Author's Note: Please don't judge. I know. Two years again? Give it up. Yet, here we all are, two years later and another chapter lol.

Europa

"Is it wrong I've been seeing Emily?"

I paused mid bite to make sure I heard him correctly. I was afraid that if I chewed too loudly then I would miss what he said. Clearly I was hearing him wrongly. Was he really insinuating what I think he was insinuating? Of course everyone heard the rumors about Sam and Emily. Emily and Sam. I doubt very seriously that he meant that simple question in a way that my mind was dangerously close to teetering over. Or, maybe I was just misinterpreting everything. Which was completely plausible. I didn't have the best attention span. Teachers used to say it was ADD or ADHD, whatever, I simply called it boredom. But Sam, oh he definitely had my full attention and I was hanging on to every word he was about to say.

"Huh?" was all that I could manage to slip out my lips. My burger hanging dangerously low from my mouth. Sam didn't say anything right away. He looked off into the distance and took a bite of his chili cheese dog, a sip of coke, and then finally sighed and placed his elbows on top of the table. I knew Sam was a man of few words. He was deliberate with his speech and even more direct with his movements. Sam was just that type of dude on the Res. He was the shit around here. Everyone loved him. He was strong, confident, and popular. He was every guys big bro, he could do no wrong to the younger guys like me on the Res. He could start an uprising and people would follow him willingly.

So, it was no surprise that he managed to bag the hottest and most popular girl in La Push: Leah Clearwater. She was every guys wet dream. Most guys only wanted to be around Sam for a few reasons: to be like him, to be his friend, or to get close to Leah Clearwater. They were the "It" couple if a tiny ass reservation could have one. They were disgustingly perfect for each other. They both were insanely confident and strong willed. No one really got on either of their bad sides.

"I mean, Emily's a cool girl. She just makes me feel like I could just be myself around her like I don't have to try hard or anything. She's just got that vibe around her, y'know," Sam trailed off, not really looking me in the eye but not avoiding my direction all together. I knew that this had to be some alternate reality. I feel as if Sam had sprouted seven different heads and we were just launched in an alternate universe. Sure, rumors spread like wildfire in such a small area like La Push, but no one actually paid them any attention. I doubt Sam was dumb enough to cheat on someone like Leah. It just seemed stupid to be honest. Why fuck up a perfect thing?

"What are you really saying, Sam?" I asked. I was trying to hide my impatience with Sam because to be honest, Leah was still a family friend, even if I did want nothing more to change it into something more tangible, more intense. But, those were just childhood feelings that lingered into my teens. I might have caught seven seconds of her body fresh out the shower and those images would always be imbedded in my frontal memory.

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "I'm saying Emily is like that breath of fresh air I didn't know I needed, wanted," he went on, "she just is a change of pace than what I'm used to. She's so sweet and nice and she just makes me feel like I'm not Sam of La Push sometimes," he shrugged, "I don't know how to explain it," he chuckled bitterly, "I honestly don't know why I'm telling you all of this to be honest. Maybe it's because you seem real trustworthy. I can tell you're not like the other guys here, Jake," he finished.

I was quiet after he finished his speech. A simple, quick lunch while we wait for Paul, Embry, and Quil turned into a conversation I would never forget. I never expected this in a million years that I would be a confidant to Sam when he had Paul as a best friend. The two were inseparable like me, Quil, and Embry; birds of a feather.

"Are you going to tell her?" I questioned, secretly hoping he would tell her. Wishing for the doors of opportunity to turn my way and give me the keys. I would be lying if I said that if given the chance I wouldn't try to take Lee for my own. She was fucking stunning, an enigma.

"Not yet. It's not the right time, she's about to graduate and I don't want to steal her shine. I never graduated so I know that it's an accomplishment and I want her to have her moment," I nodded. I understood that to the simplest of terms. I didn't have anymore questions for Sam and Sam didn't offer any more conversation either. We sat in a comfortable silence until our friends found us at the small shabby diner in the corner of town. It was a rink-a-dink place that everyone could feel like home in and grab a decent meal.

I was thankful for the silence, it gave me time to think, time to fantasize about one of my good friend's sister. How it would be if it were just me and her. The thought was sickly sweet to think about and almost too easy to picture.

Suddenly, a childhood crush didn't seem so childish anymore.

"She is admired from afar. These admirers court her in secret, in the safety of their dreams."

Whitney Otto

Sam never did tell her.

