AN: Yes, an actual pre-chapter author's note. Don't worry, you'll get one at the end, too. I just wanted to give you a heads up that I had a question about Jasper's comment that Bella could name the dog (my attempt at ending the chapter on a a witty punchline… which failed). Hopefully I subtly explain in this chapter why Jasper would have said that. (Of course it's not really subtle now that I've put in this AN, but what can you do?). See, if you ask me questions, I will answer them!
Lastly, Just like the Twilight books are not mine, they are Stephanie Meyer's, Middlemarch is not mine, it is George Elliot (who is actually a woman). The quotation I use in this chapter is from Middlemarch, which should be pretty obvious…
Let's see… leash? Check. Already in my basket. But do I even need one? When do I take him walking with a leash? I usually just run around with him in the forest… Still, if Mom wanted to take him on a walk or if he had to go to the vet or something, he'd need one. Ok, what's next?
Collar? He came with one. Oooh, but I should get one of those little harnesses so the leash doesn't pull too tightly on his neck… And more dog food. He needs more food.
"What's your dog's name?" my head snaps up at the sound of the strange male voice. I was completely lost in thought, staring blankly at a display of general dog paraphernalia, when this, this man sneaked up on me. And now he's talking to me.
"Uh…" Yes, I am famed for my man-talking skills. "Um, Scott."
"Oh, is he a Scotty dog?" Ew, the man is smiling at me now, in a sort of condescending way. Why is he even talking to me? First of all, he's too old, second of all, who talks to girls in pet shops anyway? What is that about?
"…..no. No, he's not a Scotty dog." I finally force out. Why does everyone think that? Scott is a perfectly normal, male name. I wonder if Scott is grateful to me for having such a decent name. Letting him keep the name Rosalie gave him just shows that I like him. If I hated him, I would have let Bella name him, like Jasper suggested. Actually, after we all stopped laughing, I was surprised that even the other bloodsuckers made fun of Bella about her naming-skills.
After the "Renesmee" fiasco, Bella shouldn't even be allowed to name a houseplant, let alone my dog.
And the man is looking at me with his eyebrows raised. Like he's waiting for me to tell him what breed of dog I own. What the hell? What exactly about me screams "Oh, please come talk to me!" I am tempted to say, 'he's a wild, killer part-wolf dog and he eats people like you,' but this actually just describes some kind of combination between myself and the leeches.
"He's an Italian greyhound," I finally tell the man, whom I have named "Sketchy McSleezeball." I run my hand through my hair nervously. It's getting longish—I've been growing it out since I've realized that Jacob is, too. If he can handle long fur that gets brambles stuck in it, then so can I. Anyway, I'd rather have Jake-hair than Sam-hair.
"Scott is a pretty unusual name for an Iggy," God, what is this guy's problem? Doesn't he have a job or something?I look at his chest quickly to make sure he's not wearing a nametag or something that would identify him as an employee of the store—that would make me feel really dumb for naming him Sketchy McSleezeball. But no. I was right.
"Uh, yeah, well, he's a pretty special dog," I say with as much bitchiness as possible. Dammit, he made me forget what else I was getting for Scott. Oh, right, dog food. I head in that direction. Sketchy takes the hint and crawls off back to his little lair to plot how to annoy countless other women, I am sure.
I finally get all the things Scott needs and go up to the counter to pay. I've even got about 8 different kinds of special doggie treats. When I open my purse to get out my wallet, I find an envelope tucked in there that I've never seen before. I open it, and inside is a giftcard to the pet store that I'm standing in. From Rosalie. Huh.
That's a pretty nice gesture—now I can buy lots of random things for Scott guilt-free. But it's also kind of borderline creepy. The creepy part is wondering how she got this card into my purse. She must have done it while I was at the Crypt, since the Cullens aren't allowed in La Push.
"Did you find everything alright?" the salesgirl asks.
"Uh, actually, I'm looking for a pet for my friends. I was wondering if you guys had leeches?"
"Leeches?"
"Yeah, you know. Like maybe in a fish tank or something?
"Um, no, miss, we don't have leeches. Oh. I get it, it's a joke—are your friends lawyers?"
