A.N: So the writer's block monster came to me once again and said, "Ha! I'm gonna destroy all your inspirations for Sapphire Moon! Buahahaha!" Thus, this somehow came to me. Probably gonna be few other one-shots until the W.B Monster dies a horrible bloody death. :D Enjoy dears.
When I was younger, my mother would send me to the Makah reservation to spend time with my grandmother and cousins. Most of the time I went protesting the entire way, trying to bargain with my parents to not force me to go. It never worked and it still amazes me to this day that I was never able to wear them down.
Usually, my older cousins would spend hours talking to each other about how amazing their boyfriends or girlfriends were and how completely in love they were. They would sigh and swoon and giggle like idiots. I would've tried pleading with my grandmother to leave but my cousins used chocolate to keep me prisoner, my one weakness.
"Oh, he's just so amazing. The perfect guy, I swear!"
"She's really cool, and not fake like all those other chicks."
"We're totally going to get married, he said so himself."
"We were meant to be, it's written in the stars!"
A few times I scoffed and snorted at them, but they just kept shoving chocolate down my throat to quiet me down. My cousin Emily who was only a few months younger than me, would listen to them intently, eyes shining brightly at their stories. That was probably the only thing that annoyed me the most about Emily, she would get so entranced by stories of love and happiness and would spew out the same bullshit to others without telling the entire story.
It was these oh so wonderful trips that made me into such an amazing poker player. As soon as my cousins started with the love talks, I busted out with my playing cards. I roped in Emily and my Uncle Michael to play with me most of the time. And whenever Emily was listening more to the stories than paying attention to the game, I'd get one of my cousins who got their ass dumped by their 'soul mate' to play.
"Lee, what do you think?" I was concentrating on another game when my cousin Michelle decided to interrupt me and ask me what I thought about love and all that other crap.
Without turning away from the game, I answered her. "I think you're wasting time asking me my opinion on something so completely irrelevant to my life and distracting my from winning the goddamn motherfucking game."
"Leah Clearwater! Watch your language!" My grandmother shouted from the kitchen.
I sighed. "Fine, you're distracting me from winning the motherfucking game. Happy?"
"Very." My grandmother shouted back. Damn woman was fine with me swearing like a sailor as long as I never used the Lord's name in vain. What kind of logic was that?
"Oh Leah, you're just too young to understand how amazing and great love is. It's one of the most amazing feelings in the world. Someday you'll have the chance to experience it and when you do you won't think my question was irrelevant at all."
Emily spoke up. "She's right Leah. You know what people say, you can't live without love." I rolled my eyes at both of them and ignored them for the third time that day. I had better things to do than to listen to them talk more crap about love, like winning the two hundred dollar pot. Yup, my cousins were all a bunch of suckers.
Funny thing is, years later I would hate to admit that Michelle and Emily were right. I fell in love with Sam and I was on Cloud Nine. I didn't think life could get any better. But of course, life was a bitch and fucking with people's lives was her favorite pastime. My aforementioned cousin had a hand in the pain I had to go through and not once did she stop and think about how this was going to affect me. Not once.
You know that feeling when you're a little kid and your parents take away your favorite toy, coming up with some bullshit excuse that it's old or it's time to pass it on to someone else? It's that frustrated, angry, sad, disappointing, why-is-this-happening-to-me type of feeling. Well, that's what the amazing power of love had done to me. Sure, love is great and everything, but no one ever tells the other side of it. The heartbreak side. Love isn't forever and when it's ripped away from you it feels like you can't breathe. Guess Emily forgot about that when she went on and on about love to all her friends.
Emily was the one who told me that you can't live without love.
I think I prefer oxygen.