Hi, does anyone even read Twific anymore? Apparently I do after several years away and I had an idea for a new one that wouldn't leave me alone. While the Twilight series has held less and less appeal for me over the years (I have yet to read Midnight Sun), I would be lying if I said my Leah pairing obsession waned. Now that my life is a lot more settled, it's fun to revisit. I'm also in the process of finishing Lone Wolves, a Leah x Jasper fic I started quite a while ago. The title for this fic is based on a song of the same by The Oh Hellos, a fantastic band that I play on repeat.
Leah really liked the way her new pants looked. She twisted her neck to look over her shoulder at the back of her dark wash jeans in the full length mirror hanging over her bedroom door. Noting the fit of the denim over her ass with approval, she tucked the back flap of her blouse into her waistband.
No French tucks tonight, she mused. Gotta seem professional.
She turned to make a full appraisal and nodded that her reflection wasn't too shabby. She was straddling the line between casual and smartly dressed, with her airy black blouse that dipped into a V-neck in the front and dark jeans with stylishly frayed hems. Her black, heeled Chelsea boots completed the outfit and added a few inches to her already five foot seven frame. She didn't mind though. Whoever said tall girls shouldn't wear heels were obviously closet incels who jacked off in their basements while crying that they were too short to find a girlfriend.
She laughed to herself after thinking of how Seth would reply if she ever said this aloud to him.
With that kinda charm, Lee, it blows my mind that you seem to repel every male member of the human species.
"Hey what's so funny?" Speak of the devil. The muffled voice behind her door belonged to her younger brother and he must have heard her laugh while he was en route to his disaster of a room down the hallway. Not that hers looked much better at the moment.
She chuckled again. "Nothing, just cracking myself up."
"You know they've got names for people who laugh at their own jokes."
Leah grabbed a tinted rosy pink balm from her crowded vanity and swiped some over her lips with her finger, rubbing the residue on a used tissue.
"Oh yeah, what's that?"
"Not funny." Making his own point, he howled with laughter at his own punchline and banged his fists obnoxiously against her door, rattling the cheap IKEA mirror.
She cringed at the noise and banged once back. Even at twenty four, there was nothing like being in your childhood home to make you and your siblings devolve into teenage brats. Seth was only three years younger but he had never left home, so it was possible his development was fully arrested and there was no hope for him.
But not Leah. Oh no, she was getting out. Again.
Four years away from the rez for college, a year in Seattle, and one move home later and she had convinced herself this step back was temporary; a necessary one to assess her future options and maybe open her life up to something beyond Washington State. Saving up a little money for a new apartment never hurt either.
In three months, she anticipated getting back to Seattle. Rachel's lease with her current roommate would be up by then and she had welcomed Leah's very obvious enthusiasm for living together in the city. The row house Rachel had her eye on in Belltown would likely be available to rent at that point and they would split time between Rachel being a busy bee law student and Leah working her fingers typing away as the new programming/coding analyst for a cutting edge startup. Or at least that was wishful thinking, in the hope the application packet Leah had just submitted for the position pulled through. Seattle wasn't the world, but it beat living in Sue Clearwater's house for another two years and waiting for life to just happen to her.
Three months and they would be two girls off rez, doing the damn thing.
In the meantime, she had other obligations and this month's Forks High PTA meeting was weirdly one of them.
She made last minute checks on the little makeup she had worn for the occasion and smoothed down any remaining frizz on her straight, black hair as her phone sharply chirped. She bent over to pick it up from her night stand and a bubble notification from her calendar app reminded her she was running late yet again, before slowly dissolving back into the digital void.
She swung open her door and raced past a still laughing Seth, down the few steps that passed as a staircase in the raised ranch house and into the front foyer where her army green parka patiently hung from the protruding knob of the rickety coat tree. To her right, Sue was settled comfortably in the couch in the living room, her latest book club read sitting half open and ignored in her lap as she stared at the television, completely engrossed.
