With all your lies, you're still very lovable.
-For Emma, Bon Iver
A slamming door. Desperate, stumbling steps and the low thrum of an engine as it peels down the gravel driveway. Leah stops just before the tree break, to see Jacob at the wheel of some self-righteous vehicle, face desolate and the grim line of his lips determined. Something's wrong.
Seth? Jake just tore out of here in the leech's car. I'm gonna see what's happening. If I don't come back out within half an hour, you run home. You got it?
She doesn't wait for an answer. She transforms quickly, her nakedness only emphasising the horrible awareness of how vulnerable she is to attack. She picks up the reeking pile of clothes sent by the suspiciously maternal one that makes her uncomfortable, wrinkling her nose at three pink dresses before finding a long t-shirt probably intended for Jacob. She rolls up the sleeves as she pads lightly to the front door and, not bothering with the courtesy of knocking, she steps across the threshold, the scent of funeral flowers making her gag. She can feel her hands trembling, every sense strained like strings on a guitar, ready to snap. It's eerily quiet in the house, the mechanic, futile breaths of the vampires making invisible hackles raise on the back of her neck.
She follows the wet, lush sound of Bella's heart up the stairs, its weak rhythm making her mouth twist into a sardonic smile. The door whines ominously as it swings inwards and before she can even register the God damn horror show that is this room, the mind reader's staring at her with those burning eyes that make her skin crawl and her sympathy come out from its exile.
"Leah," even his voice is dead. The blonde one glares at her with disdain and Leah stares back until she drops her gaze to the freak show that was once Bella Swan. She's transparent, almost, large, dark eyes dominating her thin face. Leah thinks she might hurl as she registers the distorted lump that juts from her emaciated body. Bella Swan isn't glowing. She isn't radiant and she's definitely not smiling. Bella Swan is dying. Something cold and cruel within her, vindictively, sees this as payback, but a larger part of her couldn't care less, except that when she dies, Jacob will most likely be fucked for life, too. Make that most definitely.
"Leah?" comes the timid, frailty of her voice. Leah internally rolls her eyes. Bella Swan's good at playing the pity card.
"Yeah. I need to have a word with you."
Edward growls lightly under his breath and Bella puts a sickeningly tender hand to his face. The bitter remains of the romantic little girl she used to be makes Leah's heart hurt and she sees Edward's eyes observe her with faint curiosity as Jake's face vaguely materialises in her mind.
"Get the hell out of my head," she snarls, her face lighting up with embarrassment.
He at least had the decency to look shamed as he turned his gaze back to Bella's face. Her wide eyes look up at Leah in fright, turning the loose, gold band on her ring finger anxiously.
Leah counts slowly to ten in her head to stave off the rabid frustration that makes her want to shake the girl.
"Okay?" Again with the drawn out sentences that lilt at the end, like a question. Leah clenches her fists. "What do you want to talk about?"
"What had Jacob so upset before? Not that it's a rare occurrence when he's around you," Leah adds, off-handedly.
"He needed to get some air, " Edward says quietly.
"Some air?" she says doubtfully. "And he needed an Aston Martin to just 'get some air?'"
Edward looks anxiously at Bella, again.
"I can hear the baby's thoughts."
Silence.
"You've got to be kidding me? How old is it? Like six weeks? What's it got say, besides the fact that it's got a killer hankering for blood?"
Edward ignores the jibe with a faint sigh of frustration, "He's extremely developed for his stage of conception."
"I'll say, but what's this got to do with Jacob?" Edward places a hand on the rise of Bella's stomach. A gentle, loving hand. And then it hits her, Jacob had banked on Edward suffering to be greater than his. He wanted Edward to hurt and now they're all playing happy family. And Jake's back where he always is. Alone. In pain. Pining for the pasty little weakling in the bed.
Edward nods. And suddenly all she can see is red. Vibrant, blood red. Heat instills through her veins, its white heat flaring viciously and she can hear her heart filtering it rapidly through her body.
She's lost all control.
"You know what's really ironic, Bella? I mean, you want so badly to be a vampire, a bloodsucker like them and you don't even realise how very similar you are, already. You suck the life out of things. You take and take and take until they're drained and leave them abandoned on the side of the road. You do see that don't you? Jake's been dying a slow death for you over the past year, and, not that I give a royal fuck, but your pretty vampire husband is slowly being eaten alive, too. You're killing them, Bella. Every decision, every pleading oh Jake, please stay is slowly poisoning the both of them. And everyone else might be content to let your poison spread, but I'm not. Then again, I'm not captivated with every pathetic beat of your selfish little heart."
Jake's face crumpled in pain as he thinks of Bella, sneaks up on her. Smiling. Laughing. Crying. God damn, sitting. All coloured with the rosy hue of love. The all consuming red in her vision turns green, a deep jade green that wallows thickly into her heart. Envy. She feels her lips flatten above her gum line, aware that in doing so she's proving herself a threat. But she doesn't care, because she realises that all this time, her rage, her loathing, her bitterness has made her blind. Made her blind to her own heart.
She faintly registers the muffled sobs that shake Bella's small body.
"God, don't cry. It gets really old. Instead of crying, how about actually doing something selfless and telling Jake to leave, go away, run as fast as he can and never return. Maybe then I might be able to scrounge up the tiniest scrap of respect for you."
"Get out," his voice is black. The edges of his voice shaking in fury and the faintest glimmer of fear sneaks into her heart. The gentle hand she witnessed before grips her arm tightly, a torniquet, and she registers blondie stroking Bella's hair possessively.
Edward's already pulling her with barely restrained strength and she figures it's his upside down morals that stop him from ripping off her head.
"You're killing him, Bella! And you know it!" she says lowly, her voice carrying just enough so that Bella can hear her. She wants to see her hurt again, hurt like she hurts, but she's being dragged down a glaringly bright corridor.
He opens the front door and pushes her slightly too roughly to be considered gentlemanly.
"I would ask you to rethink ever addressing Bella as you did just now. I won't tolerate it. I won't tolerate you."
Yeah, buddy? Like I haven't heard that before. Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, no one tolerates me.
"I'm serious, Leah. If you ever do that again, I will not hesitate in throwing you from this house."
Quit getting your panties in a bunch. I've said my peace. For now.
The pity in his earnest, black gaze makes something twist viciously in her chest. She prefers the anger and the threats over his pity. She never wanted anyone's pity.
"I won't tell. I promise you that."
Nothing to tell, buddy. But I do appreciate the whole 'cross your heart and hope to die' thing, even if it's kinda void in your case.
She thinks she sees amusement in the corner of his mouth, but its gone, vanished into the stupid pitying gaze, again.
"But seriously, I won't tell Jacob. I won't tell anyone. "
She thinks of Jacob's face when he looks at Bella - the hopeless, consumed and heartbreakingly sincere planes of his face -and nods to Edward, both confirming and silencing his point.
I'll catch you around, Leech. And…just make sure Jake's alright, k?
She breaks into a run, fleeing both that pitying gaze and the messy realisation that she's in love.
In love with Jacob Black.