Title: Goodbye Myself
Author: Dr. Piglet
Rating: R for some strong language
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Stephenie Meyer. No money, copyright, or trademark infringements are intended.
Summary: The story of Leah Clearwater from when she finds out she's a werewolf.
We must die to one life before we can enter another. – Anatole France
Leah Clearwater did not know whether it was the right or the left that she should go but chose to stumble down the path toward the old village. Her sandals made scratching noises as the sand grinded underneath. She ran past Madeline's Bakery and slapped each wooden post that separated the west street from the curving plummet of the ocean.
The gulls wailed as they played above the blue and red roofs of the Rez apartments. A Makah had just moved in there with her boy and they were pushing an old bed spring up the stairs. The boy's hair was chin length and parted down the middle, one tucked behind his left ear while the right side swung free.* He glanced at Leah the way that one glanced at street signs – a glazed recognition that couldn't be bothered by interest. They both looked up as an argument broke out on the 2nd floor balcony - twin girls stood glaring at one another on opposite sides of a stained pink and yellow stove.
Leah kept looking at the girls even as she walked down the incline between the liquor store and the fence that barricaded La Push Park. The smell of the icy water was stronger already and it curled into the curves of her pink-tinged ears. She moved further past the daily commotion of the Rez and into the quietness of liquid nature.
Leah thought of Seth, of Sam, and of Billy Mills.
In 1964, Billy Mills, a Lakota, had won the gold medal in the 10,000 meter run at the Tokyo Olympics. 39 years later, Leah Clearwater found out. She had immediately torn the article from the library's periodical section and tacked it on her poster board in her room.
She didn't quite know why she had it. She wasn't in Track and she hated going to sporting events; Quillayute Valley Public had shitty players in '03 anyway. But it meant something. Billy Mills was a Lakota. She was a Quileute. They couldn't have been more far apart from the 'Nations that were Raped' map. But here he was, picture stuffed in her back pocket, giving her some sort of sign, some sort of fanatical hope, that they. . one of them. . one of her . . could do it.
She came to the black stones that formed the beach, her fingers automatically reaching for the copy of the article. The paper was soft and buttery, the creases bending diagonally over Mills' upraised arms and the number 322 on his chest. Leah stared and stared at his expression. His tightly closed eyes. The folded shorts pushed up from his raised right knee. His fists clenched and raised in triumph, in anguish.
A sudden cutting wind swept into her eyes and forced them shut. She stood there tall, defiant, a natural form of itinerant nature.
And then she was moving again. Her arms rose, past her waist, her trembling shoulders, until they were clenched in triumph, in anguish. And with a bottomless sigh, her hands opened.
The picture stuck to the palm of her hand, the ends flapping frighteningly for a few seconds until they finally let go and circled past her closed eyes and into the greedy ocean.
Her jaw tightened as tears broke the smooth lines of her cheeks. She shook her head until the wind dried them off then phased for the 2nd time today, the 2nd time in her life.
The water seeped through the black and white picture of Billy Mills and consumed it whole.
A small grey wolf howled in the distance.
* quote from New Moon
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