Author's Note—to preface
This is my first fanfiction. I would like each chapter to have a reasonable amount of words, around 3000 at least, but please understand that that is not always possible. I want my content to be good and through and because of my sometimes hectic lifestyle, updates may take longer. I will always put a content warning at the beginning of each chapter for language, violence, sexual content, etc. I don't own any of Smeyer's characters and what not.
Chapter 1—Idle
Warning: Language, mild sexual mentions
I let the hot orange sun beat down on my face, turning my eyelids a blistering red color. The ocean's loud roar no longer deafened my ears as I grew accustomed to it, lulling me into a trancelike haze and let it keep me from becoming jittery at every loud seagull, squirrel, or small child passing by my lawn chair. Today was easily the hottest day La Push was going to see this year. Sweat beaded at my scalp and rolled down my face in waves. I gave up trying to wipe it away with my bare arm. What was the use? My sweaty skin wasn't going to absorb it, only smearing it around in a less helpful manner. I felt a couple of dead gnats stuck forehead. My t-shirt was definitely soaked through in all the wrong places.
Five year old Claire let out a squeal and I knew she was struggling to keep up with the older Renesmee. As of now, the little eleven month old bloodsucker wasn't looking so little. Her growth had slowed considerably over the last year since her birth, which was both a blessing and a curse to her parents until it settled on a body that was about eight years old. Bella Cullen had talked about how she wished she had gotten to have a baby for longer and Edward talked about how bad he felt for her having to be stuck at eight years old for who knows how long. Maybe it would be six months, maybe a year, maybe even longer than that. She still had seven more years to go until she met her full potential though, according to what they learned down in South America.
Despite the heat from the sun, my body shivered uncomfortably. All that time spent in Jacob's head made my life a living hell. I guess that's what I get for being so in love with Sam once. All I could see sometimes were his borderline sick and obsessive fantasies of the little girl and what she's going to look like when she grows up. It's straight up nauseating sometimes, and Quil too. I know deep down that it's not like that, that it'll never be like that, that no imprintee could ever fall victim of any molestation because the imprinter has such a strong duty to protect them. Still, it was gross watching them change diapers knowing that one day their diapers are going to be their panties and they're going to be all up in them all over again.
I took a big, slow breath. I'm just trying to displace my feelings. I repeated over and over. My counselor suggested that perhaps my jealousy was the root cause of my anger and bitterness. If I worked on that, I could finally reach a point where I didn't feel like I wanted to scream all the time, and if I did that, I knew one day I could get myself to stop phasing. I could put this nightmare all behind me and go back to my human life.
Playing nice is so fucking hard.
Then again, even Seth, only sixteen years old but who could easily play the part of a grown man, had his own imprintee now. It's so easy to watch them, to say that you never want to lose control, that you never want to become mindlessly in love with someone when it isn't you. Seth didn't even care. Sure, he wasn't going to complain if he got a girlfriend but it wasn't like he was asking for it. Seth's new imprintee was a girl named Jenny. She was a pretty girl from Forks High School and she definitely wasn't a traditional Rez girl, something Mom wasn't super fond of. She wasn't fond of imprinting in general. But it wasn't like that was going to stop her from inviting her over, cooking for her, and basically treating this stranger like a second daughter all the time.
I shouldn't be upset. Honestly, after all this time, I should know better than to let this kind of stuff consume me. It builds and builds and builds up inside of my chest and then all of a sudden everything comes crashing over my head before I phase. The creepy feeling that crawls over my skin like millions of spiders haunted the hairs on my arms. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, leaning my head back as I took deep gulps of the salty sea air through my mouth. Hold, one... two... three... Exhale. The spiders receded back up my forearms to my elbows before disappearing. It was frustrating to think about the fact that I had broken my two day streak without the shaking or phasing. Every time I let my temper get to me, every time I let the wolf inside of me try and break out, I lost a bit more of my humanity, or rather, my opportunity at humanity. There were so many things that I wanted back.
