Chapter 9: Liar, Liar

"In the sound of the sea, in the ocean of me.

I defined, I designed,

My recovery."

Recovery

Angie

Somewhere between the Cullen's house and La Push, reality crashed headfirst into me. The reality of the lies I would have to make, the smiles I would have to fake, and the guilt and worry I'd take with me, for every waking moment into the foreseeable future.

My Father should be home for tonight, and if he were there, I would have to lie to him. There was so much that he was missing, so much that I had to share with him. I dreaded it. I didn't want to think of the previous few days since he's been gone off on his case. I'd have to tell him about my argument with Jacob, and confess my fear and anxiety, and that I felt bested my Bella Swan. I'd have to tell him about Embry, that he could stop teasing me and that we were finally together. In that state, I knew I might bring up my Mother, feeling lonely, insignificant, and secure in the house alone. He'd want to stay home more often, just like every other time I brought my Mom into the equation, but his work was first priority, and I handled things better on my own. Alone, I had time to let everything sink in and ponder every individual detail. Naturally, this made me more prone to worrying, and it was true that there isn't a time when I don't have something dark on my thoughts.

When I got home, I planned to write the letter to my Mother, unsure if I could handle not speaking to her for another moment. I needed her, though I knew she didn't want to leave me, to leave us. My Father and I coped better with each other around, but I knew sometimes my words meant nothing to him, and vice versa. Things never were the same.

And now things had changed even more for me. I loathed this, this regret, this betrayal. I had thought Bella would get Jacob, not run to her boyfriend and leave me behind, on the street. Shock can do funny things to you, I knew that from experience. Until that moment when she had left and not returned, however, I didn't realize how weak and pathetic a human being she was.

Human. What a strange term, given what I know now. Who's really to say who's human, in a world full of supernatural? What was the true definition of human?

I turned my head, keeping my cheek pressed against Embry's course fur. He hummed, and I watched the forest whip past us in amazing speed. I was wondrous, watching the brilliant green shades fade into one, and the thick brown trunks of the trees seeming to thin out and snap by us with no solidness. My comic-book knowledgeable mind pondered the idea that maybe we were moving so fast we could move right through the tree trunks, like the Flash could phase through walls and floors. I smiled, but the chuckle I expected to bubble through my lips didn't come. The smile I'd managed wavered, and I felt a shiver of regret shudder through my frame once again, remembering the bruises I was now hyper aware of, aching on my stomach, legs, arms, covering every inch of me.

Huffing in discomfort, I noticed the pace of the great grey wolf beneath me slow down, and his lithe body slid down to the ground. I hopped off carefully, sitting on my butt on the cold, hard ground, wrapping my arms around my legs. I stared up at Embry when he stood, and sent me one fleeting glance before racing into the forest full speed, leaving me on the ground.

"Bree? Bree!?" I called out. "Who's orphaned now!" I huffed, dropping my chin and hiding my face in from the world. My long damp hair untangled slightly as it reached out to my right as a wind blew gently, and I wrapped his sweater tighter around me.

I gasped and jumped into motion when an unexpected warm hand dropped to my shoulder and brushed hair from my neck.

"Sh, Angie. Sweetheart, come here." He wrapped his arms around me, and I squirmed a moment. I willed myself to relax, breathing in his scent and letting my hands fall gently to rest on his back.

"Where did you go?" I whispered sadly, wrapping my arms around him and snuggling into him.

"A rather inconvenient aspect of pack life? Clothes don't just pop in and out of existence." He said matter-of-factly and I chuckled quietly.

"Oh. I guess that makes sense." I blushed a little.

His arms tightened around me, remarkable strong, and a small breath of air escaped my lungs. He swayed us side to side. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I should've been there, I should've protected you. I'm not even human anymore and I still keep making mistakes when it comes to you." He mumbled his last words sadly, nearly anxiously.

"It wasn't your fault, Bree." I looked up at him, letting him read the sincerity in my blue doe eyes. "I knew a pack of huge wolves running through port Angeles may have a nasty influence on its inhabitants, yknow? They might want to steal their very own guard dog. I can't have anyone taking you from me!" I feigned panic, gripping his shirt in my hand and looking up at him with a smile, pressing my lips to his gently.

He responded back fully, his warm hand on the small of my back slid up and under his sweater slightly. He pulled back, resting his forehead against mine and closing his eyes. I watched his features, noticing the stressed little line between his burrowed eyebrows. It pained me to know I was the cause of this look on his usually happy, carefree features. My stomach knotted in guilt and yearning to make him feel better, but I knew not how to.

"Embry?" I called him out, slowly bringing my hand up to gently trace his jaw and capture his attention. "It isn't your fault."

