WARNING: this whole story is kinda a trigger warning, but extra for this chapter
Fucking Gravity
Chapter 20
Two weeks. That's how long it takes before the world explodes again, and I'm left dying on a planet without atmosphere.
It's date night. Or, at least, it's supposed to be. Kim is supposed to be somewhere smooching Jared, and I'm supposed to be lounging about in Leah's living room, talking, laughing- doing our own smooching- until either of us pass out from exhaustion in the early hours of the sun coming up. Instead, it's only just past 11 and Kim is already snoring away in the spot next to me.
I stare up at the ceiling, watching the shadows flicker across it. The lamp needs a new bulb.
A harsh buzzing suddenly startles the silence, and I turn my head hollowly to the bedside table where my phone is lit up and vibrating. I stare at it a moment, dispassionately, until Kim starts to shift in the bed next to me.
I pick up the phone and look at the screen. I stare.
My Wolf Girl, shines at me too brightly, mockingly.
For a second, just a fraction of a second, I forget that we broke up- that we're not talking- that she hasn't looked over at me, not once, since that morning of the first day of school.
My thumb hovers over the accept button, trembling, wanting more than anything to pick up. What if I do? What would she say? What would I say?
Would answering only make it harder to not walk over come Monday morning?
Don't pick up, don't pick up, don't pick up.
On the next ring, I decide. If it rings one more time, I'll pick up.
Missed Call flashes a fraction of a second before the screen turns black. I stare, willing it to ring, to ring one more time, but it doesn't, and the phone slips through my fingers to land heavily on my chest. It's not near as heavy as the weight already there.
When will this fade?
I turn my gaze back up to the flickering shadows on the ceiling, wondering when I had let myself fall so hard.
After two weeks and some distance from that night, I can see that maybe I might have overreacted, just slightly. Maybe Seth had a point about her. She's never hurt me. Never lashed out at me. Every fight she's been in has been in defense of me (at least in her mind). But her single-minded protection might not be dangerous to me, but it definitely is to other people.
She went after someone she knows, someone she loves, her own brother.
She loves me but… maybe it's too much? How can you love someone too much?
I turn over, and my phone slides to the mattress. I watch the shadows on the walls.
Love someone too much? No, that's not possible. Love isn't the problem, it's how people let it out. I love Leah. And if someone hurt her… yeah, I might feel homicidal. But I wouldn't lose control- wouldn't lose myself. Would I?
I try to picture myself in that situation, if I were Leah and walked in and saw what she must have (I can't remember how I might have looked that night- all I remember is the tears- and fear- and blood- and begging her to stop). And I just can't. I can't picture Leah ever getting herself into that kind of situation (real or mistaken).
How did I let myself get into that situation (I forget, for a moment, that nothing bad was actually happening to me- nothing except my own stupidity)? Am I the stupid fucking damsel, that I hate, who needs saving?
My phone suddenly vibrates, next to my head, and I'm out of bed instantly with it in my hand. I hit answer before I'm all the way into the hallway.
"Leah?"
"Fay." The voice is sharp, and tense, urgent, and not Leah's. There is a muffled sound of a commotion over the speaker.
I pull the phone away from my ear to see the caller ID.
The Puppy
"Seth?"
"Listen, Fay. I'm so, so, sorry, but I really need you to come over right now. Please, I don't know what else to do. You're the only one who could possibly help." There are more noises, like a struggle is going on. And I hear crying.
"Seth, what's going on?" I ask, already moving down the hall.
"Leah- she... She just tried to kill herself."
And that's when the world ends. Or, at least, the atmosphere disappears. That's the only explanation for the oxygen to suddenly be sucked away. Gravity is suddenly gone, too, and I'm cold, so I must be floating through space.
"I'm on my way," I say, smashing the end call button so I can use both hands to shove my feet into shoes. I don't wake Kim or try to leave a note (I don't even think to). I'm just out the door, gone, and running.
