A/N: I own no part of Twilight. So I'm posting this chapter (34!) on Saturday (around midnight) as opposed to Friday. My bad. I wouldn't like there to be big breaks since I have a decided ending date, but if something happens, something happens. I'll try to think and write ahead, though. This chapter's a little strange.

Enjoy.

XXXIV.

you know it used to be mad love

Leah had been home for two days when Bella called her house.

She didn't recognize the number. "Hello?" Leah asked as she picked up the phone.

"Come down to the beach."

"Who is this?" She had a faint idea, but the voice was too deep. Too grisly.

"Just come down here."

She hung up. Maybe Emily or Kim was being held at gunpoint, and the idea worried Leah, so she nearly ran to First Beach.

She first spotted Bella in the parking lot. Just Bella. The lot was relatively empty. And quiet. Almost too quiet.

Bella stood with her arms crossed over her chest.

Leah slowed down as she realized she was alone. "Bella."

"Leah."

Bella looked rough. She had to have just gotten home. She seemed to have recovering bruises on her face and collarbone, and her cheeks were sallow. Had only a couple days on the road really hurt her that bad? Leah didn't care.

"What do you want?" Leah asked. "I've got lunch waiting for me at home."

"I'm here to finish what we've started," Bella said assertively.

Leah narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. "Are you really sure you're in the right condition to be fighting somebody? You look like you need a burger."

"I tried to forgive you for leaving me like that in Venice," Bella continued, "but it's been really hard."

"Oh, I left you?" Leah asked with wide eyes. "You fuckin' serious? 'Cause last time I checked, your drunk ass wanted to stay. Maybe if you didn't insist on being the stupid white girl all the time, you'd remember your own actions so I don't have to keep repeating them."

"But why did you do it?" Bella asked, ignoring her reasoning. "I thought we were friends."

"You must have me fucked up if you think we're still friends. I don't owe you shit. Especially a reason as to why I left your dumb ass. This is a waste of my goddamn time." She began to turn around.

"This isn't over, Leah."

Leah stopped and looked over her shoulder at the other girl. "Uh, yeah, it is. I just finished it."

"No, we're gonna end this right," Bella decided. "Two days from now. I'm calling it First Beach Fight Club."

Leah smirked. You've got nerve. "What time?"

"Whenever you'd like. It's your turf."

"Eight thirty."

"That works."

"Good. And should we have spectators?"

Bella smirked back. "Bring a crowd."

First Beach Fight Club was all that could ring in Leah's head as she headed home from the beach that afternoon. Is that what dumb white girls come up with when they're bored?

Even though Bella was white, Leah decided that she must have gotten some powerful dick while she had dated Jacob because the girl thought like a Quileute. She planned her fights. Made sure she ended her disputes. She even wanted an audience to observe the brawl. As much as Leah despised her, they thought in the exact same ways. And Emily had been right about Bella: she was as savage as they came; she wanted the masses to observe her work, meaning she didn't have an issue with scalping Leah in public if she possessed the capability. But she was methodical. Meticulous.

Bella Swan was fucking nuts. Everybody knew that, though.

Leah just hoped she had the right people on her side.

"Lee," Emily began, "can I be honest with you for a second?"

"I'd prefer if you were honest with me all the time."

"Why did you leave Bella in Venice like that?"

"Oh my God," Leah groaned. "Not this again."

They were in Leah's living room the next evening, twenty-four hours before fight night, waiting for Kim to finish making popcorn in the kitchen. About to put on Selena, life in the badlands resumed. They were back to their old ways on the surface, but underneath, something was different. Terribly different.

"I still don't get it," Emily replied.

Leah rolled her eyes. "Okay, listen close. You, too, Kim, so I don't have to keep explaining myself. I tried to get Bella to come with us, but she was too preoccupied with her boyfriend. I really, really tried to get her to leave, but she got all brave and started to call me a savage. We almost threw hands and then I was like, 'Fuck it' and left. That's literally it. Nothing else."

"Jesus," Emily sighed. "I can't believe it."

"Bella's really good at getting fucked up and fucking things up for the rest of us," Leah reminded her. "That's kind of her thing."

"No," Emily said bluntly. "I can't believe how fucking petty you are."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I said you're petty as hell."

"What, so I'm petty now for not wanting to deal with that bitch's bullshit? I'm petty for wanting to go home after being arrested? You've got a big vocabulary and all, but I don't think that's the right word to describe what I did."

Kim was entering the living room with a huge bowl of popcorn. She found Emily and Leah staring each other down.

Emily broke eye contact and then shrugged. "You're not a nice person," she told Leah. "What you did was really mean. The circumstances don't even matter."

"Don't be dumb," Leah said. "Bella doesn't deserve my kindness."

"But she deserves your cruelty, right?"