"What is the Treaty of Versailles." Sue yelled at the screen
The tinny voice of a Jeopardy contestant repeated the same words and Ken Jennings confirmed the same, while Sue whooped in triumph.
Leah shook her head while shoving her arms through the sleeves of her jacket.
"You know, I don't think JEOPARDY was the book chosen for the next Quileute Women's Society meeting."
Sue shrugged without turning her head way from the TV. "I needed a break. Plus I am killing it with my answers today!"
She turned to Leah and finally took her in, her eyes appraising her over the top of a pair of red, acetone framed glasses. Leah felt herself shrink under her a gaze a fraction, hoping she looked as good as she felt before leaving the house.
After a moment, Sue's face gave way to her warm, encouraging smile. "You look very nice, my baby. Don't be nervous."
It was a reoccurring problem that every emotion Leah seemed to have posted itself on her sleeve for the entire world to see. She hated anyone having the upper hand regarding her own feelings and that was one thing that had not changed since high school.
"I'm not nervous." she retorted, her voice a little too loud to be believable. "I'm just running late…like really late."
Seth appeared at the top of the stairs, smug in basketball shorts and a hoodie, loudly chewing a mouthful of pretzels as his hand dug deeper into the bag he was carrying. "Yeah 'cause you took a million years to get ready and came out with a funeral outfit. Does the black match your soul, Lee?"
Both Sue and Leah shouted at him to shut up at the same time. He merely snickered and sauntered his way downstairs, poking Leah in her upper arm as he passed and then swerving to avoid her responding shove. He collapsed onto the couch next to Sue, his gangly limbs sprawling half on the cushions and half over Sue's lap.
The kid was a giant. And as much as Leah hated to acknowledge it, not so much a kid anymore.
She shuddered to think what he now did in the dark of his own bedroom.
"Ugh, Seth." Sue complained pushing at her youngest, but Leah knew she was secretly ecstatic to have her kids under the same roof, climbing over her and the walls. There was no greater joy to Sue than them being their messy, complicated, and at times annoying selves right in front of her.
"Okay now I really have to go."
"Okay, Lee, be careful driving, make sure your headlight are working, and…" Sue sent some words of concern trailing after her as she pushed through front door and slammed it. She didn't hear the end as she ran to her used Subaru parked in the gravel drive.
Her shoes crunching against the pebbles underneath and hands finding her key fob in the pocket of her jacket, she unlocked the driver's side door and almost jumped in.
It was already 7:10 PM, she needed twenty minutes probably, door to door, to get to the Forks High auditorium and maybe she could get there just as the meeting was starting. Maybe.
She backed out of the drive and pressed the accelerator, zooming down the darkening side street where Sue's house sat, the squares of yellow light in the windows of the neighboring houses streaking by in the night. She rounded turns through the residential streets at about ten miles over the speed limit.
When she finally braked at the last corner to take a left turn onto the main road off of La Push, she noticed that the globe bulb patio lights behind Sam and Emily's place were on, their brightness half concealed by the front of the house.
They must have people over, she thought with a just a hint of resentment. Well, no one invited me.
Old grudges died hard, but Leah knew she was definitely past all that now. It was all kid stuff. Melodramatic nonsense that seemed too large to overcome when her world had been too small and only consisted of school and her family and Sam. The events that had changed her world and the role she played in it, forever, were not worth dwelling on and she had moved on with her own life.
So much so, that she was undeniably upset over a non-invite to what was possibly a non-gathering that Seth hadn't even bothered mentioning.
Truth be told, it wasn't the Sam of it all that she was truly still caught up in, anyway. He and Emily seemed incandescently happy and they had a kid that was cuter than words if the pictures Leah had seen were anything to go by.
No, it was the way everyone in that group – that pack – still treated her, like she was still that same angry, desperately lonely teenager who had lost her boyfriend to some inexplicable, magic spell. Treated her with kid gloves and not inviting her to things and hiding their relationships, even occasionally avoiding her if it could be helped. She had hoped when she moved back to La Push, this would have changed: They could all move forward and they would see her for the well-adjusted person she had grown into over her time away. She had been a part of their pack hive mind at one time, after all, and they must have known at this point that she had put the past behind her.