"You're right. It's Bella's." He growled, beautiful brown eyes opening to glare steadily at the ground. They neared an onyx colour with their dark intensity. "She left you there, didn't she? And went with that Edward Cullen guy."

"I-I'm sure it wasn't intentional. I saw her-" I cut myself off. "It was my choice. She didn't want to go along with it, until things got incredibly bad, and I forced her to go."

He bit his lip, still glaring down at the ground, and bit by bit relaxed his tense pose.

"How bad?" Embry said, looking down at me in worry. It occurred to me how much taller he'd gotten, now. He towered over me by at least two feet.

I looked away, the thought quickly finding itself buried under disgust. "It's not terrible." I amended, even though I felt each individual bruise pulsed faintly, reminding me of the fingers and hands that had once gripped me harshly.

"May I see?" He asked politely, as if I was somebody else. He didn't crack a joke, didn't smile, and it made the reality of what changed me emotionally even more real.

"This is what I worried of." I muttered. "You aren't going to see me as me anymore... You're going to see me as some pathetic little girl who made a stupid choice that she overreacted about. But Embry I swear it was the only option left, and-"

"Kangee Morgan Bennett." His use of my full name made me sputter and fall into silence, my look twisting in confusion. Was he angry? "I would never, never see you as pathetic. You're unique from all the other girls on the res. You're funny, and caring, but rational. Which is why I was so sure I'd never get a chance with you. You're perfect, to me and to so many others. You're beautiful, but that isn't who you are. Who you are is the same little girl who I remember playing in the mood with, ruining her skirt, and walking home with your pockets full of frogs; And the kid who got in trouble with Jacob all the time, and got all teary eyed, but who held him while he cried, even though your mother was in the same car and had suffered the same fate." I flinched at his words, and he rubbed my arm in apology. "You're that girl who aces almost all of her tests, and yet still manages to outsmart Quil when the two of you work on mechanics." My lips turned up faintly at his words then, and he tilted my chin, his thumb just under my lower lip. "I just need to see, Angie. If I'm going to help you get through all of this, I'll need to know what excuses we can make up. Just like when you got bit by a leech the first time and thought you were going to turn into a vampire. Remember that?"

I laughed quietly, and smiled up at him warmly, He was one of the few people I knew who could make my pain fade away instantaneously and transform into a laugh, if that was what I needed. "Yeah." I answered his question.

I loved Embry, and it only got stronger the more time I spent with him in this way, with that caring look in his eyes, and being able to touch and kiss and be with him as much as I want to without feeling embarrassed about it. I trusted him with my life. I'd known since the epiphany in the shower that I would tell him, and now he only proved why I had been so sure.

Taking a deep breath, I muttered, "Okay...". I lifted my arms in the sweater, my hands gripping the sleeves, and as I pulled gently all I heard was the staticky sound of my hair rubbing the inner fabric, and then I lowered the hoodie in my arms so that he could look at the bruises and damages on my arms alone.

His hands began to shake, and his eyes narrowed as they found he found the hand prints, not just the jumble of finger print shaped bruises. Some spots were so close and so wide that they formed angry, purple blue blotches.

I also lifted my shirt a little, turning to let him see my back, where my shirt may ride up at times. I peered back at him.

The hand that was on my waist was still shaking hard, his heat was so overwhelming that even in the autumn breeze I was fine to be in a tank top, like I was.

"I should've been there." He growled, pulling me into him protectively, my back to his chest. "I'm so sorry, Ang. It won't happen again."

I nodded, just accepting his words. "Is my Daddy home? What will I tell him?

Bree sighed. "He came home this afternoon. You could say you got caught in the middle of one of our fights. There isn't as much bruising on your arms as everywhere else, except for your wrists."

"Okay." I said shortly, my throat getting thick in panic at the memory.

"Those are probably tender." He motioned to my back by softly running a hand up and down my back. "We could..."

"Say I went to the gym with Quil after school, and my body aches?"

"Perfect, but sweetheart?"

I looked up immediately at the name, ready to answer his question.

"Why aren't you going to tell your Dad?"

Silence fell over us as I struggled to find the words I was looking for. "I... just... If I told him, I know he'd try and go after them. He'd want evidence though, and I don't want to be examined. I don't even want justice, I just want to forget it all."

More quiet fell over the section of the woods we were at, but eventually he sighed and seemed to understand my reasoning.

"Are you ready to go home?" He asked.

My answer was to grab his hand and whisper, "As long as you promise not to leave my side."

"I promise."

Within minutes we were out of the woods, and I had gotten tired of my legs wobbling uncertainly. Bree piggy backed me, and I rested my head on his shoulder, watching my home grow closer and more in focus.