I don't pause or think to knock, I just push right into the house I've come to know very well and follow the lights and… loud voices.
"Honey, Honey- baby, just calm down-"
"What's the point?! What's the fucking point?!" The voice is foreign. Foreign, and warped, and hysterical and… heart wrenching. The sound of it makes me freeze in my tracks, just at the door to Leah's room. She's sitting there in the floor by the window with Seth at her back. At first, I think he's hugging her, but it quickly becomes apparent that he's restraining her as she fights against his arms. Mrs. Clearwater is on her knees in front of her, trying to hold her face, to meet her gaze, but Leah just keeps shaking her head wildly, crying. "Why the fuck do we imprint? To feel this way?! I don't fucking want to feel like this- take it back! Take it back, take it back- I don't want it!"
As she thrashes, I catch sight of a long trail of blood, defying gravity, moving up from her chin all the way to her hairline. It's the opposite way blood should travel. And even though she doesn't appear to be injured- now- I can't breathe. The blood, and Leah's weapon of choice become clear as I move further into the room on wooden legs. The shotgun is hard to miss, even slid halfway under the bed- Leah is still straining toward it.
It makes sense, a dark part of me acknowledges. Pills wouldn't work with her metabolism, she'd heal before she bled out if she slit her wrists, and the wolves jump from cliffs weekly just for fun. A shotgun blast to the head would probably take her out. If she didn't miss.
"She- she hates me. Sh-she's scared of me again. I had her! I had her, and she loved me- and now she's terrified of me! And now she's gone- she's just gone."
My heart is everywhere- even outside my body, just a yard away, having a breakdown. In this moment, looking at this strange creature who looks like Leah, I've never felt fear like this. Not that night. Not facing my father.
It's a new kind of fear- not for myself- a new (somehow worse) kind of hell.
And then Leah spots me. She looks up, and I don't even recognize her eyes. But she must recognize me, because all the fight suddenly seems to drain out of her and the arms she was straining against, she's suddenly clutching for support.
"I'm sorry," she sobs, and I don't know how she can see me at all past the tears obscuring her eyes. They leak down her cheeks, mixing with the blood caked on her chin, and then drip pale pink to her shirt. Her words draw the attention of her mother and brother, and they turn to me. I don't see their expressions (I can't turn my gaze away from Leah's face), but I imagine them as accusatory.
'This is your fault,' I imagine they whisper, their voices mixing with my own in my head.
"Fay. I'm sorry," she weeps again, gasping for breath, "it's like I can't breathe. I wouldn't hurt you- I'd never hurt you- you have to know that I'd die first. Please let me die first."
My heart thunders, deafening and overwhelming- a jackhammer in my chest.
This is what I was afraid of- what I told Kim I was afraid of- when I learned of Imprinting. Of someone needing me this much. But, in this reality, I don't feel the urge to run away from that responsibility. I want to run toward it.
So, I do.
I don't know if Mrs. Clearwater moves out of the way, or I shove her, but suddenly I fling myself down onto the ground. Leah clings to me immediately, apologizing over and over, and I cling to her, too, pressing my face against her neck, feeling the erratic, frantic, pulse there.
"I wouldn't hurt you- I promise- I promise-"
"I know," I reassure, "I know," and the longer I hold her, the more I believe it. Until I know it irrevocably.
After a while, Leah's hyperventilating gives way to exhaustion. But even as she falls unconscious, there in the floor, she still clings to me. After a while, I look up at Seth, who's lap I'm technically sitting in, too.
"What happened?" I demand, adrenaline still roaring through my veins.
"I don't know. She hasn't been shifting, so, I don't know if she was planning it or- or if something triggered her? But I woke up and went to get a snack, and I saw that dad's safe was open. I… I got a bad feeling, so I went to check on her. I had to wrestle the gun away from her. The gunshot woke mom. Then I called you."
"Thank you," I say, cradling Leah's arm, her leg, her head- as long as I'm touching, feeling, her pulse against me.