Leah may have still been herself – there was no beating the sarcasm out of her - but a lot of the rage and sadness that seemed to define her entire personality had faded with time. Nine years would do that to a person. Any person.
And Emily was her cousin, damn it. She was family. She was entitled to not feel awkward around someone who had once been like a sister to her.
Leah chose to ignore some of the figures in shadow who were now rounding the corner of the house, beers in hand, laughing and jostling each other.
Whatever, only those idiots would drink outside with a 40 degree wind-chill on the forecast.
She made the turn and hoped they hadn't noticed her lingering at the stop sign.
"We have Angela taking minutes and –hello, ,you can take a seat right here – and we'll start right away." A man stood up from his folding chair and squinted against the bright stage lights to read from a three ring binder set before him. A few straggling members of the PTA executive board joined the mass of chairs on stage, slightly disrupting the ancient metal legs of the table set up before them and causing it to wobble.
Leah was a few minutes late since she wasn't familiar with the school or its layout, and she had walked in a couple of circles before noticing the hallway that led to the meeting. She managed to sneak in past the auditorium doors just as the man began speaking and snagged a seat towards the back of the hall, away from a gathering of quietly whispering parents. They all seemed to know each other and likely had kids who were students at the school. The stadium seating setup leading to the stage only increased her feelings of isolation.
Pot-bellied and with a sheen of sweat covering his forehead from standing under the lights, the executive board president began listing agenda items for the meeting. With a bit of annoyance, Leah found her presentation was to be last after issues such as fundraising for a new football field and vegan lunch menu options.
When Leah had swallowed her pride and moved back home, she had been out of a job. After graduation, those were scarce and she had tried for a full year to find something that was worthy of her data science degree. She only found rejection and with her temp work rotation growing stale, she had run out of viable options. It didn't help that she was saving nothing from her uneven flow of paychecks and would probably not have been able to make next month's rent on her crappy studio apartment, anyway. And she could never forget the student loans that were breathing down her neck.
But when her mother mentioned that the council had campaigned for funding to expand STEM initiatives for La Push schools, Leah knew it was the right decision to return. She was quickly offered a full time teaching position at the high school, instructing on rudimentary computer science and Excel skills for freshman and sophomores.
The students ran the gamut, from apathetic to bright minds that had been thirsting for a program like this. She was most proud of the team of all girl coders she volunteer chaperoned after school and who were advancing far beyond anything she taught in her regular curriculum.
It tugged on her usually unsentimental heart that she would likely be leaving them in the lurch if she got the job offer and moved back to Seattle.
Not if, when, Leah reminded herself. Everyone had to move on sometime. They could probably find someone just as qualified as she was over the summer break.
Or that was at least what she told herself to shake any feelings of guilt.
A few months ago, Leah and her group of extracurricular coders had received an invitation to a BASIC coding workshop set up by the school board in Port Angeles. La Push was outside the board's purview, but the workshop had been a good opportunity for kids to mingle outside their normal schools and for the board to gauge the aptitudes of several member schools. Leah and her girls had beat them all out of the water in a code-off contest using BASIC at the end of the workshop, and it had caught the notice of the Forks High chaperone.
Angela Weber was someone Leah had only met a handful of times, as her parents owned the one of the only pharmacies in Forks and Angela worked the register in high school. But apparently Angela remembered her and their unexpected meeting in Port Angeles had been a somewhat pleasant surprise. Angela had commented on their impressive win and how she knew literally nothing about coding. She was just a teacher at Forks High who had to fill in as the faculty supervisor for this particular club. She had proposed to Leah that she come by Forks once a week and run an after school coding program for those interested. Angela could still supervise since Leah didn't actually work there, and the kids would have someone at the helm who actually knew a thing or two about what they were trying to learn.
