AN: Thank you to all who read the prologue! And thank you for those who stick with me. I adore you guys – oh so much. -meliz
Suggested Listening: "Paint the Pictures" by of Verona
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On her nineteenth birthday, Bella Swan knew she was going to marry Embry Call.
She hated parties - she had always hated parties and gifts and anything that required a spotlight on her. Still, she put on a brave face the same way she always did, telling herself to suck it up and deal with the fact the entire pack was planning a huge birthday bonfire for her. Food was made. Gifts were bought, and Bella knew she had to go.
Embry told her it would mean a lot to the others - that no matter how out of place she felt at times, they loved her and this was how they wanted to show her. She knew it, and she was thankful for it, so she agreed. It also helped that Embry always had a way of talking her down - at making things more agreeable - even if a big party was the last thing she wanted on her birthday.
When the day came, Embry picked her up in his truck. Leaning over the center console, he kissed her when she climbed into the cab, ignoring her grumbles of protest when he pulled away much too soon.
"Ready to go?"
She smiled, her only response a single nod.
Yet when they reached La Push Road, Embry didn't turn. He didn't go the way he needed to get to the reservation - to her party. Twisting her body in the seat, Bella watched the corner disappear in the truck's back window. Letting her gaze drift down, for the first time she noticed the blankets in the truck's bed. The cooler pushed against the wheel well.
Her face screwing up in confusion, Bella looked to Embry for explanation, even though she was already putting the pieces together.
"You'll see," was all he said without so much as a look to her, despite the widening smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.
They ended up at the beach in Port Angeles. He backed the truck up as far as it could go, edging it right up to the sand before hopping out, the biggest grin Bella had ever seen on his face. Running to the other side, he opened the door for her in one swift movement.
But before Bella got out of the truck, she turned, capturing Embry's face between both hands. Pressing her lips to his, she kissed him once - twice, three times - before pulling away, knowing what he'd done for her and knowing he was probably going to suffer the consequences, even though a jubilant laugh tumbled from her mouth.
Bella shook her head in amazement at the smile Embry was still giving her.
"We're gonna be in so much trouble," she murmured, thinking of the pack on the beach. Thinking of the party they missed and how even though a larger part of her felt bad, another couldn't bring herself to care.
"Does it matter?" Embry asked, one eyebrow lifting imploringly as he pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
Smiling again, Bella shook her head before leaning forward one last time, recapturing Embry's lips with her own. Two strong arms wrapped around her small frame as her body was pulled from the truck.
"I love you," she whispered against his lips, feeling his smile when she did. "Thank you."
Not wanting her feet to touch the ground, they eventually did, but his arms were still where they belonged.
Around her.
"I love you, too, Bella...always."
Their story wasn't a fairy tale.
In reality, it wasn't even what she envisioned for her life. Bella met Embry when she eighteen - when he and Quil Ateara showed up in Jacob's garage. Jacob Black had always been her best friend, taking her under his wing when Bella was a hollowed-out version of the person she was supposed to be - the person she was capable of being, when she was left behind by someone who she thought defined love.
She hadn't known it then, but she had never been more wrong.
The day after she met Embry, she went back to Jacob's garage, located on his father's land in La Push, the reservation of the Quileute tribe. Embry was there, and so was Quil. While Jacob and Quil would argue over car parts and spar to determine who the winner was, Bella paid more attention to Embry's silence. To what he said without words. To his expressions. To the way he carried himself. To the words he did say, and how not a single one ever went to waste.
She wasn't used to it - the way Embry was. She was so accustomed to Jacob's jovial attempts to bring her back from the dead, yet she found herself smiling every time she spoke to Embry. Drawn to his unassuming presence, it was through their effortless exchanges in which she learned she had a lot in common with Embry. Mothers who cared more about themselves than their children. A love for the same types of music. Closet infatuations with British television shows.
Embry was intriguing...a bit of a mystery. A boy carrying a wisdom and maturity beyond his years, and a mesmerizing intensity behind those ebony eyes.
But after his sixteenth birthday, Bella had a feeling everything would change.
Bella shouldn't have known. She shouldn't have found out what he was, but Jacob - ever her best friend - somehow found a way around his orders. Jacob somehow found a way to tell her the legends of their tribe were true - that he carried inside him a single gene that allowed him to take on a different form.
That he was a shapeshifter, designed to protect the tribe from the Cold Ones. From vampires.
He was a werewolf.
And so was Embry.
Bella tried to understand the best she could. She dated a vampire once - a chapter in her life she tried so hard to close - so to say she was no stranger to weird would have been an understatement. Still, most of the Quileute pack was surprised how it barely fazed her. Some of them were angry she knew. Some of them couldn't care less.
Embry was grateful. Relieved.
She could see it in his eyes the first time she saw him...after the change. How even though he was different - even though he was taller, broader, and even though he looked older - those eyes were just how she remembered.
In that moment, she felt exactly the same way, finally knowing where her own gratitude came from. Knowing why it was there.
Because she couldn't imagine giving that up.
She couldn't imagine her life without those eyes, even if she wasn't sure what they were to her yet. No matter how they saw her.
Their first date was in the middle of the afternoon between patrol shifts. They sat on his mother's sofa, parked in front of an episode of Doctor Who, eating slices of an extra-large pepperoni pizza.
Heart pounding the entire time she sat there, Bella swore she spent more time watching Embry than the television. Every nerve in her body misfired when more than once his hand brushed her thigh. When she leaned her shoulder against his, every single part of her sick with a nervousness she couldn't explain.
