Misunderstanding
As per usual, it's first up with disclaimers.
None of the characters are mine. Unless Stephenie Meyer's discovers me and lends the characters so I could right a Nessie/Jacob book (wink wink).
Anything else on the roll call...I think not, so on with the story.
Nessie's brown eyes spied on Jacob and Leah from outside of her window, they were laughing and joking as always as they walked towards the cottage. Every time Jacob showed up with Leah she watched them, even though it felt like her heart was being run through with a knife, Nessie still watched, her eyes burning with jealousy and occasionally with tears.
As they approached even closer, she let out a gasp of disgust as she saw Leah push Jacob lightly away from her. As Nessie's heart fluttered even faster than usual, she imagined being a fully grown vampire and ripping Leah to shreds, limb from limb, leaving a Leah shaped carcass lying in bits. She gave a self satisfied smile and decided to change out of her clothes for the second time today, trying to out-do Leah by looking as pretty as possible.
Nessie looked in her full length mirror and gave out a heavy sigh; she could never look pretty, at least not as pretty as Leah, with her mocha coloured skin and full bodied lips. She scowled at the mirror as she tried pouting her lips at the same and found that her lips could never equal Leah's.
It seemed that Nessie had inherited her mother's habit of thinking everyone else around her was more beautiful than she was, even while standing in front of the mirror she couldn't see an aspect of beauty on her face.
Yet, she was unaware that Jacob when looked at that face all he saw was perfection. No one could be as beautiful as the blossoming Nessie Cullen, not even Leah, his lieutenant.
Nessie glanced out the window once again to see that they were barely seconds away from knocking on the door. As quickly as she could, she picked up a pair of skinny jeans and a green v-necked t-shirt and put them on; making sure the zipper was up.
Last week she'd walked into the living room trying to look distracted from his presence by reading Jane Eyre. She'd ignored him saying 'hello' to her only to have Jacob, milliseconds after, burst into laughter when he noticed the zipper was undone. She lowered the book in complete embarrassment and walked out of the room to zip them back up. After she'd refused to come out of her room for an hour Bella had knocked on the door to coax her daughter out. It eventually worked, but bribery had been used, the jeans and t-shirt had been part of the bargain.
Once she was dressed, she dusted some blush lightly across her cheekbones, and ran eyeliner across her eye lids; she applied a little gloss to her lips and decided that this slightly older looking reflection would have to suffice for now.
Nessie pressed her ear to the door to hear the muffled voices of her parents and Jacob and her. When the greetings had finished and the room turned quiet Nessie decided to reveal herself to everyone.
"Oh, hi Jacob, Leah. I didn't know you were coming over." She forcefully smiled as she looked over at Leah.
"I'm here every night Ness." Jacob laughed as he raised an eyebrow, "I saw you sneak a peek at me out of the window anyway."
Nessie felt a blush crawl up onto her cheeks. Maybe she shouldn't have put the blush on after all. Her cheeks were doing fine all by themselves.
"Oh that was you, was it?" she feigned. "I thought it was backpackers or something."
"Nope. Just me and Leah."
Edward glanced over at his daughter with a surprised expression over his face, he said nothing, but her cheeks seemed to glow even brighter as she caught his eye.
"That's good." Nessie mumbled as she tried to find a talking point. "How's Seth these days? I don't see enough of him anymore."
"Seth's imprinted on a girl called Chloe, she's a couple years older than him actually. It's quite sweet in a way; he's like a lovesick puppy when he's without her."
"That's um, great. So, have you imprinted yet, Leah?" she couldn't help it, but the question just slipped out like a hot piece of food that she couldn't hold in her mouth any longer.
"No." Leah smiled wryly. "But there's the thought of someone." She added cryptically.
Unfortunately, Nessie took it the wrong way.
"You can't imprint on Jacob! He's not yours!"
Every adult in the room arched their eyebrows and all eyes were on Nessie, burning into her like red hot lasers.
"What do you mean by that?" Leah asked calmly, as all eyes swivelled onto her.
"Jacob's a werewolf too, he should get a choice whether you can imprint on him." She argued feebly.
"Jacob's already imprinted..."
But that was all Leah could say before Nessie left her spot and ran to her room. Jacob instantly got up to go and try and comfort her but Edward was already halfway towards his daughter's room.
"Leave this to me." He said before turning away from them.
He knocked on the door and heard muffled sobs as Nessie tried to mute her sadness from his sensitive ears. Her aunt Rosalie had taught her that showing sadness was weak and that she shouldn't show it to anyone, especially a man.
"Ness." He called against the wood. "It's me, I'm coming in."