Leah hadn't been thrilled at the thought of splitting time between La Push and Forks, but then Angela had mentioned one key thing:
The school board would probably be willing to pay you for the after school gig.
Leah could not afford to turn down any money at this stage and if she wanted to move out of her mom's sooner rather than later, a little more cash wouldn't hurt. Plus, a lot of her after-school La Push students had lacrosse this spring and would be gearing up for finals in a couple months, which meant they couldn't meet as often. More free time for Leah.
The only wrinkle in their plan was the school principal did not have final say, and the whole thing had to be opened up to commentary by the PTA executive board before being formalized. Leah had gone a little overboard and mashed together a twelve slide PowerPoint detailing why her teaching was a good idea and outlining a syllabus of what the kids would be learning. She had saved the whole thing to the cloud before the meeting, texting Angela the link and password for her to have it ready for the laptop and projector later. Leah had received a text response from her shortly after.
Wow, I'm both a little in awe and a little turned on by this. This is a teacher's wet dream.
Leah had thought of Angela as merely an acquaintance, but after that she could admit she was pretty cool for a white girl. There was definitely potential for a lasting friendship.
The executive board president – Angela has said his name was Mike something -was still droning on about details regarding a cut to the field fundraising in order to accommodate the drama program, and it looked like it was sending some of the parents into high alert, their necks now stretching forward in attention. Mike explained there wouldn't be enough funding to properly construct the bleachers along the sidelines for spectators and everyone in the parent clique began shouting to the front at once, even with the podium and accompanying mic just a few yards down from their seats.
These people clearly had their priorities straight.
Leah rolled her eyes and sank further into her seat. She pulled out her phone from her jacket pocket and scrolled through a few recent notifications. Two text messages from Jacob and Seth caught her attention as well as a pop up from her period tracking app. It alerted her that her time of the month was set to start the next day.
Awesome.
She opened the text from Jacob while internally groaning that the next five days were going to be cramp and nausea city. But she was really secretly pleased that her period was arriving on a regular basis at all.
J: Heya, Seth told me your thing in Forks is tonight. Good luck nerd!
Leah snorted and quickly typed back a response.
L: This nerd is laughing all the way to the bank, Jake. Anyway, not approved yet, I guess we'll see.
shrug emoji
Jacob Black was Leah's age and her classmate and they had gotten along more than not. They had even confided a little of their own personal shit to each other; especially during the monster brigade stuff that had swallowed the majority of their junior year.
Jake could be trusted as a regular presence during her last two years at home, and she was more than a little grateful that he was a lot less on edge with her than others in the pack. Also, Seth looked up to him like a big brother, which was nice in its own way.
J: Are you actually worried? They'll do it. Everything seems to go your way, Chosen One.
Chosen One. A stupid nickname she'd been given by some La Push guys after earning the favor and respect of the tribal council for her contributions to the high school. It wasn't the worst thing she could be called.
L: Hardly. You seem to forget Rachel is in law school
Rachel was Jacob's overachieving older sister and, now, Leah's hopeful roommate. Jacob responded quickly to that one.
J: Please, she didn't even look back. All the council loves you now. You're nurturing the future of the tribe or some shit. Even Sam was talking about your contest in Port Angeles and how you're like the best of us now or something
Leah blinked rapidly at the mention of Sam, fingers poised to type a response that she didn't exactly know how to word. She was sure he was exaggerating. Jacob continued before she got the chance.
J: Speaking of, we're hanging at Sam and Emily's right now, drinks and grilling in the back. I told Seth to tell you to come by after your little PTA ass kissing
So Seth had forgotten to mention it. Leah hoped it hadn't been on purpose. Being socially shafted by her younger brother was more than she could handle.
L: The brat didn't mention it. But I dunno…it will be late
Jacob saw through the flimsy excuse and had some words for her.
J: Omg, stop being so in your head. No one gives a shit about that stuff anymore. Just come
It was easy for him to say. He wasn't being treated like an outcast with an acute case of leprosy.
