A/N: Alternating POV's in this story, as in my other spin-off with Kate and Garrett. I'm probably going to blitz out a couple of DITHOT chapters tonight, so if you're reading that, stay tuned!

On with Leah's take on life…

One

Leah

"That table over there needs wiping down, Clearwater."

Wow. Not even a please. And would it kill him to call me Leah, rather than just barking out my surname at me like that? Manny the manager really is a world-class asshole. I glance up from the glasses I'm currently stacking and survey him reproachfully over the bar.

"I'll get to it in a minute, Manny."

Manuel is his real name, and he doesn't like it when I shorten it, but considering he doesn't seem to care about my constant reminders to call me by my first name, I take great pleasure in pissing him off.

Not too much, though. It sucks to admit it, but I still need this job. Being a waitress in a cocktail bar sucks, but it's a step up from my last shot-girl gig. At least there's a bar separating me from the men that like to grab my ass most of the time, here.

The sooner I get some publisher interest for my books, the better, I think, letting out a long-suffering sigh as I finish stacking up the glasses and pull a rag from under the counter to go and mop up the spilled alcohol on the table he'd indicated.

Pulling the day shift always sucks, because the only company I have is that of gin-soaked socialites and fucking Manny.

The door opens in my peripheral vision.

Almost as if my desperate, needy subconscious has summoned him, Jasper strolls through, looking all hot in a dark blue shirt and chinos. I feel a swell of pride; I picked that out for him.

Jasper pulls off preppy better than most guys I've ever seen, but I think a part of him still misses his roper jeans and flannel shirts.

He's a country boy at heart.

"Hey there, pequeña loba," he greets me. I can't help but smile at his endearment. 'Little-she-wolf' in Spanish. He's called me that for nearly as long as I've known him. Ever since I jokingly told him that he sounds sexy when he speaks Spanish.

"Hey, Tex," I reply, throwing the towel down and bracing my hands on my hips. "Come to brighten up my day?"

"You know it." Jasper shoots me a blinding grin. Edward really hit the jackpot with him – charm, looks, brains, a good heart; this boy's the whole package. If only we could all be so lucky. Summer really fucked me over when she ran off to Paris to be with Marguerite, but I guess that'll teach me to go for style over substance. Airhead bitch.

"How's your day goin'?"

"Like shit," I reply honestly. "Manny's being a total ass."

Jasper leans closer to me, resting his hand on the now-clean table top. "You might wanna lower your voice… he can probably hear you."

"Good. Fuck him."

He laughs, reaching up to push a stubborn golden curl from his indigo eyes.

"You know, Leah, it kinda amazes me that you've managed to hang onto this job for as long as you have, what with you bitchin' about your boss while he's in earshot and all."

I shoot Jasper a winning smile, slinging the dishrag over one shoulder and sashaying my way back to the bar. He follows behind me.

"So, are you gonna come over tonight?"

"Huh?" Distracted as I am by Manny lurking surreptitiously – or, at least, he thinks he's being surreptitious – in the corner, I barely listen to Jasper's question.

"Leah!" he snaps his fingers in front of my face, and I jump. Feeling a little guilty, I turn to meet his dark blue eyes.

"Sorry. What were you saying?"

"Are you gonna come over tonight for Alice's 'welcome to New York' party?"

"Sure," I reply, but I'm not all that enthused about the idea. Jasper knows I'm not exactly a social butterfly, and while it's going to be a party that consists mainly of my closest friends, I've never met the guest of honor before. And I'm not good with new people. They tend to get the wrong idea about me. The words 'ice-cold bitch' have been thrown around on occasion.

The whole idea of new interaction sort of gives me a stomach ache.

"What's with the face, pequeña loba?" Jasper asks, ducking his head so that I meet his eyes again. I force myself to look up, rather than studying the sticky, dried alcohol spills on the counter.

"You know how I feel about new people, Jasper," I admit, picking at my fingernails in a self-conscious gesture. He gives me a look that's full of pity, and I fucking hate it.

"Alice doesn't count as new people. She'll talk to you for five minutes and y'all will be friends for life. That's just Ali."

I nod, though I'm far from convinced. I've heard stories about Alice, of course, but I've never really bought into them as true to life. They must be at least a little exaggerated, because nobody can be as out there as Jasper and Edward describe her.

"Are you teachin' tonight?"

I glance up at Jasper again, realizing that I must've zoned out for the second time. "Um… no. Not until Tuesday." Which kind of sucks. My part-time kickboxing instructor gig down at the community center is way cooler than my current employment.

"Good," Jasper declares happily, giving me another sunny grin. "Then you'll be able to come to ours at seven with everyone else."

Just then, Manny decides that I've had enough basic human interaction for one shift, because he emerges from the shadows like a fucking vampire and practically shoos Jasper out of the door. I watch him go with a heavy heart, before going back to cleaning my counter.

I could really use some excitement in my life.

I arrive at Edward, Jasper and Seth's place at exactly seven. I don't know whether it's one of those parties that I should be fashionably late to or not, but I figure that the sooner I arrive, the sooner it will all be over and I can just go home. I use the bottle of wine I'm clutching in my right hand to tap on the door to apartment 21.

