Seth had decided to sleep over at Embry's after all, and I took this as a sign that I needed to say something to my mother. Time alone with her was a precious thing, not to be taken lightly. Since I'd made my decision, I purposely hadn't shifted, so Sam wouldn't know about my plans. I knew it was technically probably breaking the rules to tell her anything, but I hadn't specifically been ordered not to. Besides, they were going to tell her everything the next day anyway. What difference would it make then? I thought she deserved to hear it from me.
But I was scared. What would the tribal council think? They already treated me like I was radioactive, trying to include me in their guidance of the boys, but holding me apart despite their best intentions, always looking askance at me, as if there was something in my appearance or movements that could give them the answer to my deviance. Part of me was desperate to ask Sam for advice, but I knew exactly what he would say, and I didn't want anyone to stop me. Besides, we didn't talk to each other much if we didn't have to.
More importantly, how would my mother take this? Was I making a mistake thinking I was the better messenger of such a cruel truth? I wanted to protect her from knowing that her children had made this change, that we would be forever separate from her. But there was no stopping this now- she was determined to take my father's seat on the council, and when my mother set her mind to something, there was nothing to do but be prepared.
I wasn't prepared when she came home from work that night. I heard the car outside, and a few moments later I heard the door open and her keys drop into the dish next to our coat closet. I had been in the living room reading, but when I heard her car I'm embarrassed to say I jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Now I stood, the countertop digging into my lower back, my hands clenched against its sharp edges, waiting. Part of me hoped she would go straight to bed, but I knew she wouldn't. Instead, she made a beeline for the kitchen, turned on the light, and jumped as she saw me.
"Leah!" she gasped. "What are you doing in the dark? You scared me. I thought you kids were out." She was usually like this, chatty from her long day of interacting with others, as if she couldn't quite shift gears, and she didn't notice when I didn't answer her. She started pulling things from the cupboards as she continued, "It was crazy busy at the clinic today. There's a bout of strep throat going around at school so I'll have to remind Seth not to share drinks or touch his face too much." She filled the kettle with water, put it on the stove, threw two pieces of toast into the toaster, and finally settled down long enough to look at me. She smiled and reached over to smooth the hair from my face.
My parents have a significant age difference, and my mother is young and clear-faced and quite pretty, even when she's tired. She has an open, inviting smile, and warm brown eyes that pull you in. Those eyes and that face had pulled me from a million crises, seen me through injuries and hurt feelings and a broken heart. I trusted her, but I didn't want to hurt her. I suddenly wished I had been a more rebellious kid- that I'd gotten something pierced without my parents' permission or came home drunk, so I would know how my mother would react to shock.
Absently, I reached up and touched my fingers to the tattoo on the outside of my right shoulder, which I had kept hidden from her, not knowing how she would react. It was torture to wear sleeves with how hot I always was, but Seth and I had both made the decision to do so. The council had framed the tattoo as a choice, but it had pretty much been forced on each of us, quickly and efficiently, before our healing abilities fully manifested. As Billy had explained to Sam the first time they did it, it was the last scar any of us would ever have.
"Did you hurt your shoulder?" my mother's question broke through my thoughts, her nurse's eyes narrowed in concern as she tried to size me up. Instantly, I dropped my hand and started to shake my head, but then I hesitated. How was I going to tell her everything if I couldn't tell her that?
So I lifted the sleeve of my shirt up and showed it to her. My mother said nothing for a long moment. I wasn't sure what I saw in her eyes as she gazed at the intricate black patterns on my arm that formed the image of two wolves facing one another.
The kettle started screaming, and she took that opportunity to pause and throw a couple of tea bags into the pot before filling it with water and tucking it under its cozy. She turned back to me and smiled and hooked her arm through mine, pulling me out to the living room. I heard her toast pop behind us, but she ignored it. We sat on the couch and she examined the tattoo more closely. Her fingers were cool as they ran over the image, and I knew she was assessing how old it might be by how healed it was, how faded. If she only knew.
"Are you mad?" I couldn't help asking her.
"No," she answered right away, putting me at ease. "You're eighteen, Leah. Technically you can do whatever you want." She knew I was the kind of kid she could say that to and not have it go to my head.
"I know," I said. She let go of my arm so I put my shirt back down.
