Surrender
Leah's feet are in the wide river. It feels good – the water's so icy it seems to burn her toes. She found this river a when she was a kid looking for a hideout. The snow crunches beneath her as she shifts her position slightly. Leah wiggles her numb toes and watches the water ripple. Her eyes close, and Leah goes ten years back in time. She's twelve years old. She's twelve years old, and Seth is nine, and Sue's in her forties, and Harry's alive. Bella Swan lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Charlie Swan is staying away from Leah's mother. Jacob Black is just another happy kid. Emily lives in Seattle. Leah's going to go to college, she's going to become a photographer and be famous and travel the world. And Leah Clearwater's never met that son of a bitch, Sam Uley. Her family's at the beach, First Beach, and Sue's yelling at Leah to put on her sunscreen. Leah is crying because she doesn't want to put on sunscreen, and it makes her smell funny. Seth is crying because Leah is crying, and he'd follow his big sister to the end of the world. Harry is there, comforting and caring for the kids. The water's cool and salty, and Leah floats on her back in the water, wondering what it'd feel like to float away. She looks up at the ever-present clouds and imagines what it would be like to live on them. Leah Clearwater's just a kid. Just a stupid fucking kid.
Leah wishes she could go for a swim, but she knew that then she would miss her patrol and Sam would be pissed.
Hmm. Maybe she should go for that swim.
She curses softly as she hears footsteps approaching the pond. Why? Why couldn't she just be abandoned for one freaking day! Leah listens closely to the rhythm of the mystery person's steps, and curses when she realizes the familiar, uneven gait. She wants to bang her head repeatedly against a brick wall as none other than Paul Lahote appears in her line of vision, smirking. He crosses his arms over his bare chest and slouches. Paul's wearing cut-offs, nothing more. His bare feet sink into the snow, melting it. As for Leah, she's wearing an old black T-shirt advertising a restaurant that she used to eat at, and gray cotton shorts.
"Hey, Clearwater."
Leah introduces him to her middle finger.
Paul laughs. "No need to be like that."
Paul tries to dodge a handful of frozen pebbles that are flung at him, but the girl's aim is good, and Paul's overconfident. He winces as they hit him hard in the gut, and scowls violently at her.
"Bitch," he spits out.
"Pussy," she retorts tiredly. Leah's not in the mood for the games that she usually plays with Paul. She's busy thinking. Leah's busy escaping into her mind.
Paul's demeanor changes. He seems to shift awkwardly. "Uh, listen." He scratches the back of his head. "There's some news I gotta tell you." He curses. "Goddammit, why did I have to draw the fucking short straw? Fucking Ateara, I swear he cheated," Paul mutters under his breath.
"What news?" Leah's vaguely curious now.
"Uh, Sam and Emily, Sam and, SamandEmilyaregettingmarried ."
"What?"
Paul takes a deep breath. "Sam and, uh, Emily aregettingmarried." Paul's wondering how he's going to get out of here alive.
Leah's mask falls.
"And, they want you to be their bridesmaid." Paul blurts out.
Leah starts to crumble around the edges. She looks up at Paul's face, desperate for comfort, desperate for anything he'll give her. She only sees a stranger.
"So, uh, they told me to ask you if you could be Emily's bridesmaid. She said she'd really appreciate and that they'd be in debt of you forever."
"In debt of me, huh?" Leah whispers.
"Uh, yeah." Paul Lahote may be a lot of things, including a self-centered bastard and arrogant dick, but he's not an idiot, and can see that Clearwater is about to blow. "Uh, I have patrol. Uh, bye!" The man almost trips over his feet in an attempt to get away.
Leah Clearwater would be crying, but she wasted all her tear ducts on Sam when he left her for her cousin.
The bitter winter wind slaps her cheeks and draws tears out of her eyes. Leah's sitting in a pile of mush – her thighs have melted the snow. She looks into the pond, and is surprised to see her feet there. With amusement, she notes that they've turned purple. Leah tries to wiggle her toes, but they don't respond well. Her pinky and third toe gives a feeble twitch. Leah's nose twitches, and she sneezes violently. She's sitting in snow, with her feet in icy water, and she's still burning up. The girl laughs, because, once you think of it, it's really fucking funny. How screwed up her life is. She should star in a soap opera. Leah Clearwater laughs because her cousin is going to marry her ex-fiancé. Her cousin is going to marry her ex-fiancé. Emily will be Miss Sam Uley. Leah has no friends. Leah still lives with her mother, for god's sake. Her mother is dating the father of a vampire. She killed her own father. Leah Clearwater laughs because she's twenty-two years old and stuck in the town she tried so desperately to escape. She has no job, no idea of what she wants to do with her life. Leah's whole existence is just one big slice of pathetic with a scoop of fucked up on the side.
She hears a howl from the forest and laughs again. It's Emily's goddamned fiancé. She's late for her patrol. Her feet feel like lumps of concrete. Leah frowns. She can't feel the burn anymore. Leah puts her legs, up to her knee, in the water, and instantly, they feel like they're on fire. Leah smiles and focuses on the burn.
The howl sounds again, and it's closer this time. Probably a couple miles away. Leah sighs in annoyance. Was it too much to want to be alone every now and then?
She had to act fast. The girl strips off her shirt with shaking fingers, leaving only bra on. Leah's shirt is wet with tears and snow. She tries to take her shorts off, but can't find it in herself to lift her legs out of the lake. The burn is beautiful. And anyways, her feet are so heavy she doubts she could lift them even if she wanted to. So Leah leaves the shorts on. Sweat runs down her face, but her teeth are chattering. Just another one of her body's screw-ups, Leah supposes. She can't wait any longer.
Her original plan is to jump into the water, but Leah finds out she can hardly move. Instead, she has to resort to some kind of awkward scoot on her butt. It's a little hard to get out of the puddle of melted snow that surrounds her, but soon she's in the river.
And it's the best feeling she's ever known. She's being burnt at stake, the flames are devouring her body. Leah yelps with excitement, and the cold water rushes in her mouth, taking a flame to her insides.
Leah floats on her back like she did ten years ago, and pretends that she's twelve years old. If she concentrates hard enough, she can hear her father's laughter. The slow current pushes her down the river, and she really hopes it leads out of La Push. Out of Washington. She really hopes she can float to the ocean and never come back.
Her ears fill with water and the world goes silent. Leah closes her eyes, and imagines clouds in the shape of bunnies and question marks and stop signs hanging in the sky.