Chapter Nine
I slept deeply that night. Thankfully, the dream I had was another good one. A dream memory that I wouldn't trade for anything. Yet another camping trip, but one more recent. Last year, Mike had chosen the perfect spot in the forest, just beside a lake for us to camp next to.
It was better than any cabin, and the best part about it, was that I wasn't trying to recover from anything. I could just be there and relax as much as everyone else. It was such a vivid dream, and I'd learned to appreciate that because of good dreams.
I could smell the water of the lake, the clean breeze. Especially during the evening and morning. The scent of a freshly lit campfire. I could hear the things I heard. The sound of the birds around us and the lake slapping the rocks on the shore. See the things I saw. The sight of the sun setting behind us, turning the hill and trees across the lake a fiery orange until it faded to pink. Feel the things I felt. The sensation of the cool water lapping at my toes, or the breeze taking my hair behind me and playing with it.
It was a good time then, and with as many things that were going on now, I wished we could go back. I probably appreciated it more now than I did when we were younger. Everyone was growing up, but it was nice having that time together.
I woke in the morning slowly at first, until I rolled over. Startled at finding Mikah seated on my window sill.
"Fuck." I whimpered, briefly covering my face, "Warn a person."
"I tried." He chuckled, "But you were out cold. So I figured I'd just wait." I considered that for a moment, before I nodded a little. I slept so deeply now, his response was more than plausible. He spoke again as he stood up, "What were you dreaming about?"
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you were smiling." I sighed at his reply, stretching a little as I moved to sit up.
"Last year." I answered, "Last summer's camping trip. I think it was the first camping trip we took that I wasn't worried about anything, and I guess I miss that time. Before everything changed."
"Makes sense." Mikah nodded.
"There's something I don't get, though." I admitted, frowning a bit.
"What's that?"
"It doesn't make sense." I looked over as he was suddenly seating himself beside me on the bed, "It's been bugging me for awhile. Jack figured out what you guys did, by taking me to Aro and moving me in here."
"Yes." Mikah was guarded now.
"It's not like him to just.. Move on like that."
He sighed, "Jack isn't stupid. He might have been new, but he had plenty of other people there to tell him that when someone like Aro is on his tail, he needs to move."
He paused, both of us falling silent for a moment. I just couldn't help feeling a bit emotional sitting with him like this. It was so similar to how we used to sit together, and it made me sad.
For the longest time, I'd missed this. I'd missed just talking to him, hearing the things he had to say, and no matter how hard I'd tried, I couldn't get passed that. I managed to hide it well, however. Disguising my emotion right then with a brief sniffle, followed immediately with a light rub to the side of my nose and my eye.
"Sometimes things aren't completely black and white." He went on, quieter, "Sometimes things aren't completely bad or completely good. Sometimes.. It's worth the effort to find the good in bad situations, just to make them bearable."
"No kidding." I muttered, glancing over. I'd done that same thing more times than I could count. Searching relentlessly for the silver lining when everything got too hard. I took a breath, staring across the room at the window, "What the fuck happened?"
From the corner of my eye, I watched him look down.
"It really wasn't supposed to happen this way." I went on, "It wasn't. Everything changed too much when you all left. I was okay with that, because nothing was the same. Now that you're back, and nothing's the way it's supposed to be, I don't know what to do with myself."
"I know." He nodded, "Believe me, I understand. Leandra, we didn't come back to ruin your life."
"I know." I said as well, "But.. I don't think you know how hard it is for me to see you all now. How hard it is to remember those days. To remember my life with you. I spent so much time learning how to let that go."
Taking a breath, I turned a little on the bed to better face him.
"It was done." I murmured, "It was over. I'd made my choices, you all had made yours. There was nothing else to say. It sucked. It was really hard, but I did it."
He sighed, shaking his head as he looked back down, "Leandra-"
"You have no idea." I shut him up, "How much I looked up to everyone. How much I needed you. How much I would have given, how badly it broke me to lose you. I told you. You say you had your reasons, and that might be true, but I also have mine.
"I had my family." I mumbled, nearly silent, "As hopeless as everything seemed back then, I knew I could get through it because I had so many people willing to be strong for me. I knew I could get through anything. I was where I wanted to be." I couldn't shake the emotion in my voice this time, "I mean.. Back then.. Everything was falling apart. My mom had just died, along with that shit with Jack. Then Aro. Then, I have to live with Heather, and almost immediately after moving in here, you all leave? Did nobody think about what that would do?"
