Chapter 7

A/N: Sorry people for not updating so long. Hope you like the new character introduced, Rachel, because I do like her too. I didn't know what to do for her name so I just used Jake's sister's name. As usual, this chapter's in our dear little Nessie's POV. Enjoy! :D

A few days after the horrible incident at the cliff, resulting in my making a new friend in Rachel, she contacted me and asked me whether I would mind if she came over for a short visit.

Knowing that Leah would never let me hear the end of it if I allowed someone else inside her house without her permission, I requested for Rachel's patience and hung up.

I exited the basement and immediately smelled a refreshing, mint-and-apple perfume fragrance. I smiled to myself, as that was clearly Leah's perfume and I could just trace it to find out her whereabouts, knowing it would take forever to search every room in this enormous mansion. It reminded me of a vampire romance novel I had once read entitled Twilight, in which the vampires tracked the scent of their human prey with their inhuman sense of smell.

I found Leah sitting on the apple-green chaise by the window in one of her many functional and personal rooms, flipping silently and aimlessly through the glossy pages of a new fashion magazine. Her manner was bored and lazy, and I could tell that she'd sensed my presence even though she hadn't once looked up or acknowledged that fact in any other way.

"Um, Leah?" I asked timidly, not knowing how else to begin. Jacob was not at home (at work, I suppose, even if I never clarified specifically what kind of job that was. He had seemed rather angry when he'd left the house this morning. Angry enough for violence as he had roughly pushed the dining chair into the dining table, causing the entire glass table to shake, and slamming the door forcefully behind him)

"Renesmee. Speak." Leah did not meet my gaze. She was still staring intently at the magazine, as though waiting impatiently for me to pounce eagerly into her deadly poisoned trap.

"Leah," I began in an unsure tone, "as you're my landlady and all I feel that I would ask your permission as a form of respect before-"

Leah interrupted me in an expressionless, stony voice: "I'm not your landlady, okay? Don't ever go around telling people that you're my tenant. When Dad died of a heart attack early and Mom died of suicidal grief a month later they left Seth and me with more than enough to support ourselves and live a life of luxury for nine lives. I wouldn't want others to know that I keep a dirty tenant like you. It's for Jacob's sake that I keep you here with a roof over your head and food on the table because I love him and he would be really pissed if you didn't foster well under my care. I consider myself to be a part-time babysitter because you don't appear in good mental shape to get to work yourself. Not that I'll have to work anyway because of the fortune I inherited."

I forced myself to regain my composure but couldn't keep my reaction to her snide comments off of my face. She obviously noticed it and smirked deliberately in my direction.

"You know," Leah continued, not bothering to wait for my response, "I really can't understand why Jacob puts so much effort and patience into you. Of course, surely he has to see that you can't ever possibly hold a candle to me?" I shrank noticeably, not wanting a reminder of that painful fact. "So, you came here to ask me something. As your un-landlady I must tell you that you are free to bring any bitch or bastard beggar into my house AS LONG as you keep him or her safely in the basement, out of my view, and do not disturb any of the activities that Jacob or I might be peacefully engaging in. You should be satisfied, should you not, that a normal landlady should not grant you as much freedom as I am doing to you now? I am prepared to give you anything in exchange for Jacob's affection, if you are willing. Money and other forms of property do not mean anything to me if I can afford to keep beauty and Jacob by my side."

Leah reached out and tapped her long, claw-like bloodred fingernails underneath my chin. Her touch was icy cold and dripping with venom. "Of course, Renesmee sweetheart, what I want are the things you'll never have. Beauty and Jacob are the things you'll never have."

I turned away from Leah and fled the room. As I did so I could just hear Leah's soft chuckles behind me and I escaped to my safe haven, my temporary bedroom in Leah's guesthouse. I couldn't possibly depend on her forever like that. Even then, I didn't particularly have a safe haven now that my bedroom, what had to be considered the most private, personal and favourite room in a person's life, belonged to my enemy. So, then, the safe haven I had discovered in Jacob's arms would have belonged to Leah someday as well…I was lost.

I dialed Rachel's number on my mobile. She picked up on the first ring.

Before I could even start on the usual greetings that was the polite way to go, Rachel's eager voice chirped cheerfully, "So?"

"Yes," I told her truthfully. I could hear the smile in her voice and couldn't resist a smile of my own. Rachel's smile and laughter was highly contagious.