It's been two years since the diner with Sam and his heart-to-heart. I was pissed he was keeping something so huge from her, but also at the same time, I just used that knowledge to get closer to her. When he tells her, I will be there. I wouldn't let her fall. I couldn't bare to see someone so beautiful fall at the hands of a cheater like Sam who didn't even have the guts to tell the so called love of his life the truth. It seemed like everyone knew of the rumors except Leah and if she did, she fiercely didn't believe them because she never mentioned them or gave a hint as if she knew something shady was going on with Sam.

Seeing Leah in a change of light, as something more than Seth's big sister was an easy adjustment when you're fast tracking your way through puberty and getting over your first heartbreak. Getting over Bella was hard, too hard. We had fell in love so easily. We were desperate to love and be loved. She used me to get over Edward and in a way I used her to just feel a woman's love. We truly were not meant to be together but you couldn't tell me that back then. I wouldn't have accepted it. Quil and Embry tried, but I would just tell them that they were jealous because they didn't have a girlfriend yet and they wouldn't understand. Seth was too young to even care. He liked anyone he came across and was too genuine for his own good. He and Bella had hit it off from the start. My dad and I got into plenty of arguments about Bella, how she wasn't good for me and how things would end badly.

Well, of course things ended badly. I never expected Edward to come back for her. I don't think she did either but at the slightest thought of a chance with Edward, she left me and didn't think twice about how it would make me feel. To say I was heartbroken sounds like an understatement. I was sick. I had the pain of losing someone I thought I could love forever, no matter how prepubescent the thought was, and then I had everyone's knowing eyes on me that said "told you so".

Leah was the first girl I set my sights on after Bella. Helping my dad get to the Clearwater's house to hang with Sue was an easy way to cross paths with her. The family dinners we spent at her house gave me a lot of time to look at her and admire her. She was an easy woman to admire. It was hard to find anything wrong with her, until she opened her mouth. She was brash, obtrusively so. She was a definite force to be reckoned with if ever pushed her over her edge. Everyone knew how explosive she could be. It should've changed people's perspective of her, but it didn't.

I'm not really sure when she stopped seeing me as Seth's friend, but it happened. She would call me about random shit; she would ask me to ride with her to the store, help her pick up her mom's prescriptions, go with her to the mall. I was happy about the time we spent together. I wanted to be closer to her. I fantasized about her every night, it was the prelude to my dreams. It was real simple between us. It felt like juvenile friendship. Juvenile just wasn't enough for me.

I shifted in my too small of a bed, secretly wishing I could've took Becca's old bed when she left the house instead of dad donating it. I glanced at the old wooden and plastic digital clock, the red print read 2:44 PM. I had planned to go over Leah's house to pick her up to go cliff diving. She briefly told me how she's never been before because Sam thought it was too dangerous for her. I promised her I would make sure she was safe. I quickly tossed the sheets off my body and rushed to find some trunks to throw on. Seeing Leah always gave my body a jolt of electricity. Attraction was a powerful toxin. My excitement was starting to rise in more ways than one and I was all but running out the door to go less than five minutes around the block to her house.

I was skipping like a school boy to my beat up truck and expertly put the keys in the ignition. I was on my way to see Leah, it was always a good day when I was in her presence. I wish I was able to be in her presence more. I knew it was because she was with Sam and when she was with him, she saw no one else. No one mattered when they were together. In a lot of ways, I envied that. I wanted it to be like that when I was with her. She would check her phone periodically to see if he texted her, to reply back to him as fast as she could. I wanted to be pissed she was in love, but I wanted her to be happy above all else and unfortunately, he made her undeniably happy. I could always tell her the truth, but then that would put me in an awkward situation. A situation I thought that would be better if he told her and waited for life to take its natural course. In my heart, I knew I would have her one day. Patience was a virtue, but it was also torture.

I honked the horn when I pulled inside her small driveway. I saw the curtains shift in the window and saw Seth's face peek through. I waved my hand at him and I could see a glint of a smile. He rushed to open the door and skipped out.

"Jake! Whatta' doin' here man?!" he asked. Seth was the hardest person to hate in the world, and the easiest person to put a smile on your face. Involuntarily, I smiled. You couldn't help but leech off his energy.

"Me and Leah are goin' cliff diving. I told her I would let her experience it," I explained as I casually rested on my window. I could see Seth's eyes sparkle. He was younger than me and Leah, I felt as if he was my younger brother too. It was easy to adopt him into my sense of family. I could see the gears turning in his head, bubbling with excitement for his next question.