"Are you feeling okay, honey?" she asked me with concern, looking into my eyes. "Your skin feels really warm."
I hesitated, but it was a perfect in. I forced myself to speak before I completely lost my nerve. "Mom… remember when Seth and I had those fevers?" She said nothing because we both knew she would never forget. "Mom, I have to tell you something."
"Hold on a second," she answered. "This sounds like a tea conversation." Quickly she stood and went to the kitchen, and I heard her rattling cups and spoons. I couldn't help but smile. We'd had many 'tea conversations' in our lives, and whenever she broke out the tea, I knew she knew this was serious. A moment later she reappeared with a tray laden with milk, sugar, honey, and two big mugs.
Once we had both lightened and sweetened our tea how we each liked it, she sat back in the couch, holding the steaming mug in her hands. My mother had a theory about tea: like laughter, it was good medicine, but unlike laughter, it could calm almost everyone. Handing someone a warm cup of tea was a soothing action in any language. Even you didn't like tea, the pure act of accepting something warm in your hands that you must be careful not to spill had a calming effect. I felt soothed with that warm cup between my hands, despite the fact that I was always too warm, and these days I mostly opted for drinks full of ice cubes.
"Okay," she said. "Shoot."
Once when I was a little girl, maybe six, I broke a beautiful wooden carving of a raven that had belonged to my mother before my parents were married. It was probably worth a small fortune, being original art from a Native artist, and it sat on its own table in our living room. Emily was visiting at the time, and we were running around chasing each other. I slipped on a corner of carpet and toppled the table, sending the carving crashing to the hardwood floor. The break broke right off, and Emily fled the scene. I cradled that shattered bird in my hands and imagined all the trouble I would be in when my mother found out. I couldn't decide which was worse- that she would yell, or cry. I knew she loved that raven, and had seen the care she'd taken with it when she dusted and shined it with oil.
True panic overwhelmed me, and I responded by doing something rash: I went out to my father's workshop, where I was not allowed to go, and used the glue gun I was not allowed to touch to reattach that beak. Then I righted the table and put the carving back on top of it. I felt incredibly clever, but I was terribly nervous for the rest of the afternoon.
My mother was home for perhaps an hour before I couldn't stand it anymore and admitted the entire thing to me. Every moment that I looked at her I felt overwhelming guilt, and I found I couldn't live with that. I was ready for her raised voice, for her disappointment and anger, and for her tears. I had worked myself into such a state of fright that I thought there was even a chance that she might hit me, even though she never had. I was terrified of her in that moment.
Instead, she pulled me into her lap, picked up the carving, and examined the damage with me. I explained how the beak had come to be broken and pointed out where I'd tried to piece it back together, how some parts of it fit back into its own grooves better than others, and I showed her how you could see the little glistening beads of glue if you looked at a certain angle through the crack. She told me she was proud of me for telling the truth, and that she knew it would have been easier for me to go on pretending everything was normal. Then she said that nothing stays perfect forever, and just like for people, things can get injured and hurt, and they don't always heal quite right. She said those things add character, and give something more personality than it had before. She said that she preferred the carving now, because before when she'd looked at it she'd seen a pretty work of art, but now when she looked at it she saw her daughter's honesty and compassion.
The way she'd chosen to parent me that day had given me a gift worth far more than any lesson about not breaking precious things or not lying to your parents. After that, I was never scared of her again.
Now, in the living room, my hands cupped around my steaming mug of tea, I took a deep breath while she waited for me to be ready to say what needed to be said. Finally, I forced myself to speak the words, "The tattoo means something. You're going to find all of this out tomorrow anyway, but I wanted you to hear it from me first, not the council."
I met her warm brown eyes and poured out all the secrets it had been torturing me to keep secret from her. I started at the beginning of my story and told her what the fever had been like for me, finding Seth collapsed on his bed, my fear and confusion about what was happening to him, my terror when it had overtaken me, too, and my anger at my father for keeping us in the dark about what was happening in our own bodies. It was easy to talk to her, and she just listened, nodding occasionally, until I got to the part where my fever broke. I knew now that I had to tell her my real secrets, and she might never look at Seth or me the same way again.
"Mom," I said hesitantly.