God, I miss Dad.
Dad promised me he was going to help me with my college applications and my scholarships. He used to laugh about walking me down the aisle some day. When I was a kid, he used to make a joke whenever Seth or me made a big embarrassing mistake. He'd lean over, the familiar twinkle in his eye and say, "you know I'm gonna tell that at your wedding, right?" He even teased me one time and told me that I better hurry up and marry Sam so he could deliver our kids before his medical license expired. He told Seth and I he wanted no fewer than eight. Yeah, okay, Dad, a laugh got caught in my throat. Seth would probably be the sole provider of his eight grandkids now that all the Rez boys got imprintees and I was left all by myself. It was so unnerving to think back to Dad's last few weeks. His hair got thin and greasy, his eyes growing dark and purple. Seth's transformation was so hard on him. I wished he had never seen me phase out at the edge of the woods. I can still remember the frantic voices of the boys talking in my ear, almost as terrifying as the phase itself, then Dad, years away at the house as he collapsed to his knees.
I quickly realized that the sweat wasn't the only liquid running down my cheeks.
I was so caught up in trying to compose myself to keep from looking stupid as I started crying that I almost didn't hear the heavy footsteps running across the loose rocks of the beach. A hand violently grabbed what felt like a chunk of hair on the top of my head, yanking, a guy's voice laughing. I shrieked with surprise, grasping at my scalp. My vision took a minute to adjust from the blinding spots of color and the brightness of the beach before I saw the cackling figure. None of my hair was missing, and I all around wasn't hurt, but a lanky boy with tawny skin and a black buzz cut stood in front of me with an olive green t-shirt from our mom's store. A lopsided grin covered his face. Seth was holding my sunglasses that had been resting on the top of my head. Angry spiders, termites, and beetles scurried up my arms and my fingers began to shake.
"HEY!" I shouted. I was too excited in that moment to do my breathing excises. My lungs were tight, pressing too hard against my ribcage to fill up with air. The beach was coming into clear view now. It wasn't exactly the tropical paradise one might expect. The sky was actually mostly overcast, small rocks filling the shoreline instead of sand, large evergreens replacing the palm trees. My lawn chair tipped over with the force of my body jumping out of it. Seth hunched over with laughter. "Give them back!" I cursed him in our native language.
"Oh shut up!" He shook his head. "So what now? Do you get to pretend you're in the Bahamas all the time while I get the work at the store?" I jumped at him, wresting him for my sunglasses. He was a touch wall of solid muscle, but despite my estrogen, so was I. I could feel the insects burrowing beneath my skin. When he realized he wasn't a match for me in human form, he pivoted on his heel, chucking my sunglasses into the sea. "Go fetch!" He called.
"I fucking hate you!" I shouted, already jogging towards the water. I had kicked my sandals off earlier so now the pointed rocks were stabbing at the soles of my feet. Thank god my skin had toughened since I started phasing. At least now I wouldn't have to worry about tetanus or blisters. He didn't throw them too far, my eyes locked on the spot the landed on. My cargo shorts were going to get a little wet, but I was already drenched in sweat. The water was fairly shallow and shockingly resfreashing as I fetched my sunglasses from their almost watery grave. Between the jagged rocks that almost felt like broken glass and the sharp churning of the salt water, I felt grounded again, remembering that I'm human, and that I needed to stay human. My feet trudged back up to shore as I avoided getting hit in the rear end by the next incoming wave.
Two little girls materialized beside him. I hung my glasses around my neck by their strap. Quil came jogging over. He scooped the little girl in the purple one piece and Mickey Mouse floaters on her arms in one smooth flourish, swinging her over each shoulder like towel. Claire burst into laughter.
"So what dragged you down here anyways, huh?" I pressed. "Did mom finally let you on lunch break?"