"Can I come too?! That sounds like so much fun! I can't believe I've never been cliff diving yet, man! I mean, my mom would never let me, but she really doesn't have to know, ya know? Like, just let me go get ready-"

"Don't even bother Sethington," I heard Leah's calm voice as she gracefully walked out of her house with a pair of shades on, clad in a bikini top that helped my imagination go into overdrive, a pair of cutoff shorts that I knew were too short without even seeing her from behind, and a large purse hung down by her hips. Her hair was up in a pony tail that I unceremoniously wanted to yank.

Seth turned around to pout at his big sister. He scuffed his feet in the driveway and little pebbles kicked up with it. He folded his arms and stuck his nose out in the air. A typical Seth tantrum.

"Why not, Lee? I promise I won't tell mom," he whined. Leah didn't really acknowledge him until she slid into the passengers seat. The scent of vanilla and figs slid its way through my nostrils. I unknowingly breathed her in some more. It was evil the way she could be herself and have this much of an affect on me. What type of woman was she?

"Nope," she popped her lips, she turned to me and lightly grasped my hand that was resting on the clutch making me turn my head to directly face her. I was pissed that she was wearing sunglasses, her eyes were my favorite part of her. "C'mon Jakey, we gotta hurry up. I told Sam I would go over to his place and help cook," she said with a smile on her face, but the mention of Sam instantly made my mood go stale. Leah didn't notice much because she turned to me to a pouting Seth in the driveway and waved as I changed gears and pulled out.

Leah was too comfortable anywhere she was. She could make Hell comfortable in a night. She turned the radio station to a pop channel and happily bopped along to the songs. She would sing to the ones she knew. I would revel in her voice, not that she had a beautiful singing voice, it was quite ugly, but anything she did was to be reveled in by me.

"Are you nervous?" I asked her. I knew were nearing close to cliffs. I briefly turned to her to gauge her emotions. She shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know, should I be?" she asked with a husky chuckle.

"I don't think so, but if you are, I will jump with you every time, I wouldn't let anything happen to you," I assured her.

"Yeah," she laughed, "Sam would kill you if you did."

It wasn't Sam that was the motivating factor if she was safe or not. I didn't care what Sam thought or any of his reactions. I wanted to keep her safe and comfortable because that's what I wanted for her. Damn Sam.

"Sure, sure," I chuckled with a slight shake of my head. "We're here. You wanna strip here and keep our clothes in the truck? They'll be good and dry when we get out," She nodded. For the first time since we got in the car, I could see her excitement. She looked outside with ready eyes. She wasted no time getting out the car. She slipped her shorts off with ease and the beautiful sight of her round cheeks in the bikini did all the right things to my body at the wrong time. I snapped my head away from her, if I didn't I would've been sporting a massive boner on my first real outing with Leah that didn't include being just her little tag-along when she was bored and had no one else to go with. This time, she was my tag-along. This was my domain. I went cliff diving with Quil and Embry all the time. This was an area of expertise. A sense of satisfaction swelled within the pit of my stomach that I was the one to show Leah cliff diving for the first time.

"Hurry up!" she yelled from her side of the truck. I laughed.

"Alright, alright," I hurriedly slipped off my cutoffs and the random ass t-shirt I threw on for the occasion. "Let's go."

Leah walked over to me and snaked her arms around mine and rushed to the end of the cliffs, dragging me along behind her. It was a new action for the two of us, one that I was shocked of and didn't know what the proper reaction to was. We reached the cliffs after a short walk thanks to Leah dragging me behind her. She let go of me to peak down to the cliffs.

"Shit! That's a long ways down there, ain't it?" she nervously joked. I looked over and shrugged. I was so used to the sight.

"You scared now?"

"Uh, I mean, a little bit. Like this shit is a big drop," a nervous chuckle. A slight scuff of her feet in the grass, a habit I'm a thousand percent sure she picked up from Seth. I grabbed her hand and she finally looked up at me with her hazel eyes. For a quick second I forgot what I was about to tell her. She was so stunning it was hard not to get tongue tied when you had her full attention. I could see her eyes searching mine, for what, I wish I knew. Her eyebrows furrowed a little and then she yanked her hands away and brushed imaginary dirt off her bum. I cleared my throat and tried to collect myself together.

That was a new sensation between the two of us. It felt as if she was really looking at me. More than a friend that she stole from Seth, more than Billy Black's son, it felt like she finally saw the young man Jacob Black. The man who was desperately trying to show himself to her.