"Since when are you her best fucking friend? Is she your cousin now?"

"Leah, you're hardly human at this point!" Emily exclaimed. "You do all this heartless shit that's burned so many bridges, and you don't even feel bad. You never feel bad for anything you say or do, and you always think you're right. It's hard to be around you when you act like a self-righteous asshole all the time."

Before Leah could respond, she snapped her head towards Kim. "Why do you never have anything to say?" she demanded. "What are you so quiet about, Kim?"

"I'm waiting for you guys to be done," Kim replied, chomping on the popcorn. "I actually kinda wanna watch the movie. It's been a good week or so since I've seen it."

"Well, whose side are you on?" Emily asked. "Since you're been so observant."

Leah stared at Kim with desperate eyes.

"I mean, it's not like Em's wrong," Kim said.

Leah lost it. She stood up. "Wow. Okay. Awesome. Get the fuck out of my house. Both of you." She paced towards the door and held it open for them. Emily and Kim silently left the house. Another night in front of the television watching Selena didn't mean that much to them, anyway.

"Good luck at your fight tomorrow," Emily bitterly called as she climbed into her car.

"I've got a whole fucking crowd coming," Leah yelled from her front porch. "Don't even worry about it."

The beach parking lot was almost just as empty the next night. It was a Thursday in July. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least at first.

All the sharks had come swimming by eight thirty. Leah noticed Jared, Kim's Jared, in the audience. He was home from Seattle for the remainder of the summer—or until he got bored of Kim. They stood close with their arms wrapped around each other like nothing was wrong, like their long distance relationship hadn't fallen through the roof, and like she didn't secretly carry a torch for Bella.

Leah instantly knew why Kim and Bella were such good friends now.

They were as fake as they came.

At eight thirty on the dot, Leah went into the middle of the crowd, making them back up and give her some space. That was when she saw Bella on the other side, emerging from the brown faces around her. Bella's face looked a lot better, but it was still in the healing process. She had to be a klutz, though, so why would she want to fight Leah? They weren't exactly the same in size or strength. Then again, Bella had to be a crazy fighter.

As they stared each other down, trying to pick up on the other girl's body language, Leah bit the inside of her cheek. This was it. But first...

"No weapons," she declared.

Bella smiled and slowly, tentatively, pulled out something tucked in her left sneaker. The two bare razor blades shone brightly as they caught the sun's reflection.

"Anything else, ref?" Bella asked condescendingly. Her grin was an ill one; Leah wanted to smack it right off her face.

"Get your hands out of your pockets."

Bella gestured to her dark blue hoodie with raised eyebrows. Leah nodded in response. Bella carefully took whatever was in it out. It was a sock, but it looked heavy. It was a little padlock, like the ones attached to high school lockers.

A fucking lock in a sock, Leah thought. She fights as dirty as she talks.

"Don't act like you forgot," Bella said. "It's your turn."

Nonchalantly, Leah removed the kitchen knife from her back pocket. It fell to the hot, black pavement with a prominent clang.

The entire parking lot was quiet. Some people were prepared to record the fight on their cell phones, their thumbs hovering over the red buttons; others just watched intently, their eyes focused.

Bella decided to throw the first punch since it was probably the only one she was going to get. She popped Leah right in the cheek. From then on, the girls were throwing down in typical manner (hair-pulling, scratching, the usual) until police sirens went off as red and blue lights started flashing out of nowhere. The girls quickly broke up as the group dispersed, but they weren't quick enough.

And of course, it was Charlie Swan, the chief of the Forks police, who found them.

"I can't go out," Leah said bleakly into the telephone. "I'm grounded."

"Shit's wack," Emily replied. She and Leah had gotten over their anger; Kim's issues with Leah were a different story, though, since she, unlike Emily, had too much pride to say she was sorry. "Was your mom super pissed or what?"

"Yeah, but only because it was Bella. I think she's still trying to get with her dad, and if I'm beating up his kid, that's not really a good thing."

"True. She's not gonna get the dick if the owner of the dick is busy being worried about his kid being in the hospital."

"If you wanna put it that way, I guess, then sure. Now I gotta go clean the entire house. Ma's watching me like a hawk even when she's not home."

"That is so Auntie Sue of her."

"Gotta love it," Leah said sarcastically.

"I'll talk to you soon. Have fun cleaning. Oh, and Kim says she has clothes for you. They got mixed up with hers when we were coming back from Venice."

Leah rolled her eyes. "Tell Kim to keep bandaging her girlfriend's cuts. I don't want shit to do with either of them."

"Noted."

"Thanks."

Leah hung up and then groaned aloud. Even though she had fought Bella (sort of), there still wasn't any closure. But she wasn't going to worry about it. There was no use.

People like them just weren't meant to get along, and that should have been evident from the start.

A/N: Until Monday,

HS