i miss you
i miss being overwhelmed by you
and i need rescue
i think i'm fading away
but i keep thinking that you'll wake me up with a whisper in my ear
i keep hoping that you'll sneak in my room
so i wait and i wait
and i run old scenes through my tired head
of the days we laid by the school and said forever
was that the best i'll ever be
can't keep my hands from shaking
stumbling through the wreckage again
but you're gone
"best i'll ever be" -sister hazel
1.
eyes wide open, light barely shining in from the three o clock moon, leah starts awake. it's silent except for his snoring. he shifts. he throws his arm onto her. she remembers something about "coyote ugly", something about gnawing your arm off to get out from underneath him, except that she's probably ten times stronger than him. but she wouldn't let him know that.
she rolls out from under his arm, slips her dress back on, straps on her heels, grabs twenty dollars from his wallet and the little plastic baggy on his night stand.
"thanks," she whispers.
she doesn't even know his name.
2.
she's at a phone booth in portland. how she got there, she's not quite sure.
all she knows is she's chasing something that might not even exist.
her hands shake as she deposits the quarters in the slot. one, two, three, each of them making that satisfying "clink".
her fingers are shaking so bad, she needs to reinforce her one hand with the other, just to dial the numbers right.
the phone rings. and rings. and rings.
then, the annoyed voice of a man. "what?"
"i heard you might be able to help me," leah says.
"who told you?" he snaps.
"trujillo. from seattle."
a pause. "how much you got?" he says, brusquely.
"twenty dollars." she says. he laughs.
"yeah right."
"please!" she yelps. "i'm willing to give you more. i just don't have the money."
a pause.
3.
her ears are ringing, she's going deaf from silence. her arms are hugged around her legs. she's staring off into space.
alone in a motel somewhere in hillsboro, oregon, her mind turns into a movie projector.
two tan hands intertwined. long black hair tangled up in long black hair. warm hugs. endless nights. his deep voice. his musky scent.
a car outside honks. leah blinks her eyes. her room is as cold and empty as it ever was.
she leans over to the table, catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. her face is skewed by white lines, but still, she hardly looks like herself. her eyes are sunken, her cheeks are hollowed, her skin is pale. she shakes the image out of her head, and picks up the straw.
then everything fades away.
4.
when she gets like this, when she becomes invincible and smart and beautiful again, she feels like she could run back home.
she feels like she could run back home, actually feel the wind on her skin, actually see the beauty in the trees, actually experience the warmth in her bones. like she could walk back into that house and yell anything, and mom would come and seth would come and, hell, even sam would come and they all would gasp and cry and run to hug her and run to be with her and run to never let her go.
and sam would forgive her for leaving. and sam would let her back in. and sam would leave her ugly fucking cousin and remember why he fell in love with leah in the first place.
when she gets like this, she throws her head back and laughs, and her smile is almost as big as it ever has been (save for the time sam introduced her to her all time favorite joke.) she laughs and laughs and laughs and she is convinced that every little thing is good again and that every little thing is right again and she is convinced that she could get up right now and run back to la push.
and when she opens her eyes and sees the decrepit room or the dirty junkies or the busted brick wall her smile fades. her laugh tapers out. she remembers she is alone, and she always has been and she always will be.
and her eyes dart around and her fingers shake and beads of sweat form on her brow.
and she would do almost anything for another chance at invincibility and genius and beauty, just to make this god damn low go away.
5.
when she was young (or at least when she felt young), she told herself that getting out was the best thing she could do. because what was there in la push, anyway? a mom who was too busy to care? a village that needed too much fucking protecting? a man who thought he knew what was best for everyone?
she told herself that her future was out there, out in portland, out in san francisco, out in new york, out in any fucking place outside of la push.
that was two years ago, but it might as well have been a decade.
6.
she has her mind made up.
even if it takes her crawling on her hands and knees, she will go back. because, fuck it, she was wrong, and fuck it, she was young, and fuck it, she didn't know a god damn thing about the future or about herself.
7.
she doesn't know where she is, exactly. it almost looks familiar. it almost smells familiar, except that her nose is useless to her now.
she looks around, and everything is shrouded in a veil of dark green. her body is swaying back and forth. she thinks to herself, when was the last time i ate? and her mind goes blank.
she sits down on the ground and looks side to side.
this could be familiar, she thinks. this could be it.
and her eyes lock on that house. that house that she grew up in (maybe). and she almost gets up and goes there, and then she remembers.
she reaches in her bag for her invincibility, genius and beauty.
she hardly bothers to cut it up nice. she doesn't need for it to be perfect. just perfect enough to bring her home.
and it trickles through her veins. so she does another line. and nothing changes. so she does another line.
and nothing changes.
so she does another line.
and her heart speeds up.
so she does another line.
and her hands begin to shake.
so she does another line.
and her forehead drips with sweat.
and she does another line.
and finally something happens. finally she feels invincible, finally smart, finally beautiful. finally happy.
and her heart is pounding and pounding and pounding and pounding.
and she sees them, all of them, everyone she has ever loved for any amount of time. and she sees sam. and she sees his welcome arms, open to her.
and she smiles.
and it's the last bit of happiness she'll ever know.
she collapses.