Chapter's Song: "It Takes a Lot to Know a Man" - Damien Rice

Waiting for an answer to our knock on the door was agony. The few seconds it took for someone to open the door to us felt like it lasted for hours and the two of us simply stood silently beside one another. I'm sure Jake could feel the anxiety radiating out of me at what we were about to do, but he had already tried to talk me out of this crazy notion I'd had and honestly, it was kind of too late to turn back now.

I knew I couldn't wait much longer given Jake's eventual absence in the coming new year. While I had nothing against giving the pack over to Leah (honestly, she'd probably be able to whip everyone into shape with her 'tough love' attitude) I knew that once she was in charge, any issues between Sam and I would be left to their devices. Tough love is good and all, but I wasn't entirely confident at what would happen if Sam and I had to work things out on our own without someone like Jake as our mediator.

So the time was now. Now, or never.

At the door swinging open, I disconnected from my intense thought process and blinked a few time to refocus my eyes onto the person standing before us: Emily. In her arms was one of their children, the youngest who wasn't more than a few months old, and while she looked tired she was as cheerful as ever.

"Jacob! Embry! What a surprise!" She exclaimed as she bounced her child in her arms.

"It's great to see you, Emily," Jake replied with a smile of his own and I offered a small upturn of my lips though she didn't seem to notice.

"I'd give you both a hug but I'm afraid if I stop rocking this little guy he won't want to take his nap here in a few minutes," she explained but we shrugged it off before she continued. "To what do I owe this pleasure? Is everything okay?"

There was a dash of worry laced in her voice, but Jake was quick to dismiss it. "Everything is just fine. We were just here to see if we could talk to Sam..."

Emily's joyful expression fell slightly and I knew what she was thinking as her eyes briefly looked in my direction before returning to Jake. "Are you sure? I thought you'd called an order for—"

But Jake quickly shook his head and cut her off mid-sentence. "Some new...information has come to light and we just wanted to discuss it with him, that's all."

For the first time in the conversation as we stood in the doorway, I chimed in to add a tiny detail I thought might give Emily some relief at my presence here. "Jake here is being our referee."

Emily eyed the two of us for a moment before reluctantly nodding her head. "That might be best. The arrival of Sam's dad has caused him to be a bit... disconnected. Whatever you have to say, I hope it helps him find some kind of peace."

She pulled the door open a bit more to let us inside the house; Jake responding to her previous comment as we walked through the threshold. "I think it will offer some kind of an explanation in the very least. We were hoping that it might... it might make him want to talk to Joshua."

Emily closed the door behind us and nodded her head solemnly as we stood waiting for her to lead the way to Sam. "I've tried to convince him he should do that exactly but he won't budge no matter what I say. I wish you two the best of luck." With a brief pause she picked up on her cheerful disposition and gestured with her head to follow her. "Sam should be in the living room."

Jake and I followed behind Emily and child to their living room. Their couch was directly facing the television which was on, but that meant that Sam- who's head we could see just above the back of the couch- wasn't facing us and had no idea who was here.

"Sam, you have some visitors," Emily said carefully and waited for him to turn around and meet Jake and I with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw.

"What are you two doing here." There was no hint of a question in his tone, it was a demand and Emily frowned in Sam's direction from where she stood beside us.

"Now, now Sam. Be nice... they're just here to talk," she scolded him before turning to face Jake and I with a soft and sympathetic smile. "I'm just going to put this one down for a nap and check on Lucy in the playroom."

With a pivot on her feet, she turned to head in the direction of the bedrooms before stopping mid-stride and looking over her shoulder at the three of us. "And absolutely no fighting in this house, you hear me? The last thing we need is that kind of negativity in here." With that, she disappeared into the hallway to leave the three of us awkwardly exchanging looks in silence.

After about a solid minute of listening to Sam's program on TV in the background, he finally spoke up before turning back around to the original position he'd been in when we first entered the living room.

"Are you two going to sit down or what?"

Almost scrambling, Jake and I made our way to the opposite side of their sectional couch and took a seat; Jake making sure he was in between Sam and I just to be safe.

Before we could even get out a 'hello,' Sam was on the case. "Well you've come here to talk, might as well get talking."

I looked over to Jake who kept his eyes on Sam. "We came here to talk to you about the situation with Joshua."

Sam smirked devoid of any humor and reached for the remote to mute the TV his eyes were fixated on. "I kind of figured that's why you were here. What about him? And if it's to try and get me to talk to him again, you can just leave because that will never happen."