He tried speaking again, "Of course-"
"I have my resentment." I went on, "No amount of explaining will change that. I loved you guys more than I can ever even begin to explain, and to.. Just be dropped like that by someone I loved so much, no reason in the world will ever fix that. So.. I don't know what you all are expecting from me, but no. It'll never be the same. It'll never be what it was supposed to be."
He didn't even try to speak this time. Staying silent as he stared at the floor. Looking over, I could clearly see that none of this was news to him. He already knew all of this. Just as much as I knew the others all knew.
He was quiet for a moment longer, before he spoke.
"Tell me about it." He requested quietly, "About your life. I want to know everything."
"Everything?" I laughed a little, skeptical.
"Everything." He confirmed, "People you know, places you've been, things you've done.. Everything."
"You're going to get really bored." I warned, laughing again as I moved to stand up. I had a feeling he was just trying to turn this around into something positive, and I wasn't entirely against the idea, but he had to know that my life wasn't very interesting anymore.
"Besides." I spoke again, fixing my pajama shorts as I got my feet under me, "I don't even know where to start."
"Wherever you want to." He smiled a little, standing up as well. I had to step back a bit to give him room, but I couldn't help noticing how much taller than me he still was. For the briefest moments, his eyes met mine again, and it didn't escape me how quickly I had to look away.
The way he watched me was also something that didn't escape me. Like he always used to. With a mix of pride and intense interest, like anything I had to say was the most important thing in the world. It appealed to me in the way it always used to. Despite what he'd done, that girlish crush I'd always had on him had hung around and I had a feeling it was being woken up with a vengeance. The only thing that had changed was the way it made me feel.
He was sixteen when he was turned. Barely sixteen. I was just a kid to him when I first met him. Someone that needed looking after. I could tell that things had changed as much for him as they did for me. It was subtle, but it was clear to me.
"Um.." I looked down, forcing a little laugh to myself, "You should go."
"Why?" He asked, surprised. He probably didn't expect that.
"I'll see you later." I muttered, turning and crossing the room to my dresser. My tone left no room for argument.
Though he still seemed confused, he did as I asked. Leaving the room through the same window in which he entered. The second he was gone, I took a deep breath and shook my head.
I really needed to get a hold of myself. Though these emotions were so familiar, they had changed. Morphed into something I'd never anticipated, and something I wasn't ready for. I wasn't stupid. I might have done some stupid things, but I wasn't stupid. I wasn't about to fall for that, or give in to whatever emotions might be dragged up from the past. My heart beat too fast, but I ignored that.
Confident I was now alone, I set myself to the task of getting dressed.
In the time it took me to gather my clothes, I found my thoughts slipping again. Heading quickly once more in a direction I'd avoided adamantly in the last few years. Back to memories of before. Both in the vision I still remembered, and this time around. The way things had gone so wrong, and even further back.
I'd missed them. There was no doubt about that, but I never let myself show it. The memories of my time with them had always been buried, but the talk with Mikah I'd just had refused to let them stay that way.
I was stepping into a brand new phase in my life. That, of course, was bound to bring up its own emotion. Pregnant or not, this emotion was almost overwhelming. I had my ability, but there was just no way to anticipate what something like this would bring.
There were also more pressing issues. Like what would happen if Aro didn't accept Carlisle's interference. I'd meant wholeheartedly what I'd told them the night before. I was done with that part of my life. At least for the most part.
I sighed heavily, reaching up and covering my face with my hands.
I wanted so badly to be done with vampires and werewolves, and everything that came with them. I'd been convinced, not long ago, that I'd escaped all that crap. Now the family I'd once considered myself abandoned by was suddenly back, the tyrant nobody could protect me from wanted me again, and my baby's father was probably running around on four furry legs.
Fuck. Everything was crumbling again.
Taking a breath, I sobbed a strangled sound and left my room. I needed normal, but I knew Heather was probably working again. As were Mike and Josh. Zack was my only hope, but just my luck, he was gone as well.
Well, I thought. This sucks.
