Chapter Three: Truth be Told

I wasn't ready to go see the Kollins but I was okay with calling them. I had called once or twice, just to touch base with Tatiana. I knew she would be the one worrying most, aside from Emmett that is, about my well being and me being around so many werewolves, even if I was one myself. I would only ever call Tatiana or Michael, even though they did have a home phone, on their cells. I wasn't ready for the chance that someone else, like Emmett or the others, would pick up the phone and start questioning me.

I had made that mistake only once, I had called the house phone and Edward had picked up. I was going to hang up the phone but I didn't want to prove to anyone that I was that big of a coward. We had gotten into it almost instantly, he was only making jokes but they had hit home.

"I am tired of this crap! There is nothing wrong with them. You are like one hundred years old, GROW UP!" I had yelled after he had made another bad joke. All his laughter was gone when he spoke again and it shocked me to hear him being serious, "Who are you to tell anyone to grow up? You act like a child constantly, avoiding Emmett like child with a bad report card. Never thinking how much it hurts him, you're the one who should be growing up." He never raised his voice but his words cut deep. I had been acting childish, I knew that, but no one seemed to understand why I was so afraid. No one but David anyway.

The screaming match continued for a good ten minutes before there was silence and I heard Emmett on the other line. I tried to calm down but when he took Edward's side of the argument, calling me a child just like he had, I blew up. "How dare you?" I had screamed, fighting back the rage that was coursing thru my body like lava. "I may be acting like a child but you're the one who was repulsed by me. I might have run but I doubt it hurt you as much as it hurt me to see that disgust and hatred in your eyes when you saw what I was!" I yelled, my whole body shaking. "I'm sorry, I've said it a thousand times. Why wont you belive me?" His voice was soft, but still harsh and cold. "Your words say it but your mind and heart don't. I can hear it in your tone." My voice was shaking, I had stopped screaming but the damage was done.

"When you can look at me, as I am and can be, with out wanting to run or vomit or even want to kill me. Then I'll believe you are sorry. Until then, you and your family should stay away from me. Perhaps it's time we stuck with our own for a little while. Until you can stay with me, all of me." My voice was soft, and even from miles away I could feel the hurt this was causing him but I could also feel that I was right and so could he. "I love you." His voice was soft and I could almost hear the tears that lingered behind the words. "I know, I love you too." I said simply then hung up the phone.

I stayed at Makah and La Push after that, my car staying parked at Melissa's house. She was my new safe haven, my shelter from vampires and werewolves alike. I could just be myself with her, not have to be a werewolf shape shifter or a vampire lover, I could just be. She wouldn't ask about Emmett or the Kollins, she wouldn't even push the idea of me and David as a couple on me like the others did either, it was nice.

It was at her house that certain things I had been avoiding seemed to fall in around me. Melissa lived alone in a one bedroom house with a tiny lawn and a tinier kitchen. The house was small but it felt like a home in every since of the word, everything about it welcomed you in. The smell of the house, the feel of the house, and even the furniture inside the house was cozy and homey. Melissa herself had the energy of a mother, even though she was younger then most of us, she would baby the younger pack members and try to keep the older ones in line. She even looked like a mom, she didn't' look old by any means, she had a soft welcoming face with long beautiful black hair that reached to just at her lower back. She kept her hair in a long braid most of the time and she always wore long summer dresses, it was easier to wear these things when you had to faze at any given moment, and her eyes were like soft milk chocolate. They shined with knowledge beyond her age and with a smile that never seemed to leave them even if she didn't have a smile on her face.

I had been avoiding the Kollins for about a month and a half now, leaving only the smallest of text messages on Tatiana's phone every week or so, and I wasn't feeling so empty and alone anymore. With the pack to keep me busy and company, I had even started to not miss Emmett so much. I still missed him but he wasn't in my every waking, and dreaming, thought. We were sitting outside in the lawn, Melissa, David, and myself, watching the sun set and talking amongst ourselves. I could feel something in the air, tension that didn't have anything to do with me, and it was making me un-easy. "Okay what the hell is going on?" I finally asked as I looked from Melissa's expectant face to David's contemplative one. "Alex is coming to visit." Melissa said. Alex was Melissa's boyfriend, they had dated all thru high school and were almost inseparable, and he had moved away after high school because of his parents. I heard Melissa talk about him, they had stayed together even thru the distance, and I wasn't sure he knew about her secret. The way David was acting almost proved my point.