As we broke out of the woods I took a long, clean breath, filling my senses with the smells of fire burning somewhere, the wet sand, the water, and the different woods around my home. The wind blew my hair back, letting it fall over my back, pulling it back in a soothing manner, like a mother running her fingers through her child's hair in greeting. The water's white caps crashed against the shore, and children laughed and ran away from the water. I worried for them, but just when I was about to mention them, their mother's scolded them and brought them into the house.

My heart seemed to even be beating more securely, seeing the familiar surroundings, smelling the same scents and feeling the same mix of warm and cold, difference between Washington's rainy, cold weather and my wolf's warm skin.

"Ang! Where the hell have you been?" Quil was running up to us from his house, which was nearby. "Is that where you've been? Kidnapping your girlfriend?" He teased Embry, but with a serious expression. I felt him tense.

"No. That's not it." He mumbled.

"I went and slept over at Bella's the night after the shopping trip. We spent the day together, and I ran into Bree on my way home, so we were together for a little while." I lied smoothly, but my teeth almost connected with my lower lip, so I hid my face slightly. Quil luckily didn't seem to notice.

"Forgetting us for your new girlfriend?" He joked. "Damn! I didn't know you rolled that way, sweetheart."

I laughed halfheartedly, but then grinned widely when I heard the thunder in the distance. "Storm!" I enthused.

Quil grinned up at me. "Alright, little thunder. Obviously that means no bon fire tonight, but there will be one soon. And you better be there." He tweaked my nose, and started down another path, calling goodbye over his shoulder.

"That was odd.. have you been avoiding them?" I whispered into his ear.

"They can't know about the wolves. Alpha's orders. They predict that eventually they are going to join us, but I can't let them know anything. I don't want to be around them knowing I'm lying."

I rubbed his chest where my arm was, trying to soothe his inner turmoil. He kissed my wrist as we kept walking, and we neared the path across Jacob's house.

Lo and Behold, Jacob was sitting in the garage, working on an engine, clearly deep in thought. He looked up, and did a double take before he put his tool aside and ran down to us, just like Quil had.

"Embry, Angie." He greeted. "Where have you two been? I haven't seen you since you left with Bella."

The way his voice caressed Bella's name with care made my heart twist sadly, and grief wash through me again, knowing he cared for her more than me, and had only known her for a few years of childhood, and about a month this year. Embry seemed to be thinking about Bella's betrayal again, and his hands shook the tiniest bit before I touched them softly and he calmed himself down.

"I slept over at Bella's house after we went to Port Angeles. I asked her to call you guys, but she forgot, it seems. Everyone sorta horded me as soon as I came home." I smiled gently, but only at the memory of all the familiar things surrounding me again. "I spent another day with her, and met Edward. I was on my way home when I ran into Bree, and we were together for a little bit before we found our way back here."

The lie was getting easier, and I snuck little truths into the falseness, making it easier to say.

Jacob smiled his sunny smile and I managed a real grin back. "It seems like you two are starting to enjoy each others company."

"Yeah, well, sometimes she isn't a lot of company to enjoy, yknow? Sometimes she seems so absent from everything." I said, seeing Bree glare up at me, as if to say Do you want me to be calm, or not?

"I know what you mean." He said.

"No, you really don't." I chuckled darkly. "She's different with you than with everyone else. I wanted to go home, though. Daddy's home."

"Oh, okay. Tell him I say hi." And with that Jacob watched us leave, standing where he was up until I couldn't see him anymore.

"Nice lying." Embry seethed.

I flinched, and he let me down, just at the foot of the steps to my house. "I'm sorry." And I really was. For everything. For riling him up right after I tried to calm him down; For making him lie to his best friends again; For worrying him with my foolishness, for making a stupid decision that lead to me having to stay in his one true enemy's house for days. I wrung my hands out, feeling like breaking down in sobs already.

"Oh, Ang..." His voice was quiet and sympathetic. "I'm not angry at you. I should be sorry."

I swallowed and turned on my heel, jogging up the stairs, and opening up the door, peering in. "Daddy?" I called out.

"Sweetheart!" He answered, walking out of the kitchen, drying his hands after doing dishes. "You're slacking. There were a few dishes in the sink, but thanks for the dinner."

"Y-you're welcome." I smiled brightly, and ran forward to wrap my arms around him, tears streaming down my face.

"What's wrong, Ang?" He asked, pushing my back by my shoulders to see my face better. I smiled up at him thinly.

"I missed you." I hugged him again, and pulled back, rubbing my tears away with the back of my left hand.

"I missed you too, kid." He looked above me. "Oh, well, hello, Embry. How's your mother?"