I returned to my room, heading straight to the window and slamming the lock in place and jerking the curtain closed. If that wasn't a blatant sign to leave me alone, I didn't know what was. My emotions were quickly getting the better of me, and I needed to sort them out. I could already tell that today was fucked. I was good at telling when my mood was no longer salvageable. All because of one sequence of thoughts.
I'd never been so thankful for my attached bathroom than I was right then. I locked my bedroom door before locking myself in said bathroom. Drawing myself a bath that I swore I wasn't getting out of until everything was okay again.
I was surprised this hadn't happened sooner. I was so mixed up, so confused. I might have told them that I'd try, but nobody in any amount of honesty could tell me that I wasn't trying.
Of course I cried. I cried a lot while I was locked away. A self-inflicted exile that I didn't want to end. Nursing my newly-discovered broken heart with a painful tenderness only I could give it.
It wasn't easy to do. Sitting alone, in rapidly cooling bathwater while every memory that crossed my mind was another stab straight into the broken edge of my reluctantly beating heart.
Despite how painful it was, however, it still wasn't as bad as it was when they first left. I didn't have that amount of emotion left in me. I lost a part of myself when they left, and in a way, I was grieving for that part of me.
Maybe this needed to happen. If I was ever going to truly move on, maybe I needed to grieve for the part of me that died so long ago. Just like with the pregnancy, maybe my mind just knew what to do. Maybe my mind was just trying to fix me by refusing to let me bury it anymore. Maybe it just needed to get bad again to truly get better.
During one of my still moments, though, I felt the fluttering. Underneath the skin of my stomach, I felt the fluttering feeling that made me pay closer attention. I waited, but didn't feel it again. It rather quickly dawned on me that I'd just felt the baby move. I sat there breathless, locking the sensation to memory.
It was the oddest feeling. Like a gentle muscle twitch, but on the inside. I knew I wouldn't be able to feel it on the outside yet, but that didn't stop my hand from covering my stomach, right where I'd felt it.
It was that feeling that got me moving again. Breathing again, living again. It was the proof I needed that life didn't stop just because I was hurting. I knew I wasn't done crying, and I knew I wasn't done being upset, but for now, I could go on. Until something knocked me off my feet again, I could go on.
I left the bathroom, but I couldn't make myself leave my room. The furthest I got was unlocking the bedroom door. The way I was feeling, I didn't want to keep anyone from getting to me.
I was trying. I really was, but there was so much I just couldn't get passed. It was like throwing myself at a wall. A wall I'd built myself. Every time I tried to look passed it, I'd run straight into it again. Sighing in left over emotion, I sat on my bed.
I stayed there for a few minutes before my eyes found the informative folder sitting on my dresser. Yet again, I'd been given information on pregnancy for me to look over. Things that would change, what was going on with the baby and what I could expect to happen to me.
I had to admit, I was curious.
So I only got up long enough for me to grab that folder and returned to my bed. It'd give me something to do while I waited for everyone to get home. It would distract my mind enough to recover a little.
And for the most part, it did. I flipped through the collection of papers in there, giving both information on the baby and classes being held in the area. Childbirth classes, breastfeeding classes, things like that. I wasn't interested in those, so I quickly threw that page to the side.
It had a list of pregnancy safe over-the-counter medications I could take and not affect the baby. It had information on feeling the baby move for the first time. Right around where I was in the pregnancy, the baby would be big enough to feel.
I put everything away when I started to feel overwhelmed. Curling up into a ball on my bed. I fought it this time, but I really couldn't help falling asleep.
This dream was the complete opposite of the one I'd woken up from. My mind stuck back in that time in my life, it was bound to happen eventually.
"Mikah." I turned for the window. More than happy to let him in. I'd been eager to show him my new room since I finished moving in a week before.
Ever paranoid, especially after everything I'd just gone through, I had to unlock the window before I could open it and let him in. I lifted the window, peering out into the dark side yard below. Sure enough, he stood there. Looking up at me from where he'd just been throwing tiny pebbles at the glass to get my attention.
Without waiting, I backed up. Making room for him to jump in like he'd done dozens of times before. Moments later, he did just that. Landing on the sill for just a moment before he was inside.
"Princess." He greeted me quietly, keeping his voice down.
"Hey." I replied, turning again, my back to him, "What do you think?"
"Of?" He prompted.
"My room." I answered, "I just finished it today. See?" I glanced back at him before nodding pointedly at the wall I faced. A wall now covered in a board, filled with pictures that Alice had given me of my family and me.
