October 15th, 2010

I was starting to live under the assumption that everyone around me was working against me, even if they were doing so in my best interest. I found it easier to draw away than to confront them and continue to voice the arguments that they would never take seriously.

Doing so was easy when Rachel went back to Seattle and Joselyn and I continued to communicate primarily through text messages. I could pretend like the people I was talking to didn't think I'd screwed up and ruined my life.

At least, I should have been able to. For whatever reason, I wasn't able to shake the uncertainty that had been forced onto me.

Maybe that was why I wanted to talk to Seth.

My brother had, after all, played such a large role in forcing me to realize my feelings for Embry in the first place. He'd pushed and pushed until I had no choice but to acknowledge them. Even if he'd begun to do so to avoid telling me about his own feelings for Al, I knew that he'd also done it out of care for me.

However, he'd remained quiet since I broke up with Embry, and that left me surprised. When so many others around me had spoken up in a way they never had before, why had Seth avoided doing the same?

I figured he had to be busy with his own relationship. The one he'd been certain was doomed once he graduated high school but that was still going strong. He didn't have time to fight with his older sister about something she didn't want to discuss.

And I should have been thankful for that, so why was I standing outside of his bedroom trying to convince myself to knock?

"Leah, will you just come in?" he called through the door once he'd gotten annoyed with listening to me fiddle around outside.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open to find Seth sitting on his bed, laptop open in front of him and a textbook at his side. He was doing work for one of his online classes, which happened to be the solution he'd discovered for the very problem he'd been scared of a year before.

"Can we talk?" I asked, taking a few hesitant steps forward.

Seth nodded, lowering his laptop screen and moving everything aside to make room for me across from him on the bed. Seth watched me as I sat down, and I didn't need to ask what he was thinking about.

"Is this about Embry?" he asked. In most other circumstances I would have felt frustrated that someone had read me easily. As it was, I only sighed and gave a slight nod. Of course it was. There was no use pretending differently.

Seth mirrored my nod, but he didn't say anything else like I had been expecting him to. I waited a moment as if he might keep talking, but when he raised an eyebrow, I realized that he wasn't going to talk until I did.

"I just…" I stopped and tried to think through what I wanted to say. Something I hadn't done before I'd shown up at Seth's door. For some reason I'd been sure that giving him the opening to say something would lead to Seth doing the talking. Then I would only have to respond.

But when faced with the responsibility of talking first, I had no choice but to tell the truth.

"Everyone thinks I screwed up. Absolutely everyone. I've been lectured by a four-year-old. How is it that you haven't done the same?"

This didn't seem to be what Seth had been expecting. His eyes widened, and I could tell that he was having to think carefully about what he wanted to say to me.

"I figured you were hearing it enough," he said. "You've been upset lately. No need to make it worse."

My heart hurt knowing Seth cared. It was a little ridiculous how touched I always felt when Seth did things like this because I always knew that Seth was the most kindhearted person on Earth.

"But you agree with them," I clarified, needing to hear whether or not he did. For reasons unknown to me, it felt important even as I ran from the same opinion when it came from everyone else.

Seth watched me, a frown wrinkling his forehead.

"You want to hear it from me?" he asked, sounding unsure of himself.

"I'm not some porcelain doll. I can handle whatever it is you're thinking."

Seth sighed, fiddling with a piece of paper that was sticking out of his textbook.

"It's not like that," he said. "I don't think my words alone are going to have an effect. I just feel like you've been dealing with a lot, and you don't need one more thing weighing on you."

"No one else seems to think that way. They operate under the belief that if they're loud enough I'll come to my senses."

Seth shrugged. "Yeah, I know. But after how long it took you to realize you had feelings for Embry, I think that sort of thing will only make you more stubborn. I don't think you'll realize that everyone's right before you have the realization by yourself. You're someone who has to have a personal moment of realization. I don't think I'll make that happen."

"But you agree with them?" I pressed, very aware that he had yet to answer the question.

"I do," he admitted. "I agree that you're meant to be with Embry."

"But he might imprint," I said.

"So could Al or I," Seth pointed out.

"That's so different…"

"How?" Seth asked, and for the first time, I could detect fear in his voice. For the first time, I realized that I wasn't the only one who had these fears about imprinting. Seth had worried about him or Al imprinting too, and I'd never considered that a possibility.

