A/N: I don't own Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, or Brekaing Dawn. This is my first shot a fanfic in this category, so sorry if it's less than acceptable. A word of warning to all Bella or Cullen fans: There WILL be some Bella and vampire bashing throughout this story.
Anyway, enjoy!
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The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. Ah, the famous line from the 2001 musical 'Moulin Rougue'. Sounds pretty cliched, doesn't it? Cliched as it is, this line actually speaks the truth. A truth I took to heart. What could be greater than loving a person more than life, while they felt the exact same way? Love was life, and life was love. It was a perfect circle.
For some.
As much as I loved love, I had never had a boyfriend in all of my sixteen years living on Earth. I mean, sure I would develop crushes on the boys at my school, but I had never actually had anyone love me back before. I spent countless, sleepless nights wondering what it would be like to have someone fawn over and care about me so deeply.
Was I desperate you ask? Yeah, maybe a little bit. But to be honest with you, I was more fascinated with the concept of love other than actually being in a relationship.
The year I genuinely fell in love was when I moved from Vancouver to Washington, when I was sent to live with my grandmother. God, he was perfect in my eyes. His hair, his eyes, his voice, his personality, I loved everything about him.
But of course, big surprise, he didn't love me back. He loved another girl. A different, prettier, nicer, more normal girl than me. It drove me to the brink of insanity, but what could I do? I couldn't force him to love me. At the same time, though, I couldn't just wait for him to love me.
I came pretty close though.
The whole thing probably never would have happened if my dad hadn't cheated on my mom with the office slut he worked with. Thank the good Lord I was not there when Mom found out. I was at a friend's house, working on a school project at the time. When I came home to find yellow tape wrapped around my fence, and police cruisers parked outside my house, I knew something was very wrong.
From that day on for about two months, my life was nothing but legal crap that I barely understood. I had to go through trials, interrogations, law suits, sign legal documents, meet lawyers, and all that fancy stuff. At the end of it all, the Canadian law decided I wasn't fit to live with my mother, so they sent me to go live with my closet living relative, my grandmother. Mom's mom.
I wouldn't exactly say the move pleased me, but I didn't despair either. Living in Washington sounded much more appealing to me than living in Vancouver after what happened between my parents.
My grandmother lived on a Quileute reserve called La Push. I had been to the place before, but I barely remembered it. I had forgotten it was usually grey and rainy, and very quaint. I didn't care though, I had more important things on my mind than the weather and the town size.
On top of the situation between my mother and father, and moving, I had to deal with the stress of La Push's people. I myself was half Quileute. The Canadians referred to the half and half people as 'metis', and I should have been somewhat excited to live among people of my culture, of my heritage, of my blood. But, the Quileutes had a secret. A big one. A big, scary-looking, furry secret. I was part of that secret, as every Native American of my background was. But I was a... "special case", if you will. Compared to the rest of my tribe, I was quite the oddball.
On my sixth day living on the rez, it was raining, and I had nothing to do. I was sitting upstairs in my small bedroom, on my bed, watching the falling rain, and sulking about my family situation. At about one in the afternoon, Grandma came upstairs to see me.
My grandmother was a petite woman with wrinkled, russet skin, long grey hair, and an aquiline nose. I wouldn't say I looked exactly like her, bit I did have her nose and small hands. When she saw me sitting on the bed, frowning at the window, she knit brow into a worrisome scowl.
"How are you feeling today, Anita?" she asked me.
I shrugged and turned around to face her.
"Not too good," I muttered. "Yourself?"
"Frankly, I'm more concerned about you, dear," she said.
We were silent for a few minutes. Neither of us wanted to talk about how family matters had been for the last few months. Though she didn't show it, I was convinced Grandma was taking this whole thing even harder than I was, and I was sure bringing it up would only upset her. I mean, her own daughter was sent to the big house not too long ago, any mother would be distraught.
After moment, she broke the downcast silence.
"Anita, maybe you should go outside and do something?" she suggested gently. "Run around for a bit? Let the air clear your head. It's what always make me feel better."
I looked up at her, eyebrow raised.
"You mean in my phased form?" I asked incredulously.
The old woman nodded. I stared at her and shook my head as fast as I could.