"You might want to after you hear what we have to say," I said loudly at first before quieting my tone to be mindful of not starting an argument like Emily had requested just moments early.

"I highly doubt whatever you have to say to me is going to make me change my mind." Sam's tone was final and without waiver. But I imagined he had no actual understanding of just what we'd come here to tell him.

"Will you at least listen to what Embry has to say?" Jake asked him and Sam shook his head minimally as if to himself before answering.

"He's still here, isn't he?" he responded before sighing and sitting himself up more straight before reaching for the remote to turn the television off altogether. "Go ahead, Embry," he finally said after a moment but this time his tone was more tired than angry.

Clearing my throat I nodded my head and jumped in to the delicate situation we'd found ourselves in. "So I talked to Joshua recently..."

"Yeah, I heard he was staying at your place now. That true?" His tone was pointed.

I glanced down at my feet while muttering, "Guess good news travels fast..."

"So it is true. Was that your idea or your mom's?" he paused before saying through gritting teeth, "Or Joshua's?"

"It doesn't matter who's idea it was, Sam," I snapped back before taking a breath to steady myself and continue in a softer voice. "Who did you hear that from anyway?"

"My mom. It didn't take long before people realized Joshua was back in town- I think someone from the pack may have let it slip but it doesn't matter." He stopped to turn his head and face the blank TV while continuing to talk. "Somehow word got back to my mom and she called me in a fit of rage and sobs about an hour before you two showed up."

"I'm sorry she found out that way," I offered the apology, but Sam didn't seem very receptive.

"Personally, I'm sorry she found out at all. She's cried enough for a hundred lifetimes over that... that... trash of a human being." He was shaking his head again and I could see him bouncing his knee anxiously.

Sensing the tension this particular facet of conversation was ultimately heading, Jake redirected the conversation in true mediator fashion. "I think I speak for all of us when I say that what Joshua did was the furthest thing from okay or acceptable behavior, but what Embry has found out might offer some kind of explanation."

"The only explanation that man has for what he did to my mom and I is that he is, like I said, a trashbag of a person," Sam reiterated but I leaned towards him from where I sat to offer up my counterpoint to his statement.

"What he did wasn't entirely his fault, okay?" I found myself compelled to defend Joshua, not because he was my dad or anything, but because he wasn't here to defend his actions or motivations. Words flew out of my mouth that, in hindsight, I wished I'd never really said because it made me sympathetic to what he did but once the words were out, it wasn't like I could take them back. "He-he didn't really see another choice so he reacted how he did which, yes, was a horrible reaction and he definitely could have handled it better, but he's sorry and-"

Sam laughed which stopped my momentum. "Oh! Oh, he's sorry. Well surely that makes it all okay, doesn't it?" Sam glared at me then, his eyes baring through my very soul. "All of this is so easy for you to dismiss because it isn't like he destroyed your mom and family. It isn't like you-"

"Like I grew up without a father?" I retorted immediately, my defense coming to my own aid at this point. "Like I saw my mom struggle to raise me all by herself? Like I didn't go to sleep almost every night listening to her cry in her room over something and someone I didn't even know the identity to?"

Sam sat silently on his side of the couch as he watched me while I continued to rant before him. "At least you had other family, Sam. Despite everything Joshua did, you have always known who you are and where you came from. I on the other hand, am only just now finding out about my origins- about the family my mom left behind because she was young and didn't even know Joshua was married and already had a kid."

I was huffing and puffing at this point like the literal wolf in the three little pig story, no pun intended. My chest felt like it was closing in around my vital organs and it took Jake setting a sympathetic hand on my shoulder for me to reign in the emotions I'd been feeling over the passed week.

I refocused my attention on Sam who was looking at me with a newfound sense of empathy. "You know, you act like we are so different, like you have to compare your trauma with mine and you just... you just don't."

"Embry..." Jake said in a careful manner, but I continued despite his warning.

"Joshua ruined both of our childhoods and, let's be honest, a lot of the rest of our lives. We will never be the kinds of people we could have if we'd grown up with father figures who loved and cared for our mothers but you know what? We didn't."

"Embry, maybe you should-" Jake tried but I waved him off.

"No, Jake. He has to hear this," I turned my head to face him with a serious expression before Jake nodded once and I returned my attention to Sam. "Instead we had to love and take care of our mothers who were broken after what that man did to each of them respectively. And you know what?"