"I suppose you had to ask the bitch," Rachel said, and I detected an unpleasantly bitter, dark tone in her voice. I wouldn't put it past her to refer to Leah as 'the bitch', anyhow.

"I don't see why you hate her so much," I replied nonchalantly, trying to switch to a more pleasant subject.

Rachel seemed genuinely surprised. "But don't you?"

"Well…" That was hard to say, considering that Leah had given me food and shelter after all, even if she gave me a hard time by doing so. "I suppose I wouldn't say she and I were friends, but I don't resent her the way I should. She is, after all, the person who gives me food and shelter, even if she doesn't give me a good time and is practically my archrival."

Rachel laughed. "Nessie, if I were you, I'd hate her with the core of my soul. I know what she says to you, what she does to you, and that's rather not nice, isn't it? I can't believe anyone doesn't hate her from the way she is. Jacob's really blind, I must say. Any guy would have picked you in a second without hesitation, without any dilemma. Boy, was she really pissed at me yesterday, and of course it wasn't hard to guess what had happened between you guys."

"You're a good reader."

Rachel replied innocently, "That's what my mom always says." She paused for a brief moment, then suggested, "how about eleven on Saturday?"

I started to smile. "That'll be perfect."

At eleven o' clock sharp on an unusually bright Saturday morning in Forks Rachel arrived at the house, as promised. We went down to my room.

Rachel and I sat around on my bed and talked for a bit. "Tell me more about you," I asked Rachel, curling a stray lock of my bronze hair around my index finger.

Rachel, of course, was prettier than I'd seen her on the day we met (well, at least she wasn't soaking wet from the rain). She was wearing a soft cotton sapphire-coloured minidress to match her eyes, with gray tights beneath and black ballet pumps which she'd left by the doorway. Her amazing blonde hair was, as usual, kept loose and cascading down her shoulders and back. I had no idea how she kept hair of such length smooth and perfectly tangle- and frizz-free.

I suddenly realized how appallingly pale and unattractive I looked beside any girl, not just the supermodels like Leah, or the passionate beauties like Rachel, simply any girl. Everything about me spelled unattractive, ugly, plain, horrible, unfeminine, unladylike…all those words that would be a girl's worst nightmare. Was it my always-tangled messy bronze hair, my dull and lifeless brown eyes, and my pale and chapped lips? Was it my unfashionable style, my plain clothing, and my small wardrobe? Was it my stubborn personality, my unladylike ways and my strange behaviors and manner?

I believed I would have seemed a freak to anyone, and I didn't blame Leah for making that fact known to me. In fact, I should have thanked her, and Rachel was kind enough already as a beautiful girl who had become friends with a potentially mental freak.

"Well…" Rachel shrugged in response to my question, "there's really nothing much to say, Nessie. Let's see…my parents, sister and I live in a two-storey house near the centre of Stormcliff Bay. It's that sparsely populated area behind the cliffs where I first saw you that day. There really aren't many people who live there, so you get lots of privacy. A good thing, I guess, apart from when you're screaming for help and no-one can hear you."

"I'm turning twenty this year. My sister is named Rhetta, and we're total opposites. She's a typical glassy-green-eyed redhead while I'm blonde with sapphire eyes. Her hair's naturally curly, you know, and I maintain mine straight. Rhetta is going to be eighteen this year, and she is the captain of the senior volleyball team. Rhetta is, like, really sporty, but basically she enjoys all outdoor activities, and has a serious addiction to volleyball and suntanning. While I enjoy reading, shopping, writing and so on, Rhetta can't find a single moment to stay indoors. She's just got a scholarship to study in England next year, and will only come back during the holidays, so I guess I won't be seeing her as much anymore. I do think I'm way more practical and she's, you know, really into those astrology things and stuff. I'll miss her when she goes to England."

Rachel smiled a small, wistful smile, and then continued, "Now enough about Rhetta. My mom works in the fashion industry, and she's really particular about the image we impress on others when we go out. That's why sometimes she comes over and helps us with our outfits for the day, and in some way it's good, I guess, because you don't have to worry about not wearing parent-approved outfits. My dad works as a chef in the Royal Diamond Hotel, and apart from having a fashion-critic mom you also get a gourmet foodie dad as being part of the package that comes with being a Zane-Whitley family daughter. He complains a lot about being the only male in the house, the odd one out, the only one who can cook well, the only one without fashion sense, and so on. I love him, he's my father, after all, but sometimes he gets real annoying. He gets on my nerves with all that complaining and I just wish that he'd shut up for once." Rachel sighed in exasperation.