I didn't say anything, the atmosphere was to heavy for me to make coherent words, as I watched the watch the road. Then we all heard it, the sound of an unfamiliar car coming up the road. I turned to look at Melissa and her face was ecstatic with untamed joy. Unfamiliar to me I guess. I thought as I looked to the road again and saw a old white pick-up coming ever closer to Melissa's drive way. I realized then that my car was taking up the only really driveway space and that he would have to park on the grass, it didn't seem to bother anyone else but me because he simply just pulled up onto the grass and parked the truck.

A tall man, I could only guess was Alex by the way Melissa ran to him smiling, with short black hair and the same russet skin tone stepped out of the car. He was roughly six foot tall and built of solid muscle. There was something about his eyes that caught me off guard when he looked from David to me. Then his scent hit the wind that was blowing our way and I watched Melissa step back quickly. She was at our side, David and I standing quickly and moving closer to him, and her eyes were wide with shock. "What?" His voice didn't match his size, it was soft, gentle, an didn't hold the deep harsh tones I'd have expected.

I smelled the air again, it was as I had thought before, it was a familiar scent but also alien. I heard David growl next to me and felt Melissa stiffen, "Calm down David." I said in a steady voice as I looked Alex over. I watched, from the corner of my eye, as David shot me a dangerous look. I nodded once and watched him relax, only slightly, into a more composed stance. "Do you know what you are?" I asked simply, stepping forward. It had been deemed my job to be the greeter, of sorts, for new arrivals. I could talk people down from over reacting when they turned. I hadn't had to do any real work but once, Nick's little brother James had joined the back about two weeks ago and I was the only one in wolf form to keep him calm, so I was now stuck with the job of doing it for anyone new.

Alex looked confused, but I could see understanding deep inside his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about." He said and I heard his voice rise two octaves. "Don't play dumb boy." David growled and I shot him a quick glare. Let me handle this damn it. I growled into his mind and watched him relax again. "Yes you do, you can smell us on the air can't you?" I knew I was right, I could almost see into his mind. He hadn't accepted what he truly was yet, so I couldn't reach into his mind like I could the rest of the pack. Another gift I had gained as I accepted what I was, mind reading. It wasn't in every mind I could get into, only members of my pack, and those which would join the pack. And Emmett. I thought but pushed it aside.

I watched Alex smell the air and then go rigid, "What are you?" He asked as he looked from face to face, stopping on Melissa's. "We are what you are, what you have yet to accept to be." I said simply and stepped closer. He didn't flinch away and I could feel his mind opening to me. "What am I?" He asked, his voice shaking. I felt the wall shatter around his mind and sighed inwardly as his thoughts flew into my mind. He had turned about two months ago, and had just been able to calm himself enough to turn back a month ago. I could feel his fear and pain when he first changed, and I could feel his fear now as I started to accept what he was. Shape shifter, or if you want a cooler name Werewolf. I said into his mind, pushing all the calming energy I could into it. I watched his face loose color as he looked at me, my voice in his head clearly shocking him. ~Those don't exist. They can't.~ He tried to convince himself. "I'm afraid they can, and we do." I said softly and moved closer. His shoulders slumped and his face fell. "Why?" He asked finally and I sighed. "We don't honestly know." I cut a glare at David, knowing he was about to tell him what he thought. "Some say it's because of vampires we exist. Yes they also are real, but not like you know them."

It took time to explain it all, I did most of it mind to mind in hopes of keeping certain people quite. After the explanations, and the telling of old legends, David fazed in front of him. Then Melissa and I did, of course going behind the house to un-dress. At first he didn't believe it was us, until he heard Melissa inside his mind. David and I fazed back shortly after that, leaving the two to be alone.

"You're pretty good at this." David said as we both sat outside, Alex and Melissa had ran into the woods for more privacy. "Thanks, it would have gone a lot smoother if someone hadn't been butting in every five minutes." I groaned and cut him another look. "Sorry about that, bad habit." He smiled an apologetic smile and I had to forgive him. "It's alright, you're forgiven." I said with a half smile as I watched the woods in the distance. "It's nice isn't it?" David asked after a long silence. "Hmm?" Was all I could come up with to say, part of me knew what he was about to say. "For Melissa and Alex, they have something they can share like this. No more secrets and they can be together without worrying about one hurting the other." I turned to watch him smile softly. "Yeah, I guess. I'm happy for them, especially Mel. She's been so worried that they couldn't be together because of what she was, always having to watch what she said to him on the phone." I sighed stared into the sky, not wanting to look at David.

