A/N: My original goal was to post every weekend. However, I am a musician and a performer, so my busy schedule prevented an update last weekend. So enjoy this longer chapter. Please review! Also, how would you feel about a chapter from Edward's point of view?
There's a big cliff jutting out over the water at La Push. All grass breaks up and for many yards it's mostly grey, bleak rock. The cliff isn't too high, but if you stand on the very edge it feels like you're on top of the world. In control yet free.
It's more of a boy's place (or "man's place" as Seth corrects me, the twerp he is). On the few warm days we get out here, guys dare each other to jump, but most of them end up standing there, flirting with the girls that came to watch.
Last year, August got a particularly hot day. Sam had his arm tight around me as we joked around with his friends. Back then his smile was unwavering and his happiness couldn't be masked by anything, not even when his mother brought up his father. During my freshman year, we'd do homework at his house before hanging out. Usually, Sam's mother would be there snooping, not that I cared because she was nice enough. Oh, and her snacks were the best. But she sure could make a room awkward.
"This was our junior prom. Gosh, Sam looks just like him," Allison Uley would smile up at me, brandishing a worn photo of her and her former husband. You'd think the jerk died in an accident instead of dropping his family.
"Well, mom, me and Leah are really late." Sam would practically fling me out the door to some imaginary location while toting a tight grin. Afterwards, he'd be perfectly normal, but over the next two years, we rarely made plans to hang out at his house. Joseph Uley, the dead-beat father, was not a topic of conversation, no matter how sensitively approached.
Anyway, we were lazing around with a smatter of people from school. All of us were scrawny rez kids who just knew we owned the world. It easily seems that way when you barely set foot out of Quileute territory. After a moment of just drinking sodas and teasing each other, we seemed to remember where we were.
"So, Uley, you going or what?" said a greasy-haired kid. He nodded his shaggy head towards the edge of the cliff.
Sam huffed, as if offended by the suggestion. "I'm not going to risk my life to look cool."
"Oh, geez! Not like anyone's died from cliff diving around here," mumbled a gangly kid, taking a long swig from his soda.
"That you know of," piped up an older girl. She was sprawled out on a towel, trying to soak up the few rays the sun surprised us with.
"Exactly." Sam didn't understand sarcasm. "There are better, safer ways to have fun. You guys can go if you want but I'm not jumping off a cliff for any reason." Sam delivered his lines casually, trying to be laid-back and fatherly at the same time. I loved Sam, but a giggle bubbled up in my throat at his righteous dorkiness.
Some of the guys instantly backed up Sam and his maturity and logic. The leader was praised and exalted. Cliff diving was condemned an unseemly pastime for suicidal idiots. Some were even wondering if our current hangout spot was unsafe, as we "might topple off the edge and all die" as one girl passionately put it. Unfortunately, the sunbathing girl noticed my stifled laughter.
"Hey, Prince Sammy. Would you jump off a cliff to save a damsel in distress?" she said, gesturing to me with her long fingernails.
I sighed. Too many times have I been seen as weak and dependent because of my relationship. Since we became a couple in ninth grade, many people had seen us as not two people, but one…thing. I was cool with that because if I had to be packaged with one person, who better than Sam? Once in a while, I wasn't so cool with it. I'd go to parties with a friend or two and they'd look at me confused and go, "You came here without Sam?" A couple of my guy friends pushed me away, like I belonged to my boyfriend and talking to me would be considered adultery.
Sam was all too happy to reply. "Lee-lee's too smart to even think about jumping. But if she did make a silly decision like that, she knows I would save her."
Excuse me, sir? Save me from what? Having fun? Being brave? Wait, is he implying I'd try to kill myself? Or that I'm so clumsy, I'd accidently cartwheel into the water? No one seemed to notice my furious blush. Instead they all cracked up. Apparently, this was a big joke I'd never been let in on.
"Like in geometry, when she'd always beg you to help her. Probably just wanted your attention," snorted the gangly kid.
The dude next to me pushed his glasses up his nose, which slid down his face as he hooted with laughter. "Or when she broke her arm and you were stuck carrying all her crap!"
Everyone jumped in with their own story of a time Sam came to my rescue. It's like I was in a warped fairy tale. I found my voice a little too late. "Do you all think I depend on Sam that much?" I demanded, shooting out a glare, which was, at its best, enough to make a baby…less…happy.
Our friends glanced at each other, then cracked up all over again.
The older girl sashayed over to me and placed a manicured hand on my shoulder. "Face it, Lee-lee. You'll always be a prissy princess. But at least you're…" She took in my high ponytail, average height, and denim shorts. "Cute?" she mockingly questioned.
Shrugging off her hand, I turned to Sam. He raised his eyebrows, as if to communicate his lack of answers. Still, I knew he was nervous. Sam was the only one who could be intimidated by my glare.
He caved in. "Okay, Lee, you're not always like that, but it's not like we're lying. And I stand by what I said. If you jumped, I'd make sure you didn't get hurt."
I tilted my chin up, staring into his annoying yet adorable face. "Don't bother."
Like a queen, I gracefully glided over to the very edge of the cliff. Behind me, no one moved or spoke. For a second I just paused there, basking in their shock and in my boldness. Bare toes dangling over the edge. Sun baking its ray of admiration into my copper skin, as if I was something to be admired.
I'm not sure at what point I jumped, or if it was even a decent dive, but sooner or later my body was submerged. The water wasn't as clear as I hoped it would be, but it was just as expansive. How could a whole new world lie so close to my home? I was a queen. I had traveled to an uninhabited kingdom and would claim it. A bolt of fear struck my heart. My eyes snapped shut. This land, or lack of it, was dangerous. I floated there just a second, too afraid to open my eyes again, though the deed was already done. Was I dead? Undead? I spat out my morbid thoughts like sour milk and began to swim for the shore.