"Yes, my love?" she answered warmly, her voice gentle. She took my hand and I squeezed it hard, but I let it go because I didn't want to risk the anguish of what it would feel like for her to pull back from me in horror.
"I need to tell you something else, and it's going to sound crazy. But I need you to believe me for a minute, okay?" She nodded, but I could see the uncertainty in her eyes. I gave her a moment to prepare herself, and then I just said it, "Those stories Dad used to tell us, the ones about how Quileutes used to be shapeshifters… well, it's true. We still can be, if we have the right genes… Dad was descended from one of those shapeshifters. And he passed it down to us… Mom, Seth and I can change into wolves. The fever started it."
I stopped so she could absorb what I'd said so far. She had a very strange expression on her face, like she'd swallowed something down the wrong pipe, or eaten something she'd expected to be sweet and light, but was in reality incredibly spicy.
I think my biggest fear in that moment was that she wouldn't believe me. Or that she would condemn me, as my father had, because I was a girl. I was worried that the council would brainwash her into thinking I was abnormal, as they did, and that she would look on me as a freak. Maybe I wanted to tell her myself mostly for selfish reasons. She was staring off into space a little, a dazed expression on her face; I had no idea what she was thinking.
It became clear she wasn't going to say anything, and I felt my heart clenching in fear. I started talking again, if only to fill the silence, "Mom, you remember that book you used to read me? 'Mama, Do You Love Me?'" I was referring to a little board book she'd read to me when I was very young, about an Inuit girl living in the north with her mother. The little girl asks her mother again and again if she'd still love her if she suddenly became a walrus, or a salmon, or a dog.
"Remember the polar bear one?" I asked. "The little girl wanted to know if her mother would still love her even if she became a polar bear and roared at her. And her mother said that she might be scared, but that the little girl would always be her baby." I heard the tears in my voice at the same moment I felt them gathering in my eyes.
Suddenly, she blinked a couple of times, and really looked at me for the first time since I'd told her. Her mouth opened a little, and I saw her eyes crinkle before she reached out and gathered me up in her arms. She pulled me close to her body, and I inhaled my mother's scent, the most comforting scent I knew of in the whole world. "Oh, baby," she whispered into my ear. "I will always love you- no matter who or what you are. Always."
With those words, I broke down. I cried, sobbed, into her chest, my shoulders heaving, my body shaking and shuddering with an overwhelming mixture of emotions: fear, sadness, and most notably relief. She still loved me. I didn't know yet if she believed me, but she still loved me.
"So the council knows about this?" she asked heavily, after holding me for a long time. Even when she pulled back from me, she only did so far enough that we could look into each other's eyes again. She wiped the tears from my face with her fingertips, as she had for all my childhood, and I knew once and for all that nothing could break a mother's love. I realized that it was like breathing for her, and to stop loving me would have been no easier for her than to suddenly stop requiring oxygen. The comfort that knowledge brought me was immense, and I was so grateful to her for teaching me, time and again, what kind of mother I wanted to be.
She clinked her untouched mug against mine, and we both took a long drink in unison, as though the cups were filled with liquor instead of tea. We both looked at each other and laughed. "Wow," she said, shaking her head slowly from side to side. "And your father? He knew about this?"
Gently, I said, "Yes."
She let out a sigh. "Your father was a proud man," she said. "Tradition and taboos were everything to him. I'm sorry, Leah… I'm sure he must have judged you really harshly over this."
My eyes filled with tears again and I brushed them from my cheeks. "I just can't stand that he died hating me."
The naked shock in her eyes surprised me. "Sweetheart," she whispered cradling my face against her chest. "He didn't hate you."
"But girls aren't supposed to change," I answered. "I'm a freak."
"Oh honey." I could hear in her voice that her heart was breaking for me. "Baby, you're not a freak. You're a pioneer. You think those women who fought for the right to vote have anything on you?"
"Oh, Mom," I groaned. "Even if that was true, that doesn't explain why."
Quietly she said, "Honey, since the day your brother was born you've watched over him with a vigilance that rivaled mine. You've always wanted nothing more than to keep him safe and protect him. Are you really surprised that this is no exception?" She smiled warmly at me. "Even biology won't keep you from watching over him. Your teachers always told me you were stubborn… but I knew the truth. You're brave. You know what you want and you go for it. Not even your gender will stop you from doing that."