"No. They are not lawyers. I just really want to get them a pet leech or two. Do you have any other kind of leech-like animals?"
The cashier is staring at me like I've grown a third eye. "No…"
"Anything that feeds on blood?"
"No, I'm… sorry?"
Why am I even doing this? I am way past the point of thinking I have some weird disease—some disease that Jacob and Seth have that I caught from them that makes us willingly spend time with leeches. Well, I guess for Jacob it isn't so much willing, as he is forced to by the imprinting. Still. So why do I keep going over to their house? Actually, I know why, and that's what scares me.
After so long alone, after so many months and years wishing I could have friends again, friends like Emily was my friend, once… well, now I have friends, sort of. God, when did I start thinking of the leeches as my friends? This is all Alice's fault. She's too damn nice. So nice that I can't say no to her. And Rosalie is… well, she's not nice. But she's bitter as hell about something and I like that. It makes me feel like less of a monster because I'm not happy all the time.
The other thing that I like about Rosalie is that even though her life hasn't been perfect (and I still don't know what's wrong,) she doesn't sit around and cry about it. She doesn't indulge in ridiculous and adolescent displays of pointless rebellion. Oh yes, Jake told me about the stupid shit Bella used to pull when her pwecious widdle Eddie left her… Ugh. When I used to torment Sam's pack, I didn't do it because I wanted attention. I didn't do it because I wanted Sam to feel sorry for me. I did it because I couldn't fucking deal with the way Sam looked at me when I wasn't being a bitch. Like he was some pathetic little puppy that I'd kicked. Like I had somehow hurt him just by existing, by being there in his pack, reminding him of what he had done just by being there.
Rosalie seems like that, too. Like she deals with shit, instead of whining about it and making other people take care of her.
Getting dressed in the forest is getting easier, even with Scott running around at my feet. Actually, I've been phasing for so long that yeah, of course it's easy to get back into human mode. What I mean is that getting dressed in real clothes is easier now, since I keep a stash in a canvas bag tied in a tree near the Cullens'. Convenient that they live in the middle of nowhere. It's not tied high up in the tree, or anything—climbing trees naked, wow does that sound like a barrel of not fun. I can get it with my teeth if I jump. As a wolf, that is. It's all very well for Jacob to parade around in shorts to prove to the leeches that he's wild and uncivilized (since bloodsuckers in general seem to fancy themselves the highlight of society) and that they haven't tamed him, but some of us like wearing pants.
None of the other wolves ever wear more clothing than Jacob does, not right after they phase. None of them bother me though, not like Jake does. I wonder why. I wonder why he's the only one I notice.
For an instant, I'm thinking about Sam. I never think about Sam. I mean, I think about Sam and her, about how much I hate them both, but I don't remember things… I used to, when he first left me and there was a gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be, and then again, I tortured myself with memories of him, when I was first in his pack and had to see myself through his eyes, see how pathetic he thought I was, pathetic and lonely without him. But for an instant, walking up toward the Cullens' sepulchral mansion, I remember when he came to me, after he phased for the first time, but before he saw my cousin. When everyone but me thought he had a drug problem, some unspeakable reason for his disappearance.
He'd kissed me, and clung to me, shaking. His clothes were torn, he was barefoot, and there was so much fear in his eyes. He'd asked me to cut his hair. I didn't know why, but I had done it. "As short as possible" he kept insisting. So I did. It looked horrible, but it was what he wanted. And then he pulled me to him, and was pleading, "Leah, don't leave me, please don't leave me," over and over again, like a mantra.
I sat in his lap, wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and whispered, "I will never leave you."
The bastard. But I did leave him. Finally. The day I ran off to Jacob's little renegade pack.
Why am I even thinking about this? The wedding is coming up pretty quickly—assuming they don't put it off again, but still. I look down at Scott, who is standing right by my side. Alice was right, he does love running. And it's fun to have someone to run with… Scott's nowhere near as fast as I am—how could he be, with those short legs (abnormally large for his tiny body, yes, but nowhere near as long as a werewolf's) but we still had fun running in the forest. "Scott, why am I thinking about Sam?" I ask, and he looks up at me with his big, brown eyes. I wonder briefly if that's what Nessie looks at Jacob. The thought makes me laugh.