"Oh yeah, I went over to Uncle Alo's for barbecue. He gave me a whole bunch of his pulled pork with his homemade hot sauce." Seth taunted, a smirk pulling at his thin lips. My stomach churned angrily at the thought. "I'd offer you some of the ribs he gave me, but I've actually gotta get back to work at the store so..."
I sighed. "You want the rest of the day off so you can go make out with Jenny in your new car, huh?" I squinted.
His face turned more pink somehow beneath his sunburn. "I can just give the food I can't eat to Jacob if you want me to."
"Hey!" Quil complained, awkwardly trying to juggle the girl the was climbing on his shoulders. "I could go for some barbecue..."
"Oh come on, it's not like you've got anything better to do. Besides, me and Jenny were gonna go catch a movie up in Port Angeles tonight." Seth said.
"I thought you were in summer school or something." I said. I knocked the loose rocks and dirt out of my striped sandals as I put them on. Quil let out a laugh and Seth punched him in the gut for it. Poor Seth wasn't allowed to graduate on time give how much school he's missed due to his little furry problem.
"I finished my finals, Mom said I could go." He shot back. "Now come on, are you going to do a shift for once or not?"
"For once?" I asked, fighting to get my other shoe on. "What do you think I'm doing besides getting ready to move into my place?"
I officially only had two weeks before my GenEd classes up at Peninsula Community College started. I had packed up all of my stuff and bought most of the stuff I would need, toiletries, towels, notebooks, new bedsheets, and all that for when I got a place in Forks.
"Yeah right, I'll believe that when you've actually got a place to go to." Seth rolled his eyes.
"Like I said, I'm working on it!" I snapped back at him in a low voice. I grabbed my lawn chair, kicking it to force the metal in half with a groan. "Are we going or what?"
"You're bringing us food back too, right?" Jacob's deeper voice snuck up behind me. Jacob had gone into retirement as the alpha after everything that went down a year ago, handing his power back to Sam.
I laughed. "Hmm. Why don't you go kill yourself a deer or a mountain lion if you're hungry?"
A shorter curly haired girl in a green swimsuit was at his side. She wrinkled her nose. Yeah right, like the little bloodsucker had never killed anything herself before. I thought. Jacob got me in a headlock and he ruffled my bob. "Why don't you?" He taunted back. "Mmm, what, raw elk doesn't suit your fancy, princess?"
A knot in my throat made me gag. "You can keep all the elk you want to yourself." I stumbled as I got my bearings on the rough rocks, slinging the chair over my shoulder. "See you around, Jake, Quil." I nodded my head. "Bye, girls."
Seth surrendered my lunch: fries, three pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, and a couple of pickles. He knew we were big kids that liked to eat. A big part of me missed the days where my body wasn't constantly sweating and churning out calories just by existing. He had the best ribs on the Rez and given how much of a suck up Seth was to just about anyone it was nice to know we had decent food just about whenever we wanted. I was really gonna miss our tiny sliver of La Push as much as I wanted to escape, and I hated to admit I'd have to be coming back for the home cooked food.
I tossed the lawn chair into the truck bed and hopped into my old blue Ford. The door was a bit wonky and made horrible noises when I tried to shut it. A perk of Seth getting his own ride meant finally getting some time to myself at least. That, and he'd finally stop throwing food wrappers in my backseat.
Sunset Gifts—La Push: Mom's little tourist trap. When Dad died, we couldn't afford to stay in our old house, so Mom took custody of the little store and downsized to a two bedroom house behind it. It wasn't so bad except for the part where Seth and I had to share a room and I was going to rip his throat out if he kept up his snoring. I insisted it wouldn't make any lasting damage, maybe knock him out for a few hours while he healed, but Mom said I couldn't. Only two more weeks. I promised myself.