"It's okay, Lee. I told you I would jump down with you. You can hold my hand down if you want," I offered my hand again and there she was staring in my eyes again. I saw her hazel orbs travel from my eyes to my waist and I finally knew what it was. It was attraction, but it wasn't the familiar aura of my own attraction for her. I could feel the radiating heat enimating from her body. Her orbs stopped at my lips and I instantly licked them. Her eyes snapped back up to mine and nodded her head. More so to clear it from the haziness of attraction and a curious want, a look I was familiar with from personal experience. She grasped my hand again and there was the jolt of electricity through my veins again. It felt like heroin shooting up in my bloodstream. The high was indescribable. There weren't enough words in the English dictionary to describe what it felt like to hold her hands in this moment. She finally broke eye contact with a clear of her breath.

"I'm ready," she said and gripped my hand just a little bit tighter.

"On the count of three," I said as I watched her from my peripheral, "one, two..."

I never did get to three as I threw ourselves over the cliff. I could hear Leah's screams over the rush of air that runs through your ears when you dive off. It was a beautiful song, her screams were. Her hand clutched mine in a deathly grip. Falling with her felt like the longest moment of my life. The waves of euphoria that rushed my body was stronger than any adrenaline rush. I knew falling was less than a minute in real time, but it felt like hours. The feel of her hands in mine, the way they fit so snug inside my hands. I never knew how small her hands were until they fell into mine.

We hit the water with a sounding crash. The impact made me grip her hand tighter. I knew from experience that the water can make you travel and go further out than anticipated and she was someone I had no intentions of losing, especially not now. We both sprang up to the surface of the water. Both of us gasping for air. Leah moved some of her hair out her face that slipped out of the ponytail. She had a big smile plastered on her face. Her eyes were back into mine again.

"Oh my God!" she yelled. Smile still planted firmly on her face. It was probably the most gorgeous sight I have seen in all my eighteen years of living. She was laughing as she looked up to the cliff we just jumped off for a second before she made eye contact with me. I was just smiling at her. I couldn't believe that I was sharing this moment with her of all people. It was a goofy smile plastered on my face, I could feel it. Nor could I really help it. God felt that this should happened between the two of us and I couldn't have been more blessed for a God in my life.

We sat there in the water like that for a few beats smiling and staring at each other. As if the moment clicked in Leah's head she blinked. She didn't take her eyes off of mine, but I could see her thinking this moment out in her head. Her eyes roamed over my body, gears still turning. They slowed when she grazed over my chest with her eyes, up to my neck, to the tip of my hair. She slowly raised her hand that wasn't inside of mine and ran her fingers through my hair. She watched me closely to see if I would stop her, what my reaction would be to her touch. I didn't mean to close my eyes when she raked her hand through my hair, I wanted to look at her as long as I possibly could, but it was instinctive to close my eyes and just feel her. Her hand lowered to cup my cheek and my eyes instantly opened back up at the skin to skin contact. It felt so personal, so intimate.

In her eyes I could see the confusion in them, the question of what she was doing, what she was feeling, and the why of it all, the how of it all. Her confusion only fueled her curiosity because her hand never left my cheek. I took that opening of confusion to gently stroke her hand that was embedded in mine. I took a risk of trying to further our contact, this unexpected intimate moment between the two of us. She shook her head, to clear it of the impure thoughts I was almost sure she was thinking because I was thinking them too, only they weren't so impure in my head, and a ghost of smile returned back to her face. Her hand slowly dropped from my face to lightly float on top of the water. I was happy she kept her hand in mine.

"Let's do it again," she said with the brightest smile on her face. Who could deny her? I let a smile break through my face and I nodded. We padded our way back to shore, silently cursing that we had to separate our hands to swim. But the second our feet reached land, she took my hand back in hers and with a grin on her face rushed back to the top of the cliffs.

It was over 85 degrees in La Push that day, but I knew it was Leah who made me hotter than I have ever been in my life.

"Mysteries of attraction could not always be explained through logic. Sometimes the fractures in two separate souls became the very hinges that held them together."

Lisa Kleypas

We jumped three more times before we splayed out on the ground side by side.

We splashed in the water at each other. Jumped on each others back trying to dunk the other. Swim underneath the water try to sneak attack each other. Jumping off hand in hand every time. Stealing glances between the other. I knew that this was a defining moment in my relationship with Leah. I used to think that my attraction for her would never be reciprocated. I'm not sure what was in the atmosphere that changed how she looked at me, but it was welcomed.

Hand in hand, backs against the ground, chests heaving up and down rapidly, trying to catch our breaths, we laid there content with just watching the clouds roll by. My thumb subconsciously rubbing against the back of her hand, this time she didn't take her hand away.

"Ooh, that one looks like a turtle," Leah pointed to the sky with her free hand.