Turning, I saw Embry standing at the doorway with his arms crossed, eyes on me. He reached out and him and my father shook hands. With all things included, my heart still started beating faster, and I blushed heavily when I realized I had to tell my Daddy about us.

I searched for the words to say to let him know, and was pleasantly surprised when Embry spoke up. A quick smirk flashed across his face, and he looked over at me adoringly. "Hello, Sir."

Dad seemed to just know, and looked over at me with a wicked glint in his eyes. "Oh, this is a pleasant surprise. I'm gonna have fun." He laughed a fake evil laugh and I giggled. Bree walked over to me and wrapped his arm around me, letting his hand rest on my curve. I looked up at him with a smile.

"I'm sure you will." I chuckled. "Before we talk about this, I need to go do something. Excuse me."

I worshipped every step until I got into my familiar little bedroom, with my bed against the middle of my left wall, two small dressers on either side, covered with my small stereo system and CD's. My lamp hanging off it's chain in the right corner of my room, and desk on the opposite wall of my room, leaving a three foot gap between the edge of my bed and it's edge.

First, I changed, putting on some tights with my grey tank, and threw Embry's sweater on, which hung to my mid thigh. I fixed my hair into a braid, and pulled off my socks as I sat on the chair and pulled out my journal, tucked neatly in the middle right drawer of my desk, along with a blue pen I kept in the rings binding the pages together.

Dear Mom,

I'm sorry I haven't written to you lately. It's been hard, between school work, homework, the boys bringing me around with them, and personal reasons, I haven't been able to lately, and I really am sorry. I feel terrible, and I'm feeling that same pain and loss I did when I first decided I had to write to you. I feel like, without this, your memory will fade and I will forget your smile, your laugh, and your voice.

Something terrible has happened to me, just a few days ago. I went to Port Angeles with Jacob's love interest, Bella. She seemed like an okay girl, and everything was going fine, but I allowed myself to get lost. We were in this dark alley, and then this group of men started taunting us, surrounding us. It was stupid, Mom, but I told you to run, and I distracted them. Everything hurts, Mom. Physically, I feel like I've been run over. I feel like I'm disgusting, and dirty. Everything aches, as well. But it also hurts that the only thing she did was run to her boyfriend. She didn't call for help for me, or anything. I haven't seen her since the incident, and I don't wish to.

Then again, I could almost see where she came from. If I were alone, should I have run away, I would run to Bree without a second thought. I want to believe I wouldn't run to him and leave them beating Bella in a street, had our situations been reversed. An angel saved me. Her name is Rosalie, Rosalie Cullen. One of the cold ones that live nearby. She's nice, though. I believe she understands me. Perhaps she went through something similar?

You remember Embry Call, right, Mom? That's who I'm talking about. I've had a crush on him since forever, I know I've told you about him before. I finally found the will in me to confess, and we've been together ever since. He's amazing, Mom. I never thought I'd get a chance with him, and yet he told me the same thing today. I told him everything that happened. I trust him, more than I trust myself, sometimes. I'm not alone.

I wanted to tell Daddy that I miss you, today. But I don't want him to react like usual, saying he will stay. I think I get my independence from you, I deal with things better on my own.

I miss you. A lot. Now that it's on my mind, I almost want to talk to Jacob about you, because he knows exactly how I feel, and he would understand.

Anyways, Bree and Daddy are downstairs. I'm going to go spend the night with them, and let everything sort itself out for the night. I love you.

Your Baby Girl, in case you've forgotten,

Angie

I set the pen down, and closed the journal, resting my palm on it's little black cover, with a small pocket that held a picture of my Mother and I from when I was little. I was asleep on her neck, my tiny hand on the other side of her neck from the one my face was pressed against. She was smiling up at the camera, and I realized how much I had begun to look like her. I smiled, shaking my head a little and started downstairs.

When I finally found them, I realized they were in the living room, and the T.V. was on the DVD setting. I sat next to Embry on the couch, resting my feet on the ottoman, and noted the silence in the room. Obviously they had been deep in a serious conversation during my absence, so I broke the atmosphere with an awkward little chuckle, "I don't like this movie."

"What Mov- Oh." My Dad realized, scratching the back of his head, and Embry and I laughed together loudly. My Dad went through the movies he had on the gaming system, and played Grown Ups. And they both had their fun teasing me of how much I was like the little kid who wanted to get chocolate wasted, while secretly when the beautiful daughter came into the motion picture Embry leaned in and said, "You're even more beautiful than that, you know."

I blushed to his amusement, and cuddled into Bree's side, feeling his warmth against my cheek and chest, my arms wrapped loosely around his figure. Outside in the distance, the thunder rumbled quietly, lulling me into a deep slumber with the two men I cared most for surrounding me.

No nightmares could find me on a night like this.

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading!