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.
Note: Jake never imprinted on Nessie.
Sam POV
"That's the funny thing about knowing you can't have something. It makes you desperate." Leah Clearwater (Breaking Dawn, Chapter p.320)
Second Best
I'm staring again.
I know I'm staring and that I'm supposed to go home to my imprint, but I can't. There is some unknown physical force keeping me here; close enough to see, but not close enough to touch.
I'm staring at your smiling face through your front room window. I'm standing here because I know that's what you would prefer; me outside of your new life, and I don't blame you. After the whole imprinting ordeal, I understand how you would want me to stay far away.
And I will.
Later.
I stare at you. You're beautiful, (when aren't you?), with your dark eyes, full lips, dazzling smile, shiny hair, pink cheeks, and long legs. You're huddled up on the couch eating chocolate and watching some chick-flick that you will soon deny ever having seen. Your eyes follow every movement on the screen and light up when the two lead characters hold each other close, professing their love for one another.
I keep looking at you, taking your form in when I see it. Hands. Male hands. They are familiar, even though they are on a place foreign to me ever having seen them before; your hips. I follow the hands up to the face of their owner.
Ugh, him. I should have known, he's always there now. Beside you, holding you, comforting you, touching you.
I hate those hands.
I don't understand is why he's there; beside you, holding you, whispering something I would kill to know because it makes you smile. He always makes you smile.
It used to be my job to make you smile.
I don't know why I'm reacting like this. I shouldn't be jealous, (especially of him), I have an imprint.
I look at those hands and scoff. He's not good enough for you, no one is, not even me. You may call yourself a "freak among freaks," but in reality, you're better and more human than the rest of us. Your pain and bitterness show us how you feel, how you feel more and deeper than any of us, even him. Especially him.
You're looking up at him with a smirk on your face. He pouts and your eyes go wide and soft before you smile a small content smile and give him some of your chocolate. You snuggle deeper into him while you both return your gaze to the movie.
I replay that look in my head. I know that look, it's the look you used to give to your father and to me; one of love and admiration.
I haven't seen that look in four years.
He's probably the only one who sees that look nowadays, I think bitterly.
Shaking my head, I realize how the tables have turned since the packs split up; I love you, and you're with him.
Him.
Jacob Black.
A boy.
A boy who insists that he is a man. He is not a man, he can't be the man that you want, that you need in your life.
I was that man… once. It was before, before everything.
It nearly kills me when I see you lean in and kiss him. You are kissing him. I don't know why this makes me even more uncomfortable and furious than before, but just seeing his lips attached to yours is enough for the hot fire to spread down my spine.
Maybe it's because you're happy. I don't want you to be happy with him; I want you to be with me. I want you to lean over and kiss me, smile at me, live with me, call me your loving husband.
Maybe I'm jealous. Maybe I'm mad that I lost you. Maybe I'm mad because he has you. Maybe I'm mad because he did the impossible: he made you, Leah Clearwater, whole; something I could never do.
You are now happy and whole, without imprinting.
And I'm still here, outside your window, watching you while my imprint waits at home for me; the loving husband, the pack leader, the first to experience the pull of the imprint.
I look at you two and see how you are different. You are his Beta, his partner, his wife. You do things together, never having to wait for the pull to bring your partner along. Every step you take, he is right beside you, walking with you.
And I hate it. I absolutely hate it.
I look down at the ring on my finger and think of my wife. She's not you. It's not my name at the end of yours, it's not my figure you lie beside, it's not my name you call out at night, it's not me.
Maybe I'm angry because I've realized I can never have you again. Maybe it's because of all the people in this town, the man you love and share a bed with is him.
Looking up, I watch you, (I always watch you), and I see how you kiss away the smudge of chocolate on his bottom lip. You lean away and smile before he insists that you "missed a spot" and you go and "clean it up" again. You oblige and lean in for a second time. This kiss becomes more intense and lingers longer than before. Watching this, I can feel my blood boil even hotter than before; he's holding you way too tight and you're leaning way too far into the kiss.
You both break away at the same time and give each other a smoldering gaze. As if reading each other's mind, you both get up and run toward your bedroom hand-in-hand.
Not wanting to witness or hear anything else, I make my way home to my loving wife, my imprint. As soon as I'm home, I understand why I'm like this.
You lean in to kiss him.
You're the one initiating it. You are going to him, kissing him, loving him. You chose him.
It wasn't me, and I don't think it ever was.
I replay the memory of tonight while I'm getting into bed. His hands on your hips. The hands that won't let you go, that will always catch you, that have a gold band on the fourth finger that says, "Jacob Black, I love you, and only you."
It does not say Sam, and it never will.
You have Jacob, and the pull gives me Emily.
Seeing you smile and laugh with him, choosing him, I realize that my love will always be second best.