I parked between the store and the house where Mom's little car was. I could see her faint silhouette sitting at the register inside the store, a white plastic fan gently blowing her wispy black hair out of her face. I quickly shoved the remains of my lunch in my mouth and ran into the house, peeing off my sweaty sand-coved beach clothes along the way to the shower. I didn't wait for the old pipes to warm the water up before scrubbing my body off with the pink loofah. I was very careful to avoid the new tattoo on my shoulder and back that was burning furiously. I designed it based on some of the old Quilute legends and language, creating an intricate pattern that trailed from my neck down to the middle of my back. Jacob had guilted me into getting the silouette of a wolf's head off of the center amongst the tradition woven tribal art.
I carefully cleaned and wrapped the raw tattoo. I couldn't exactly put on a bra with the new ink job, not that it was that big of a deal anyways. When I hit my growth spurt, my muscles outshone my body fat, smoothing out whatever "curves" I might've had, chiseling off my baby fat, and flattening out my body. I wasn't exactly as buff as the boys now and I definitely didn't have a six pack, but my body had definitely undergone some severe changes. My metabolism might've ramped up, but I lost any sense of my teenage years. My youth and my girlishness was stolen from me. I hadn't honestly felt pretty at all since my senior prom roughly two when I wore a dress. Now, that same dress couldn't even zip properly. Actually, I had only tried to wear a dress once since my transformation and it left me crying in the floor of the dressing room. I felt so... so ugly. I felt deformed, like I would never get to feel beautiful again. Seth had been so lucky to grow up to be a decently attractive teenage boy and here I was, begging Mom to take down all of the painful reminders of what I used to be from high school. I was hit by puberty all over again except this time it was an entire semi and I was standing in the dead center of the interstate.
I quickly threw on a pair of denim shorts and my work shirt with a flannel shirt over it, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. I had one foot in my sandal and the other in my hand as I walked. The door jingled behind me. A very white family of four stared back at me. The mom was in yoga pants and had a fanny pack and the dad had on adidas and a blue polo shirt. They looked at me really funny as I gave them a quick smile and slipped past.
"Hey, Mom!" I called, awkwardly hopping on one foot to get my shoe on. My other squeaked annoyingly on the linoleum.
"I was expecting your brother to come." She raised an eyebrow at me. Mom was perched on a stool behind the counter, delicately weaving a dark blanket that would soon be going up for sale.
"Yeah well, he wants to go up to Port Angeles with his girlfriend." I pouted my lips and squinted my eyes. She chuckled and rolled her eyes.
"Oh yeah. Right. Well did he at least bring me my lunch like I asked?"
"Your lunch?" I asked with wide eyes. "He took me food and told me it was mine. No wonder it looked like enough to feed two people..."
Mom made a face and murmured something I didn't catch, but sounded vaguely like Quilute. "That kid needs adderall."
"I don't know if adderall will cut it, maybe horse tranquilizers though." I said lightly. "I can cover for you. Go get something to eat. Get off your feet for a bit."
Mom was so nervous nowadays she was practically eating granola bars and her fingernails. Since Dad had died, Mom's mental health slowly began to deteriorate. She literally began struggling with pulling her hair out. Her face was so sunken in now I could probably cut glass with her cheekbones. I tried to shift the blame onto Dad's death rather than my phasing. She nodded solemnly. "Fine. I get it. I need a break." She grumbled.
"You do need a break!" I insisted. As much as I would've rather been doing anything else right now, Mom always over worked herself until she was burnt out here.
"You can make some more dream catchers while you're at it." She coaxed, folding up her blanket and stuffing it into a cardboard box on the floor. She was so tired her eyes looked like they were in a dreamlike daze. We never got around to taking yoga classes together like I had promised we would. When our local gym offered it, I insisted we get memberships together to help her with her anxiety and me with my temperament problems. She seemed to be in such eager agreement every time I brought it up, but we never went.
"Of course." I nodded in agreement.
"Excuse me," the white mom said in an almost cliche Californian accent. Her teeth looked too big for her mouth. She gestured to her son, who was holding up a dream catcher and a popsicle from the freezer in his fist, alongside a dollar bill and many quarters. She just sort of watched as he dumped it all of the counter, expecting me to figure it out myself as I meticulously tried to smooth out the bill.