Scott and I go up to Rosalie's room—yeah, I've stopped knocking, just like the boys. I suppose it's hers and Emmett's, but it seems pretty feminine. And if any of the leeches are feminine, it's not Emmett (Jasper, though, is kinda feminine.) She's got a whole separate little sitting room attached to the bedroom, and that's where we go. Scott is tired from the run over here, so he goes and curls up on one of the loveseats. I sit next to him. Rosalie comes in with a big bowl of pretzels and puts it on the table. "That's for you, obviously."
"Oh, really? I thought they started making snacks in blood flavor so you and your family could partake" I reply, helping myself to the pretzels.
"Anyway, you'd better enjoy them now, before your little doggie friends show up and eat all the human food in the house" she glances at Scott. "No offense, Scott."
And we talk. About this and that and nothing really important. But it makes me happy. I'm smiling easier now. I've been smiling easier ever since that day when Alice and Rosalie and I sat in an empty parking lot in Port Angeles. Plus I have Scott. So I'm busy, busy enough that when I fall asleep I don't dream of being in Sam's arms. The worst part wasn't even the dreams, it was waking up after the dreams, hating myself for this weakness. Rosalie tells me I don't miss Sam, I miss being held.
I eat pretzels like a woman possessed as we chatter and gossip. I tell her about my mom and Charlie and she freaks out and says, "really? Really?!" a bunch of times. Apparently when Charlie's not at my house eating, he sometimes comes over to watch the Mariners or the Seahawks with Edward and Jacob. He and Billy are talking again at least, (I tell Rosalie about how they stopped speaking for awhile), and sometimes I guess he goes over to Billy's for the games, but obviously Billy doesn't come here. I wonder out-loud to Rosalie what will happen if Nessie grows up and marries Jacob. Then even Billy will be part of their big bloodsucking family.
She giggles. "Do you know what Emmett said the other night?"
There are a lot of smartass retorts I could make, but I'm not sure if Rosalie and I know each other well enough for that. "No, what?"
"He said, "Gee, Rose, wouldn't it be great if Jacob and Nessie got married and had a son and then Leah could imprint on their son.'"
I laugh, I can't help it. That's just about the grossest thing I've ever heard. "Uh, yeah, okay, that's my new life plan. Falling in love with Bella's grandson. Yup. What could be better?"
She cracks up at that and we're both bent over double when Emmett walks into the room. He looks at us, raises an eyebrow, and scoops up Scott. "Poor Scott, you don't want to be in here with these crazy women, do you boy?" he says as he carries my dog downstairs.
As soon as he's gone, I regret not yelling at him for his little me-imprinting comment. "Why do you all want me to imprint so badly, anyway?" I ask Rosalie, as if she could answer for family. She shrugs.
"Oh, but I have to tell you the rest! You know how I feel about not being able to have children, so you have to understand that this is totally a joke, but, ok, so Alice was there, and she was like, seriously considering setting you up with her unborn great-nephew. And then she gets this look on her face, right, and says, 'Actually, I really don't want Nessie pregnant! So, if they look like they are falling in love or something, I mean, when Nessie is older, if I ever walk in on her making out or whatever with Jacob, swear to God, I am having him fixed.'"
"Wait," I ask, stunned, "Little Alice said that?" She nods.
"So even though it's totally not funny to me to joke about not being able to have a baby… It is actually kind of funny," she says with a smile.
"Especially because it's Jake," I giggle. "But Alice is right, they really shouldn't breed."
"They could create their own race of werewolf-vampire things!"
"Ok, so I'm on-board with the whole neutering Jacob thing, if it spares the world that,"
"We could get it done when Scott gets fixed next month."
"I don't even know if that will be necessary. Do you really think they'll get together?" I ask, thinking about the conversation I had with Jacob a few weeks ago in Bella's Ferrari when he seemed so…afraid.
She shrugs. "Don't know. Do you know something I don't?" Her eyebrow has an arch to it, and she's looking at me, like she's trying to decide whether or not to say something.
Then she says, with a completely different, matter-of-fact tone, "Nessie's been asking about you. She's curious. You should talk to her."
"She asked about me?"
"Uh, well, she doesn't really do verbal communication when she can avoid it," she says.