"Yeah, nice that we don't have that problem." He said with a smile I could hear in his voice without having to look at his face. "Of course we don't have the problem they would have had. We aren't a couple." I turned to look at him, slapping myself mentally for saying it out loud. "I know that, but we are friends right? It's nice that we don't have to keep secrets from each other." He smiled but I could tell he was forcing it. "Look David." I started to say but he raised a hand to silence me. "Not this again okay? I know you still love him, but you can't stop me from caring about you." His voice was soft and his eyes were even softer as I looked into them. I had to fight the lump in my throat. "I know that, and I care about you too. But you know it makes me uncomfortable when you--." I couldn't finish the sentence so I just looked away.

Melissa and Alex didn't return that night, so I was alone in her home. Alone to think, and I hated being alone to think. I sat on the sofa, my legs crossed and my elbows on my knees with my face buried in my hands. I had tried to sleep but incoherent dreams kept me awake. So I sat silently, waring with myself about the un-controllable emotions that were bombarding my mind. I couldn't recall the entire dream, it had kept jumping from one scene to another over and over again. The only parts I were certain of were the parts I had watched from a distance. I watched myself run into David's arms, all smiles and joy. The thing that shocked me most was the two small children that seem to come running out of the small house, that my mind told me was ours. They looked like David, but the small girl had my hair and my eyes. They were our children, I was a mother and I was happy. At the moment I had bent down to pick up my children the dream had changed in a swirl of blackness.

It balanced itself again and I was watching myself sitting outside the Victorian home in Arkansas and I knew it was mine. I was sitting in Emmett's lap, and he had his face buried in my neck, there was no sign of disgust on his face. There was, however, worry. The worry spread to my face as a hand laid itself across my large belly. I had woken up at that point, I hadn't screamed but I wanted to. With David I was happy, my children beautiful and perfect, but with Emmett we were scared and worried. I had been pregnant and it wasn't something we were celebrating, we didn't know what to do. There seemed to be no one there to help us. I couldn't even fathom, awake or asleep, how I could be pregnant by Emmett. It went against all I knew, Vampires and werewolves were natural enemies. Even our DNA fought with one another, or so I'd been told. Vampire venom was like poison for my kind, it would kill us slowly. It wouldn't turn us, it would just destroy us from the inside out. No hope of an instant death. "How could I be having his child, if we are genetically incompatible?" I wondered aloud. Wouldn't our DNA be like polar opposites one destroying the other? I didn't have an answer.

What worried me more, even then the thought of having children period, was how happy I felt -even now- at being with David. How the joy seemed to radiate from my dream-self at seeing David and seeing our children. Our children. The words even sounded alien to my mind. So did the joy that seemed to be bubbling up inside of me as I sat with my face in my hands. "I shouldn't feel happy like this, but I can't ignore it." I muttered to myself as the heart stopping realization hit me. "I love David, I'm in love with David." I muttered, praying with all I had that no one was near enough to hear that. I was in love with him, and a part of me wanted that dream to come true. David, our children, and me, happy in a small house on the reservation. It didn't even have to be on the rez, it could just be anywhere just as long as it was with my family.

I bit my lip to keep from screaming, I couldn't want that. I shouldn't want that, I loved Emmett and I couldn't love David to or love the idea of a family with David. I beat my palms against my eyes to fight back the tears that had been sneaking slowly out of my tear ducts, then I began to pound my forehead with them. "Stupid, stupid, dream." I muttered and finally stood up. I began to pace the small living room, then moved to the kitchen. I looked around the small space, looking thru the cabinets at all the food but none of it appealed to me. My mind was racing as I tried to stop the waring images in my mind. Happy with David, worried with Emmett, it all made my head spin. I didn't even hear the door open or the prodding of my mind until I felt the warmth behind me and heard the sharp intake of breath. I wheeled around quickly and saw David standing there with shock breaking across his face. "David." my voice was soft as I watched his eyes stare, still in shock, into my own. "I was just coming to check on you. The guys said you hadn't gone to hang out like you normally do." His voice was a forced calm, but his eyes still held the same shock. "I wasn't feeling up to it." We both were trying to avoid the conversation that was coming.

