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Sam almost swerved off US-101 when he spotted the billboard while driving to the bed and breakfast in Portland. He slammed his truck to a stop on the side of the road and gaped up at the image in shock. There she was, forty feet above him, gazing at him with soft eyes. She looked profoundly vulnerable looking over her shoulder at the camera. Her knees were tucked into her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, and she was nude but for a slender, dangling earring hanging from her ear, and delicate gold chains draped over her luminous skin, binding her in place.
She was still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
His shock was interrupted by Emily's sniff. "I can't believe it! We've been tearing ourselves apart worrying about her, and she's just been gallivanting around the country with a glamorous job?"
Sam's retort died before it left his throat. He shut his mouth when he realized he was starting at Leah's full lips, and guiltily snapped his eyes back to his newlywed wife. He couldn't think of what to say to her. She wanted him to get angry with Leah, but he simply couldn't. So he said nothing instead. He carefully pulled back onto the road.
Over the next few days, he realized she was everywhere: the complimentary newspaper left in front of their door, the magazine he flipped through while waiting for Emily at the corner store, the side of the bus shelter. The jewelry store that she was advertising had commissioned a series of nude print ads, every one more sensual than the last. He found her rolling a stocking off one long leg, her only remaining adornment the bangles lined up her arm; facing the camera in an empty room, eyes cast downward as she shielded her breasts with her hands, a series of rings decorating her long, tapering fingers; emerging from the ocean, shining black hair slicked back, a droplet of water clinging to her bottom lip, staring at him with passion in her eyes, a huge gem nestled between her breasts, barely covered by the surface of the water.
It wasn't enough to close his eyes to escape her. She was there, too: a gangly girl who could shoot a basket over the head of a boy a head taller than her, who gave him her dessert every day at lunch, who knew exactly when to make him laugh or when to let him scowl, whose height suddenly became filled out with the most intriguing curves one summer, whose lips became swollen and the prettiest shade of pink after he kissed them. And every time he saw her picture, he remembered exactly what she looked like when she turned around, straightened up, lowered her hands, or stepped out of the water.
It was maddening.
As soon as their short honeymoon was over, the first time Emily left the house, he looked her up on their ancient desktop. And he realized to his dismay that for the last few months of wondering where she had gone, he only needed to search the Internet. Her modeling agency posted her portfolio online, and he discovered that she had been doing runway shows for a few months. Her stared at her striking form on full display. She was apparently too voluptuous for high fashion, but her figure was perfect for sportswear, lingerie, and swimwear. So he gazed at the lines of her body hugged by all manner of colors, fabrics, and styles. In some, her face was painted so heavily as to render her almost unrecognizable, her hair pulled up or twisted back so that it looked like a piece of art. She herself looked like a piece of art. But in every shot, he found her eyes, and knew that it was her.
When Emily came home, he turned off the computer before she walked in the door. "New York. So she's living in New York and working as a model, but Aunt Sue won't tell me anything else. I think she knows what happened to her, but she refuses to say. I don't get it. We've been out of our minds with worry, but she can't be bothered to pick up the phone and say she's okay, and now I find out her mom has known all along and didn't tell us?"
To himself, Sam thought that Leah owed neither of them anything, let alone an explanation, but voiced none of this to his distraught imprint.
But the next time he saw Seth, he asked after her. Seth sighed and answered, "I guess you figured out where she is now. She knew she couldn't stay hidden with what she's doing now. Well, the road between here and there was long, and if she ever wants to tell you about it, she can. But that's not up to me."
Sam stopped asking, but he didn't stop wondering. And since he continued to see her face in the most unexpected places, he never forgot. Of course, even if he had never seen another trace of her, he couldn't have forgotten her if he'd tried.
Life, then, went on. Sam took over the administrative offices of the tribe and worked at the hardware store in Forks. He continued to watch Leah from afar online. He wondered what their life would look like now if he had never imprinted, because he was certain now, even more so than before, that they would have made a life together. He wondered if there would be any point in still going to college, at least online, but he didn't know how to find the time or how to pay for it. The scholarship he had once earned was long gone. When Emily was near, all such thoughts flew out of his head, but after she fell asleep, he would climb out of their bed and stare at the night sky and wonder. He imagined himself living in Seattle, or San Francisco, or New York. Once in a while, Emily would wake silently and find him near in body, but far away in spirit. If she asked for him, he would immediately return to bed and envelop her in his arms. But if she feigned sleep, he might stand by the window for an hour.
