Waiting

I took a deep breath, willing myself to be mature even though that was the last thing I wanted to be. I wanted to grab hold of Jacob and run far away with him, far away from Victoria and all of the havoc that she wreaked. But I knew that Jacob had to go after her. If he didn't, he would never forgive himself - or me for that matter. I could be a grown up. How had Mike put it, "If she's tearing into me, she's leaving someone else alone." He was talking about a far less ferocious female, but the concept was the same. I was quite certain that I had better protectors than nearly anyone else Victoria would be attacking. "What's the plan?" I asked, keeping my voice even and looking directly into Jacob's eyes. I shifted the gaze to Embry to acknowledge to the two of them that I was serious.

"Most of the guys took off up the river after her," Jacob said, looking over my head. "Paul stayed home to keep watch over the reservation." He still wouldn't meet my eyes. I could tell he was holding back.

"And?" I prompted.

There was a pregnant pause. Neither wolf wanted me to hear what was next. I looked back and forth between them. Embry looked only at the ground, but finally, my Jacob looked at me. "She has a male with her, one that the pack doesn't recognize."

I took a step forward and snaked my arms around him. He kissed the top of my head and pulled me close.

"Bella," he said firmly. "I want you to go back to La Push. Charlie is there watching the game with Billy. Embry and Paul will stay close by in wolf form, so we can keep in contact."

"What are we going to tell Charlie?" I asked as calmly as I could.

Jacob and Embry stared at me like I had just sprouted antennae.

"What? I asked, a little put out. "Don't you think he'll wonder why I show up on the reservation this early and just decide to sit down and watch the game with him?"

"I hadn't thought of that," Jacob quietly admitted.

I was better at this maturity thing than I gave myself credit for. I recalled the night of my first encounter with Victoria and her coven. I had been the one to think of a somewhat rational plan to keep Charlie in the dark about what was actually happening. I concentrated hard and willed myself to do it again. Moments later, I had it. "Is Emily home? I can hang out with her. That way Charlie won't have to know anything." Leah would have been my first choice, but she and her mother had gone to visit Harry's sister for the weekend.

"I'll make sure to get word to Billy to keep Charlie there," Embry offered.

"Do you want to make up a quick story to tell any of your friends?" Jacob asked looking at me seriously. "You know, to keep them from assuming where you might have taken off to."

I thought about that for a moment. What could I really tell Angela? "Hey, I gotta go, there's a crazed vampire headed for me." No, I wouldn't do that. I could tell them there was a family emergency, but then a realization sunk in. My true friends would accept an explanation later, and they would believe me. People like Lauren may think that I took off early to do less than noble things with Jacob and/or his friend, but people like Lauren would probably think that no matter what I said was going on. I decided that I really didn't care what Lauren or her type thought. I knew why I was leaving. In a month I would graduate and possibly never see some of these people again. What they thought of my prom night activities wouldn't matter to me then, so I wasn't going to let it matter to me now.

"I'll make something up to tell Angela and Mike tomorrow. I don't care what conclusions the rest of them come to," I said confidently, and I marched toward the door.

It was a quiet ride inside the rabbit as we sped toward LaPush. Embry had opted to run back so he could check in with the rest of the pack while en route. I laid my head against Jacob's warm shoulder and traced tiny circles on his arm with my fingertips.

Embry opened my door for me when we pulled into the drive in front of Sam and Emily's house. "I already let Emily know you were coming. She's throwing a snack together."

"She didn't hav…"

"Of course she didn't," Embry cut in, "but that's Emily."

"Besides," Jacob added in his cocky, self-assured voice, "we'll all be hungry when we finish the bloodsuckers off." He flipped the back of my hair teasingly.

"Be careful," I stated firmly, not buying into the playful attitude Jacob was trying to portray. I knew that it was his way of reassuring me, and I suspected it was a sort of self pep talk too. No, I didn't buy into it, but that did not mean I didn't appreciate it. "I love you." I wrapped my arms around his neck and relished the feel of him holding me tight.

"I'll be back sooner than you can even miss me," he assured me, brushing a kiss across my lips.

"Too late!" I said as playfully as I could manage.

I watched as Jacob removed his shirt and tie and placed it neatly in the passenger seat of the rabbit. He then made quite the display of shaking his rear-end toward me as he stepped out of the dress pants. I had to chuckle, despite the lump swelling so large in my throat I thought it was threatening to inhibit respiration. I blew him a kiss as he disappeared into the trees.

"Come on in Bella," Emily called to me when I finally tapped on the door. I stayed on the porch long enough to get my breathing under control; after all, Emily was living this too. The crazed vampire was here as a vendetta against me, but I tried to see it from the pack's point of view. I brought her close enough for them to take out. I just prayed they would take her and her new friend out without any harm befalling themselves.