We stood in silence, staring at one another, for almost half an hour. Neither one of us wanted to be the first to speak and we both kept are faces down, not wanting to look at each other till one of us spoke. "Is it true?" David finally spoke, his voice soft and gentle, trying to hide the hope. I just nodded then, not knowing if he was looking at me because I had yet to look at him, I said "Yes, it is." My voice was almost a whisper but I knew he could hear. "I wish I could say I'm sorry, but I'm not." David said, his voice still as soft. I finally looked up and stared into his gentle eyes. Every argument I had to try and make him see that I was wrong for him seemed to melt away, all the love he seemed to feel for me was pouring out of his eyes and I couldn't find the right words to push him away with. "I don't want you to be sorry." I whispered and watched him move swiftly, his arms wrapping around me. I knew I could pull away and he wouldn't stop me, but a part of me didn't want to. I lifted my arms, convinced I was going to push him away but instead I let them wrap around his waist. I buried my face into his bare chest, my arms tightening around him, and felt my hot tears began to stream down my face.

He simply held me, his face buried in my hair, and let me cry it all out. He didn't speak again until the last of my sobs had died away and I was still against his chest. "I wont make you pick sides, it's enough to know you love me. It's enough for now. You know I'll be here to catch you whenever you are ready to fall." I felt him kiss my hair and heard the smile in his voice. "But I wont force you to choose, not now, I can wait." He muttered and I felt the tears well up again and I had to fight them back. "How do you know to say the right things?" I mumbled against his chest, lifting my cheek from it and resting my forehead against it. And why do I always cry in front of you? I thought to myself, I wasn't a crier but I always seemed to remember how around him.

He shrugged his shoulders and chuckled once, "I don't know. I wasn't aware I was doing anything right." He began to move away and I tightened my arms around him for a split second them let go, frightened at how I seemed to respond to the idea of him pushing me away. He chuckled again and cupped my face with both his hands, turning my face upward to look into his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, I just want to look at your face." He whispered and leaned down and kissed the last lonely tears off my cheeks. I let my eyes close and my hands move up to lay across his, I then turned my face into one of his palms and kissed it gently. "Thank you." I whispered into his palm before looking into his eyes. The fire behind them sent my heart racing and caused my breath to catch in my throat.

He leaned down slowly, his right thumb rubbing gentle circles on my cheek, and pressed his lips gently to mine. The reaction it caused startled us both, my lips parted and a soft moan escaped as my arms moved around his neck and my body angled itself against him. He froze, for only a second, then deepened the kiss. I knew I shouldn't, but my mind and body were at war and my body -and a part of my heart- was winning. Is it so wrong to be happy with him? I thought as I felt him lace his fingers into my hair, holding my face to his. I would never have to worry about if he truly loved me for me, I could be happy. As my mind argued with my heart I felt him lift me up and then move us both to the sofa. He laid me gently on my back, never once breaking the kiss. A part of my mind, and heart, yelled for me to stop it. What about Emmett? A little voice asked as I felt my body respond to David in a way I wasn't aware it could. My mind, and my heart that was Emmett's, finally won out. My body froze, I had seen enough day time television and romantic movies to know if I let this go further it would lead to trouble. If I choose to stay with David, Emmett would finally choose to stay with me. David seemed to notice that I had stiffened and he rose up to look down at me, "What's wrong?" His voice was hoarse and his eyes still burned, though I could see the worry lingering behind the fire.

I felt the tears start to build again, knowing I was going to have to say something I had begun to hate. "I'm sorry, I can't do this." I placed my hands on his chest, feeling his racing heart, and pushed him back gently. "It's wrong, I have to know where I stand with him first." I didn't dare say his name but I knew David knew who I meant, because his eyes started to darken as he moved away from me to sit up straight. "You're right. I did promise not to make you choose just yet." His voice was still hoarse but I could hear the hurt my words had caused. "I can't choose right now, not so soon after finding out that I do love you." My voice was small and I kept my eyes away from his face. "And if we were to continue, it would be like I had already made my choice and I haven't yet. It would be wrong of me to do that to you." My voice was hardly a whisper as I spoke, my heart falling to my stomach as I tired to ignore the pain it was causing me to hurt him.

I felt his warm fingers brush a line from my cheekbone to my jaw and then his hot breath brush my ear. "I understand, take the time you need." He then kissed my temple and stood up. "Don't leave." I said, my voice only slightly louder. He chuckled but there was no humor in the sound. "I have to, but I'll be back. I'm not running away, I'm just going to give you time to think. I don't know if I can keep being the good guy if I sit here any longer." I just nodded, not having the strength to look up. I heard the door open and close and when I looked up I was alone again.