I had never before heard this version of why I was different- according to my mother, it wasn't because there was something wrong with me, after all, but only the simple truth that I loved my brother and I wanted to keep him safe. In my mother's version, I was truly what we were all meant to be: a protector, not only of the land and the tribe, but also of my family. She believed I had risen out of the mould of my gender for a specific purpose. I was brave, not doomed; loving, not abnormal.
Part of me expected her to ask me to show her evidence for all I had said, to transform in front of her, but she didn't. I slept in her bed that night, her breathing lulling me to sleep as it had when I was a little girl. In the end, she would always be on my side, like a mother should be.
Still, it was hard for me to believe her words, to take them into myself and really feel that they were the truth. I still felt like a freak. I wish I could say I didn't, that after that conversation and my mother's acceptance I was whole again. It helped, but it wasn't enough. Children often find it hard to trust their parents' acceptance, which is why they seek it more from their peers, who are not obligated in the same way. Any good mother will tell her child that she's beautiful, smart, and valuable. It's their job. But I did feel comforted by the knowledge that the council had their opinions, and my mother had hers. They wouldn't sway her against me tomorrow, and I would remain her daughter, intact and unchanged. So much had changed in my life already, so it felt good to know that her love for me wouldn't.
In the morning, I could feel in my bones that I wasn't going to be able to resist shifting for long. It wasn't something that was easy to control, and I knew from the memories of the others that trying to resist it would only lead to an uncontrolled change, which could be very dangerous. Still, I dreaded the reactions of the others once I did shift and all my dirty laundry was exposed to them. But I knew Paul could be temperamental- volatile, really- and that he wouldn't be able to keep his promise not to change for long.
My mother was already gone to work by the time I woke up, and after I'd risen from her comfortable bed and showered, I dressed in the bare minimum of clothing that I'd started favouring since my change. I walked barefoot out into the woods and secured my clothing to my leg as the others had showed me, as I shifted into my swift, gray wolf form. It bothered me that I was slightly smaller than the others, but I made up for it with speed, and almost none of them could outrun me.
Hey Leah, Jacob's voice bubbled up in my mind almost as soon as I'd shifted. He seemed agitated, and I could see his thoughts were obsessing over Bella Swan. I gathered she'd left home and couldn't be found. I'd barely seen the girl since she moved back to Forks, and even then only in passing, our fathers being friends. Of course, I knew she'd been dating one of the Cullens, which made me a bit disgusted, and I had noticed that though Charlie had come to my father's funeral, she had not. So by this point I'd decided she could pretty much go to hell. But I knew Jake was in love with her; it was sad, really. His thoughts revolved around her so much he might as well have been imprinted on her.
Where are you? I asked him, padding through the underbrush of the forest that ringed our small community. I saw images of Jacob in Olympic National Park, heading back towards the Rez, but I didn't feel much like hanging out beyond the forced mental link, so I headed in the other direction.
You and Paul? he said incredulously.
Can we not? I snapped back, and I felt him withdraw a little from the subject. It was difficult for me to control my temper with all of them at the best of times; it was better when Sam wasn't around, since he always set me off- there was only so much Emily-Emily-Emily mantra I could take in one sitting. But still, I didn't want Jacob's judgment.
I'm not judging you, he said heavily. I'm just trying to distract myself.
So where'd she go? I asked, entertaining his worries. Seeing as we were both shifted, I was stuck with his thoughts no matter what, so I might as well try to make some friendly conversation.
I could feel his anger seething. She went to go get her bloodsucking boyfriend back. I tried to stop her. I saw flashes in his mind of what had happened- one of the females, Alice, had come back, and dragged Bella off with her. I watched Jacob lay it out for her and ask her to stay but she refused, and I felt how much that hurt. Now he was terrified that Edward was going to change her into one of them.
Inwardly, I sighed. Jacob, I said. If she's stupid enough to make that decision then she deserves the consequences.
Immediately I felt his anger and defensiveness. She has no idea what she's doing, he insisted. She doesn't know all her options. I got a flash of Jacob leaning in to kiss Bella, only to be interrupted by a phone call. Poor kid. I felt for him, but I also really didn't appreciate the way that girl treated him. She'd used him as a crutch for the last few months while she'd wallowed in depression and now at the first sign that she could swap him for her leech ex-boyfriend, she dropped him.