"What?" Sam responded in curiosity and after I shook off the initial shock of Sam calmly answering my hypothetical question, I went on.

"Just because that man is living in my house now, it doesn't mean that I forgive him for what he's done to both you and me." I shut my eyes softly and took a deep breath before fluttering my eyes open to continue. "After talking to my mom and to him separately, I don't forgive him for what he did- I never will. I don't forgive him in the slightest, but now I understand why."

Sam watched me with a blank expression before I explained further. "You see, that's the important difference here, Sam. If you don't hear what he has to say, what I'm here to tell you, then you'll live the rest of your life angry and bitter because of what he did instead of taking the time to figure out why he did what he did."

Silence settled between the three of us as Sam processed everything I'd just said. I hadn't yelled or tried to start an argument, but I was firm and doing what I imagined was the very definition of 'tough love.'

Whatever it was that I'd just demonstrated, tough love or not, it worked because Sam licked his lips and took a breath before looking at me with softer eyes. "You made some good points there, Embry."

My eyes widened. "I-I did?"

"Yes," he said with a slight nod of his head. "I had no right to invalidate what you went through just because the circumstances were different from mine. I never thought to look at everything from your point of view and see that what you said was completely right." He paused but at my lack of response, he went on to further explain his statement. "That you had basically had the same childhood I had with the additional stress of not having any other family to turn to."

I shrugged my shoulders and looked down at my hands which were laying limp on my lap. "Honestly, it's fine, Sam."

"But it isn't. What I did was wrong and insensitive. You just... you kind of hide it really well. Everything that you go through."

I smirked before turning my gaze upward at where he sat. "No sense in bringing everyone else down with my issues."

"You know Embry, you may think you don't have other family, but you really do."

"I know, it's just-" I tried, but he cut me off with a lone hand telling me to stop.

"No, Embry. What Jake said at the bonfire about all of us being family in the pack- it's all true. You may be my half-brother, but in a more important sense, you are my brother." He was nodding his head as he spoke, his words coming out earnestly and I searched his eyes for some kind of punchline to the prank he was pulling on me by being so understanding. As hard as I searched, I couldn't find one.

For a moment, I thought that Sam might actually be willing to talk to Joshua without me having to break the news about the imprinting after all. I could walk out of here with Jake and know that all I had to do was push Sam in the right direction and he'd go- willingly at that.

With hope in my voice, I asked Sam my question with a small smile. "So you'll talk to him then? You'll talk to Joshua?"

Sam pressed his lips together in a hard line before exhaling loudly and then shaking his head. "No, Embry. I won't."

And with that, the moment I'd imagined was gone.

My face fell entirely and Jake was quick to speak my thoughts as I sat on the couch silently; consumed in shock at Sam's answer. "After all that you're seriously still not going to talk to him, Sam? Really?"

"It's not personal to Embry or anything," he defended himself, "I just don't really think I'm in a place where I want to hear anything that he has to say."

"Well when will you be? In this 'place' that is?" Jake pressed and Sam eyed him curiously with mild irritation lining his face.

"I don't know, Jacob. It isn't like something like this is just easy to get over and want to talk to the perpetrator about it."

"But-" Jake tried, though Sam was once again quick to silence him.

"Look, Embry and I are cool, okay? I don't harbor animosity to him because after all, it's Joshua who did all of this, not Embry." Sam explained, though I shook myself out of my shock to respond to what he'd just said.

"And my Ma?" I asked him, "Are you going to hold this grudge against her now that Joshua is back and living at my house?"

This caused Sam to pause and think about my question for a moment. "Honestly? I don't know, Embry."

"That's why you have to talk to him, Sam," Jake told him. "There's so much more going on that you need to understand."

"Well why can't you two just tell me if it's so important? Huh?" He questioned and Jake and I looked at each other before I chose to answer.

"Because I don't think you'd believe me. Us." I simply stated and Sam merely crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the two of us with a challenging expression.

"Oh yeah? Try me."

I chewed on my lip briefly before breathing in sharply. "You just... you can't get mad all over again when I tell you."

"Okay."

"And you have to listen to everything before you make a decision about talking to Joshua," I added and Sam rolled his eyes but agreed anyway.

"Sure, fine. Now what is it?"

"Just listen with an open mind, okay? I don't want you to-" but Sam once again cut me off.