When she went to leave, he kissed her on his front porch.
It was sweet - easy, and every bit of anxiety dissolved beneath it, swept away by the gentleness of his mouth. Shut out by the warmth of his lips on hers.
It was nothing like before. It was nothing like she knew, in the best imaginable way.
Yet it reassured her that no matter how much had changed, he was exactly the same.
They were exactly the same, and everything would be okay.
Bella loved him more than she ever thought possible. Months passed, and so did years, and Bella built a life with Embry rather than around him.
But shortly after Christmas one year, everything changed again…
In the best possible way, even if it didn't feel that way at the time.
Standing just inside the bathroom doorway, a million thoughts ran through Bella's head. Turning her gaze, she watched Embry, who was leaning rigidly against the doorframe. Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she handed him the little white stick.
The little white stick with the pretty pink plus sign.
She half-expected him to freak out. To get angry. To turn around, walk out the front door of her father's house in Forks, and never come back. She'd heard all the horror stories, seen it on television. There was nothing tying Embry to her, and he could do it, if he wanted - he could leave her to do it by herself.
To raise a baby by herself.
Bella was scared. She was terrified. Heart hammering in her chest, she still watched Embry, wondering how it happened in the first place. She was only twenty-one years old, and Embry was only nineteen. She was still trying to finish school, taking online classes and working part-time at the Forks diner. Somewhere in between patrols and pack business, Embry and Quil got jobs at the marina, and Embry was only now starting to save money.
For their first place, he'd told her...
Bella hung onto that. She hung onto everything she knew and loved about him, telling herself she was overreacting.
At one point, Embry's copper cheeks turned white and she thought he might just pass out. She took a step forward, dipping her head to catch his frantic eyes, her own stare wide and wondering and pleading with him to say something. Anything.
In a handful of months, they were going to be parents.
And she could already tell… she would need him more in that moment than any of the ones that came before.
It took Embry several long seconds to remember to breathe, but eventually the glaze in his eyes receded. Blinking rapidly, his face softened when he saw the panicked expression on Bella's. Finally moving, he closed the distance between them, depositing the stick on the sink and taking her face purposefully between both hands. Those endless eyes searching hers, reassuring her, knowing what was wrong and putting it to rest with a single look before the smallest of smiles pulled at his lips.
"I'm not going anywhere, Bella. We can do this."
Once they went to the doctor - once they heard the heartbeat of the small life growing inside Bella, one she and Embry created together - life moved fast. Combining Embry's savings with a small loan from Bella's father, Charlie, Sue Clearwater helped them find a small, two-bedroom house on the edge of La Push, convincing the owner to take it off the market and rent it to Bella and Embry instead.
By the time she was halfway through her second trimester, Bella had done the best she could to turn the small house into a home. They didn't have brand new furniture or a flat-screen TV, but it didn't matter. They had each other, and for Bella, it was all she needed.
The house was never empty. It felt like they always had visitors. Sometimes it was Sam's wife Emily, who threw every ounce of domestic talent she had into helping Bella ready the second bedroom for the baby. Other times it was Quil, Jacob, and Paul, who would sit at their kitchen table with Embry for hours, drinking beers and laughing loudly at absolutely nothing. Sometimes it was Leah, who would steal Bella away, deposit the woman in her car, and drive aimlessly for hours. Claiming no matter how nice Bella was, sometimes it was okay to want a few moments to herself.
Jacob told her once it had a lot to do with the fact Bella was pregnant. Even though the baby wasn't there yet, it made the pack protective of her - of the life she carried. It was already part of their family, and Jacob just laughed, telling her she should probably get used to the company.
It didn't matter what they did, how they did it, or what Jacob told her - Bella was just happy they were there. That everyone else was happy. That everything would be fine and even if her and Embry could do it on their own, she knew they wouldn't have to.
In Bella's third trimester, Jacob imprinted on the new kindergarten teacher at the rez school.
The simple act of it shouldn't have bothered Bella as much as it did. Despite the fact it had already happened to Sam, Paul, and Jared, Bella had always pushed the possibility from her mind, telling herself what she and Embry had was stronger. That the choice they made was more permanent than any supernatural force.
Still, seeing it happen all over again, Bella couldn't help it as her mind wondered, knowing there were only weeks left before it would be about more than her and Embry. That because of what Embry was, their life could mean nothing. That fate could ultimately step in and decide he was meant for someone else.
That another life - one that didn't include Bella or their child - would be better suited for him.
Seeing Jacob and Anna together during those final weeks of her pregnancy, Bella worried about imprinting more than she should have. It was always in the back of her mind, especially when her belly grew so large she couldn't see her toes. When each passing day made the weight of what was coming more and more real. It fought its way to the front every few days or so - the lingering thought that whatever spirits were in charge could ultimately decide to step in and force her to do this on her own.
That they could take her daughter's father away.
They were standing in their kitchen when she finally told Embry what was bothering her. He regarded her for a moment - a patient, understanding expression resting on his face - before he took a step forward. Before he simply wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his body. Soothing her, he left soft, patient kisses on her forehead. His breath pushed through her hair and after a few moments, Bella couldn't remember what she was so worried about.
Because it didn't matter how many years had passed or how things continued to change, it worked every single time. Somehow, he always found a way to remind her they were the way things were supposed to be.
But just in case she didn't believe it, Embry whispered the words against the top of her head, squeezing her just a little tighter when he did.
Telling her one more time.
"I'm not going anywhere, Bella - I promise."
...
Bella wished fate had chose imprinting.
AN: Gah.
Thoughts?