And every time he went a few days without seeing the face of his lost love, and Emily thought that perhaps he was finally and truly moving on, Leah would appear again. Because she did print ads and magazine shoots and the occasional lingerie commercial. Sam nearly bit the head off a startled teenage boy who was making crude comments about Leah while standing behind them in line at the supermarket, and that was how Emily learned that Leah was featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine rolling through the surf clothed only in tiny bikinis and a male model (and in the final shot, just the other model). She didn't have to read his mind to know that Sam wanted to climb into the magazine and pry the handsome young man off Leah.
Emily never voiced her own jealousy to Sam, who continued to give her all the attention she desired. If only she never caught him with the faraway look in his eyes, or saw his gaze lingering just a little too long on an image of Leah that unexpectedly faced them, she would never have known he still had feelings for her. She lamented to Kim, but Jared hasn't so much as glanced at another woman since he imprinted, and so she had no idea what Emily was talking about. She didn't even try to talk to Rachel, who still didn't bother to hide her contempt for Emily. She then turned to her good friend Bella. But Jacob's girlfriend was not his imprint, and kind though she was, she feared Jacob imprinting on another woman more than she feared anything else. Bella could much more easily imagine herself in Leah's position than Emily's, so she was no help either. So Emily continued to pretend she didn't know that Sam spent hours pouring over images of Leah when she wasn't around.
One rather smitten fashion designer broke the unspoken rule to design his creations around flat chested, willowy girls with the figures of adolescent boys, and began to use her body for inspiration and featured her in his spring show. So Sam frequented an embarrassing number of sites devoted to haute couture. Thank goodness he no longer phased: he never would have lived it down. He also learned, to his dismay, when she had a brief-lived fling with the drummer of a rock band, then an up-and-coming actor, and for a few months, her picture was plastered all over the tabloids. And all during this time, he listened to gossip and innuendo all around the reservation, most of which he was not intended to hear. Despite the fact that he had stopped phasing, his senses were still very acute. More and more comments shifted away from the old pity she used to inspire, or wild theories about her disappearance, and toward the more common theme of, "Thank god Uley didn't chain her here. Good thing she got out while she could!"
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Leah did not appear in person on the reservation for another three years. By then, Emily had given birth to their first child, a girl. Sue was marrying Charlie in an intimate ceremony, and Sam wondered if that would be enough to bring her back. It was.
The wedding brought back all the children from school. Seth came back from college in Tacoma with his girlfriend; Rachel, Bella and Jacob from Seattle; and Leah from New York. She didn't come alone. On her arm was a young man, taller than Seth, possibly as tall as Sam himself, and just as broad. His skin was just a shade more red than Leah's, his black hair thick and cropped, his smile gentle, his eyes permanently locked on Leah. Sam didn't meet him, but watched the family's homecoming reunion from the darkness outside the house. Emily thought he was getting a drink with the guys from work, which he was, but only for the first half hour he was gone. Otherwise he watched.
Rachel's squeal was piercing as she slammed shut her car door and ran into the Clearwater house. Leah enveloped her in an almost deadly hug and introduced her to the tall man, whose name turned out to be Adario. Seth's reunion with Bella and Jacob was almost as enthusiastic. Rachel and Adario chatted away as if they were lifelong friends while Leah retrieved a large box and revealed its contents to Sue, which is how Sam discovered she was studying fashion design. She revealed a sleeveless, satin, cream-colored, floor-length gown that rendered Sue speechless. Sue crushed the garment between herself and her daughter when she clutched Leah in a tight embrace. Leah protested loudly as she laughed, chiding her mother for wrinkling the dress, and Sue let go immediately. She ran upstairs a moment later and then emerged down the stairs wearing the wedding gown at Leah's behest, and Leah immediately began to gather and pin and measure. Rachel proclaimed Sue to be "sexier than your daughter in that thing!"
Sam didn't quite agree. In fact, he barely noticed everyone else in the room. The only thing that tore his gaze away from Leah herself was the man who accompanied her, or more specifically, the way Adario casually reached for her hands or hips, the way he brushed her hair away from her neck and bent to kiss it, or, worst of all, the expression on her face as she looked up at him.
Jealousy and guilt swept over him. Was this what it was like for her to watch him with Emily? Watch him kiss the scars he had left on her cheek, gently run his hands through her hair, listen to him murmur words of love into her ear? No. For her, it was much, much worse. He had no restraint when Emily was near. His imprint wanted love and affection, so he gave it to her, no matter whether Leah was standing there or not. He should have known better. He did know better, but the moment Emily came into view, he forgot everything else. He forgot the girl he fell in love with despite the fact that she was only feet away, the girl he still loved despite his imprint, the girl who still loved him despite what he had done to her. He knew she did, because he could see into her mind.
But the last time he had such intimate knowledge of her was years ago. So what was he doing here, lurking outside her childhood home while his wife and daughter were waiting for him to return?