"So she thought about my face and then imagined a big question mark?"
"No. She sort of… I don't know. She's been doing this thing lately where she shows me everyone… For the last few weeks, she's been showing me Esme and Carlisle, and then Bella and Edward, and Jasper and Alice, and then me and Emmett and then you and Jacob, when you two were over with your brother last month…." Her voice trails off, but then she starts speaking really quickly. "I think she's curious about you. It's probably because there are so few new people in her life, I mean, you are the only person beside your brother and Charlie that she knows who's not a vampire. I mean, other than Jacob, of course."
It's the weekend, so apparently I have nothing better to do than hang out with the Cullens all day. What started as just me, Rosalie, and Scott, became a sort of vampire-werewolf social hour, when all the parasites came home and even Jacob and Seth showed up.
Embry and Quil must be freaking out, what with the rest of the pack over here with the bloodsuckers all the time, but oh well. Like I care what those two think. I wonder if Jake has invited them over…Quil probably doesn't want his darling baby Claire anywhere near the leeches, with good reason. Although she's small…not much of a meal, I mean. And Embry. For all I know, Embry is wandering around trying to imprint on someone. Or trying to figure out who his father is… I do actually feel sorry for Embry. Not that I will ever tell him. But he should have kept his damn thoughts about how pathetic I was after Sam left me to himself, the immature bastard. Wait… that's not actually a good insult to use against Embry. Since he actually is a bastard, I mean.
And here's the cutest part of tonight. Dr Cullen brought pizza home. The kind where you get it made and then take it home to cook. Yeah, I guess calling a pizza delivery boy out here to the house isn't such a good idea. And yet, kinda funny. I wonder if regular vampires do that when they are hungry… God, what the hell is wrong with me? Stop laughing about vampires killing people, Leah.
It was a lot of pizza. Enough to feed Jake, Seth, me, and for Nessie to have a piece. She ate it, sitting curled at Jacob's side, with the most confused look on her creepy little face. Chewing very exactly. "She prefers blood," Esme told me. Aw, how cute. Not.
Still, Nessie might be the Queen of Creepy, but her mother is the Empress of Annoying.
Will someone please explain to me what the hell is wrong with Jacob's taste in women?
After pizza…. And here's where it gets weird. I mean, it was at like 8 on the weirdometer, but now it's at 15, sort of thing. Anyway, After pizza, Nessie the Spawn came over to "talk" to me. We were all sitting on the floor, Emmett and Jacob having moved the furniture to the back wall. She came over and sat cross legged across from me. And just looked at me.
Fucking. Ridiculously. Creepy.
Edward the Loveleech glared at me for thinking that. Then he glared at me even more for thinking of him as the "Loveleech." So I started imagining a little leech snuggling up to another little leech with little cartoon hearts pouring off of them. Then I imagined a cursive script above the leeches, one saying "Edward" and the other "Bella." His glare intensified. Some people just don't appreciate my subtle humor.
I will have to tell Rosalie about it later. Alice would probably just say something about how I shouldn't be too hard on the happy couple. But Rosalie will actually laugh.
Damn, Spawn is still staring at me. "Uh, hi, Nessie, how are you?" I say to her. She holds out her hand. Ew, she wants me to touch her.
So for some reason (drugged pizza?), I do.
She shows me the cover of a book, Pride and Prejudice. I say it out loud and Esme, who seems to have taken on the role of talking to me about Spawn, says, "Oh, she's been reading a lot of books from the Romantic and Victorian periods." I blink at her. The kid is three. She looks eight. Who the hell reads Pride and Prejudice at that age?
"Renesmee is incredibly gifted mentally. She's been reading lots of books that other people don't read until they are much older." Damn, Loveleechy sounds really, really snooty when he says that. If he doesn't stop reading my mind, I'm going to go back to thinking about little leeches in love.
Nessie shakes my hand to get my attention again. She shows me her mom holding the book and smiling. "Bella loves literature from that period," Edward translates.
"I'm sorry," says a soft, musical voice. My head snaps back to Nessie in shock. There are freaking words coming out of her mouth. "I usually use words with people I don't know. But I like you, so I was showing, instead of talking. It is more intimate. If it makes you uncomfortable, Leah Clearwater, I can speak,"
Oh. My. God. That was weird.