"Embry, just come out with it already!" He exclaimed in exasperation and I then blurted out the words involuntarily before I could even think about how I should word them.

"Joshua imprinted on my Ma."

Silence.

After a good minute, Sam swallowed hard before saying something. "That's...it's...that's impossible."

"Is it though?" I countered as Jake then came to my aid.

"Think about it, Sam," he slowly said as if trying to ease him into believing what I'd told him. "He's phasing, he was phasing at the time he met Tiffany. It's entirely possible."

"Yeah, it might be possible but obviously he's just lying to get out of doing what he did," Sam said, simply dismissing the entire concept as real.

"I really don't think he's lying, Sam," I said in a soft voice in hopes he would see how delicately I was treading with this terrifying concept.

"And why's that? You have to know my fath—Joshua, he's a liar, okay? He just convinced you of something so he wouldn't be held accountable." Sam was bargaining with us and as he looked rapidly between Jake and I, I knew he was searching desperately for a way that what we were telling him wasn't true.

"Sam, he didn't even know what imprinting was until I explained it to him," I tried to tell him, but he still wasn't having it.

"So basically you introduced the concept to him and then he latched onto it thinking it was an easy way to be excused from a messy situation that he created," Sam simply defended and I shook my head while closing my eyes in frustration.

"It wasn't like that, man," I spouted back before taking a breath and calmly explaining to him just how everything had gone down. "Listen, I had talked to my Ma and after she explained the first time they met, I kind of pieced a lot of it together. So then I went to find Joshua and confronted him about it, and he had no idea what I was even talking about, so I explained it to him and then he told me his side of the story and it just... it all made sense. All the signs point to imprinting, Sam."

"How would you even know though, Embry?" Sam asked and I knew immediately where he was headed with his question. "It isn't like you've imprinted so how would you know?"

"Sam, you don't have to-" Jake tried to defend me but I just waved him off while maintaining eye contact with Sam.

"Sure, I haven't imprinted," I said slowly, "but I've seen countless others imprint and have their imprint-y thoughts firsthand so I think I know how it works. At least well enough to know an imprint when I see one."

"Well you can't prove it even if it is true," Sam stated while leaning back into the couch with a stubborn attitude oozing out of him.

"That's just it, we think that we maybe could..." Jake hinted but Sam didn't pick up on what he was suggesting.

"And how do you plan to do that exactly?" He wondered aloud and I glanced at Jake before looking to Sam once more.

"We figured the both of you could phase and you could see his memories firsthand and feel how he feels about my Ma," I suggested outright and Sam's eyes widened at the idea.

"Me? You want me to go digging in his thoughts for proof of an imprint? Really? Tell me now, why would I do that?"

Jake leaned in towards Sam, his elbows resting on his legs as he did so. "Aren't you even the slightest bit curious if what we are saying is true? Think about it- you could be the one to either prove or disprove our theory and if we're wrong, then you could be the one to stick it to him that he's lying."

Sam shook his head, still firm in his decision but I could tell something in him was wavering just slightly. "Why can't you do it then, Jake? Or Paul? Or Jared? Or Quil even? Why does it have to be me?"

"Well, to be frank, it's just that-" Jake began but I decided to go with the blunt approach.

"Because it's basically the exact situation you were in back when you first imprinted."

Sam sat stunned on the couch and while I knew he realized what I was talking about, I needed him to say something in response to what I'd just said. In an effort to elicit some kind of acknowledgment to my statement, I dug the knife in a little deeper.

"You know... You. Leah. Emily-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Embry. You don't think I know?" He looked down at his lap as if lost in thought, lost in the memories of that horrible time in Sam's life that both he and Leah never spoke of.

We let him think for a moment before I spoke up once again. "I guess we just thought that, with your history, you might understand better of how feelings like that would work. The confliction and all that."

Sam kept his gaze downward and spoke softly as if to himself more than Jake or me. "It's never easy... the imprinting."

I hadn't wanted to bring all of that up for him. I realized how difficult it had been for him when he joined up the two packs and began to hear Leah's thoughts once more. While time had dulled the pain that was permanently attached to Leah and the guilt that followed Sam around on a daily basis, it hadn't made it go away completely. The tension between the two remained, ever present, ever looming as a constant memory of what could have been had Sam not imprinted on Leah's second cousin all those years back.