"Not a chance in hell," I told her. "Someone might see me!"
"I doubt they will," Grandma said back. She approached my window and looked through the panes. "It's the afternoon, and not very much is going on. I doubt the boys are out there, patrolling the forest- They were at it all night and early this morning." She sighed. "Those young men work themselves twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and all to keep everyone safe from those troublesome vampires..."
I felt a surge of anger and heat. I began to shake. The vampires. The parasites. The blood suckers. If there was anything to call the cherry on top of this revolting sundae, it was that the town next to La Push, Forks, was inhabited by a clan leeches. When I arrived, I could not believe it. In Vancouver, I had to live among a family of vampires as well, and in the darkest, most sinister part of my mind, I blamed that family for sending my mother to jail.
Grandma noticed my body quivering, and lay a little, gnarled hand on my shoulder.
"Go out, Nita," she said, calling me by my commonly used nick name. "Blow off some steam, just come back for supper all right?"
I barely nodded. I got up from my bed, left the room, and bolted down the stairs and out of the house. As I sped down the gravel driveway, towards the rainy forest, I heard Grandma call after me, "Stay away from First Beach. Usually the pack is hanging around there if they're not working or sleeping." Thanks, Grams. My whole plan was to go to First Beach all along. Mission aborted.
Once I reached the edge of the forest, I looked around to make doubly sure no one was around, and let the fire inside of me consume me...
* * *
Later that night, I lay in my bed, staring out the window. It was a clear night in spite of the yucky weather we had today. The full moon shone brightly, lighting up the star strewn sky, and outlining the forest around the house. I was contemplating the decision I made while running today.
Thinking about all that had been going on made my head spin, my heart ache, and my stomach churn. I had endured a few months of this, and I decided enough was enough. I could only brood and cry for so long.
I wasn't going to think about what happened in Vancouver anymore. If possible, I was going to forget it. I would block out the past, and engage full in the present. The future was still a mystery to me, so I didn't pay much attention to it.
In the midst of the forest, running, and breathing in the fresh, afternoon air, I had promised myself to forget Vancouver completely. La Push was my new home now.
* * *
Luckily for me it was summer vacation, for I don't know what on Earth I would do at school. It wasn't that I was an aloof person, but it was a fact that getting used to new schools was hard, and I would be surrounded by Quileutes. Maybe I was just getting paranoid, but I feared that if surrounded by my own "kind", my secret would have a better chance of being discovered. Grandma knew this and decided to bring it up over breakfast one morning.
"You can't let that hold you back, Nita," she told me, leaning on the counter of her cramped, nineteen seventies-styled kitchen. "Why are you stressing so much about it? Look at me. I have the same condition you have, and I'm fine." I gave Grandma an, "Oh puh-lease" look with a mouthfull of eggs. Charming, wasn't I?
"True, you do," I said, my voice muffled by the food in my mouth. "But I-"
"Don't talk with your mouthful, dear," the old woman interrupted me, scowling. Refraining from rolling my eyes, I swallowed the egg and continued to prove her wrong.
"But I'm sixteen years old. I'll meet people, and since I live here now, most will be Quileutes. If they're ever around when I'm angry, or upset, and I phase in front of them..." I shuddered at the thought. "I'll get talked about."
Grandma looked sceptical as she cleared my empty plate, and carried it over to the ancient sink. "Honey, I think you're making too much of a big deal out of this," she told me bluntly. "It's a small little handicap. Nothing more, nothing less."
I huffed and leaned back in my chair, a scowl plastered onto my face. "That's not what Mo- I mean- what I was told," I faltered. I was trying to forget Vancouver, so I wouldn't be helping myself if I mentioned Mom. It wouldn't help Grandma either.
"I was told it was a congenital birth defect," I recited, breaking out the fancy vocabulary. Grandma made a sour face.
"Now that's just melodramatic," she said. I huffed.
Indeed, the family secret I kept was that we were a bunch of mutant werewolves. Quite a few Quileutes, I knew, had the ability to change into wolves. I had the ability too, but it was really messed up.
Truth be told, I couldn't phase properly. Ever since I learned I could phase at fifteen, I could never obtain the physical appearance of a wolf, even though my mind would be like so. Strange cases like me had been turning up in my family since the times of Taha Aki, and we had no idea why. The Spencer family was full of half formed, skipped generations, and spliced-genetic werewolves.