I put on a big smile, mostly for the kid. "Have a great day!" The mother's smile came off about as genuine as mine did.
As soon as they left, I made my way to the small storage closet to dig up some extra string to make dreamcatchers. The door jingled again and I half expected it to be the touristy mother coming back to complain about something.
"Hey, just a second!" I called. As soon as I stuck my head around the corner, my heart sank into the pit of my gut. "Oh. Hi."
Sam Uley stared back at me expressionless. My ex-boyfriend and ex-alpha stood on the other side of the counter, straightening his back to be almost seven feet tall. Then, a small smile crept up onto his perfectly stone hard face. "Hey, Leah."
I stalled down the knot in my throat and put on a smile. "What's up?" I asked as I made my way around the back of the counter, leaning forward on my elbows.
"I heard you're leaving the pack." He frowned. He looked visibly uncomfortable at the mention. My eyes fell down to the counter, my fingers drumming nervously. "You... you apparently told everyone but me?" His voice asked hesitantly.
I sucked in a deep breath "Sam, it's not like that, I just... it's just community college, alright? It's not like it has to be some big deal. We don't have to make a big deal out of it." I said. My hand fidgeted, tucking my hair behind my ear. "It's just Forks. It's only half an hour away."
"It's not though, is it?" Sam quickly interjected. His hand was balled up into a tight fist. He forced out a deep breath. He smelled like strong cinnamon breath mints and pine tree sap. His black t-shirt clung too tightly to his hard abdomen and bulging biceps as he was holding air in his lungs. He didn't look angry. I knew Sam and I knew what he was like when he was angry. His eyes flickered with sadness and disappointment. I loved him. I thought. Of course I did. You can't just bond with someone the way Sam and I did and then drop it like it never happened, no matter how much he wanted to pretend that he could. I loved him, and he loved me, and it was as plain as day. Even if it was a different kind of love, maybe not quite the way I loved Seth or my mother, but it was love. I think the Greeks had a special word for it. "Leah, I know you better than anyone, and-"
"Sam!" I raised my voice at him. "This is why I don't tell you anything, is because you always... you always blow up like this! I'm just going up to Forks for a few semesters, no big deal."
"But you're leaving, aren't you? You aren't just going to come back to La Push after a couple of years. You're going to want to transfer, to move away from here. You're not going to want to visit." His big black eyes stared down at me, his face now inches from mine. It was like running a razor blade over an old scab, digging it up to make it scar worse. I used to run my fingers all over his face, over ever freckle and mark. I used to tossle it between my fingers when I kissed him. That was before he buzzed it. "Like, for good, right? You always used to talk about how badly you wanted to get out of a little town like this, how you wanted to forget who you are. Forget what you're meant to be-"
"Sam," I scoffed. I mindlessly pulled out a cardboard box filled with paper, pens, staples, rubber bands, the whole works, and began reorganizing it so that I didn't have to look at him. "I'm not meant to be anything, okay? This whole destiny thing is... it's complete and utter bullshit, I mean, come on, the Cullens are fine, Nessie is fine, we're all fine. We're done. If you wanna go run around shirtless in the woods as a big dog, I don't care, okay? But I just... I want to go back to normal."
"Things aren't meant to normal for a reason, Leah." Sam tilted his head slightly, his eyes still watching me intently despite my deflection.
"Look, just because you had fun playing alpha and imprinting on Emily doesn't mean we all enjoy it-"
"You're still going on about this, aren't you? You're still hung up on Emily?" His voice boomed.