She called me. I was going to pick up. I should have picked up.
Could I have talked her out of it? Was me not answering what pushed her? Or was she calling to fucking say goodbye?
"I'm glad you're here," Mrs. Clearwater says, and I look sharply toward the woman, but there is no irony in her expression. Only sincerity, which surprises me. "Really. I've missed you." Her daughter has just tried to kill herself because of me. She should blame me.
"I've missed you too," I allow the admittance to escape waveringly. I've missed coming over after school, her amused smile as she'd come in and out of the room with snacks while Leah and I studied, waking up early enough, sometimes, to help her make breakfast on Saturday mornings.
I dash the tears from my face, quickly, before reaching out my hand. "Um, can you hand me my phone? I'm going to stay, if that's okay."
Mrs. Clearwater picks up the phone from where it fell out of my pocket, before handing it over, and I quickly take that as permission and hit speed dial.
It takes four rings before Kim picks up, voice sounding sleepy and confused. "Fay? Where'd you go?"
"Something came up- I'm at Leah's. Can you do me a favor?"
Her voice suddenly becomes alert. "What do you need?"
"Tomorrow morning, at about 8:30, can you call my dad? I'm supposed to open the shop at 10:00, but I can't. Tell him I woke up with a fever and throwing up, so you're kidnapping me and won't let me go to work."
"Yeah, of course," she says, "but what's going on?"
I ignore her question, feeling embarrassed and ashamed, and sure that this isn't something to spread around. "And, Kim," I warn. "When you talk to him from now on, you can't let on that you know. I know you. You can't make passive aggressive comments, or threaten him. You can't act any different when you interact with him. It won't help me any- it will only make him take it out on me. Okay?"
She's quite a long moment, and I can't imagine what expression she might be making. I've never been in this situation before. "Okay," she finally says, and I don't know what to make of her tone. "Just… call me tomorrow. Let me know what's going on. Otherwise, I'm hunting you down."
"Alright," I can't help the faint smile slipping out. "I'll talk to you tomorrow." But when I look up and find Mrs. Clearwater's eyes boring into me, that little ghosting smile slips away.
I clear my throat and busy myself with very carefully finding a place to set my phone down. "Anyway. I'll stay with her tonight. You guys can try to get some sleep."
"Honey," she begins, the same term of endearment she used for her daughter, but she's cut off by her son.
"Mom," Seth says, warning in his voice. "Now's really not the time." Her gaze flickers down to her daughter and instantly melts into sorrow.
"You're right," she acknowledges. A few seconds pass before she rises to her feet with a sigh. "Come on Seth. She'll be okay with Fay here."
I don't know how she can say that. Not when I'm the reason for Leah being like this- when I'm the one who was too stupid, too blind by her own fear, to see things as they truly are. All I ever see are bad guys. That's what I told Leah once. And when all she was trying to do was protect me, that's all I saw again. Someone else who has the potential to hurt me- someone else who could turn on me. So, I turned on her first.
I don't want to only see bad guys.
Despite my own circular thoughts of self-blame, Seth carefully wiggles out from behind his sister, and replaces his vacancy with a few pillows. He even offers an apologetic smile- like this is all his fault- as he tugs the comforter off the bed to drape over us.
I tug the blankets closer as they leave, feeling selfish as I cling to my ex. She sleeps on, exhausted and completely dead to the world. Her fingers won't uncurl from my shirt as she sleeps, as if even her unconscious doesn't want me to go.
She must know by now that I'm not good for her. She would have been better off if she never noticed me.
The selfish, monstrous, part of me (the part of me that whispers that I'm becoming just like my dad)… decides that it doesn't matter.
After this, it doesn't matter what's good for us or not- I'm never letting her go again.
A/N: And thus begins a new page in their relationship turning sour. The angst is almost over for my babies, I promise. Mostly because I'm starting to catch up on the last chapter I've actually written and got distracted by drawing the past two weeks.
Anyway, please review.
~Silver~