He stayed until his phone buzzed in his pocket. When he arrived at his small cabin in the woods and crawled into bed with his wife, he kissed her gently before falling asleep and dreaming of Leah.
Much to Emily's disappointment, they weren't invited to the wedding. The only attendants were their children and their respective dates, and Billy who officiated the ceremony. So the only information that came out of the small gathering came from the usually quiet Bella Swan, soon-to-be Bella Black, who had accepted Jacob's proposal during the small reception following the Swan-Clearwater wedding. Emily dragged every detail out of Bella while plying her with scones and tea. Sam pretended to fix a few loose boards on the back deck while he eavesdropped.
He learned that Leah was going back to Adario's home, apparently on a Mohawk reservation in upstate New York, before returning to the city with him. He was a corporate accountant whom she had apparently met some time ago, but had only recently started dating. Leah herself was in her second year studying fashion design, a long lost dream that became a reality again after she made contacts through her modeling jobs. She had apparently been "discovered" by an agent while waitressing in a diner. She had immediately assumed that the agent was a fraud, but Leah's then-roommates dragged her to the agency, and her career was born.
As Bella told the story, Sam himself remembered page after page of discarded sketches of dresses, jackets, and blouses, and Leah's fingers black with charcoal. He recalled with a start how after phasing, she had had to put away almost all her decent clothing for fear of destroying it. She packed them away right after he ordered her to cut off the long, luxurious locks that he had loved to tangle his fingers in. By the time he came out of his reverie, Bella was gone, taking any more news of Leah with her.
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Time passed. Emily had another child, this time a boy. She grew cautious about opening a magazine, and long ago had stopped their subscription to cable, but it didn't help. And even if she wasn't already everywhere, they would have seen her again. Because Leah returned for her own wedding a year and a half after Sue and Charlie wed. It was larger than Sue's, although Sam realized quickly that this was more to accommodate Adario's family than to include the people with whom Leah grew up. He wondered why she returned for the wedding at all rather than holding it on Adario's reservation or staying in the city, until he overheard Seth's girlfriend telling Bella that the reason was to keep costs down. If they had wed on the Mohawk reservation, the entire populace would have turned out. Had they wed in the city, she would have been obliged to throw an enormous party to include all her friends in the fashion industry, and she wasn't willing to pay for a wedding in the city at any rate.
So that answered one question. But the one that he really wanted the answer to, no one happened to be chatting about. A half an hour before the ceremony, Sam loosened his tie and approached Jacob, who looked nearly as uncomfortable as he did wearing a tux so that he could serve as an usher. Jacob greeted him with a nod. "How're the kids?"
"Good, Katy's running around outside, I think. Max fell asleep on the way over. Look," he held his hips tightly and looked at the ground. "I know it's none of my business, but is... is he her imprint? Or is this going to end badly for both of them? I just... She'll beat herself up if she imprints on another guy, you know?"
Jabob's face hardened, but a low voice growling behind him gave him the only answer he would have for years. "None of your goddamn business," Seth hissed.
Sam said nothing more for the rest of the afternoon. He was too busy staring. He didn't notice the dress that he heard all the women whispering about, see the flowers Sue had spent so much time arranging, or hear a single thing Billy said. All he saw was that Leah's eyes never once left Adario's, and that she looked happier than he had ever seen her. Her smile was even wider than the moment she said, "Yes," when Sam had asked her to marry him. And when she said her vows, words she had written herself, words full of hope, love, and joy, he closed his eyes and heard her saying them to him. He almost said them back. Then Emily squeezed his hand, and he snapped back to reality.
He was relieved when Katy ate too many of the chocolates that were scattered over the tables at the reception hall and complained of a tummy ache. He whisked her home unnecessarily just to get away.
For the next several years, Sam continued to watch Leah's career from afar. He learned some things online, such as when the designer who named her his muse took her on as an intern and then a junior designer, or a few years later, when she started her own line. She continued to model, but more and more, her design career took up her time. Other news came from Rachel, or even Paul, since after Leah and Adario finished renovating their row house in Greenwich Village, they opened it to visitors. After Rachel came home from a vacation raving about the city and Leah's hospitality, the rest of her old pack went to see her one by one. Emily listened to Bella, Rachel, and the other girlfriends talk about the city, its nightlife, its culture, and how smoothly Leah navigated it, and she wistfully thought of going to see her cousin. But to no one's surprise, an invitation never came. They did occasionally run into one another when Leah came home for a holiday, but Leah merely glanced at them with a polite hello as if they were barely acquaintances.
At least until Sam's eldest daughter phased, and they called her home.
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A/N: As always, thanks to my wonderful beta, Babs81410.