My eyes snapped up to his. Now I saw the anger glint in his eyes. "If I was still hung up on Emily, would I have helped her with her fucking baby shower, huh? Would I have been a bridesmaid at your wedding? Would I have... I dunno, kept that he baby a secret for you that whole time?" I instantly regretted sounding so sour at him. The vein in his forehead and in his neck flexed. Emily had accidentally gotten pregnant just a few weeks before the wedding and I had been the one sticking up for her side the entire time. Her parents weren't super happy to find out why the wedding had been rushed a few weeks early. "Sam, this isn't about you." I growled. "Not everything is about you. This is about me and I don't have to be a wolf if I don't want to be!"
"Then what is it? Why are you leaving here? You're not going to be safe no matter where you go without a pack!" He defended. "This is your home! We're your family!"
"I don't want a pack! I don't want to be a shape-shifter, and I don't want to be stuck by myself in La Push as a teenager forever, but you go ahead and try, Sam." I said in a low growl.
"You can't just run away from this." He huffed. I could practically see the condensation that he spit out. "You can't hide from yourself."
"I'm not hiding, Sam. I'm quitting." I said firmly. Absently, I didn't realize I was holding a stapler and when I flourished my hand, the plastic came crashing down onto the counter, shattering into several pieces. Embarrassed, I quickly swept it into a pile in my hand and dumped the plastic and metal bits and pieces into the trash.
"You can't just quit, Leah-"
"Oh yeah?" I cocked my head as a challenge. "You wanna watch me?"
"You are so stubborn." Sam gritted his teeth. I chuckled with amusement. The longer I stared at him though, something felt off about his expression. He looked genuinely distraught at the idea of losing one of his pack members, like he was taking this way too personally. The boys never liked having a girl run with them. They made way too big of a deal out seeing me naked and they were always so degrading towards me, both verbally and telepathically.
I gave him a weak smile. "Why can't you be happy for me?" My voice broke. "I'm so excited for you and Emily and the baby, why can't you be excited that I'm finally getting to go to college? Maybe I want to grow up and do my own thing too." Sam's eyes trailed away from mine. "Sam, look at me."
He sighed, now staring away at the ceiling tiles. "Leah, this isn't right. This doesn't feel right."
"Why not?" I demanded, slamming my palm down on the counter.
He flinched. "If you weren't meant to phase, why would you have phased in the first place. You're meant for something bigger, just like the rest of us. And what are you going to do when you do phase? Where are you going to do? How are you going to hide? How are you going to control your temper?"
"I'm working on it. I'm trying to control it, I'm trying-"
I stopped. His eyes were now glaring down at me. Emily. I pictured her face so clearly in my mind. The scars, the way her lip was permanently made into a frown, that look of horror that must've struck her face as he phased in front of her. "Lee-Lee... just... you-" He said in a low voice. I shook my head to make him stop. I still couldn't wipe the image of Emily out of my mind. I swallowed the hard knot in my throat. I didn't need to be reading his mind to know that he couldn't bear his own guilt and that the last thing he wanted was for me to be put in his shoes.
"It's not going to be like that. I'm not going to-" I immediately realized how I sounded. I meant to make a point; Sam was alone once, he didn't know what was happening, he didn't knew how or if he could control his intense emotions. "Sammy, you didn't mean it, that's not what I was trying to say. I meant that I've still got you and Seth and Jacob and all. I'm not isolated. I have a support group and I won't hurt anyone. I won't let it happen to me."
"You don't know that for sure." His voice was unfamiliarly harsh.
I shook my head and reached my hand out towards his arm. "I can take care of myself. Come on, you know I'll be okay. I can always come running back if I want. Like I said, thirty minutes drive. I can run faster than that." I tried to smile at him.
Sam nodded in an equally uncomfortable way. "Just... don't get too cocky, okay? Don't start messing around and be stupid. You're not in my backyard anymore and I can't come save you if I need to."
"Oh come on, what? Do you think one of the leeches are gonna come suck my blood in the middle of the night?" I threw my face in my elbow, making an exaggerated, creepy hissing noise.
"Right, yeah," He gave me an annoyed look, but I could see the corners of his lips turn up. "You're so scary, bloodsucker. Terrifying. I might just piss my pants."