L: Maybe
Leah would never tell him, but she thought it would be nice to get back together with everyone and…maybe not reminisce exactly, but shoot the shit a little. Leah couldn't deny she missed it and had been more saddened than she wanted to admit when she passed the house earlier.
J: Good, we'll save your favorite. Rolling Rock with a used cigarette floating inside
Leah hated Rolling Rock and almost gagged at his words. She closed the chat and figured it was safe to open and reply to Seth's texts as well. The PTA parents were still hotly debating the football bleachers debacle, even as Mike whatever tried to move on to school lunches. Some executive board members had their heads in their hands as Angela dutifully tried to track every word with her typing.
S: Forgot that there's a cookout at Sam's tonight.
S: Everyone's asking where you are. My bad
Leah rolled her eyes and swiped down further with her thumb. She paused as her blood ran cold with his next message.
S: Btw did you know Ed Cullen is back in Forks? Embry said he spotted him on his way to visit Paul at the station the other day.
Embry's much older brother Paul, once part of the tribal police, had moved his family off reservation last year, taking over for the Forks police chief after he passed away. Poor Charlie Swan had been Jake's dad's fishing buddy and had died of a heart attack in his sleep, much like Leah's own father nine years earlier. A lifelong bachelor, he lived alone in a house on the edge of the Forks town limits. No wife. No kids. No one to claim him or the house after his untimely end. Paul bought the house and he and his wife Rebecca, another of Jake's older sisters, settled there with their kids. Jake used to tease Leah and Seth that Charlie had a thing for their mom when he was still alive, and every single time Leah would punch Jake hard in his bicep for even bringing it up.
Any joke about Sue Clearwater dating after Harry's death was much too soon for her. But it wasn't Paul or Jake who presented a problem at the moment.
Any mention of the Cullens never failed to peak Leah's anxiety, and now the prodigal son had returned.
Leah had just gotten comfortable with the fact that Carlisle and Esme were fixtures in Forks and that she would likely encounter them out when driving into Forks for errands. Carlisle was the emergency medicine chair at Forks General Hopsital and Esme had her hands in every charitable group imaginable, from the local soup kitchen to being on the board of a women's shelter in town. They were pleasant enough, Leah could admit to herself. She had even occasionally waved back to Esme after spotting her on the main street, by the dry cleaners or post office.
Leah had barely known Edward though. She knew he was a couple years ahead of her, a senior at Forks High when everything changed. They had managed just a few passing glances and some muttered greetings every time the pack and the Cullens met during the terror nine years ago. Leah had not wanted any part of it, barely wanted to participate in discussions of the encroaching danger and she kept her distance from all the Cullens. From the information she gleaned from Sam and others in the pack that fateful day, Edward had left everyone behind and met the threat in the mountains, far from where they initially feared it would land
And he had taken care of business.
He had killed an entire army of his own kind and lived to tell the tale. She and the rest of the pack had been spared any harm, and life had returned mostly to normal. Especially for Leah, since she had done the most in distancing herself from the events of that day.
Edward had also disappeared after high school, fading in everyone's collective memory. Maybe he'd gone to college…or wherever the hell you went when you were decades old and play acting as a teenager. Leah had not wanted to know and no one ever told her different. Because if there was one thing Leah knew about Edward Cullen, it was this:
He was a scary motherfucker.
So much so, he didn't think twice about killing his own people or burning the remains of those he had destroyed. And if he could do that to his own kind, Leah did not want to know what else he was capable of. She had never seen the bodies, but still remembered ashes drifting lazily toward the field from afar and that unsettling scent on the wind: The cloying, sickly sweet perfume edged with the more familiar wood smoke.
Leah had never been so frightened in her life.
"And, uh, last thing…Ms. Clearwater."
The announcement broke her from her reverie and Leah stood, the expectant eyes of the executive board now on her. She shoved her phone and the foreboding news it carried straight into her back pocket. She did not want to know why Edward Cullen was back in town because the reasons behind it could not be anything good.