They were together. They were happy.

"It's not different," Seth continued. "Either one of us could. I mean, no one's ever imprinted on a guy, but we know so little when you stop to think about it. For all we know, I could. So it's a possibility for either one of us. Just like it is for you and Embry. But if I let myself dwell over that all the time, I'm going to be miserable. Al and I have already dealt with too much to let that hang over us. So have you and Embry, which is why it upsets me so much that you're letting this fear get the better of you."

"You know that's different. You and Al have always been different."

Seth scoffed. He never seemed to be as capable of derision as he was whenever I voiced any opinion about us living entirely different lives. "It's not. You choose to believe that it is," he said.

"Okay." I paused, thinking. "Let's say that I believe that it is the same type of thing. How do you manage to be with Al then? How do you not let the fear and doubt get the better of you?"

Seth shrugged. I knew from the look on his face that he wasn't sure what his answer was, but he still managed to come up with one.

"I guess I focus on making things work. It's not like I'm an expert. It took a long time for me and Al to get our shit together. We still screw stuff up all the time and have to fix it. We'll probably keep doing so for the rest of our lives, but I try to screw up as little as possible and to fix things when I do screw up. As long as both of us keep doing that, I think we'll be alright in the end. So would you and Embry."

I groaned in frustration, allowing myself to flop down on the bed with my legs hanging off the side. I couldn't find the energy to sit upright anymore. "How do you make it sound easy?"

Seth shrugged, not sure himself. "I've said what was on my mind. I'm not sure that any of that is easy."

When I bothered to think about it, I supposed it wasn't. It was hard to do what Seth had described. That was why I'd been unable to keep doing it. Would I ever be able to maintain that? And not only maintain that myself but trust Embry to maintain it too? For the rest of our lives?

I groaned. It was tempting to lay there forever and not deal with the mess I'd gotten myself into, but then I would be doing the exact opposite of what I was beginning to realize that I needed to do.

October 27th, 2010

Seattle was loud. That was always my biggest complaint whenever I visited. It was loud and dirty and just generally unpleasant. Not that I had much of a frame of reference to compare it to. I imagined New York City as something analogous with hell in my mind, so Seattle looked rather great in comparison. But I didn't like it.

One of the reasons I'd never escaped La Push might have been the fact that I hated cities.

There was also the phasing into a wolf thing, but whether that had happened or not, I doubted I would have left. If I had, it wouldn't have been to come to this place. No matter how much Rachel loved it.

"Is it this loud when you're trying to sleep?" I asked Rachel, staring towards her living room window in what could only be described as disgust. There were so many noises that it was overwhelming. Sure, I'd been able to adjust to Port Angeles over time, but this was another level.

"I don't think it sounds as loud for me as it does for you," Rachel pointed out, setting a glass of water down on the table in front of me.

She settled into a chair of her own, and I couldn't help but be fascinated by how at ease she looked in this apartment. It was little more than two rooms. The house she and Paul had owned hadn't been anything spectacular, but this was still, by many standards, a downgrade. Yet Rachel had a certain spark as she sat in it that hadn't been there when she was living in that house.

"I guess not," I agreed. "Lucky for you."

Rachel shrugged. "It is louder than La Push, but you get used to it." She twirled her glass around in her hand, looking down at the ripples it created in her water. "Paul complains about it sometimes too, but I think he's getting used to it when he visits."

"Or he's too happy about seeing you to bother with complaining for once," I said with a roll of my eyes.

Rachel smirked, but I could see a hint of sadness there. "I guess that could be why."

There was a moment of silence, and I took that as an opportunity to pick up my glass of water and take a sip. I could tell that Rachel was thinking about something, and I figured I would give her the time she needed to say it.

When she did, I nearly spit my water back into the glass.

"So… We've been planning Paul's move up here. Kind of."

I coughed a few times, and I could feel my eyes stinging as I replied. "Kind of?"

Rachel shrugged. "I guess not 'kind of'. We've been planning it. He's trying to find a job before he moves here."