"It looks like a chicken tender," I replied and Leah laughed. I wasn't as good as guessing the clouds' ambiguous shapes as she was, but it just felt good to be in her company like this. It felt good to be completely relaxed with the opposite sex. I never felt this way when I was with Bella. It was always about her and her problems. She could bring your mood down faster than crashing from drugs. It felt too easy to be in this moment with her. It felt surreal.

"Thanks for bringing me out here today, Jacob," she started as she rolled on to her side to really look at me. Her action made me do the same, and what felt like the millionth time that day, I was back into her eyes. Her endless pools of greenish, brown water that never looked murky, but warm and inviting. "I really needed this. Things lately in my life haven't been going so well lately. It just feels like everything around me is changing. I feel like I'm being pushed out of my comfort zone that I didn't really agree to being pushed out of," she said as her eyes were doing that searching thing through mine. Looking to see if I had changed, if I will change, or will I be someone to make her change.

"What do you mean? What's changing? Everything always feels the same around here to me." She sighed and rolled her eyes.

"I just feel like people around me are changing. My mom is being more secretive. She just cleans around the house, cooks, and sleeps. I feel like she barely talks to me anymore. Me and my mom used to be really close and then I don't know, it just feels like our relationship has become really distant. I mean I still love her of course, but I can't deny it feels weird now. I don't know, maybe it was me. I admit that when Sam and I first got together I didn't really care for family matters like that anymore. I was just enjoying Sam and our relationship. I don't really know what goes on at the house like I used to. And then there's Sam," she shook her head and released a heavy sigh. My body tensed at the mention of Sam's name. Maybe she really did know what was going on between him and Emily.

"He's just different. I know he has a lot going on for him. Y'know, he's working a lot and he has to help his mom around the house a lot because she's falling ill, he just doesn't have much time to spend with me anymore like he used to. That sucks because I don't have many friends, especially since I got with him, I kinda pushed them away to be with him.

"It was stupid because that's like the one things girls aren't supposed to do when they enter a relationship and I did it, just like a fuckin' dumbass. I think that's why I like hangin' out with you. You don't hold my relationship with Sam over my head like my old friends used to. You always make time out your day to do whatever the fuck I wanna do just so I can get out the damn house. I really appreciate that. Like, I know I could hang out with my cousin but she's always doing some type of work. She likes to volunteer with the kids at the school and shit, and that's cool too, but I just be missin' people I used to hang with. I feel like it's just me nowadays," she finished looking off into the sky.

I gripped her hand tighter to make her look back at me. She looked at me slowly but I made sure I didn't speak until I had her full attention on me, I gripped her hands again so she knew what I was about to say was heartfelt and legit.

"I'll always hang out with you, Lee. You'll always have me, you should never feel lonely. I know how you feel, Quil and Embry are doing their on things. Graduation is just around the corner for us. We're all about to go our separate ways. I know what that sense of impending loneliness is like. You don't have to worry about me leaving you or ghosting you, I'll always be here for you and I mean that. You're like my best friend," I knew I was lying about the best friend bit, she could never be just a friend to me. Not when I wanted something else with her. Something completely more.

I saw her eyes glisten, but I knew she was too strong to actually let them fall. Leah wasn't the type of girl to give people the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She inched closer to me and rolled on top of me to wrap her arms around my torso. My eyes bulged out. I had never been so physically close to her in my life, not in this type of way at least. She burrowed her head in the crook of my neck and I was washed over by her vanilla and fig scent that was tainted by salt water. I wrapped my arms around her back and just held her. It felt so good to just hold her and have her close to me. I cupped the back of her neck and pressed her firmly to my body.

We didn't do anything more than that for the rest of the night. We stayed in each others arms, the beat of her heart pounding on top of mine. It was the only thing filling my ears besides the soft breath passing Leah's lips and the sounding of the waves crashing against La Push. I could've died and went to heaven, but as long as she was still in my arms, I wouldn't have cared not a damn bit. Maybe I was a sucker for her, maybe I was being completely lovesick for her, but I didn't care. Maybe that's how I fell into the trap of Bella, but that thought alone wasn't enough to stop me from wanting Leah the way that I do. I rubbed her back and she snuggled a little closer to me. A slice of heaven carved out just for me. A lucky man I must be.

Leah never did check her phone for the fourteen missed calls from Sam or go see him, that marked the turning point in our relationship, forever.

"How we need that security. How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this. I need someone to pour myself into."

Sylvia Plath

Author's Note: The next chapter will be another flashback from Jacob. I feel like writing the flashbacks from his perspective is more interesting than if I were to write from Leah. I hope you guys liked the first look into their ever growing and multifaceted relationship. Drop a review, a question or anything, lol. I hope you guys liked this chapter and I promise its not going to be another 2 years until the next one.