With a soft sigh and without any encouragement or warning, Sam then began to explain the story we knew of but had never really heard the entirety of- at least not from Sam or Leah themselves. Jake and I sat silently beside him on the couch, completely engrossed in Sam's every word though he never looked up to gauge our reactions to his tragic tale.

"I'd met Emily many times before I'd first phased. She was nice enough but I was dating Leah and had been for a few years so I never thought more of Emily than the fact that she was her cousin and that one day she'd be my kind-of cousin too." He shook his head at the comment and smirked to himself. "Leah had always teased me that Emily had a crush on me but I always dismissed it. She'd tease me about it and I'd just tell her that I was some hot commodity and she was lucky to have me."

I watched intently as Sam recalled the memory out loud, a smile on his face, though wistful, at the relationship that was ultimately destroyed.

"Leah always told me that we were lucky to have each other and, of course, I'd always agree because we were. We had been high school sweethearts and, at the time, were deeply in love. I couldn't imagine life without Leah and she couldn't imagine it without me." He sighed, his smile now fading to nothing and he softly shut his eyes as if the memories were a movie playing only for him on the screen that was behind his lids.

"But then I phased," he said bluntly as if it were some kind of secret he'd been hiding from the two of us. "Everything was new and there weren't any other wolves at that point so I stayed phased for a good week or two- it's hard to remember exactly how long, but I was in wolf-form for quite a while."

Sam readjusted where he sat as if he'd been sitting on pins and needles this entire time. For fear that he would stop telling his story, Jake and I remained quiet and let him tell it on his own time, after all, we hadn't egged him on or anything- he was just telling us because he wanted to and we happily obliged and were curious to listen to his every word and memory.

"Thankfully, after I returned to human form and was left naked and alone in the woods, our Quileute elders had been out looking for me because Leah was really worried and had asked for help looking for me since I'd sort of disappeared without warning," Sam spewed the details out fast as if it were all being forced out of him by his own conscience.

Finally, he took a steadying breath and continued. "They explained to me what was going on and how all the legends I'd grown up with were true. Naturally, as you both are very well aware of, it was all very jarring to say the least."

We nodded our heads in agreement though Sam never bothered to look up from his lap.

"After I had calmed down slightly and was clothed, I went straight to Leah's house to explain what had happened, or at least the best that I could." His face contorted to one of almost pain and happiness somehow infused in one expression. "But Emily was there..."

He swallowed hard as if trying to fight back tears that were probably a mixture of hurt and joy at what he was about to recall next. "She'd come to support Leah because I'd been missing for so long and while they were cousins, they were also best friends."

I watched as Sam's hands squeezed into two tight fists and he lightly hit his thigh once in frustration. "Emily had only been here to support Leah for what had happened... I never even got the chance to explain!"

Inside, I wanted to ask what he did. I wanted to push him to continue his story because it must have been weighing on him for so long to never tell others what had happened. I glanced over at Jake in almost desperation but he motioned for me to be quiet and just listen without speaking. This was Sam's moment, and neither of us wanted to derail him from finally speaking out about what his imprinting process had been like.

"Anyway," Sam finally continued after a moment, "I walked in the door of the Clearwater's and everyone was relieved to see me, especially Leah. I went to hug her and she cried into my shoulder the way she had other times in our relationship. 'I'm so lucky to have you,' she whispered in my ear- I'll never forget those words for as long as I live."

I'm so lucky to have you, I could almost hear Leah say in my head like a distant echo of a memory that had never been mine in the first place.

"But she wasn't lucky to have me," Sam continued, "because right as she said those words, Emily emerged from the bathroom and entered the room. The moment our eyes met, I felt the world crumble beneath me and the walls began to cave in and crush me right where I stood in Leah's arms."

Sam paused as if trying to decide whether or not to continue, but he did nonetheless. "Emily smiled at me and merely said, 'It's so good to see you home safe, we've all been worried.' It was like I was hearing her speak for the first time and the words out of her mouth were some kind of siren's song pulling me in to the water before I knew I was too deep to escape."

The way he described the imprint was almost painful- it was as if the memory was something so hurtful the only way to move forward was to block it all out entirely. I couldn't believe he was digging and unpacking all of this. All the while, I found myself wondering why he was doing it in the first place.

"The feelings I felt, the way the imprint dug it's claws into me made me dizzy and as I tried to fight the feelings threatening to unhinge my entire life in seconds, I... well... I fainted."