I couldn't do anything but stare at her. Yes, the entirety of both packs knew that Paul had been attempting to quit phasing for this very reason. If this had been months ago, I wouldn't have been surprised, but it wasn't months ago. In the time since Paul had begun his mission to stop phasing, we'd been slapped in the face with the Volturi's new threat.

"But he's phasing again," I said in disbelief. "He's training with us to fight the Volturi. The Volturi who could attack us soon. You remember, the reason why everyone is on high alert? The reason we need every single wolf in La Push?"

Rachel glared at me, not happy that I was speaking to her as if she were a three-year-old, but I couldn't help but believe it was warranted. There was no way she could think such a move was a possibility, and I felt beyond angry with Paul for encouraging her when such a thing was hopeless.

"He'd only be in Seattle," Rachel replied as if Seattle was a short drive from La Push and not more than a hundred miles away. "He'd come if anything happened. It wouldn't change much.

I snorted. "Wouldn't change much? It's not like he could snap his fingers and apparate to La Push. We don't have some advanced detection system. Our safety is at the mercy of Alice's visions, which the Volturi know about. There's no way of knowing if they could work their way around her and sneak up on us. We could die before Paul made it back to La Push."

"Then why are you in Seattle now?"

"This is one day, Rachel. I'm not saying we have to give up our lives in fear of the Volturi, but Paul living here is different. It's not plausible. And I'm not saying this to be an asshole. I'm saying it because Sam's never going to allow him to do it. You know as well as I do that he'll issue an alpha order to keep Paul there. Paul has to know that too. He's not moving to Seattle until the threat is over, and I don't understand how you could think differently."

The glare Rachel gave me was murderous. "Leah, I'm trying to stay optimistic about life. I know you've accepted staying in whatever dark place you inhabit and that you're okay being miserable forever. That's fine. I've given up trying to convince you to change that. But do you have to ruin everything for the rest of us?"

"Ruin…" I felt familiar tremors run through my body, but I hadn't phased in so long. I knew that I wouldn't now. "I'm trying to tell you the truth. This isn't me being pessimistic. This is me looking at reality. I'm not the one who's going to keep Paul in La Push. If you want to be angry with anyone about that, then be angry at the Volturi. They're the reason for this shit. It's not like I want to die in some giant battle. I'd be happy if Paul could move here, you two could live in eternal bliss, and I would get to stay alive, thanks."

Rachel had gone quiet, staring down at the floor. "You're right," she admitted. "I know it's not realistic, but I want it to be possible. I really do."

I sighed, feeling myself deflate. "I know. I want it to be possible too if I'm being honest."

Rachel glanced up at me with a small smile. "I'm happier in Seattle than I was in La Push. I feel like I belong here, but it wasn't a magical cure for my depression. It's still hard. Everything is difficult somedays. And I can't help but wish that Paul was here. That that would help make a big difference."

I looked at her, feeling sad for her instead of angry at her. With Rachel far away again, I often managed to forget that she was still struggling with depression. She was better at hiding it through our limited communication through phone calls and text messages than she was face to face.

"But you know it wouldn't, right?" I said cautiously. "You can't keep holding out for a magical solution, Rachel. Didn't you say the same thing to me once? If you keep acting like something or someone is going to save you, you're never going to get better."

I saw a flash of anger in her eyes, and for a second, I thought she was going to cuss me out. Maybe even demand that I get out of her apartment. But a second later there was a glint of sad acceptance in her eyes, and I wanted to sigh in relief.

"I know," she whispered. "I keep trying to tell myself that, but it's hard not to…. It's hard not to wish for it."

I nodded. How often had I wished to be saved from everything difficult in my life? I got it. I got why Rachel clung to what little hope she had for an easy way out.

At the same time, I knew that I would only hurt her more in the long run if I didn't try to snap her out of it. She wouldn't get better otherwise.

That was why I felt angry at Paul for humoring her. No doubt he didn't want to hurt her. He'd been cautious of that recently. I didn't feel like that excused stringing her along like this. No matter how much happier it made her in the moment.

"I don't like thinking about the Volturi," Rachel admitted. "Even though I don't know how scary they are. I never got to see them."

"You don't want to," I said with a shiver. "I don't want to think about it either."

Rachel nodded, giving me one last sad smile.

"I guess we have to hope for the best."