He didn't reply right away, which made me glance back again. To my surprise, however, Carlisle had arrived. Finding his way into my room the same way Mikah had. That was new, but I didn't exactly mind, either.
"It's nice, princess." Mikah finally replied.
"I like it." I shrugged a little, facing the wall again, "When I go back home, I want this in my room too. I like looking at it."
Admiring my handy work for just a moment longer before I turned away, crossing the room to my bed. I could feel their gaze following me, which was also new, but not exactly upsetting. Even if I could sense that something was wrong.
Since moving in with Heather, everyone had done everything they could to keep a positive attitude about everything involved with my living here. Though it'd only been two weeks since I moved in, their positivity was beginning to rub off on me.
"I like it," I repeated, scooting further back onto my bed, "But I might change it again. It doesn't feel exactly right. It might take a little while longer, but I'll show you when it's done. Maybe in a few weeks or something."
I instantly spotted the look Mikah passed to Carlisle. It was hardly a fleeting glance, but it was enough. My tension immediately rose, and I felt myself bracing for something bad. The immediate reaction to anything negative, which I sensed this to be. My heartbeat sped quite noticeably, my breathing reacting ever-so-slightly. I swallowed nervously, looking between the two of them.
"What?" I asked, quieter now, "Something's wrong. What's wrong?"
"Relax, princess." Mikah noticed the change in me, "You know it's not good for you to get worked up."
"I can't help it." I mumbled, "What's wrong?"
He took a breath, looking to Carlisle again, and I inspected their expressions this time. Not quite nervous, Mikah's expression seemed definitely concerned. Yet, I could tell he dreaded taking this conversation any further. Carlisle's expression told me he dreaded it even more, but it came with an undertone of decided resignation. A carefully constructed stoic expression that I'd seen a few times before. An expression that told me that I wouldn't like what they were about to tell me, but it had to be done.
"Just tell me." I couldn't help the slight plea in my almost silent tone. I needed to know.
Mikah sighed, "Leandra.." But he let that one word hang there, fading into silence. I wished he'd just finish that. What could be so hard to tell me?
I stayed quiet also, watching them.
"Mikah?" I whimpered this time. I was getting scared.
"I can't." Mikah eventually mumbled to Carlisle, shaking his head. That didn't help.
"I understand." Carlisle replied, and Mikah took that as an okay to turn away. Biting his lip, as if struggling to hold back emotion. This wasn't like him. He was always the blunt one. The one able to say what needed to be said.
I saw that emotion, and it stuck with me. It burned itself into my brain like the hottest fire, the most potent acid. It reached me even before anyone could say anything. It ensured that this moment would always be one of the worst in my life. Right up there with my entire life with Jack, including the night my mother died.
I read that emotion as something that would signify the start of something very difficult. I would always remember that emotion as something horrible.
My eyes opened. My eyes were sore, tired, which told me I'd been crying in my sleep.
"Princess?" Mikah's hesitant voice over by the window caught me off guard, which only startled me into letting a sob escape.
"Go away." I rolled my face into my pillow.
I heard the frown in his voice next, "Wha-"
"I don't want to see you right now." I sobbed, only half angry, "I don't want to see anyone right now. Go away. Please."
"Are you okay-"
"No!" My voice raised again, "Just go away!" The pain of that memory was something that I hadn't faced in a long time. It was also what screwed me up so badly. More so now, because I knew what it led to. What it caused, what it changed in me.
I glanced over a moment later, and he was gone. Probably confused, but knowing I needed him to leave.
"Leandra." Carlisle's tone was both regretful, and unwavering.
I sat there quietly, needing to hear what he had to say before I would bother speaking again.
"We won't be here next week." He went on softly, carefully. It definitely took me a moment, but I figured out what he was saying. More importantly, I figured out what he wasn't saying.
A mix of emotions washed over me at once. Surprise, of course. I never would have expected this. Fear as well. Was he really saying what I thought he was saying? Sadness was stronger, but almost immediately, as I was programmed to do so, anger followed. To cover the pain of my sudden almost debilitating fear and sadness with anger. To reduce any vulnerability I might show.
"Oh." Was my response as I looked down, "Um.. You won't be here the week after next either, right?"
I needed confirmation.
"I'm afraid not."