"Hey, I mean, you're lucky enough to have a mom and a dad, and a sister in your own house, nice and warm with your family to love you," I said, trying to keep the teasing note in my voice but failing. Memories of my old home came flooding back to me and overwhelmed my feelings.

Rachel raised a curious eyebrow. "Tell me about your situation," she said, clearly pressing for answers. "Tell me about how it seems that your happy family paradise had been gone and lost."

And so I told her.

"God, you must have had such a hard time!" Rachel exclaimed, falling back onto my pillow. "I was wrong to have complained about my father like that. Sorry to have caused you any pain. I can't believe how you lived through that whole process, knowing your family and your life would never be the same again, knowing everything that was dear to you would be gone."

I bit my lip and tried to smile at my friend through the tears that threatened to spill over my eyelids. "Yeah, it's fine. You didn't know. I'm really envious of those who can say they have a happy family with confidence as though it's going to last forever. If there was some way to bring back all my family members and make them see reason, I'd do it."

Rachel's eyes were far away; she was deep in thought. Then she seemed abruptly brought back to earth as she searched for a subject to change to. "Let me look at your wardrobe," Rachel said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I have a feeling I'll have to get you a new wardrobe."

Thanks to Leah, my room sported an enormous walk-in wardrobe. Rachel flung open the door and tugged me inside.

The north wall was entirely covered by a full floor-to-ceiling mirror with different adjustable lights above it, and a panel of buttons next to it. The south and east walls were caved-in shelves with double-layered racks to hang clothes on. An irregular rack with display boxes to put all one's shoes in dominated the west wall.

Rachel started sifting through the few sets of clothes I had, folded up and placed in the corner of the southern rack. She turned to me after a few minutes and shook her head disappointedly.

"We'll order pizza for lunch and then I'm taking you shopping," Rachel whispered disapprovingly, her diamond-drop earrings swinging back and forth. "Nessie, I know you'll hate me for saying this, but you can't possibly want to snare a man with those clothes on, can you? I'm getting you a new wardrobe and then all those old sweatpants and faded hoodies go in the bin."

Rachel wouldn't let me protest and insist otherwise as we talked over pizza in my bedroom.

After we had safely discarded the pizza cardboard boxes, Rachel took me outside to where her black Mercedes was parked off the front porch. She started the engine, spun round off the driveway, and hit the road.

We were headed for the Canthacey District, twenty miles off the borders of Jasmine Beach. Canthacey District was the hottest, most popular shopping district you could find around Forks. A cluster of malls stood around cafes, restaurants, and Internet gaming shops.

"Rachel, you should know that I don't have the money to pay for anything here," I hissed at her, upon seeing the rows of designer shops lining both wings of the first mall we went into, Canthacey Hotshot.

"Don't worry, Renesmee," Rachel whispered back to me. "I'll pay." She flashed her glossy black American Express card at me.

"What?" I stopped in my tracks, shocked and startled. "You can't! I won't let you pay for my expenses. Fine, if you want to pay with your credit card, then just take it as I'm accompanying you here. Go ahead and shop." I'd worn my most respectable outfit to the Canthacey District to avoid embarrassment and shame; which consisted of dark brown pants, bright pink hoodies and the pair of sandals Aunt Alice had given me when I was slightly younger.

"If you don't let me pay, I'll tell Jacob that…well, let's just say that I'm going to be telling him things that you will regret very much." Rachel shot me a dagger look. "Also, you depend on Leah Clearwater for all your food and accommodation expenses, don't you? If you can depend on her like that then why can't I pay for much more minor things such as your clothing?" Rachel definitely wasn't taking 'no' for an answer today; she started pulling me along the mall as she talked.

We both stopped short automatically when we saw who was just in front of us, facing us.

Jacob stopped dead in his tracks when he saw us, too. His gaze was mainly focused on me but would occasionally drift to stare into Rachel's now-intense, sharp sapphire eyes. He was just a couple of feet away from me.

Behind him came the loud click clacking of high heels and then Leah caught up with him. Her dark eyes wandered aimlessly and innocently among Jacob, Rachel, and I, but I knew she was looking for something. Staring straight at me now, she pressed her bloodred fingernails onto Jacob's tanned arm and leaned upwards to whisper into his ear, her glossy red lips just inches from his…