Disclaimer: All of the characters, concepts, and anything affiliated with the Twilight saga belong to (their rightful owner) Stephanie Meyer. The rest of the work belongs to me and should not be copied in any way, including translations, without my explicit consent.
Major thanks to Flyaway Dove for Beta-ing this.
Set: Sometime after BD.
Leah POV
Running Never Works
Running.
It's what I do best. It's what he did to escape the Leech-Lover.
Coward.
You're not supposed to run away. So what if there's heartache? You stay. You stay for your family, your tribe, your life. It's your duty. You don't run.
It's not why we run.
We run to protect, to guard, to watch, to defend our home.
But he ran. After a little heartache, he ran away. I tried to tell him that the leech-lover was as good as dead. They should be planning a funeral, not a wedding, (I wonder who would go to their wedding knowing what we did. Heh, probably the same amount of people who would go to Emily and Sam's if they knew what really happened to Emily's face). I told him these things so he could face the hard truth. So that he could accept it. Facts are facts. There is no hope when it comes to the supernatural.
I learned the hard way. Sam said that he was sorry, that he just couldn't explain his love for Emily, and that he just had to be with her. But, he added, he would always love me. After I phased, I was able to understand and observe the imprinting love. There are loopholes. Flaws. You don't have to be their boyfriend, fiancé, or husband. You're whatever they need: a brother, an uncle, a father, a friend, a confidant, hell, even an organ donor.
Whatever they want.
Knowing what I did, I hoped. I ran to Sam's house, epiphany in hand, hoping that he would understand. He doesn't need to love her like he loved me. He didn't need to make her Mrs. Samuel Uley. That could still be me.
He just needed to fight it.
I hoped, and prayed, and wished that he would fight, that he would want to love me more than the imprint was allowing.
Because he still loved me. Right?
Wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
He didn't fight. He didn't try. He didn't even lie by telling me he would try. No. All he said was, "I'm sorry, but it's Emily."
Emily. Emily Young. Not Leah Clearwater.
So I ran. I ran from him, from home, from Mom, from Dad's funeral, from my responsibility to the pack, everything. I ran from it all.
Just like he's trying to do.
What he doesn't know is that you can run and run and run, but you'll never get away.
I tried to reach out to him and to warn him, and look where that got me. Hurt, broken, and alone with the reminder that yes, Sam is not mine and whatever we had is long gone. Dead and buried. Six feet under. Finito.
Great.
So Pansy Ass decided to run. Idiot. He should know that out of anyone in the pack, hell, out of everyone on the reservation, I would understand. I would be the perfect person to talk to.
But no. Because I'm Leah Clearwater: a bitch, a harpy, an unpleasant person who is simply overlooked.
So he ran. The rest of the pack, namely Seth, Embry, and Quil, tried to talk to him to come back. Silly boys, he'll never come back. Unless she wants him back, he'll never come.
I should know.
Why do you think I came back to La Push? It wasn't for the scenery.
So he ran away and hasn't thought a single human thought for months. God knows exactly how long. Oddly enough, I miss him. I miss hearing his thoughts on Bella, on cars…on anything. He reminded me of myself, only happier and more carefree. It was nice to have some sort of warm thoughts that had the same bitter edge that usually coats every word in my vocabulary.
Hearing that someone else is in as much pain as I am not only makes me happy, (no matter how sick that sounds), it makes me feel… well, it just makes me feel. It's nice to know that I'm not alone. That someone else has gone or is going through this. That someone else knows that crappy bitter feeling that creeps up your throat from the pit of your stomach. That someone knows how much it hurts when you realize that the happiness that that person feels will never be yours. Ever. Because you're you.
Everyone in the pack, Billy, Rachel, and Leech-Lover, misses him. But no one gets why he ran. Leech-Lover doesn't understand what it's like to see the person you love loving someone else. Rachel doesn't understand what it feels like to be surrounded by memories of the one you still love. Billy doesn't understand why running feels like the freest option. The guys don't understand how it hurts to be reminded by their smell, touch, and taste everywhere you go.
I'm the one who misses him the most. I care the most that he's gone because I understand. I know what it feels like to walk in a room and be assaulted by good memories of cuddling on the couch, to pick up an old sweater that still has their scent lingering on the fabric, to love them so much that you would watch them kiss someone else a million times, because you know that the twinkling in their eye was something you were never graced with after many passionate kisses.
I understand the compulsion to just run away from it all. The absolute freedom of feeling nothing but the ground beneath you and the wind in your hair as you shed your memories and escape.
That one moment, where you feel nothing but absolute clarity and the adrenaline pumping through your veins, is the most blissful moment ever.
But it doesn't last. You slow to a jog, having to catch your breath, and everything that you've been running from comes back.
All the memories, the feelings, the secret touches, the stolen glances; they all come back. They hit you like a tidal wave, crushing and suffocating you with everything from your past. Wave after wave after wave hits you, slowly dragging you back. Back where it all started, to where you were left behind, to the same god damned feelings that you've been trying to escape.
You can try to escape and fight it off, but it's too strong.
He hasn't experienced that yet. He's still running.
But he doesn't know that running never works.