As I wrung out my sopping ponytail and slipped out of the water, I tossed a glance at my companions on the cliff. There, they stood, frozen in the heat of the summer day, looking back at me. From my spot on the ground, I could still see the respect and regard for me sprouting in the group. And Sam was…flailing and floundering just below the cliff. Sighing, I charged back into the water to rescue my boyfriend like a good girl.
The last thing I ate was a turkey sandwich. That was around three. Mom had insisted on me eating dinner, but I was so adamant about Sam whisking me off to our date, she left me alone. Then it got late and dark and I couldn't eat at all because I knew I'd throw up, like I'm doing right now.
Slowly, I stepped away from the forest around the Cullen house and met up with Alice. I avoided her eyes, which was easy. All I had to do was look straight forward, above her pixie cut.
"Throwing up is only natural; you're human, aren't you? And you're not that much taller than me. Look at me, Leah." She scowled but still managed to look angelic.
I gave into her order in exchange for an answer. "How do you know my name?"
Alice relaxed slightly, as if her silence was burdening her as well. She shepherded me inside. "Come in."
If I wasn't nauseous, disoriented, and dirty, I might have been able to enjoy the cedars in front of the home. It looked like a piece of history, monumental almost, with its three stories hugged by a roomy porch. I heard the Cullens had money, but it was still too much for a few people. They must have more family members than I guessed. What I would do to move my parents and Seth into a house like this…
My family. The moon was still out and would be for a while. But mom would check on me soon, and if I wasn't there…
Alice was the most charitable, formal hostess I'd ever met. But this was not a situation where I wanted to wait to talk after I'd had a "relaxing, restorative bath and eaten a little something." She even lent me some of her older sister's clothes, a simple heather grey pajama set made of an unbelievably soft fabric. I declined her offer to order a pizza and nibbled on some crackers she'd found in the back of the cabinet. Curled up in a plush white blanket in an armchair, I surveyed the room. The glass wall and varying shades of white were a sharp burst of modern against the aged outward appearance of the home. The high ceilings were cool and I was almost jealous when the soles of my feet touched the velvety carpet, but what stole my attention was the grand piano. Subconsciously, my fingers wiggled, as I remembered the songs from the lessons I used to take up until high school. My eyelids slid shut as I hummed classical music pretending it was my fingers tip-toeing across the keys.
A clear high voice walked onto the railroad tracks, right in front of my train of thought. "You know what we are. That's obvious. But me and my brother, Emmett, saving you was a lot more than 'right place, right time.'"
She leaned back in the chair across from me. "I can see the future. Earlier tonight, I knew a girl was going into the woods – you. Never a good idea, dear. Very few of our kind commit to a vegetarian lifestyle."
I stared at her.
"Wonder why me and my brother have gold eyes, while that man had red? Feeding on the blood of solely animals. No humans."
"Oh. That's…better." I internally gagged. Is it rude to a let a kind, sweet girl that saved your life know she's disgusting you?
"The bigger problem was that I had another vision of a vampire ending up here by night, the perfect time to hunt humans. It was decided that me and my two brothers, Emmett and Edward, would head out to catch him before he caught you. Our father, Carlisle, came too, to stop the nomad, or possibly treat you if we got there late and you were hurt. But we knew we could save you. We had, too. My husband stayed home – he didn't exactly want to head in the direction of more humans. Being a vegetarian is difficult, to say the l- "
"Wait, you're married?" I blurted. I mean, I knew they must not age, but she looked like a high schooler!
"I am much older than I look," she smiled mysteriously. "But that's beside the point. The four of us were almost there when Edward lost it. He's always had so much control, more than most of us. But tonight, his eyes went black, he started hissing, tried to get ahead of us. He was like a regular vampire. He fought to turn around to head back home, but trust me, it's harder than it sounds. And it hurt to see him in pain like that. We held him back and he calmed down a little, but not enough. Emmett and I left Edward with Carlisle. But as you saw, he's still…"
Her voice trailed off as I remembered the brunette being held back by the blond. Edward and Carlisle. The brunette scared me. Could he really be related to such calm, peaceful people as Emmett and Alice? I didn't know much about them, but my already thin walls of caution were dissolving.
"Will he be back to normal?" I wondered.
"You don't understand. All of us go to school every week, pretend to be normal teenagers. We're in close proximity to humans for hours, and we always suppress any urge to hunt them, because it's evil. I've rarely taken a human life, but I never want to again." She shuddered so quickly I almost missed it. "For Edward to go off like this, is something unexpected but definitely possible."
She paused for my questions but I held my tongue. I needed to know what could make a fearsome creature look so fearful.
"Once in a while a vampire will find a human whose blood practically sings to them. As if the pull wasn't strong enough with every other being, this one single person can ruin a vampire's world. However, most vampires will kill that human without a second thought. For the rest of us, it's a big decision. You get as far away from that human as possible for as long as you can. If you don't, you give into temptation and live with the guilt."
She abruptly ended her story. The elfin girl gazed out the glass wall as if she wanted to say more but also felt like she said too much. I stared at my shaking hands, wondering if the crackers were going to come back up soon.
"I-I…I suppose he's f-far away from here? Uh, right? I mean, I'm sorry he left because he's your brother but it's for the best, since he won't, well, kill me. Or maybe killing me would be for the best because then he wouldn't have to…um, freak out…not that I want to die because I don't. I guess I should be grateful he left." Then I babbled some more idiotic crap. A part of me was screaming, asking if my butt and mouth had switched places for the night.
At some point, Alice interrupted me, very gently. "Yes," she said. "He's far away from here. Very far." Her voice was gentle but her face was pained so I shut my eyes and focused on her promise of safety from the brunette monster.