"Uh, that's me." Leah edged out of her row of seats and down the descending aisle, past a few of the football parents that were now leaving. In fact, the whole group seemed to be shrugging on their coats and making their way out.
"Wait, wait…we have one last item." President Mike called out. "The approval of an after-school coding program, to be taught by Ms. Leah Clearwater of La Push High School and supervised by our own Angela Weber. This will be a paid position"
Some parents kept walking up the stairs, while others merely stood in place, impatiently waiting for a reason as to why they should stay for something that did not interest them in the least.
Leah stood ready for the presentation to project onto the screen behind the board. She would move through this fast since no one seemed to want to stick around.
"Uhh, Ms. Clearwater has a presentation ready, but in the interest of time, I think we can put this to a vote." He looked to the rest of the board flanking him on each side. "Any objection?"
The board remained silent and Leah caught Angela's eye. The pale brunette managed to smirk and wink at her while simultaneously typing out minutes.
"Well that's noted. Any comments or objections from the general PTA membership?" The parents still in the auditorium either irritably shrugged their shoulders or eyed Leah with nothing more than vague interest. None of them said a word.
"Okay, Ms. Clearwater is formally approved to begin teaching next week. Ms. Weber will submit any pending paperwork that needs to be filed. And we can now close this meeting." Mike leaned on the table and stood, pushing out his chair with a screech while all the other board members followed suit. Angela began to pack up her laptop.
Leah stood nonplussed and internally grumbled.
All that work for nothing. I wasted new jeans on this?
If she had known it would be this simple, she would have arrived in sweatpants and completely tipsy. She would not have spent three hours of her life on a presentation no one would even bother to sit through.
"Hey!" Leah felt a nudge against her shoulder. Angela had walked down from the stage and met her in the aisle. She was grinning widely. "Well that was easy. Something tells me you would have rather run the whole gauntlet though."
Leah shrugged. "I mean if I knew no one would care, like at all, I wouldn't have gone through the effort."
"Hey, I care! I'm saving that PowerPoint to my computer for personal gratification purposes."
Leah had to chuckle at that and she grabbed her coat off her seat as they headed out, the overhead lights shutting off in sections behind them.
"Thanks for the help. I guess I'll be seeing more of you starting next week."
"No problem, I'm excited one of us knows what they're doing. Just to warn you, they're a bunch of annoying, entitled pricks, but you can handle them." Angela deadpanned.
"Well, I guess I have to get my money's worth."
"That you do."
They pushed up and against the heavy steel doors to the school and headed out, the night air biting at Leah's uncovered hands. It was early March and Leah despised the lingering winter cold. She hugged her parka closer and lightly shivered.
"It's like it gets worse every year." Angela gritted out, pulling up her hood.
"Tell me about…ahh, whoa." Leah was facing Angela and miscalculated her next step. The heel of her boot caught on a concrete stair leading down to the parking lot and she began to fall forward. To catch herself before painfully face planting into the ground, she slammed her left hand against the weathered wood railing next to the stairs. Leah felt the tear of her skin before the nerve endings in her hand pulsed with pain.
"Ahhhh!" Leah pulled her hand up to her face and found a large splinter embedded in the crease between her thumb and forefinger. The sharp wood had also sliced at the meat of her palm, and she realized with increasing nausea that the cut was gushing blood.
"Oh, oh, that looks bad. Are you okay?" Angela's worried face did little to tamp down Leah's wooziness and she led Leah the rest of the way into the parking lot and towards her car.
Leah gave a weak nod.
"Okay, obviously not okay. God, they've needed to replace that piece of shit railing for years. Here, I have paper napkins, or, or rags. They're in my car…"
Leah finally found her center and inhaled deeply through her nose.
"No it's okay. I've seriously had worse. I just need to drive home." She made a feeble attempt to veer towards her car but Angela grasped her shoulder again.
"Please let me drive you down to the ER, that gash is bleeding like it will never stop. You'll need a stitch or two." she ended guiltily.