Sam's story played in my imagination like a movie and I imagined Sam falling into Leah's arms as everyone around them panicked and tried to get him somewhere safe while he was passed out.

"A few minutes later, I woke up in a panic from where I had been put on the couch, but Leah was there to sooth me. She sat beside me and adjusted the cool washcloth she'd placed on my forehead and asked how I was doing." He clenched his jaw as if fighting back the memory though it found it's way out of his mouth despite his clear disapproval. "I told her I was alright and that I was probably just tired and needed some rest. Honestly, I thought I'd imagined the whole thing and because I didn't know what imprinting was at the time, I didn't realize what it had done to me or that, as I lay on the Clearwater's couch, the imprint was just staying dormant inside me until Emily appeared once again."

"Of course though, the minute she appeared again, an eruption of feelings began to fight inside of me once again. It was as if my own untouched feelings were this small faction of soldiers and the imprint feelings for Emily were an entire army poised to destroy any lingering feelings within me." Sam shook his head and reached up with one hand to rub at the bridge of his nose. "So I jumped up from the couch and left their house as fast as I could, as if I could outrun what was happening inside me."

My mind demanded to know the next scene in the movie that was Sam's past, but I kept quiet knowing that, in time, I'd learn the specifics of what I knew ended with Sam and Emily's eventual marriage and Leah's eternal betrayal by it.

"The next day, I went to the elders and told them what had happened because I was terrified and I had to know the feelings would go away so I could go back to being happy with Leah." Sam smiled a sad sort of smile. "Unfortunately for me, they knew exactly what had happened, although it hadn't really happened to anyone they knew- it was a long told legend for our people who make the shift."

"At the time, they explained it as soulmates. Which, obviously, you know that that is pretty much what it is but I didn't want to believe it." Sam at last looked up but avoided our gaze. Instead, he focused upward to where the wall met the ceiling behind us and he stayed on that spot as he continued his story.

"But they told me it was inevitable and that I shouldn't fight it no matter how difficult it was for me to accept. And Harry..." he choked on the name, "he was distraught. But through the pain, he begged me to break up with Leah. He didn't want to see his daughter be strung along by someone who could never love her the way she deserved. He..." he pushed back what I imagine were tears though we never saw them spill over onto his cheeks. "He told me he didn't even blame me for the imprint because I had no control but..."

It had been years since Harry Clearwater had died and I struggled to remember the details of his face in my head-movie. Sam on the other hand seemed to picture him so clearly it was as if he were standing in front of him in the very living room we were occupying.

"I have spent so many years fighting this guilt," he mumbled. "I've replayed everything in my head countless times trying to figure out if there was any way around what happened. Even now, even though I'm so happy with Emily and our kids... to hurt Leah like that is something I never wanted to do." He shut his eyes lightly and pursed his lips in an effort to stop the pain he was recalling.

"We both tried to fight it," a sudden voice filled the room. Jake and I turned our heads to see Emily emerge from the hallway she'd disappeared in what felt like hours ago. Sam merely opened his eyes at her voice; his eyes welled with tears that refused to drop.

Emily slowly walked towards all of us, clearly trying to finish the story for Sam as he was struggling pretty hard to finish what he'd started. "After he broke up with Leah, he went to find me and professed his love for me."

Sam shook his head and buried his face in his hands as if to hide himself from the three of us in shame. "Leah," he mumbled through his hands, "she was so distraught. She kept asking me why and how I could-could do something like that to her. She even... she apologized as if it was her who had done something wrong," As Sam spoke into his hands, Emily finally made her way to his side and she placed a hand on his knee while lowering herself to sit on the floor.

As she rubbed his leg, she went on though she focused her eyes on Sam just above her. "Initially I told him I couldn't be with him, even though I had pretty strong feelings for him at the time. Instead, I told Sam to leave much harsher than I should have and immediately called Leah to tell her what had happened."

Emily sighed sadly. "I don't know why I even called Leah. I knew it would hurt her, but the naive part of me thought she might like an explanation and that it would give her a sense of closure. Foolishly, another part of me even hoped she'd give me her blessing to proceed with Sam, but of course Leah said no such thing."

Sam inhaled sharply and finally freed his face from his hands though averted our eyes and instead looked down at Emily who stared up at him in sad understanding. "I went to Emily's house the next day, I ran in wolf form to get there faster and arrived pretty early in the morning. I wanted to try and explain what had taken place even though I still hardly understood it myself."