As he walked in, he saw what had looked like a young woman a moment ago, was reduced back to his baby girl of a physical age of sixteen. He walked over to the bed and scooped her into his lap with ease. Even though she was older now; Nessie still loved it when she and her father had these little moments of intimacy.
"Would you mind telling me what just happened." He asked lightly.
"You were there. I asked Leah if she'd imprinted and she answered me." Nessie replied as she wiped a tear away with the back of her hand.
"There's more to it, I know there is." Edward replied as he wiped another tear away with his thumb.
Nessie looked up from her hands to his eyes and surveyed him, unsure with what she wanted to say.
Hesitantly, she raised a palm to her father's cheeks and pressed against it with a feather-like touch.
His peripheral version left him and he was looking at an encounter where Jacob was accompanied by Leah, most of the time they were smiling at each other, other times they were play fighting on their way towards the ever present figure of the cottage.
The images shifted, but only slightly, to images of Jacob alone. He was still smiling, but Edward could see instantly that Jacob's smiles were warmer; they were full of undying love. It was amazing to see someone other than Bella flash that smile to another human being and mean it.
He was beginning to fit the pieces of his daughter's emotional jigsaw together, although it didn't take him much effort to put them together.
His daughter had seen the meaning behind those smiles, and she'd gradually begun to fall in love with Jacob beyond her own comprehension. He didn't like the fact that she'd discovered these feelings before she'd fully matured, but he'd learned from Bella that you're never too young to love a person with all your soul.
The point of jealousy was that Nessie thought that Leah was also in love with Jacob. Nessie felt threatened by their closeness and took their friendship as borderline attraction.
He sighed and pulled his daughter into a fierce hug.
"I need to send Jacob in to explain himself." He informed her.
"No! Dad, please!" Nessie begged as he went to leave his daughter's side.
"The only way to sort things out is to approach them head on, and that is what you're going to do."
"I showed you that so you could understand. I didn't show it to you, so you could torture me with the information."
"You'll thank me later Ness." He smiled as he left the room.
Nessie's head scoured her room for an escape and her eyes rested on the window. She tiptoed over and pushed the window open with ease. As she had one leg out the window, she was stopped by a firm voice.
"What are you doing?"
She smiled sheepishly and lifted her leg back in.
"I was feeling warm, so I opened the window for some fresh air." She lied as she fumbled with her fingers for a visual distraction.
"Show me what you showed him." Jacob asked calmly.
"Never in a million years."
"Why not?"
"You're not supposed to see it. It's stupid and has nothing to do with you."
"If it has nothing to do with me, why won't you look at me?"
She glanced up quickly to his face and she saw concern and hurt. Although she wasn't sure why he was hurting, what did he have to worry about?
"Nessie," Jacob started "Leah can't imprint on me."
She looked at him with a penetrating glare.
"Leah doesn't want to imprint on me. We're just friends. She's my lieutenant; she's saved my back a few times. Over the years we've built a rapport, but it's only a deep friendship, you've got nothing to worry about."
Nessie still continued to glare and he felt like he was being x-rayed from head to toe.
"Even if Leah felt differently about me she couldn't imprint on me. No one could."
"Why?" Nessie exhaled, she was holding her breath very tightly, hoping to pass out.
"Because on the day you were born, the very second you looked at me with those gorgeous chocolate brown eyes of yours, I was hooked forever and a day."
"I was a cute baby, so what?"
"I don't just mean in the "cute terms". I mean in that very glimpse of you I gave my soul for you to keep, permanently. I can't have it back, its non refundable."
"In plain English please Jacob." Nessie said as a smile spread across her face.
"I imprinted on you the day you were born. No woman can ever hold my attention ever again, now I have you in my life."
"So you love me as much as I love you?"
"Possibly, even more actually."
"And this isn't a joke where you're going to laugh at me?"
"I'm positive."
She leaned in to kiss Jacob but he held back.
"What is it?" she asked frustrated.
"Not until you're a fully grown vampire."
"What?!"
"I promised your father a while back, it was more a safe guard on his part. If you reciprocated my love for you before you turned seven then I had to keep off you till then."
"Reciprocate? Is that really your choice of word?" she mocked him.
"It was your dad's, smarty pants."
"So you can't even hug me?"
"That's allowed I think."
"Let's sneak one in now shall we? Before he comes rolling in revelling in the waves of smartness."
"One can't hurt right?" Jacob smiled as he enveloped her in his arms.
In the embrace he could feel the love radiate out of her, as she'd finally got her jealousy off of her chest.
He loved her, he really loved her and Leah would never change that thought ever again for Nessie.
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