Leah could not disagree with that.
"Plus, I'm the reason you were here in the first place. Let me help."
Leah weighed her options. She could bleed all over her car, on her new jeans, and stumble into the house and freak out her mom. Or she could accept Angela's help.
The pain surged again in her hand and chose for her.
She quickly crammed herself into the passenger's seat of Angela's car and they maneuvered their way out of the lot, street lamps bathing the road ahead of them in eerie light.
"I bet it's a quiet night there. Carlisle Cullen will probably be able to look you over personally." Angela chattered on, trying not to betray any anxiety over Leah's wound. "He'll have you fixed up in no time."
Through her daze, Leah registered Angela's words.
"Carlisle." Leah repeated numbly.
Leah personally knew the Cullens were once allies of the pack and reminded herself that they had never indicated any ill will towards them. Not even remotely. She did not know, however, whether that truce was still as strong as steel…or maybe now on shaky ground.
Either way, she could never forget what they were.
They had once again intruded on Leah's thoughts this night and it was too much Cullen talk in too short a period of time. Leah could only take this as a bad omen. She clutched the napkins over her hand and closed her eyes, awaiting the inevitable.
The waiting room at Forks General ER was mostly empty, only a few mundane faces staring ahead at the light blue painted cinder block walls. Angela and Leah did the same while sitting in uncomfortable vinyl upholstered chairs. Any time Leah shifted in her seat, the cushion let out a plasticky squeak. She would give anything to run out and leave no trace she had ever been here.
But Carlisle would probably have smelled her by now.
Angela chatted about everything and nothing, obviously trying to take Leah's mind off the pain, and it worked to an extent. The bleeding had mercifully slowed and even the triage nurse had been unimpressed when she saw the bloody shreds of napkin wrapped around Leah's hand.
But Leah still bounced her leg nervously, wanting to be seen as soon as possible. The quicker she was in, the quicker she was out. Why prolong being in Forks any further?
She tried not to imagine cold, white fingers lifting her hand and inspecting it. Probing it. One easy flick of those fingers could break her wrist and leave her hand hanging uselessly between them. She swallowed against the lump in her throat.
Angela continued to talk, checking her phone while mentioning something about her brothers. She had no idea of the danger that lurked behind those automatic ER doors.
Ignorance truly was bliss.
"Leah?"
"Hm?" Leah hadn't noticed Angela was asking her a question.
"I'm so sorry about this." Angela looked slightly frantic, typing on her phone. "Something tripped the silent alarm at my parent's store and they're both at home. They asked if I could meet the police there to make sure nothing's going on. Probably just the twins sneaking in again to grab free candy…or booze" she grumbled.
Leah's stomach sank. Her car was still in the Forks High lot and she had no way of retrieving it.
And then she would be here alone.
Angela must have understood the expression on her face because she backtracked. "No, of course, your car. I'll figure something else out." She scrunched her face in concentration while she stared at messages pouring in on her phone.
It was only then Leah started to feel somewhat ridiculous. If something had actually happened at the store, she couldn't keep Angela hostage here over a cut hand. There were probably a few Ubers running at this time of night and if Angela was meeting Paul, maybe she let him know about Leah's situation and that she needed a ride.
Leah told herself it would be fine. She was a proud member of the Quileute tribe and she would pull from that well of strength now. It wasn't like Angela could truly help her, regardless.
Leah took a deep breath. "No, no, it's fine. I can get an Uber. Or maybe you could even tell Chief Jones I'm here when you see him? Maybe he can get me after dealing with the store. He'd probably be okay bringing me to my car."
Angela look up, relieved. "Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you know the Chief of Police pretty well. I'll let him know."
She turned to collect her things, paused for a moment, then gave Leah a one armed hug, startling her. "I'm sorry about all this. I promise to make it up to you. Let's get together after class next week, drinks on me. I can invite some of the teachers I know."
"Uh, sure. Sounds…nice."