"Wow!" Emily gawked. "You look absolutely gorgeous."

"Thank you so much for taking it in for me," I replied taking a step toward the porch light so she could see the full effect of what she had helped to create.

"Why don't you come in the kitchen and tell me all about the dance." She linked her arm around my elbow and guided me in the direction she wanted. "Then I can tell you about the disaster that was my senior prom."

Emily placed some of her wonderful homemade corn chips on the table and three different kinds of dips. "What would you like to drink?" she asked in the overly cheerful voice that I knew was trying to mask the fear she was feeling.

"Rootbeer sounds really good if you have one," I blurted out. "I've been craving one of those for days."

"It just so happens that I do have some," she said pulling two from the fridge.

I found myself relaxing as I regaled the night's earlier events which truly surprised me. We munched on chips and slurped our sweet drinks and talked. Emily's own prom fiasco involved red punch spilled down the front of her pale yellow dress, a broken toe from a rambunctious round of fast dancing, and a date that left with her best friend's date.

"The last I heard, he's a dancer in Vegas ," she said shrugging her shoulders, "goes by the name Rhonda."

I tried to keep my mature face on. It worked until I caught the grin on Emily's face. I cracked up. And once I started it, we both ended up with a full round of the giggles. I was very thankful that I had not just taken a drink. I did not know from experience, but I did not imagine rootbeer snorted into the nasal cavity would feel too pleasant.

"He was a good dancer," she commented when she could get her breath which only started another onslaught of sniggering.

"Were you upset?" I asked on a more serious note.

"Yes," she nodded. "At the time, I shed a lot of tears over Robert. I was so certain that he and I would be together forever. He wrote me a letter a couple of months after graduation and apologized the best he could." She stared for a moment at the bubbles rising up in her soda. "How can you really apologize for something like that. He said he did love me, but…"

"But …" We both took a slow swig of soda. I realized that no matter how someone tried, there really was no graceful way to finish that sentence.

Emily broke the silence, "Leah always said that he was a little different."

"Leah didn't like him?"

"She liked him, everyone liked him. She just always sensed there was something odd about him," she said. "I cried on her shoulder half the night. She drove up to see me right away." Emily shook her head at the memory. I had a feeling it was no longer Robert she was thinking about missing.

Emily smiled. "I apologized for her having to listen to me every time I reached for another tissue. She just kept the Kleenex box in her hand and assured me that it made up for all the times she had come to me when she and Sam got into a fight."

Her last comment caught my attention. "How often did she require your services for that?"

"Leah and Sam had more than their fair share of disagreements." She paused, obviously mulling over how to word her next phrase. "They are both wonderful people, but together, it always seemed like they brought out the worst in each other. Does that make any sense?"

"Not really," I admitted.

"Well," she let out a long sigh, "how can I explain?" She swirled a crisp chip in some creamy dip then chewed it slowly. "O.K, you know how Leah can be very dry. She doesn't mince words. She just says what she needs to say and leaves it at that. Well, Sam would bait her. If someone would ask her a question, and he didn't think she had answered well enough. He would start throwing questions at her to clarify, and he didn't always do it politely. And Sam tends to be kind of bossy. Leah would stand back and let him take control of a situation, even if it was deciding where to go for dinner. And then once he did take charge, she would say things like 'Oh, what would we do without Sam to lead us!' or 'Let's all bow down to King Sam.'"

"I see what you mean about their personalities, but I never saw them together, so it's hard for me to picture them acting like that."

"Exactly!" she replied. "When they were together, it's like they were the worst forms of themselves. I mean, we all have good days and bad days; good moods and bad moods. But this was almost constantly."

"Did they realize it?" I couldn't help but think that being in a relationship like Emily described would be exhausting. It would be a constant struggle.

"I think Leah did, but she loved him. They could be very sweet to each other at times, and she told me that their make-up sex was always extraordinary. As often as they fought, that was probably the only kind they ever had."

My entire face turned red at the mention of that aspect of their relationship.

"Sorry," Emily said after noticing my response. "You and Jacob have never…"

I shook my head vehemently and stuffed a large chip and wad of dip in my mouth.

Emily grabbed my hand. "Bella, I can see you are not comfortable talking about this, but if you ever do need to talk to anyone about it, feel free to come and see me. If you need someone to ask about birth control or just in general, don't hesitate."