"Or the one after.." It wasn't a question. It wouldn't have been this hard to tell me if they had any intention of coming back for any length of time.
I didn't get a response that time, but that was answer enough for me.
This had happened before. Not at this point, of course, but I'd been left behind before. I knew the feeling. I knew this emotion well, but it was different before. It took me several seconds to remember how to breathe, and I couldn't help hating the fact that I was breathing again.
"Okay." I finally muttered, standing up. My anger held the hand of another emotion. Indifference. A survival technique I also knew well.
Carlisle sighed, "Leandra-"
"No." I shook my head, my back turned to them, "It's okay. You want to go, you can go." My voice quieted, "I'm not stopping you." I picked up a small stuffed animal Heather had given me off of the bedside table as I bit back another thought.
Everyone leaves.
"It's not that we want to go." Mikah finally spoke up.
I shrugged, "That doesn't matter very much, huh?" It really didn't make much difference. The result would still be the same.
Unfortunately for me, that anger somehow wasn't strong enough to keep the sadness, the pain of a breaking heart hidden for very long and I was crumbling fast.
"Um.." I tried so hard to steady my voice, "Can you leave now?" I knew they had to have heard the emotion in my tone. If my tone wasn't enough, the repetitive way I smoothed out the bear's fur would be.
"Princess, I'm sorry."
"Don't be." I snapped in an attempt to save face, "You're gonna do what you have to do. If you're gonna go, then go. I don't need you anyway. I don't need anyone. I'll be just fine here on my own."
Silence had me glancing back at them. They both still stood there, despite my request for them to leave.
"You'll.." I mumbled, "You'll come back sometime, right? I'll see you again..?"
"As often as we can." Mikah was only too quick to answer me. Given the way Carlisle looked to him, Carlisle's answer would have been different, but given the tears both lingering in my eyes and trailing softly down my cheeks, I could understand why Mikah would impulsively answer.
I would have taken any answer at that point. Lie or not.
I looked over as my bedroom door opened, and Zack stepped in with a frown on his face. It quickly dawned on me that I'd been asleep longer than I thought. Long enough for him to get back.
"Who were you talking to?" He trailed off, finding the look on my face as his own expression fell, "Oh." He understood now. With a knowing sigh, he crossed the room to sit beside me on my bed just as Josh arrived in the doorway.
I didn't even bother this time to try to tell him I was fine. He wasn't stupid. He had eyes.
With a deeper sigh, he crawled over me and settled behind me on my bed. Just as he had done a thousand times before, he curled up behind me, his arm coming over mine to hug me from behind. In an almost desperate way, I brought my arm up and clung onto his arm as tight as I could. I shook. The pain resurfacing. He held me tighter, gently resting his head on mine.
He'd done this for me, knowing that this was really all I needed. Talking about it wouldn't help. Neither would attempting to comfort me by cheering me up. I just needed to cry. I needed to be held. It was the only thing that would keep me together.
"I hate seeing you like this." He murmured against my head. I knew that already. He hadn't told me anything new. Involuntarily, my eyes closed. Trying to ease the river now trailing from them.
"Wh-Who's gonna watch me at night?" I asked softly, unable to help it, "Who's gonna be there?"
"I'm confident you'll be most safe here." Carlisle replied just as softly, "Your place is here."
"What if I'm not?" I whimpered now, "Don't go."
"I understand your-"
"Don't go." I begged this time. I couldn't stop the sob from separating those two words. It tore free from a spot inside me I never imagined would see this kind of pain in my waking hours.
"I understand your worry," Carlisle repeated, "But you will be checked on. It isn't our choice to leave. There are just some-"
"Please." I mumbled, "Don't go."
"There are just some things we need to take care of." He murmured, "Circumstances that we cannot change."
"You can stay." I argued, "You can stay. You just don't want to."
"That's not it at all." Mikah replied, his tone almost desperate.
"At least tell me what I did!"
"It wasn't anything you did." Mikah shook his head, looking down.
"Don't go." I begged again, "Please-"
I jumped at the slight knock at my bedroom door and looked over, "Leandra?" It was Heather, "Are you okay? I heard you yell."
I fully intended to keep arguing with Carlisle and Mikah, but they were gone when I looked to where they'd previously been standing. This sadness turned into desperation. I strode across the room just as my bedroom door opened, and I peered out the window into the dark, empty yard below.