"Great." With a wave, Angela walked towards the exit just as the triage nurse called out Leah's name She slowly stood, cycling through affirmations in her head.
You are unbreakable. You have the entirety of your ancestors' strength at your back. Nothing can hurt you.
The last one rang false and before she knew it, the nurse was ushering her through the ER doors onto a bed. She did a quick intake of Leah's vitals before letting her know the doctor might be a while.
"Dr. Cullen is out of town tonight but Dr. Ramirez is handling the night shift. He's dealing with a broken arm right now." Leah could in fact hear a whimper of pain from what sounded like a teen boy in the bed across the room, the curtain drawn closed. "After he sends him to X-ray and ortho, he'll probably need to take a look at the frequent flier in the bed next to you."
Leah could feel the weight of her previous fear lifting and she smiled in return. No Cullens in the vicinity tonight and Dr. Ramirez would stitch her hand. Then she could get a ride from Paul and drive home and tell her mom about her minor success. Maybe she could even look over her lesson plan for tomorrow. It was getting late and she didn't feel much like stopping at Sam's with an aching hand anyway.
She had nothing to worry about.
The triage nurse backed away and slid the curtain to a close, leaving Leah to her own devices. She felt so much lighter than when she had entered.
After five minutes of screwing around on Instagram, she contemplated picking up food on the way home since she missed dinner and now probably Sam's grilling.
She opened the local diner menu on her phone, weighing the pros of a greasy tuna melt and fries over a Ceaser salad, when it happened. She felt her hackles rise for the first time in years.
Leah's head snapped up to attention. She sniffed the air warily. Once. Twice. More deeply now.
One of them is here.
That unmistakable vampire smell. Leah's pack instincts had never fully left her, not even as she pushed them into the dark recesses of her mind. And they were alerting her now that she had been wrong; so incredibly wrong to think she was in the clear.
She heard the slight scuffing of shoes against linoleum, footsteps that grew louder and then halted, right by the nurses station. Everyone was silent, the steady beeping of monitors filling the space as whoever had just entered murmured a quick greeting. He began to converse with the nurse who Leah recognized as the one that performed her intake. There was a rustling of paper as the new arrival patiently asked a few questions in a smooth, level voice and received wary responses back from her nurse.
The scent amplified into an inescapable fog for Leah as those footsteps now came in her direction, and she attempted not to breathe it in too deeply. She didn't want it carpeting her body and invading her brain until it physically stung. Her good hand twisted into the sterile sheet she was sitting upon, her knuckles white.
The curtain ripped back in one motion and Leah stared into the golden eyes of the one person she had never expected nor wanted to see again; the one who Leah had dismissed in her mind with some unease not an hour ago.
The Cullen's returned son stood before her, tall and imposing, with her chart in his hand. He wore a look of surprise, running those unnatural eyes over Leah's gobsmacked expression and then down at her hand. He looked back at her face with slight concern before it melted into something resembling a smile.
"Well, hi …it's been too long."
With those words Leah's chest heaved in shock as she felt her world and everything she once knew shatter around her. The floor fell out from under her feet and the room shook before her eyes. The primal force of gravity that kept all things, great and small, rooted to the earth was absent and no longer held her. She was reverse freefalling up into the atmosphere, afraid she would never come back down, floating further and further from herself. And just as she thought she would be lost forever, the sensation faded. Strands of gravity finally unwound themselves and hooked back into her, deep within what could only be her soul.
But they didn't run down in the same direction.
No, now they radiated out from her chest, the glow of their energy lighting her body from within. She followed their pull, feeling the connection as opposite ends of the strands converged into one singular point.
Into him.
Leah's phone with the forgotten diner menu clattered to the floor and she couldn't have moved to retrieve it even if she wanted. The strings vibrated and pushed, as if testing the bond, and hummed once in satisfied harmony.
They knew this to be right. Leah did, too.
Knowing without actually knowing, defeated before she could even think to put up a fight, tears filled her eyes.
Leah had imprinted on Edward Cullen.
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