"I was determined to get to the bottom of what happened and why he had this sudden change of affections from Leah to me," Emily added and Sam nodded down at her as if they were sharing their own private conversation through actions rather than words.

"Her curiosity was all I needed to spill everything that had happened. The legends, the Quileute magic within our blood, all of it- including the imprinting. I thought for sure it would scare her off, but she was just..." his voice trailed off and with a smile, Emily finished for him.

"I was fascinated," she said while turning to look directly at both Jake and I. "I was living on another reservation at the time. I'm actually from another tribe, the Makah tribe, though I am half Quileute on my mother's side."

My eyes widened at her admittance and I couldn't help but speak out for the first time since Sam had begun telling his story. "Did you say the Makah tribe?"

Emily nodded her head with a slightly confused look in her eyes. "Yes, why?"

"That was my Ma's tribe..." my voice was quiet and I could feel the gears turning in my head. "Did you know her before?"

Emily offered a shake of her head before speaking. "No, I didn't. And if I had, I would have been very young and probably would not remember. From what I know, she had left before you were even born, yes?"

I nodded my head in silent agreement. "I guess that would make you kind of young while she was still living there," I mumbled but then gestured for her to go on. "Sorry, uh, go on."

"I knew I returned Sam's feelings," Emily continued as if she had never stopped mid-story to answer my questions. "But, like Sam, I felt like I was betraying Leah by allowing him to pursue me. After all, she was so hurt by what happened and it had still not been long since their breakup. It didn't feel right."

"So we sort of just got to know each other," Sam added and Emily smiled minimally.

"Only because you came to my house nearly every day to try and convince me to be with you," she countered and he just looked down at her sadly.

"Emily kept trying to guide me back to Leah, but no matter what she said I still showed up the next day to try and win her over. At that point, the imprint had practically taken full control of me and I was allowing it to call the shots," he shook his head but Emily just patted his leg in an effort to get him out of his own head.

"It was only a matter of time before everyone found out what was going on between the two of us," Emily said. "My mother heard from a few of her friends the rumors running around about Sam and me."

At the memory, her face fell and this time it was Sam's turn to take over the story for Emily's sake. "Her and her mother got into a big fight because of our budding relationship and told her she was ashamed at her for doing something so hurtful to Leah. So the next time I came over, she demanded I leave the property and go back to Leah."

"And he did leave," Emily chimed back in, "but he didn't go back to Leah."

"I couldn't make her be with me when I knew I had these feelings for Emily. As much as I wanted to fix what I'd done to her, I couldn't hurt her like that on top of what I'd done, it wouldn't be right." Sam simply stated though I'm sure coming to that conclusion at the time wasn't as simple as he'd made it out to be.

"Ultimately, I was more angry at myself than Sam. In my mind, I was weak for giving in to something I knew was harmful to my best friend and family and so the next time Sam came over to once again attempt to get me to be with him, I lashed out." Emily's face was twisting in pain from whatever was to come next in the story and I was pretty sure I knew where it was headed.

"We uh, we argued pretty heavily that day. Things had escalated because Emily was being very firm this time about not being with me and that I should return to Leah," Sam's voice was shaky as he tried to approach the story we'd never heard details about but always saw the aftermath of.

My eyes inadvertently drifted to focus on the deep scars on the right side of her face and it wasn't long before Emily caught my gaze and nodded her head in my direction while reaching up to touch gently at the scraggly lines. "I shouldn't have said what I said. I knew it would hurt him but I thought that it would merely turn him away from wanting to be with me."

"No, Emily," Sam insisted but she shook her head definitively and went on.

"I told him that by not confronting the consequences of his actions and taking responsibility for what he'd done to Leah, he was no better than his father," the words were disjointed as if she were piecing together somebody else's sentence and then telling it to us.

"You actually said that I was just like Joshua," Sam corrected her and she glared in his direction though he wasn't looking at her. "Honestly it doesn't matter, because it made me angry and hurt and all kinds of feelings that I wasn't ready to confront. While I'd been working on controlling my phasing, I knew that strong emotions, no matter what the emotion was, would threaten to phase me without my command. So before I knew it, I'd exploded into wolf-form and hurt Emily in the process as she'd been standing pretty close to me at the time."

"After I'd realized what I'd done, and since she wasn't responding and gushing blood, I was so panicked and hysterical that I couldn't bring myself to phase back and get help," Sam's voice was wavering once again at the memory but seemed to be doing better this time around with Emily by his side.

