10. Shooting Stars Aren't Even Real Stars
Jacob POV
Leah managed to get the car onto the road without any resistance, I guess she could drive stick shift. I'd have to teach Nessie how to drive stick. As we drove away from the beach I looked out the window and watched as some of the sky popped out from under the clouds.
We arrived back to house and Leah parked in front of the closed garage.
"Were here." She said as she stepped out of the car.
I opened my door and managed to exit the car, but not without bumping my head on the top. I should have showed Leah how to take the convertible top down.
She was squatting at garage lock trying to figure out which key opened the garage door. I could hear the clinging and clanging of the keys.
While she tried to unlock the garage I started to take down the convertible top. It was really easy, all muscle memory. All I needed to do was press some buttons, unlatch and carry the roof into its little compartment. Real easy even when kinda drunk.
"Jake what are you doing?" Leah said standing up now.
"I forgot to show you how to take it down, did you see it"
"No I missed it because-"
"You missed it!...Bummer." I sat down in the driver's seat. "See I fit better now."
"Yes I see. But I was trying to get this door up. Which key-"
"No, no later. Come you have to sit in the car now." I smiled and nodded my head while pointing at the passenger seat.
She rolled her eyes and started walking over. "Okay, okay."
She got into the car and closed the door. "Yeah this is pretty nice you can see the stars" She tilting her head up.
"Oh let me adjust the seat for you" I reached over her with one hand to pull the recline lever and used the other hand to tilt her seat back a couple inches. Now she didn't have to stretch her neck as much to look up.
"Oh yeah, this definitely better, but we should put the car in the garage" She said turning head away from the sky and to my face.
"No, its nice out we should enjoy the view for a little." I protested, adjusting my seat so I could also look up at the night sky.
"It's nearly winter and almost the middle of the night. I don't think most people would call this 'nice'".
"No it's nice because it's not cloudy. It's always cloudy." I said looking up trying to find the big and little dipper. I found them, stuck my arm up and traced their outlines with my finger.
Leah pushed my arm down slowly. "Okay well I'm going to head home, so we should put the car away."
I snapped my head back to her. "No not yet. Stay another five minutes pleeeeeeease"
She scrunched her mouth like she was trying to decide something and then transitioned into a toothless grin and said, "Okay. Five more minutes."
"You're the best!" I said with a big smile on my face.
"I thought you said Seth was the best?" She questioned with one eyebrow raised.
"No, Seth is my favorite. I love that guy. And I love all guys. Sam, Embry, Quil, Paul, Jared, Collin, Brady, RJ, Levi, JonJon, David, Topher, Shawn, Mike, my dad, my sisters, the Cullens…wait, not all the Cullens, just Nessie and Bella but not Edward. Wait, no I think love Edward too. Ew did I just say that?"
I looked to Leah and she was just nodding her face to all my rambling. "Wow. I never thought I would ever hear Jacob Black say that about the leech." She laughed at me and mocked the way I usually said leech with such disdain when referring to Edward.
I fired back. "Yeah and I think I can even love runaways that make me miss time from work and time away from my imprint."
"Wow. All of that and you still love me. Who don't you love?" She said sarcastically.
"What? I don't love a lot of people for your infromation." I tried to defend myself.
"How about that girl?"
"What girl." Was she referring to Barbie? We had a mutual distaste for each other.
"Michelle."
"Who?"
She looked a little shocked at my response. "The girl from the bonfire…remember"
"Oh, from the Makah reservation…well obviously I don't love her. I barely met her"
She just laughed at me.
"You know I think you're an "I love you" drunk person". She laughed.
"Shit. I think you're right." I started laughing at this latest discovery. I did usually throw the l-word around when I was somewhat intoxicated.
"Im curious what exactly makes Edward such a loveable person. He's polite but I thought… I didn't know you guys were best bros."
I scoffed at that last word. "Were not best bros. I think we've just learned to tolerate each other. Also, it's kinda fun to mess with him. Sometimes he'll be reading or playing piano and I'll just think "Edward!" to distract him. Like, he'll be playing on the piano and I just have to think is name and he'll lose his concentration and hit the wrong piano key or pause. It's really entertaining when he tries to tune me out of his head and keeps playing. He'll keep making little mistakes. Nessie always get a kick out of it when I do it. Usually when she starts laughing Edward will come out and chase us in a game of tag. We don't really do that anymore since Nessie doesn't like to play games like that anymore." I frowned and changed the subject. "Are you an 'I love you' drunk, too?"
"Umm, no I was never that lucky. I think I was mostly a sleepy drunk. I actually used to drink a bit back in the day. I don't know if you rememeber." She admitted.
