'I understand that you will one day love again and that it's selfish of me to want to ask if you can only live off the memory of me. So please stay in my past…'
A year and seven months after the break-up
'Come on.' I signaled to the pack, sending off Seth and Quil to tell anyone who wasn't in wolf form. I was waiting in our meeting place when I saw it unfold. Leah was smiling, a genuine smile and giggling … I remember when she used to laugh at me. I hadn't talked to her since that day in the woods. Any orders she got were indirect. I did everything that I could to make her dead to me but still … to see her happy boiled my blood.
Giggling and smiling and it was unsettling and unbelievable. Leah. Content.
I saw a Quilete guy pick a flower and tuck it behind her ear. I wanted Leah to get upset, tear it up and throw that cheap flower onto the ground. She deserved better like … me.
What Leah did do was hold the guy's hand there and kiss it softly. I held my breath watching her do this. That was ours. She couldn't just….
My thoughts ran wildas I recognized the figure of a guy who had abandoned the pack and then come back too many times to count, Jacob Black … the true Alpha of our kind. I shook this thought from my head until I saw their lips meet.
I vaguely remember Jacob being one of the guys that Leah had slept with during her sexual revolution, but she never kept them around or kissed them openly like this. Jacob was different, I knew it. I could see what was going on between them even if they couldn't.
I wanted to smash his face in. I wanted her to go on pining after me, thinking of me, loving only me. It was selfish, I know. But I couldn't do that.
I had to remind myself what I was here, fighting for. I had to know that Leah had chosen not to stand by me through my darkest hour.
That's when I reached in my pocket and pulled out a photo of my family … the kids and Emily. This reminded me of what my life was about. I had to make sacrifices and … not being with Leah was just another one of those. But still, I hated Jacob for having what I had lost and so long wished to have returned to me. I knew that I'd never get over her.
'Please stay in my past.'
(A/N: DONE! Check out HATE U, I'm So Sick, Boys with Girlfriends if you're liking some of what you're reading here. Part of my shameless promotion but After the Hurricane is probably my best Twilight fiction to date followed by Boys w/GF. And they're both getting updates tonight. Luv. -NL)