A moment later, it swings open, and music swells out to greet me. Edward's messy bronze head pokes around the doorframe, and he breaks out into a wide smile when he realizes that it's me.

"Leah! You made it!"

"Well, yeah…" I mutter, pressing the wine bottle into his outstretched hand as I cross the threshold and shrug out of my jacket. "Jasper convinced me to come over."

"Wow, way to make it sound like we had to twist your arm," Edward replies with an eye roll as he leans across me to push the door shut. "Anyone would think you don't actually want to hang out with your friends."

I give him a sharp look. "That's not what I… oh, fine. I just… I'm not really in a party sort of mood."

"Oh, good," Edward enthuses, sounding bizarrely genuine. "You can be the company for Alice's misery, then."

"Alice?" I frown, following him into the kitchen area with a nod to my brother and Jake, who are playing some kind of video game on the sofa. "I thought she was like Little Miss Sunshine and Daisies?"

Edward grimaces as he uncorks the wine and pours two generous glasses. "She was. This breakup with Victoria has really hit her hard. I've never seen her so down."

"Oh," I say, feeling an unexpected flash of sympathy for the girl. I remember feeling the exact same way after Summer left last year. "That sucks."

"I'll say." Edward offers me one of the glasses, and I accept, taking it carefully so's not to spill the red liquid everywhere. He's filled it up practically to the brim.

I raise one eyebrow at him. "Trying to get me drunk, Cullen?"

"Always." He shoots me a deviant grin. "Drunk Leah is about ten times more fun than regular Leah."

"Well, jeesh," I grumble, trying to disguise my smile by taking a sip of my drink. "You really know how to make a girl feel loved."

"We all know I'm not really about making girls feel loved, Lee-Lee," he retorts, still grinning away. "Besides, you're tough, you can take a little honesty."

I shake my head at him ruefully and allow my gaze to wander. Chuck and Kenna are sitting in the same armchair, and Kenna seems to be mid-gush about wedding plans to a very excitable and extra-bouncy Collin. Eric and Jasper are having an animated discussion about something in the far corner, both brandishing short glasses filled with amber liquid and gesticulating wildly. Embry seems to be offering Jake unsolicited advice about how to beat Seth in their game.

"Where is Alice?" I ask, because my quick inventory hasn't turned up any unfamiliar faces.

Edward cranes his neck, scanning the room as I just have. "Huh. I dunno." He sighs. "Let me check her room. Be right back."

He disappears off. I linger by the kitchen island for a moment, before deciding that I might as well go and have a smoke while everyone else is otherwise occupied. Without saying a word to anyone, I cross to the window and slide myself out over the sill onto the fire escape.

I right myself, pulling my cigarettes out of my back pocket. I pat myself down for a lighter, and bite back a curse when I realize that I've left it in my jacket pocket. I debate going back inside to retrieve it for a moment, until a soft voice snaps me out of my reverie.

"Need a light?"

I jump, whirling in the direction of the sound. My eyes meet a pair of intelligent, deep brown ones, and then my gaze refocuses on the speaker's whole face.

I guess I found Alice.

She's not exactly what I expected, in all honesty. I mean, I've been told that she's beautiful, and she undoubtedly is, but I expected her to be more Disney-princess than Goth-chic. Her dark eyes are made darker by the thick kohl pencil outlining them, and her dark clothes hug her figure in a strategic, stylish way. She's wearing a loose-knit black jersey thing that probably cost more than my rent, and artfully ripped skinny jeans. Her shoes are clearly this season's Jimmy Choo stilettos. I would give my right arm to be able to afford shoes like that.

She presses her full lips into a thin, crimson line and arches one dark eyebrow halfway up her pale forehead. She's really, really pale. Practically luminescent. It stands in stark contrast to the cute, jet-black pixie cut that frames her face.

I realize that I've just been watching her like a moron without speaking for nearly two minutes, and I run one hand through my long hair sheepishly.

"Um, yeah, thanks."

She offers me her lighter – a personally engraved Zippo – and I spark up a cigarette before handing it back to her. She takes it with slender fingers that end in fluorescently orange nails.

"You must be Leah," she says, and I notice her accent for the first time. British. I don't know why that surprises me – I mean, I know she's from England – but it does take me aback a little.

"How did you guess?"

"Because I've met everyone else here. Process of elimination."

"Oh," I grin, feeling a bit dense. "Right."

"Edward says you don't really go in for the whole 'party' thing?" Her dark eyes flicker towards mine, and I find myself nodding.

"I'm not a people person," I admit.

"Me neither." She blows out a long stream of smoke, before settling herself on the fire escape, one leg bent at the knee. After a moment of deliberation, I join her.

"That's not what I heard."

She gives me a sidelong look. "Well, it's a recent development. I used to be all la-di-da. Now, I pretty much hate the world, and every fucker in it." Alice's lips quirk up at the corners into a hint of a grin. "No offence, of course."

"None taken," I answer, feeling myself returning her smile. "I'm a New Yorker. I pretty much hate the whole world, too."

"Who was it for you?" she asks.

"Huh?"

"That fucked you up. Everyone's got a story."