"Oh yeah I remember Seth worrying about it back before you left…"
"Mhmm it was pretty bad. I would use alcohol to try and numb myself from the pain of seeing them together, Sam and Emily, but all the alcohol ever did was make me forget them momentarily. Then I would wake up and be even sadder than before when I remembered that this was still my reality. And then I would need a drink in the morning and it just became this cycle of sadness and drinking. And then just knowing that I was probably an alcoholic made me even unhappier and then I would drink to numb that pain. It was just like a vortex of a wave that sucks you under and disorientates you to the point where you don't even know where to go to escape."
"Shit." I didn't know what else to say. I knew she had somewhat of a problem drinking, but I never knew it got to this degree.
"That's also part of the reason I ran away. I knew I could never get better if I stayed in a place that made me this miserable. And now I'm two years sober" She smiled proudly.
That's why she didn't drink at the party. "I'm really happy for you." I smiled. The alpha in me was proud. She was apart of my pack after all. Then I frowned as I thought about my own relationship with drinking and girls.
"What's wrong?" She noticed my change in mood.
"Do you think I have a problem?" I asked honestly looking up into the sky.
She stayed silent for a moment. She knew what I was talking about. "Do you think you have a problem, Jake?" She asked with genuine care.
"I don't know." I did know. "Isn't it kinda fucked up I need to have a drink if I wanna flirt with a girl. The more I drinks I have the easier it is to get along with a girl and take her home. That's not supposed to normal, right?"
"I think a lot of people drink because it's makes socializing easier, it lowers your inhibitions and, well, makes you forget how you would normally act in certain situations."
"You know that from experience?" I asked. She used to drink to forget Sam and Emily. I drank because…
"Some of it. The other stuffed I researched when I was trying to go stop drinking."
"So you think I'm normal?"
"I don't know, but it's never good to be dependent on alcohol as a solution to problems in your life. That I know from experience." She looked up to the stars.
She didn't have to say it aloud. I already knew my relationship with alcohol wasn't normal and probably a little problematic.
"Why do we always have such a hard time? It's always us."
"With what?"
"With dating. We fall in love with the wrong people and then we can't get dates afterwards"
"What are you taking about you seem like you get plenty of dates you're probably the one choosing not to go on dates"
I guess that was true. "But you don't go on dates Leah."
"Yeah, I've basically retired that part of my life." She shrugged.
"You really don't plan on dating anymore after Sam?" I hesitated. "You still love him?" I didn't really want to ask her that specific question, but I wanted to understand. I braced myself for possible breakdown.
"No, I don't. I haven't loved him for some time." She saw the dubious look on my face. "Really. I don't date because I don't look to date anymore." She sighed.
I was not expecting such a calm reaction. I didn't even here he heart beat speed up or skip a beat.
She continued. "There was a time when I went out to public places and I just looked at different guys that walked by me. All I wanted was to imprint on one of those strangers' faces." She paused and looked across to me. "But it never happened."
She told me stories of her going to public parks and cities and just sitting and watching people pass by hoping that one of them would be her imprint. Her stories sounded vaguely familiar…
"I thought you hated imprinting?" I asked her still trying to understand Leah. She was the girl that everyone knew so much about yet no one really knew her.
"I did but after you imprinted all of your problems, and your whole life made sense to you. So I figured I would give it shot. But obviously it didn't work" She gave a laugh although it didn't sound so convincing.
My life problems did seem to alleviate when I imprinted, but lately my life was not making much sense to me anymore. My imprint and the Cullens felt more distant and stranger than before and I wasn't sure why?
I continued to ask her questions about Sam and Emily and to my surprise she answered all my questions. She revealed that although she isn't looking for love, she wouldn't deny it if it ever happened. She also said she wants to rekindle her relationship with Emily and about how she spoke to her briefly at the wedding and how they planned to hang out over Christmas. They are starting anew. Leah doesn't want her cousin to feel guilty for loving Sam. She still doesn't want to have a friendship with Sam, but at the party she learned she could be in same room and look at him and speak to him without wanting to run away. She said that she was planning on moving back to the res next year.
Even though I was the one under the influence she was the one revealing all her secrets to me. She told me all her secrets and now I felt comfortable telling her mine. We both looked up at the cloudless sky littered with stars and were quiet for a few minutes.
"Jake, look a shooting star! Make a wish." She pointed her arm to the left of sky and I saw a little line of light pass across the sky.
"You know shooting stars aren't even real stars right? They're just space rocks burning to nothingness when they-"
"Shhh." She interrupted. "Just make a wish Jacob Black."