I think the red color extended all the way down to my navel, but as embarrassing as it was, I was thankful for her offer. I had always been close to Renee, but I didn't think I would ask her anything like this. "Thank you," I mumbled. I attempted a smile, but I didn't figure it was very convincing.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I began to play over in my mind the conversation Jacob and I had shared on the dance floor. "Emily," I blurted out, "were you attracted to Sam while he was still with Leah?" As soon as I had said it, I regretted it. Emily had just offered to be a surrogate mother for me, so to speak, and here I was asking a very inappropriate question. I blushed again almost as much as before. "I shouldn't have said that. You don't have to answer that if you don't want."

"No, it's alright," she assured me. "I would be lying if I told you no. But, I can say that I never did anything about it until…"

"You imprinted," I finished for her.

"I see Jacob told you that part."

I nodded.

"Leah and I were always close. We grew up playing with dolls together and getting muddy by the creek near my parent's house. As we got older, we started to branch out and have our own lives, but we could still come together and be like old times. She started dating Sam when we were juniors in high school. I didn't actually meet him until her graduation. He and I sat and talked for over an hour about American History, of all things." Emily chuckled and pushed a strand of hair back away from her face. "The evening ended when Sam and Leah got into a huge fight over, I can't even remember what. I went home and cried."

"Why?" I thought I probably knew the answer.

"I couldn't believe this guy that I had hit it off with so easily was the same one that Leah had been talking about for a year and a half. I vacillated between being ashamed of myself for even thinking about my cousin's boyfriend in that way and being angry with Leah for fighting with him so much. I couldn't help but feel like I would be better for him."

"It sounds like you are," I had to admit. "You know the more I think about it, every time I have heard Leah tell me something about Sam, it always starts with 'this one time we had a huge fight about…' I guess I didn't really consider how odd that was until now." I wondered what Leah thought about when she saw other couples who weren't always at each other's throats, if she thought it was strange. "Do you think she and Sam would have stayed together if you two hadn't imprinted?"

"We'll never know." She shrugged her shoulders, but then continued. "I think they would have stayed together just because they are both very loyal people. They would have probably gotten married eventually, but I don't know how happy they would have been or how long it would have lasted. But then again, do any of us really know that?"

"I suppose not."

Emily had definitely given me a lot to ponder when I had some free time. A story that Leah had told me suddenly popped into my head. It was about a long weekend that she and Emily's families had taken to a family reunion at a state park. I recalled that although the tale itself was full of the fun they had had while there, I couldn't help but notice the tone of underlying sadness to Leah's voice as she told it. I debated about saying what was at the back of my mind, but ultimately decided to go ahead. "If it makes you feel any better, I think Leah misses you too."

"Sometimes I wish that Sam had been someone else, anyone other than Leah's boyfriend." Guilt clouded her attractive features, making the scar more noticeable. "But, then he wouldn't be my Sam, I suppose," she said, the sweet smile creeping back to the forefront as it always did when she thought of her love.

"What was it like when you imprinted?" I asked.

The sweet smile was replaced with a full face grin. "I can't even describe what I felt like at that moment. It was like there was not room in my head for thoughts of anyone but him. We couldn't take our eyes off of each other. Before we even realized what we were doing, we were kissing." Emily blushed a little at the memory, but she had nothing on me. "Thankfully, Leah had run to the store to grab a loaf of bread. I went for a walk on the beach while Sam broke up with her. He came and found me a couple of hours later, and we've pretty much been inseparable since, unless he's working or running with the pack."

"I'm sorry I am putting him in danger like this," I said, my eyes stinging. The rush of fear and anxiety hit me like a truck. I knew that all of them were in danger, not just my Jacob, but it was my Jacob that I was worried about the most. Seeing Emily sitting here in front of me longing to have her Sam back in the kitchen with her made me feel guilty for being so selfish. But, I suppose, Emily probably felt the same way as me.

"Bella, this is not your fault," she stated firmly, grabbing my hand again. "Sam has accepted what he is and why. Just as I am sure Jacob has. They only want to protect those that they love from the vampires."

"I just worry about them so much," I said in a whisper.

Emily scooted her chair up next to mine and draped her arm across my shoulders. "Me too."

The tension pressing on my mind was becoming nearly unbearable, it must have been doing the same to Emily because soon she leaped to her feet.

"Let's get this sauce simmering for some enchiladas. I want them to have a good meal when they can," she said moving to the stove and turning the burner back on. "I figured this was something I could have ready and they could throw them together when they get a chance to eat. Could you dice those tomatoes in my crisper drawer for me Bella?"

I did as she requested, finding that the task did succeed in distracting my mind somewhat. I read about a study that was done onetime on whether misery really does love company. It was found that it does, but in general, the miserable person prefers the company of someone in a similar situation. So basically, misery loves miserable company, so to speak. I had never really understood those findings until tonight.