It's not like that, Jacob growled, hearing my every thought. I saw through his eyes how that phone call had ended, the conversation that would lead Edward to believe that Bella was dead instead of my father, and the reason she ran off with Alice in the first place. I didn't quite know how to feel about that- part of me was impressed that Jake had stuck it to the tick, but I also felt angry that he'd used my father's death as a tool for his own gain.
I just wanted him to stay away, he said, his voice somewhat apologetic. I can't stand the idea of him killing her.
I let it go; it wasn't worth it. His intentions were good, he was a good kid, and because of the link I loved him. I forgave him and gave a mental shrug of my shoulders. I hope she comes back human and we don't have to kill her, I said sincerely.
The images that flashed through Jacob's mind then frightened me a little. I saw his terror at the idea of having to rip her apart- we would all be naturally driven to do so, and no one knew if that was something he'd be able to resist. I also saw his resolve to leave La Push if it came to that, but personally I didn't know if that would be possible. We had a biological compulsion to stay on this piece of land in the same way we had a biological compulsion to kill vampires.
She should be back soon, he said hopefully, and I got the sense he was trying to comfort himself more than he was trying to convince me. So we'll just have to wait and see.
Well, you know we're all here for you, Jacob, I told him. It was true, even for me: as much as they could all get on my nerves sometimes even in such a short period of time we had become so bonded to one another. I couldn't hate any of them, not even Sam. Not even Emily.
I had resolved to go over there. Everyone did- her house was like a hangout for the pack. I couldn't imagine how awkward it might be to face her again after I essentially banished her from my life, but seeing her through not only Sam's eyes but also the eyes of the others, I'd grown to miss her. I wanted to see her in person for the first time in what seemed like years, even though I knew it would be a painful reunion.
She's home now, Jacob's voice came gently through my thoughts. I was just there.
My mother is joining the council tonight, I replied, changing the subject.
I know, he answered with a small smile in his voice. My dad says there hasn't been a woman on the council in a long time and that Sue will keep everyone on their toes.
Internally, I smirked. Yeah, well, I guess the Clearwater women like to go where they're not invited, I said, and it came out a little more bitterly than I'd intended.
Leah, he said with an obvious sigh. When I refused to answer him and filled my mind with random images to make it clear I didn't want to pursue this line of dialogue, he said Well, I'm home now… I was up all night and I'm tired. I could already seem him picturing his bed with longing.
Sleep well, I said, and his mind withdrew from mine as he made the shift back to human form. Finally alone, I felt like I could really breathe, and I had to admit that despite my resentment of the shift, times like this- when I wasn't having my brain invaded- it could actually be quite peaceful padding softly through the forest on four legs, my ears twitching in every direction toward even the tiniest of sounds. If this was something I could do without consequence and at will, and that didn't bind me to a life of hunting and killing vampires, it might actually be fun. With all those strings attached though, frankly, it wasn't worth it, and I was still resolved to stop shifting as soon as I could figure out how. But at least for now, I took my small pleasures when and where I could.
Emily had always been crafty and artsy, and her house certainly reflected that. Even from the outside, it was funky and creative, and she'd turned what was basically a small wooden cabin into a cozy home. I could see why the boys liked to hang out here, though I think most of the reason had to do with food and all of their brainwashed fondness for Emily, thanks to Sam's memories and loving thoughts about her. You could only resist the hypnotic effect of Sam's constant droning list of her best qualities before you started believing that she was the most wonderful person on the face of the planet. I'm sure she just loved all the attention.
I shifted to human form and dressed on the outskirts of her property, since appearing naked on her doorstep wasn't quite the kind of impression I wanted to make. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore of First Beach, which was a very short walk from her doorstep, through the trees and around some rocks. She had gotten an amazing deal on this house, and I knew the council had helped her out. I guess there was some kind of clause in the werewolf contract that guaranteed that their imprints were taken care of. I also knew she was making money making and selling jewelry, something she'd always talked about doing when we were kids, and I also knew that the council gave her money every month, partly to cover the exorbitant grocery bills that came along with feeding a ravenous pack of werewolves virtually every day. Costco had become her best friend.