As she said that a dozen shooting stars darted across the sky. Even though they were just space rocks they still looked pretty cool.
"What did you wish for?" I asked.
"I don't think the wishes come true if you say them outloud."
I never knew Leah was so superstitious. I reiterated my opinion on shooting stars. "Again, they're just rocks, nothing magical about them."
"Okay. Well, if you really want to know I wished you future success in love."
"What?" She made a wish for me.
"Yeah, I figured you weren't going to make a wish so I wished something for you that you needed."
I never said I wanted that, but she noticed my shitty dating life and wished success for me. If I had made a wish I definitely would not have made a wish for someone else. I would have made a wish for myself. This made me feel guilty for some reason. I just guess Leah is a little more selfless than I am.
"Well, if I did make a wish I would have wished that imprints weren't a thing. I would wish that imprints were as powerless and as non-magical as shooting stars. I would wish that I had a choice if I wanted to imprint. I didn't ask to be bound to someone for the entirety of my life. My whole life revolves around the life of the daughter of my ex-love and ex-enemy. Although, he still treats like his enemy sometimes. As if that doesn't sound fucked up enough, my imprint still has the option to reject me. You are bound to the imprint, but the imprint has no allegiance to you. That's why the Cullens are leaving next summer after Nessie's birthday. They want her to move away from me before there is even a chance that she would view me as anything more than a friend. They want to move her away and have her forget about the dog. That's all the vampires see me as. It's so messed up. Also it's so unfair how anyone person can have such control over another person. And then to have them not allow me to see her and take her away would ruin me. And they know that, but they still plan on doing it. I didn't choose this but I have to live with it. I have to live with feeling unfaithful for wanting a relationship with another person. I can't have a relationship like other people, like Seth, because I know I already have an imprint. I already have my perfect match. Any relationship I have will never be serious because my destiny all leads me to one person, so there's no point in getting attached to anyone else. The only thing I can have with anyone else is a physical intimacy and I have get myself drunk before I feel comfortable doing that. I just wish I could fight it, and I try. Sam could have tried to fight the imprint. If he really tried he could have stayed away from Emily and stayed with you. He should have tried to fight it, ignore it…"
"He did try." Leah put her hand on my shoulder trying to calm me. My whole body was shaking. " It just wasn't possible for him to resist."
"He didn't try that hard and Emily could have denied him."
"Everything happens for a reason." She said with her hand still on my shoulder. It was very warm compared to the rest of the night air. "You know most wolves don't imprint on the daughter of the vampire, who you were competing with in a high school love triangle."
She attempted that joke, but realized it was a mistake. I stayed silent, but my trembles subsided. Even though I had vented all my secret worries and fears, I didn't feel any relief. The fears just felt more real.
"He invited Nahuel when I was away." I whispered.
"The other hybrid?"
"Yeah, him."
"Why would Edward do that?"
"Because he would rather have his daughter be with anyone but me. He knew I would be furious if I had been there when he invited him, so he invited him while I was out of the country. Bella didn't even tell me. I found out because he slept in my room."
"That's actually really terrible have you told Edward and Bella how you feel about this?"
"No." They would probably make up some elaborate excuse for him visting. And my tolerance for bullshit was low these days.
"I think you should, at least you get them to admit to you they invited him."
"Yeah, I'll go over an ask them now." I stood up to get out of the car.
"No, Jake you can't go now. It's the middle of the night."
"Vampires don't sleep."
"But Nessie does. You'll probably wake her up if you go over there and also you have work in the morning."
I forgot that I was working Saturday. I wondered what time it was.
"Jake, have you ever thought about what real werewolves?" She asked looking up.
That was a random question. "No, I don't think I've ever given much thought to them. Apparently they're in Europe. At least that's what Edward said once."
I yawned.
She yawned. "Yeah I think it's time for bed. We should put the car inside."
I agreed. I had sobered up a bit and walked out of my car grabbed my keys from Leah and opened the garage. She still wouldn't let me drive so I let her park my car in the garage.
"Do you think your going to remember this tomorrow" She asked after handed me back my car keys.
"Hmmm" I really thought. I didn't think I was that drunk. I hoped I remembered our conversation. "I don't know."
With that she left to walk home and I walked to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day. I looked up to the sky once more and noticed clouds creeping in to cover the bright sky.
Did you like this chapter? If you liked Jacob under the influence and revealing his secrets give me some love in the comments. Were you surprised by what he said? Also, let me know if I should continue weekly updates. I'll try to update weekly if you guys let me know you want that in the comments. Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day. :)