15 Reality

Cathryn's POV

I watched, dumbfounded, as Embry and most every body else disappeared out the hospital doors. I mean, come on. Em slaves over birthing a kid for god knows how long, and nobody cares. Poor child. I glanced back towards Emily's hospital room. The nurse was still glaring at me. Right. Like I was going to hang around outside the room of a baby I wasn't going to get to see when I could be yelling at the inconsiderate, shallow low-lives commonly referred to as men. What could be so important that you would abandon your wife and son in their time of need?

I started to follow them.

"Wait," A burning hand gripped my wrist. I looked down into the chocolate eyes of Renesmee Cullen.

"What?" I asked her, not too politely. I didn't have time for her and her stupid lectures now.

"Leave them alone. Just let them fight it out." She told me, her voice tense and pleading.

I almost laughed out loud. She actually thought that I was going to miss…whatever was going on outside because she told me to? "Heck, no." I tugged, expecting her young muscles to give way easily to my own. But I was wrong. As per usual. Her grip was like steel. White, beautiful steel. "Ness," I said, getting annoyed now. "Let go."

She shook her copper curls. "No. Please, Cat, leave it alone."

"Honey. Only my friends can get away with calling me Cat. And you definitely don't fit inside that category."

She dropped my hand as though she had been slapped. Good. Annoying bitch. I walked briskly down the hall, through the waiting room, and outside into the cold, wet night. That was when my confident strut slowed a little. Where had they gone? I looked at the parking lot for a minute, contemplating. It was still pretty full of cars, so they were somewhere around here.

Suddenly, I heard something. Sam, maybe? He was definitely that loud….

I followed the sound of the yelling around the side of the place and out back. What I saw made me stop in my tracks.

Yep, they were there.

"Sam, please," Leah begged, blinking back-tears? I must have been dreaming. Leah was tougher than that. By far. "Its not my-"

"HE WAS JUST BORN! EMILY'S BEEN SO HAPPY FOR SO LONG AND NOW SHE'S JUST GOT HIM AND YOU THINK THAT ONE FREAKING GLANCE IS GONNA GIVE YOU A FREEBIE AND LET YOU TAKE HIM FROM HER?!"

Only he didn't say freaking. I just thought that typing that may be a bit much. You get the point. The guy was pissed. About what, though, I couldn't tell you. Honestly, I wasn't too busy trying to figure it out. I was much more interested in the way he looked. His whole body was shaking, sort of blurred. Scary looking.

Then, all at once, his eyes went flat black, and he leapt forward, blurring even more. Suddenly, he exploded, leaving a giant black wolf in his place. The wolf came at Leah, snarling. Leah, however, raced forward to meet him. She too exploded, but instead of black, this one was gray, and a bit less intimidating. But only a bit.

I staggered back, shocked. Wolves? Werewolves? Really? Really really? But… that wasn't possible. Werewolves, they were fake. Imaginary. The stuff of stories, legends…. Legends. The campfire, the stories they told, Embry told me, spirit warriors, packs of Indian shape shifters….

Yeah, yeah. I know. I should have seen it coming. The ginormous size, the closeness of them all, despite the range in ages, the strength, Renesmee's secrecy. Legends that were still told even thousands of years later. I mean, duh. But the thing is, who would suspect something like that? Who would even dream that it was all real? You'd have to be crazy. Which wasn't a very good excuse, seeing as I wasn't exactly all there, but still. I watched, dumbstruck, as the gray and black wolves proceeded to totally go at it. The black one looked like it was winning. Which made sense. Sam was way bigger than Leah in both forms. And he was way more pissed off.

The thing was, I was having a hard time concentrating on the fight. I was a little preoccupied by screaming bloody murder. Very loudly, I might add. It took a surprisingly long amount of time for the rest of the…pack to notice. It was Embry who saw me first, though. He ran towards me, much faster than was natural, and scooped me up into his arms, just like on the day I was supposed to have heard the legends. I'd never gotten why he hadn't just let me hear them then, instead of explaining them over the phone. I understood now. He had edited his version a tiny bit. He'd left out the small detail of it all being TRUE.

Either way, being held quite tightly in flaming arms in the middle of freezing cold rain calmed me. I managed to shut up after a minute. Which was when I heard Embry yammering in my ear. "-so sorry," He was saying, his words tense in my ear. "I was gonna tell you, I swear. But not like this. This was a terrible way for you to have found out. Listen, are you all right? Not going into shock or anything?" He paused, waiting for my verdict.

"I think…I think I'd better go home now." My grief, was that tiny little squeaky sound me? How perfectly awful I sounded.