Of course, Emily had been at my father's funeral the day before, but I had been a zombie and barely remembered her presence, let alone the awkward way she'd embraced me afterwards. This would be the first true meeting we had since I'd found out about her and Sam and kicked her out of my house. I was irritated that I actually felt nervous about it.
All at once I regretted coming here, and I was about to turn around and leave when the front door opened and Emily came out, holding a giant earthenware pot housing a large umbrella tree. It looked like she could barely lift it, and sure enough, as soon as she'd stepped over the threshold of the house and out onto the veranda, she set the heavy pot down with a thump that bent her entire body double, a move that was obviously unintentional. I watched her strain to try to pick it up again.
Letting out a huff of frustration, I walked over to her and slapped her hands away, hoisting the giant pot into my own arms with ease. I hadn't doubled my weight in muscle since the transformation or grown a six-pack as all the boys had, but I was much stronger and in better shape than I'd ever been. Part of that was due simply to the amount of time we spent running through the woods, as well as the high temperature of our bodies that burned through calories almost faster than we could consume them.
"Where do you want this?" I asked Emily's shocked face.
She recovered quickly. "Over here," she said, hopping down the steps and into the mostly dirt yard out front. I followed her where she led me to a small flowerbed, half planted and half unplanted, which had obviously been constructed recently. Next to it was a small paved area where a few other pots were sitting holding various plants. I set mine down beside them and angled it so the pattern on the side looked good with the other pots, knowing how she liked things to be just so.
I turned and saw that Emily was looking at the arrangement of pots with a tiny smile on her face. Her eyes moved to mine and she said, "You must be hungry. I just made brownies." Without waiting for me to respond, she turned and headed back to the house, forcing me to follow her. Inside, the walls bore various artworks, some that Emily had obviously done herself and some that I recognized from when I'd spent time at her house when we were kids. She'd obviously brought all her stuff from her parents' house since she'd moved in here.
"What did your family think of you moving down here permanently?" I asked as Emily made a beeline for the stove, stirring some bubbling concoction in a huge pot that smelled amazing- some kind of stew. I sat down at the counter behind her.
"They were fine with it," she answered. I heard a slight shake of nervousness in her voice. Emily had two brothers, one older and one younger, and she had always been the free spirit of our family. Her older brother was already married with two kids, and the younger was still in high school. Her parents probably thought her jumping reservations to shack up with her cousin's boyfriend was just another oh-so-Emily move in a long line of crazily endearing behaviour. Unlike Emily and I, who had always been so similar in personality at least, my mother and her cousin were very different people.
Emily grabbed a knife from one of her drawers and cut into a pan of brownies, giving me a generous slice and taking a much smaller one for herself. She sat down across from me and gave me a wry smile. "I, for one, still have to watch my figure."
"Yeah, as if you have to worry about getting dumped because you're fat or something," I countered, knowing Sam would stay with her no matter what she looked like. Emily fell silent and I instantly regretted my words. I hadn't come here to fight; it was hard for that not to be my first instinct, but it wasn't really what I wanted. And I knew it definitely wasn't what Emily wanted.
"Leah," she said, taking a huge breath. "I just want to say… I know I can never apologize enough for what's happened, but-"
I held my hand up. "Let me stop you right there," I said, and let out a long, heavy sigh. I looked at my cousin; I looked at her ragged face that would never fully heal, I looked at the guilt in her eyes, the sorrow and the remorse that we'd come to this place that neither of us had ever counted on being. I could fight with her forever and hate her forever and nothing would ever change. She had been as helpless as I'd been, both caught in the undertow of Sam's need.
While it was hard, with the link, for me to stop myself from constantly lashing out at Sam, Emily's mind was silent to me. No matter how well we might know each other, we would never cross that line of knowing too much about one another. It felt like a burden lifting off me to have that guarantee.
"Practically every day I have to listen to Sam thinking about you," I said softly. "I don't want to have to talk about it too."
After a long moment she said softly, "I get that. But Leah, can you ever forgive me?"
I sighed. "I've forgiven you already in some ways… maybe in other ways I never will. But I miss you." It was hard for me to admit that, but I forced myself to say it.