"Honey?" Heather found me, obviously worried about me as she stepped up behind me, "What's wrong?" It took me a moment longer of searching the darkness before I turned and looked up at her.
"They're gone." I knew saying those words would confuse her, but to me, it made it real. I knew, even then, that they wouldn't come back.
"Who?" She asked as I hugged her tight, "Who's gone?" I couldn't exactly explain it to her right then. I was too busy falling apart.
"Leandra?" Heather arrived in my room just behind Josh.
"She woke up." Was all Zack needed to say. Heather crossed the room, just as she had that night, and gently helped me sit up. That had been one of the worst nights of my life, and she'd done all she could do to get me through it. Plus the many that followed. She'd been there, so she knew. There was no need for her to ask. She already knew what this was about. She'd seen me after a Jack nightmare, and this was different. Just as painful, but in a different way.
"I was afraid of this." She admitted gently, smoothing my back as I cried into her shoulder. I also hated this, because I knew it hurt her to see me hurting, but there wasn't much I could do. It still hurt. Them being back now didn't change anything.
Part of me was willing to forgive, but another, more painful part of me wanted to hold out. To remember all the moments I was actually on my own. There weren't many, as Zack and Josh often accompanied me everywhere, but I definitely had them. Those lost moments, the rare times I'd let myself reflect.
The moments I'd sit in my room, or wander through the trees. During the night, or the quietest days. When there was nobody. Nowhere for me to be, nothing for me to be doing. Nobody to talk to. Not about this stuff.
This was probably what led me into this mess to begin with. Those moments I felt impossibly alone. Those were the moments I'd do whatever it took to get the attention I craved. The attention I was so used to. The attention my family was able to give me without even trying.
Despite the fact that all I'd have to do was ask, but no matter how hard they tried, Mike or Heather's attention was never the same. It was never the same. It would never be the same.
Those rare moments I'd wander off alone because that was what I needed at the time. Looking for some reason to keep trying, and it lasted. It was sometimes all I had. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, nobody really understood but me. Nobody really understood that no matter how many people I had around me, I never lost that lonely feeling. No matter how hard I tried to lie to myself.
I wasn't really sure what I'd been looking for that night with Andrew, but whatever it was, I had no idea if I found it. One thing was for sure, though. Nobody was to blame but me.
"Okay." I sniffled, pulling back, "I'm okay."
She didn't seem convinced, "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure." I forced myself out of bed around her. Standing, nearly stumbling a little as I headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" Josh called after me. I didn't answer.
"Let her go." I heard from Heather just as I reached the stairs. Thankfully, they listened. Burned by those memories, fueled by the emotion, I left the house. Bare foot, I left the yard behind and headed right in the direction of the trees right at the end of the street.
The thickest trees were further from the street, and I headed right for them. This was always my refuge. The place I went to just listen. I was usually calmer when I came here, but that didn't matter to me right then.
I stood there for a long moment, closing my eyes and struggling to calm the violent turmoil in my heart. To ease the pain with silence I couldn't get anywhere else.
"Leandra?"
"Shit."
It was the worst possible moment for Carlisle to approach me. Absolutely horrible timing. One glance behind me told me that he was alone.
"Is everything okay?"
"No." I mumbled, "It's not. Please.. You shouldn't be here right now.. You should really leave me alone.." He stood in silence, probably hearing everything I didn't say just in my voice.
"I know you're upset-"
"What do you know?" I asked, unable to keep the tears from my broken tone, "God, I'm trying, but I can't." I rounded, looking at him now, "There's no way. No way you could ever know what you did."
"What can I do?" He asked, and that just pissed me off again. Now he wanted to fix it? Now he wanted to make it right? Now it was too little too late, and it pissed me off that he didn't understand that.
"I told you!" I shouted, glaring at him through my tears, "Leave me alone! Nobody asked you to come back! I didn't want you to come back! I don't want you here! I don't want any of you here! What's it gonna take for you to get the hint? Just leave!"
Carlisle was quiet for a moment, studying me.
"I'm sorry," He finally said, "But we can't. We can't leave."
"Then don't let me see you." I countered, ignoring the river of tears down my cheeks, "I can't make you leave, but leave me alone. Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Not at all."