Embry seemed to agree "Uh, maybe we should swing by the Cullens first. Carlisle's there, he's the doctor. He can make sure you're okay-"

"I'm fine." I interrupted, my voice sounding stronger this time. "Just really tired. So take me home. Now."

"Uhh…"

"Embry, please."

He gave in, carrying me too quickly to his truck, then driving me too quickly to my house.

He stopped at my driveway. I opened the door to get out, but as I started to close it, Embry caught my hand, stopping me.

"You're sure you're okay?" He asked me.

I stared at him for a minute. His hair was wet and sticking out haphazardly in many directions. His eyes bored into mine, warming me the way his arms had. He was worried, I could tell. Not that I could blame him. I'd spent the entire ride staring at my reflection in the rearview mirror, and I looked like crap.

Something in the way he looked at me…it was unreadable. There was something there…but it had always been like that. There had always been something in Embry's eyes when he looked at me that I'd never been able to quite get.

"Yes, Embry. I'm okay. For real." I assured him, my voice surprisingly gentle.

He searched my face for any sign that I might me lying. Finally, though, he nodded and let me go.

As soon as I opened the front door, I was greeted enthusiastically by my mother.

"Hi sweetie! Did everything turn out all right?" She asked me a little uncertainly as she took in my expression.

"Yeah. Everything went great. It was a boy. He's adorable." I told her, arranging my features into what I hoped was a smile.

"That's wonderful." She beamed at me, obviously expecting me to launch into a detailed explanation of the birth, as I usually did whenever something exited me.

"Yeah. But…I'm really tired. It's been a long day. I'll tell you about everything in the morning before school, okay?"

"Oh. Right! Okay! Goodnight, sweetheart."

"Night," I murmured on my way up the stairs.

When I got to my room, though, I wished I wasn't in it. I felt too confined, claustrophobic. I crossed the room and went outside, onto my balcony, even though it was pouring. I sat in my chair, letting my clothes and hair get soaked. I decided that Embry had been right. I was going into shock. Trust me to not realize it until I was all alone. I'd be dead by morning.

Slowly, as I processed the massive amounts odd information I'd been given, I came to a verdict.

I was mad.

Beyond mad. I was furious.

Because they had lied. All of them, I was beginning to realize. Leah and Sam weren't the only werewolves. Embry, Seth, Collin, Brady, Drew, Quil. Their girlfriends probably knew about it. So Keilly and Emily had lied as well. And Jacob and Renesmee. And Billy and Sue. And maybe even Claire. They'd been my best friends, and they'd been more or less living a totally different life. They weren't even human. And Embry expected me to be okay? He was a whack job. They all were.

And I was apparently a dog-person.

"Bob," I whined, "Take your hands off and let me see." I tried my best to make the words sound exited instead of annoyed. I appreciated whatever it was that they were doing, but I really wasn't in the mood. Not that I had been in the mood for the past two weeks, but still.

I'd spent the last two weeks of school at home with the flu, on account of falling asleep that night in the rain, and avoiding phone calls from all my friends except for Leslie, who, like me, had been totally blind to the whole …I really didn't like to think about it that much. Everyone else, though, I'd given the cold shoulder.

Now it was Christmas Day, and my mood wasn't any better than it had been since I'd been let in on the secret. My family had apparently noticed, because as soon as we'd opened our presents Bob had thrown his arm over my face and towed me around half the house, leading me to my big "surprise". Everyone was following us. Even my stepsiblings. I actually saw Mark smile before I was blind folded.

"Surprise!" They all yelled. Bob removed his hands from my eyes.

I blinked, surprised. Why were we outside?

In front of me was a bright green Porsche.

Let me just take this moment to say that I didn't know the absolute most in the world about cars. I was proud that I even could tell that it was a Porsche. But I wasn't a total idiot. Even I could tell that the thing was fabulous.

I took a small step towards it and stroked the window with trembling fingers. "Ahh-ahhh…" I murmured. "Is she …mine?" I was afraid to say the words.

"All yours, baby." Mom beamed, spreading her arms wide.

"But…I'm only thirteen." This had to be a dream. A cruel, incredibly farfetched, overexcited dream. Or a hallucination. Thus proving that I am insane.

"Yeah, well, we know how much you want to learn how to drive, and we thought you might want a head start. And the move has been so hard on you. You're not happy all the time, sweetie, but we all want to change that. Think this'll help?"

Ah. Okay. Now I got it. A bribe. They wanted me to be happier. In my room less. Smile. Laugh.

So not gonna happen.