Sam reached over to grab Emily's hand tightly before he attempted to finish the story. "Thankfully Jared was in wolf-form not too far away so he had seen everything. He was quick to get a hold of Paul and the two of them plus Sue showed up moments later to help."

"I didn't want him to think this was his fault," Emily said firmly in hopes Sam would hear the things she was saying though he didn't seem to let it register. I imagined she'd told him this many times and he still didn't believe it. "I tried to tell him I didn't blame him and I wasn't angry, but it was too difficult to talk and Sue kept telling me not to speak because it might make things worse."

Sam chewed on his lip for a moment but pushed through his discomfort to go forth with the story. "Emily was so smart, she told everyone who didn't know any better, doctors included, that she'd been attacked by a bear. Naturally, they believed her but I couldn't live with myself... I pleaded with her to tell me to kill myself. I literally begged her to say the words but she just wouldn't."

"Until he told me to do that, I didn't realize how strong this imprinting thing was," Emily explained. "But after that, I simply told him I loved him too and ever since then, we've been together."

"At the cost of losing Leah," Sam added and Emily nodded sadly.

"As you both know, she didn't attend our wedding. Leah and I went from best friends, practically sisters, to... well not to enemies but we just don't talk anymore. And you certainly know of her feelings towards Sam," her words were strung together with heartbreak and pain.

It was then that I knew why Sam had told us their story- he'd done so in order to accept my invitation to talk to Joshua after all. The whole story was a display to explain without saying so directly that he knew what it was like to have conflicted feelings and relationships forever destroyed by way of imprint.

And just like I'd predicted, moments later, Sam let go of Emily's hand and met mine and Jake's sympathetic gaze for the first time since he'd begun telling his story.

"Go ahead and arrange for Joshua to come to the beach tomorrow and I'll be there. Two o'clock." He pushed himself up to stand before reaching down for Emily's hand to help her up as well. "If he shows, we will talk and I'll give him a chance to explain while also seeing if he's indeed telling the truth."

Emily reached up to rub at Sam's back. "I hope you know how thankful I am to have you," she whispered.

My mind fluttered back to the memory Sam had described of Leah telling him how lucky she was to have him. It was as if Emily's figure flickered to that of Leah for a brief moment before my eyes only to return to the scarred woman I had known for years as Sam's companion. Their lives could have been so different had imprinting not interfered and maybe they would have been happy all the same in their respective alternate lives. However, watching Sam and Emily interact told me that this happiness was best for these two.

But the cost for their happiness was Leah's. It wasn't like she had anyone to run into the arms of who could console her for her years of misery and all those built up feelings of betrayal she portrayed as bitterness and anger. Deep down, Leah was just as hurt as Sam's mom and now my Ma and Joshua were to be the next Sam and Emily.

All in all, I was happy that Sam agreed to speak with Joshua, but I knew it wouldn't be easy. As Joshua told his story, Sam would have to re-live his tragic love triangle all over again. It was truly something he would never be able to escape and maybe that was his curse and price to pay towards the imprint.

As Jake and I left their home and we walked silently, Jake back to the Cullens and me to God knows where, my mind kept imagining what life would be like had the imprint never happened- had

no imprinting ever occurred.

There'd be no bitterness in Leah.

Emily wouldn't be sad as she'd never known what it was like to be with Sam.

Allison would either be at peace with Joshua's absence, or even, Joshua may have come home to her eventually.

My Ma could have found love somewhere else and in someone else.

I stopped in my tracks as another thought hit me. If there'd been no imprinting, there'd be no me- at least not in the sense of who I was now. No phasing, no secrets from Ma, no sneaking out or wondering every day who I was and who my father was or my family for that matter.

As I picked up my feet once more to continue wandering aimlessly in the frosty woods, I focused on this imaginary world without imprints while contemplating just when my time would come for the imprint to inevitably ruin my life like it had so many before me.

Hi all! So I literally have been working on this chapter for roughly 5 hours straight as recovery has kind of zapped a lot of my energy to write but I shan't let you down!

The decision to write Sam/Leah/Emily's backstory was kind of a last minute one, but I think it turned out super well and I'd LOVE to hear your feedback and opinions on it!

Be sure to drop a review, subscribe and favorite! Only 2 more chapters to go before this story is finished! Stay tuned and I'll see you all at the next chapter!

xo

Polkahotness