"I'm not going to just sit back and let you fuck everything up again. I'm not going to just let you come here and get my hopes up all over again." I shook my head, "No. No. Fuck that. Stay here, or leave, but get one thing straight. You stay away from me, you stay away from Andrew, and you stay the fuck away from my family. Or I swear to God, I will spill everything I know to anyone who'll listen, and I'll make damn sure they believe me."
"If that is what you truly want." He murmured calmly. Sadly.
"That is what I truly want!"
"Leandra-"
"I waited for you!" I sobbed, my voice breaking again in that confession, "I waited! I waited for all of you! You were supposed to come back!"
Words could never begin to describe the pain I was feeling right then.
"You left me!" I went on, "You left! And you never came back!" It wasn't as hard to accept the fact that the others had gone with him. To me, he was the one to blame. To me, it was Carlisle's decision that taught me exactly what it felt like to be crushed so thoroughly every single day until I taught myself to let go. It was this pain I'd tried so hard to hide myself from, but it had suddenly become too much. Bubbling over like a boiling pot, and there was no way to turn it down.
Now I had the chance to blame him. To fling my anger right at him instead of keeping it in. Maybe that was what he was trying to do, but it didn't exactly matter to me.
"I still needed you!" Words were just tumbling out now, "How could you not see that? How could you? Why would you do that to me? You broke every single goddamn promise you ever gave me. How is that okay? Didn't I matter? Do you even know what it's like?" I had to pause at that point to breathe. Breathless in my emotion.
"Of course you mattered." He replied gently, "Your happiness was a large part of why we did what we did."
"Then you don't know me very well." I countered sharply, "You really don't know me very well if you thought it'd be okay if you came back. Like I said, I can't make you leave, but leave me out of it. I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear from you. I don't want you in my life anymore. Just do what you do best, and leave."
With that, I rounded and walked away. Further into the trees, but I knew exactly where I was going. I'd been in these trees a number of times, and had never once gotten lost.
Of course, I knew I was being a bit harsh, but I felt I needed to be harsh to protect myself. If I was going to get my point across, he needed to understand that I meant what I said. Glancing back, he was gone, so I assumed he'd finally gotten the hint. With him gone, I felt like I could start calming down.
I took a single, deep breath in, but unfortunately, that ended sharply with a stabbing pain rolling across my abdomen. I choked on that breath, coughing out in pain as my hand instantly moved to cover my stomach. My other hand reaching over and bracing myself against the nearest tree just as my legs threatened to give out.
Squeezing my eyes shut, biting my lip to keep another cry back. My foggy mind started to clear enough to realize that I needed to worry about the baby. It quickly became apparent that I must have gotten way too upset just now. I'd put myself under way too much stress.
Those thoughts were put on hold as another stabbing pain shot through my stomach, and I had to sit down. Clutching my stomach in both arms this time, I leaned forward, curling around my stomach as nausea made my head spin. I started to cry, sobbing once more, but for a very different reason. The pain so intense, it radiated through me.
I was out here alone. My only hope of help was currently taking my advice, and leaving me be. I coughed and sobbed again, not having realized I was holding my breath.
"Leandra." I looked sharply to my left at Carlisle's arrival, and I was never so relieved to see him as I was right then. Only one moment even came close, and that was when he first came to pick me up in California. So long ago. Despite my pain, that memory wouldn't be ignored.
He spoke again, "I'm sorry. I know you don't want me to be here-"
I cut him off with another sob, holding tighter to my stomach at a third intense, cramping pain. I was stiff, unable to protest as he suddenly scooped me up.
I looked up at him as he started back the other direction, unable to do much else. Somehow I saw him differently so suddenly. He was helping me. After everything I'd just told him, he was helping me. I wasn't sure if that meant he was being stubborn, or if he just cared too much.
I just cried pathetically now, hating this so much. Hating having to rely on him, but knowing full well I had no other choice.
A/N: I'm so sorry this took so long, guys. Little KNeu has been extra fussy lately, and as always, he comes first. Plus, I'm not ashamed to admit that I just love cuddling with him.
Also, this chapter was a little difficult. There were so many emotions I had to put in here, and I had a hard time describing them. I hope it came out alright.
THANK YOU to those AMAZING REVIEWERS! THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU! :D You seriously always make my day!
Chapter Ten might take a little bit. Again, because it could go many ways. I must proceed carefully or I risk messing everything up lol
Until Ten, my friends! :D