a pervert about ten feet taller than her (though she was growing, again, which had surprised her when she noticed—didn't girls stop forever at age thirteen?), so he probably spent the whole time looking down her dress. He was Jennifer's ex, which miffed her best friend a bit, but she was mostly understanding. And when he showed up at the front door instead of Sam, Sue didn't even bat an eye, even though Leah had yet to tell her Sam had dumped her, just smiled sadly and wished her daughter a good time.
When Leah wrote a paper on the most momentous occasion of her life for her senior project, this was what she wrote about. And her last paragraph was something along the lines of: You probably thought that this story was going to be about learning or loving or some other sappy thing like that. About how I had a great time at the prom (event though I didn't) or learned to forgive and forget (I can't, won't, will always hold it against him) or how I realized I could feel pretty without Sam (I cried when I put the dress on, so Sue had to redo all my makeup). Well, guess what, it's not. It's about how life sucks, and you can't trust anyone to do anything anymore. The paper was titled "Memoirs of a Cynic," and all Leah's hard work earned her a B+ and a trip to the guidance office. But Leah had psychoanalyzed every second of this incident a thousand times, and she had learned from it.
Set your expectations low, because then no one can disappoint you.