Her eyes filled with tears. "God, I miss you so much," she said. She put her hands on my shoulders and squeezed. "I know this is like the most god-awful situation, but I want it to work. Ever since I heard about you changing, I've been feeling so sad… I know in another life you would have cried on my shoulder about it. I kept hoping you'd come hang out with the others, but when you never showed…" Her tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks, the ones on the left side of her face trailing in straight lines towards her chin, the ones on the right side of her face catching in the crags and valleys of her scars. "I'm just really glad you're here. And I don't want things to be weird… we can figure something out."
I nodded, reaching up to take one of her hands and giving it a squeeze. She squeezed back, hard, smiling at me through her tears. "It'll be okay, Em," I said, and I was surprised that I actually meant those words. I took a big bite of my brownie and let out a sigh of approval- she was, and always had been, an amazing cook. Emily grinned at me, but the expression faded almost as soon as it had come over her face, and I turned in my seat to follow her gaze.
Sam stood in the doorway, looking very uncomfortable and uncertain about what he should do next.
I stood up. "I should go," I said.
"Leah…" Sam started, but I shook my head. He insisted, "For God's sake, can't we even sit around and eat together?" The accusation in his voice was obvious: this was my fault, I was the one being difficult, why couldn't I just let it all go?
"Fuck you," I snapped an answer at him. I saw his eyes darken a little and I glared right back, turning on my heel and heading for the door.
"Stop," Emily's voice rang out firmly, and I did, turning to her in surprise. Was she going to lecture me about being a bitch? That really wasn't going to go over well. I turned my face to the wall and clenched and unclenched my fists several times, to keep my temper in check and prevent myself from shifting in her living room.
"You should go," I heard her say.
In exasperation, I threw up my hands and said, "Then why did you stop me?"
"Not you," she said, drawing my eyes back in her direction. She was looking right at Sam, and he had a shocked, pained expression on his face.
"Me?" he asked doubtfully.
"Yes," she said firmly. "I want to have some time alone with my cousin. She's obviously not comfortable with you being here, so you need to leave. I'll see you later tonight."
I could tell he didn't like this one bit. I could imagine how much it must have hurt his pride not to be chosen, and I couldn't help a tiny, smug smile coming over my face, but I forced it down immediately. I didn't want to be that kind of person, but I appreciated that Emily was putting me first.
Sam's eyes flitted to me, then back to Emily. I knew he couldn't really refuse her- imprinting made it next to impossible for him to do something that went against her wishes. I could see that he wanted to go to her and kiss her or hold her for a moment, just to reassure himself that she was still his, but her body language made it clear that she would not accept that. Finally, with one more glance in my direction, he left the house again.
"You didn't have to do that, Emily," I said softly, surprised at how touched I was by her gesture. It actually almost made me want to cry, that she had acknowledged me as the wronged party and prioritized my needs above the needs of the man who was devoted to her to the point of insanity.
"Yes, I did," she answered simply, and sat back down again. I reclaimed my seat and my brownie, and she said, "Stay all day. We'll hang out and paint each other's toenails and watch some stupid movie or something. If it was night I'd suggest a skinny dip- we haven't done that in ages and we do have direct access to a beach, after all."
I couldn't help but smile a little. That had always been Emily's favourite pastime, though she'd only succeeded in dragging me with her on a handful of occasions, and often I'd left my underwear on, prompting whining from her that I 'wasn't playing right.'
"Okay fine, no skinny dipping," she relented. "But the rest?"
"Fine," I said, throwing up my hands in resignation. It reminded me of how she'd hauled me into the real world when all I'd wanted to do was stay in bed forever, after Sam broke up with me.
If there was one thing I knew about my cousin, it was that she could be as stubborn as I was, and that was one of the many reasons we'd always gotten along. Once Emily set her mind on something, it was going to happen, and now that I had given her an in, she was going to take it and run with it, and I was pretty sure she wasn't going to let me out of my role as her best friend ever again. And, since I was trying to make an effort to be honest with myself, I had to admit that I didn't want her to. Considering that my new role in life isolated me from almost everyone I could have a potentially normal relationship with, I couldn't really afford to be choosy. Still I worried about how possible that really was, considering everything else.
But if Emily wanted to drag me back into our friendship and force everyone to accept it, who was I to be the only one to argue?
Author's Note: Sorry again for the long update time- school is unreal right now. Hopefully some of you have stuck with me... I'll look forward to your reviews! Thanks! :-)