"Uh, no, you can do your picture thing, uh, Nessie," I stammer. Why did the kid have to be so polite to me?
So here's what I understood from what she showed me, and told me, and her father and grandmother helped with. The Cullens are home schooling her—she grows too quickly for regular school. Since Bella apparently has a thing for Wuthering Heights, which I personally hated, Nessie read it. And then all the Austen books, and so on. So apparently Nessie wants to sit here on the floor and discuss literature with me.
Kid is weird. Very, very weird.
She's pretty well read. All romances, though. With a family like hers, I don't know how she can stand sugary-sweet endings. It seems like overkill. Just for the hell of it, I ask her if she's read Dracula. She says her mom doesn't want her to.
So I start to tell her about it. "Actually, it's a really good book. Much better, and much different, from all of the movies. And very ahead of it's time. Stoker narrates the book with diaries and letters. But, uh, it's not very sympathetic to vampires." Nessie shows me her mom telling her that she can't read any books about vampires, saying that they are untrue and hurtful. "So no Anne Rice for you, huh, kid?" I ask. Spawn shakes her head.
Speaking of Bella, she's over talking to Dr Cullen about something. Edward and Esme are still here with me and Nessie. Emmett, Jasper and Seth are over in the corner, laughing their asses off at something. Wow. What the hell is wrong with my brother? I'm going to have to have a little chat with him about fraternizing with bloodsuckers. Rosalie and Alice are went off upstairs to get something awhile back. And Jacob, who had been talking to the other boys, is staring at me with his mouth open. Completely gobsmacked.
I roll my eyes at him. Yes, I am talking to his effing creepy girlfriend. No, I don't want him to ask me about it.
And just like that, Nessie runs off. She darts over to the corner and digs around in her little bag. When she comes back to me, she's holding a dog-eared copy of Middlemarch.
"Damn," I say. Spawn does not shy away from reading. Edward is glaring at me for swearing in front of his daughter. If she's mature enough to be reading so much, she's probably mature enough to handle one freaking swearword.
She hands me the book and touches my arm. She shows me that she really likes this one, better than all of the Austen books. But she isn't finished yet. Still, she thinks the people are more real in this book than in the others. She wants to know if I have read it, and what I thought. I tell her, "Yeah. I read it in high school." When I was still dating Sam. He teased me about doing such heavy reading outside of class, but hey, I enjoyed it. "It took me forever to get through, though," I add. She smiles her creepy little Spawn smile.
"Renesmee is a very fast reader," says Loveleechy the Proud Father. Of course she is.
I start flipping through the pages and open to one at random, starting to read from the top of the page.
"…but he has always been civil to me, and I don't see why I should spoil his sport. For anything I can tell, Miss Brooke may be happier with him than she would be with any other man."
"Humphrey! I have no patience with you. You know you would rather dine under the hedge than with Casaubon alone. You have nothing to say to each other."
"What has that to do with Miss Brooke's marrying him? She does not do it for my amusement."
"He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James.
"No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader.
Nessie interrupts me, wondering what part I am at. I show her. She tells me she thinks this book is very sad, sometimes. I nod. "It's about people being human," I say. "Making mistakes. Even the characters I hate in that book, they are all human, and flawed. But they all have real reasons for doing what they do."
She nods knowingly. Wow. Seeing that much maturity in her face, it's too bizarre. Bella wanders over to where I am talking to her daughter. She looks at Edward questioningly. He smiles and nods. So, what, was Bella freaked that I might scar her daughter? I think I should be more worried that her daughter would try to go for my jugular or something. "Oh, Leah, you like that book?" She asks me, gesturing to her daughter's paperback, which I am still holding. I shrug and nod. Bella says, "I like Jane Austen better. Middlemarch is too…" she can't think of the word.
So her little darlin' bloodsucker finishes for her. "In Austen, the women all end up married to the men of their dreams," he says and kisses her. I try not to vomit. Instead I imagine leeches cuddling. It's obviously distressing to Edward, because he stops kissing his wife. Thank god. I would have thrown the book at their heads. I hate Public Displays of Affection.