"That's pretty personal, Alice."

"Yeah," she agrees, swiveling slightly to face me. "But I'm a nosy and invasive person by nature, so you might as well get used to it."

I can't help but chuckle a little at that. I'm not used to people having so little verbal filtration. It kind of reminds me of… well, me. "My ex broke my heart. She ran off to France with some girl called Marguerite."

"Ouch," Alice winces. "Was she at least some cliché woman with hairy armpits and garlic breath?"

"If only," I sigh. "She's a model for Vogue. Legs like a giraffe. Blonde. Skinny as a rake."

Alice winces again, and takes another pull on her cigarette. "Bitch."

"Tell me about it."

We smoke for a few moments in silence, before I ask the question that's plaguing me. "So, who fucked you up? That Victoria chick?"

Alice nods, her face twisting into a grimace. "We're together for five years, off and on, and then I find out she's been cheating on me with some guy named Nick for over a year, and the reason I find out is because she comes home and tells me that she's pregnant."

Whoa.

I blink at Alice for a couple of minutes, startled into silence. "You're serious?"

"As a fucking heart attack."

"What a whore."

"Yep. She kept the flat we lived in, too." She shudders slightly. "Ugh. Her and that Nick guy live there now. Raising their devil spawn." Alice considers for a second. "Actually, that's probably not fair. The baby hasn't done anything wrong."

"Its mom is Beelzebub, though. It might come out with horns and a tail," I offer, and it actually elicits a small giggle from her.

"I hope not, for the kid's sake." She takes another drag. "I just hate feeling all broken and tortured, you know? Like, I keep wondering what it says about me that my girlfriend felt the need to cheat on me. And not just cheat, but cheat with a guy. It's just… well, it's a blow to the ego and the heart all in one go."

During her confession, Alice's eyes have gotten a little watery. She catches a wayward tear with the knuckle of her index finger, giving me a slightly embarrassed smile. "Sorry, Leah. I didn't mean to get all teary and emotional on you."

"Hey," I shrug. "It's your party. You can cry if you want to."

She smiles weakly. "That is what they say, isn't it?"

We're quiet for a few seconds. It's not awkward, even though her eyes are still glistening with unshed tears. That's a rarity for me – crying people tend to make me feel uncomfortable.

"It'll get better," I assure her. "After a while, you just start to heal up on the inside. You don't even realize that it's happening until it's happened."

Alice turns to me with a rueful smile. "Oh, really? How can you be so sure? What if I can't process through all this shit in my head?"

I tip my head back against the brick wall, exhaling smoke. "I teach kids how to kickbox down at the community center, you know?"

She clearly doesn't know where I'm going with this rapid subject-change. "Right…?"

"And, when one of them falls down, I always ask them 'are you hurt, or are you injured?' Do you know why?"

Alice shakes her head, eyes trained on mine.

"Because I then tell them, 'if you're injured, I'll send you home to curl up in bed, rest your injury and get better. But if you're hurt, just pick yourself up, dust off your knees and jump right back into the action, because the pain will go away if you power through it.'"

She nods slightly. "That sounds… wise."

"Right. So, Alice, the first thing you've gotta figure out is how you feel about Victoria and what she did – are you hurt, or are you injured? Because that'll tell you what you need to do in order to move on."

Alice regards me with a really contemplative look. "Wow. You're kind of like a hot version of Yoda, y'know?"

I laugh, pleased at the compliment as much as the punch line. "It's been said before."

"I thought it was worth repeating."

"Guys?" Edward's head pokes out through the open window, and he looks a little surprised to see the two of us bonding on the floor over our broken hearts and life lessons. "I've been looking for you, Ali."

"I've been sitting still for the last hour, Edward," Alice replies, without even glancing at him. "How hard did you look?"

I snicker. She shoots me a tentative smile.

Edward's green eyes flicker between the two of us for a moment, and then he smiles as well. "Okay. Fine. I'll leave you girls to your pity party."

"No," Alice says decisively, standing up in one swift, graceful movement. She balances perfectly on her killer heels. "The pity party is over, Edward. I'm ready to join the actual fun."

He flashes her a grin, and she returns it in earnest. Edward's eyes land on me, and he raises his eyebrows in a wordless question. I see the glimmer of gratitude there, though I'm not entirely sure what it is that I've apparently done.

Alice makes her way over to the window, dropping the butt of her cigarette over the side of the fire escape. Edward ducks out of the way as she throws one leg over the sill, before turning to look at me one more time.

"She hurt me," she murmurs. "But I'm not injured."

I smile at her widely. "Then that's a start."

My head turns to look out at the windows of the building opposite, and I watch the shadows moving behind the curtains for a few moments before I realize that Alice hasn't moved.

"Leah?"

I turn back to look at her questioningly. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

And, with that, she ducks through the window, finally rejoining her party.

So, there's Leah's perspective. And also, the sage advice that she gives Alice in this chapter is borrowed from one of my favorite TV shows. It really resonated with me when I watched it (Pretty Little Liars, if you don't know) and I decided that the whole hurt or injured distinction needs to be imparted to all those who have just gone through a breakup.

Thanks for reading!

PJ

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