The Twilight Twenty-Five ( )
Prompt: #8 (Waiting)
Pen Name: Madie-the-Muse
Pairing/Character(s): Leah Clearwater
Rating: T
Word Count: 356
Photo prompts can be found here: /round-eight/prompts
She watched as the bartended lined up four martini glasses, added some frilly garnish to each and then poured a sickly sweet looking concoction into them from the shaker he'd prepared. She knew, without question, that the drinks were headed for the obnoxious group of giggling women in the corner.
Leah Clearwater had spent years struggling with not being one of those girls. Not that she had ever wanted to be like them. She had only wanted to fit in; to be normal. She wanted to have girl friends, or at least friends that liked her because of who she was, not because they had been through together by supernatural forces.
She watched as the women in the corner laughed and shrieked in what outwardly looked like joy, but she wondered if they, too, were just playing a role. She often wondered how many people she saw in a day were living lies like she had done for so long.
Once Leah hard learned to who she was—who she really was—she had learned that she didn't need that to be happy. She didn't need shallow women to spend her time with to fit in. That wasn't who she was. She had found peace in knowing that she didn't need to answer to anyone but herself; that she didn't owe anyone anything despite what the tribal elders had lead her to believe for so long. She could only responsible for herself. Coming to that realization had been the push she needed to let go of all the baggage she had carried around for years. It had let her learn to smile again; to find true happiness—not the superficial happiness she had strived for, for years.
Letting go of the hurt and anger had allowed her to learn to love herself, and then to love someone else. The same someone else she caught sight of making his way across the crowded bar. "Sorry to keep you waiting," he said with a smile as he slipped into the seat next to her.
"I don't mind waiting for you," she confessed with a smile of her own.