"But in Middlemarch, people marry people they shouldn't. They choose wrong," she says, like she's just realizing that's her problem with the book. She giggles, "No wonder I don't like it. It's not very romantic!"
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Nessie is looking at me with a little too much focus. She gives me the weirdest smile. Like she knows something that I don't. Like she's proud of herself.
Freak.
Nessie gives me one last little glance and runs over to where Jacob is standing. He swoops her up into his arms instantly. It makes her look even smaller, since Jacob is so freakishly large. Well, maybe I shouldn't say that, since I'm tall, too.
"That was nice of you, Leah, to talk to our daughter," says the Parasite, his parasitic arm still wrapped around his equally parasitic wife. I shrug at him and think No problem, I guess. Rosalie said she was curious about me.
He regards me carefully and says, "You're less mean that you were the first time I heard your thoughts—when we were training to fight."
And you're still as annoying. I would have thought even more horrible things, but Mrs. Leech is talking. "Nessie so rarely gets to meet new people—as soon as she's done growing, she can go to high school or college, but for now, she gets lonely."
Before I start lying about how I don't mind talking to Spawn (who seems almost more creepy now than she did before), we're interrupted.
By Jacob.
He's running around the room, holding Nessie straight out in a sort of Superman pose, screaming "Attack of the killer squirrel." Swooping all over the massive room.
And Nessie is giggling hysterically. Kid won't talk, but she'll laugh like a freak.
Bella and Edward seem to find it pretty amusing. They are looking at each other like "Aw, isn't that cute. Our freakyass-monster-child has a babysitter!" Actually, all of the leeches, and my own brother seem to find it funny. Then my gaze finds Jasper's. He rolls his eyes at me.
I start laughing. And I am sure everyone else thinks I am laughing about how "cute" Nessie is.
It's getting late, now. Jacob sets Nessie down at last, and her parents decide it's her bedtime. Apparently Spawns sleep, leeches don't. But I'm actually…enjoying myself, giggling with Rosalie and Alice. So when Bella and Edward and Nessie leave, I don't. And Jacob says he has to stay to keep an eye on me. I thought for sure that the second Nessie was out of the house, Jacob would be gone. I sort of imagined Jacob, in wolf form, sleeping in front of their cottage door. I guess not.
It's even later now… Seth says he should go, even though tomorrow is Sunday, so it's not like he has school. He says he doesn't want Mom to worry. I tell him Mom has been asleep for awhile now, but he just shrugs. Damn responsible boy. He leaves. And still I'm laughing and talking with Rosalie and Alice, and even some of the other leeches. What the hell?! What is wrong with me? They are vampire bloodsucker parasites…
It's even later, later. I'm sleepy. Really, really sleepy. I should go home now. But La Push seems kinda far away right now… God I am tired… Rosalie is smiling at me kinda funnily… Is funnily a word? Anyway, she's smiling all oddly…So tired…
AN:
Thank you to everyone who is reading this! But especially to everyone who has taken the time to review—it really, really means a lot to me, and does inspire me to write more! I'm having too much fun exploring Leah's mind and how I think her character would evolve, if she were just given some time.
Maybe I should say a bit about the Nessie thing. Yes, Leah talked to Nessie. And if Nessie is a brilliant as Bella thinks she is in Breaking Dawn, then she's probably more observant than Bella… I just tried to show her being slightly… off. She's supposedly different from everyone else in the world, so that's why in this chapter she is talking to Leah about Victorian literature. Nessie is very smart in some ways, but she's only 3—she doesn't have any life experiences and so she is trying to make sense of life via books that she's read or things her parents and Rosalie and Jacob have told her.
Last but not least, Middlemarch. I really enjoy that book. And no, I am not trying to say that Jacob has no red blood in him. Personally I think Jacob has enough red blood for himself and a few other guys, too. But if Stephanie Meyer can use "Romeo and Juliet" and Wuthering Heights to anchor some of her books, then I can use Middlemarch in this chapter. And what Bella, Nessie, and Edward say about it is exactly right—unlike Pride and Prejudice, it's about people who make the wrong choice in who to marry because they have some preconceived idea of the sort of person they should be with and they don't see something that's right in front of their faces. (Interpret that as you will.)