"You mustn't stress about this, Nita." Grandma continued to lectured me as she began to wash the dishes. "I've known the kids here for many years, and they're not very judgemental. If they hear or find out about your small phasing malfunction, I don't think they're going to shut their windows and lock their doors on you."
I begged to differ. "Yeah, but how can you be sure?" I asked. "I'm sixteen, and-and..."
"And what? I'm just an old bag without any knowledge of today's teens?" Grandma asked with a half smile on her face. I rolled my eyes as a small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I stood up and headed into the hallway.
"I'm going for a walk," I told the old woman as I acsended the near by stairs.
"Be careful around the forest, Nita," Grandma called back. "The pack might find you, and mistake you for a vampire!" I raised my middle and index finger to my temple and flexed my thumb, pretending to pop a cap in my skull. Seriously, Grams, enough with the bloodsucker cracks.
I opened the door to my small, movie poster-covered room, and began to change into some old jeans and a baggy t-shirt. As I pulled off my pj bottoms, I glanced into the small hand mirror that lay on the desk at the foot of my bed.
Grandma wasn't kidding. I really did look like a leech. My broad, high cheek boned face was a pale; My dark grey eyes were dull and glassy, with dark circles under them. My jaw length, straight, chocolate brown hair didn't help my appearance: It was practically standing up on end.
It was another overcast day in La Push. I could already feel the loose strands from my pathetic ponytail start to frizz up. I huffed. If I hadn't had a European father, I wouldn't have had that problem.
I immediately regretted thinking about my father because I began to berate him inside my head. Honestly, I hated it when I did that. I had little mind conversations with myself, as if the person I wanted to talk to was living in my brain.
I cursed my father, called him every bad name under the sun. I ask him why in the HELL he would do something as... as... as immoral as cheating on my mother, forgetting that he had a family. There was no reason for him to cheat on Mom. I mean, sure they had been fighting about various things a lot that month, but that was no excuse! No wonder Mom did what she did to him...
I kicked a rock, and sent it flying into the forest. I bit my lip as tears stung the back of my eyes.
Stop it this instant, Nita, I told myself. You promised you wouldn't think about Vancouver anymore. You have other things to worry about now.Yeah, like how I had just rounded the corner to find myself walking by a small house. I suppose I was just being an over dramatic, angsty teenager, but I was in no mood to be the unfamiliar new girl walking by a local's house. I didn't see any cars in the drive way except for one. It was some old Chevy truck that looked like it had been fixed up a little. I stopped for a minute, and stared at the shutter covered windows.
"Son of a..." I began, staring at the windows. I bet the door was locked too. I bet the owners of this house saw me coming from around the corner and said, "Oh no, it's that Anita Spencer kid, the one who can't phase properly. What a freak. Let's shut the shutters and lock the doors, and hopefully she won't notice us." I knew I was being a silly goose, but I didn't care at the moment, and let myself act like a seven year old.
"I notice you!" I shouted at the house. "It didn't work! I still notice you! Ha, ha, ha!" I frowned at the wooden door. "You're not gonna shut me out that easily! I'm gonna be around whether you like it or not, so don't even try to pretend that the mutant isn't living near you-!"
"Um... Excuse me? May I help you?" asked a voice from around the corner of the house. I turned my head, and my stomach dropped past my toes.
Standing off to the side of the house was a boy my age. He was a tall, dark haired, muscular Quileute. Beside him stood a girl with long, straight brown hair, pale skin, with tears in her brown eyes. They were both staring at me like I was crazy, waiting for an answer.
I stared at the pair and stammered for a while, tripping over my words, and making their eyebrows travel further down their forehead. After a moment, I just decided I wasn't going anywhere with my crumby explanation, so I turned on my heel, and sped away from them like I was being chased by a wild animal. As I ran, my cheeks burned painfully, and I could feel heat spreading through my body like wild fire. I clenched my eyes tightly.
Oh no, not again! I thought, angry with myself. My self loathing only made the heat spread faster, so, unwillingly, I "phased" and ran into the forest, where I spent a good proportion of the morning.