A/N: I don't own Twilight or its characters. Thank God.

III.

and that's where the beginning of the end begun

To be quite fucking honest, the bleachers weren't Leah Clearwater's favorite place to sit, especially in the crisp October night.

The bleachers had never been her thing. They just didn't feel right. The most sitting and watching she liked to do was when she was benched during a basketball game. Between November and March—and in the summer months, too—she was usually on the other side of the bleachers; she was usually the star. But because it was October now, she could afford to watch someone else triumph at what they did best. As much as she liked to be the star, she could always watch her best friend shove all that she had in the faces of those who had doubted her since she was little. Kim was like that now; some of Leah's confidence had oozed out of her and poured right into Kim.

Kim "Bambi" Conweller was five-foot-two, a hundred fifteen pounds, and Forks High School's best flyer on the cheerleading team. She was the best cheerleader in general, even as a sophomore; those years of gymnastics and dance classes paid off. Leah was fond of hanging out with the best, though that case wasn't always true with some of her comrades. Kim was one of the saviors of the badlands, except she wasn't quite the heroine that everyone wanted.

Kim was the all-American—real, genuine, native American—dream living in a poverty-stricken environment. She just got as lucky as her great-great-grandparents, great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents did, coming from a family with rare, old money. That was probably one reason why a lot of people didn't like her today, though she couldn't be described as hated. And who could ever hate that precious face, smiling and cheering like all cheerleaders did, hoisted up in the air by her teammates, about to pop the best Scorpion move ever? Who could ever hate the bouncing, bubbling Kim "Bambi" Conweller today? Yeah, she had been weak last year; she had been a weak little freshman living in Leah's shadow who had a little too much money, and Kim still did have a little too much money, but who in their right mind would publicly hate that? Leah couldn't think of one person.

Kim was on top of the world—her own wealthy wonderland with high ponytails and short skirts and fucking the football players once the American dream was all set and relived for the night—and Leah was on top of her own. It was rad as shit. And even though they didn't hang out as much as they did last year because of Kim's new boyfriend, Leah was glad. They both needed the space to appreciate each other from afar when things got stagnant up close.

Kim did her Scorpion move, bringing cheers from the crowd (the only cheers of the night, since the football team was sucking ass), and was brought back down to the ground. When the giant field buzzer blared, indicating the end of the second quarter, the cheerleaders got into their typical formation and started a dance routine that Leah had never seen before. Kim was the junior captain, and she was always changing up the routines until they were perfect, and adding new ones all the time. Leah had been watching the entire football season.

The cheerleaders' halftime routine consisted of hip gyrating, leg twisting, and twerking (to a minimum). Leah brought her younger brother, a cute eighth grader named Seth, with her to the game tonight, and she couldn't help but wonder what was going through his pubescent boy mind.

"Do you think Kim's hot?" she asked, turning to him. She brought him to a lot of high school things now, since Emily and Sam were always up in Neah Bay, losing their minds, and Jacob was at home, losing his mind, and Paul was somewhere his mind didn't exist, most likely in a fight. (He always won his fights, so she was over worrying about him in that area.) She just hoped he would follow through with their plans tomorrow—they were gonna go see a movie, and she looked forward to it. So Seth was all Leah had now, but she didn't mind. Their mom was always at work, and their dad, Harry, was always on their nerves.

Seth got his inhaler out about to take a couple of puffs. Somebody was probably smoking out here, and he was just trying to avoid having an asthma attack.

Asthmatic, shivering, and fairly innocent, Seth ignored Leah's question, and that was when she knew it was probably a dumb one, anyway. Kim was her best friend of sorts and Leah didn't care if her little brother thought her best friend was hot. That was fucking weird.

Leah focused her attention to the cheerleaders again. Their halftime show was still going on. Kim's eyes found Leah's, and the cheerleader smiled and waved to the basketball player. They were jocks more than they were people now, as Leah expected, but Leah waved Bambi was living out her dreams.

Long after the rival football team went home as undeniable winners, after the dads of the white guys on the home team yelled at their kids for not being good enough, and after the always-supportive-yet-realistic coach said, Next game's gonna be better, okay, guys? See you at practice tomorrow, and we're gonna run to make up for your loss, Kim and her boyfriend, Jared Cameron, the star quarterback, found themselves in the backseat of her car, in their special, secluded parking spot.

It was heavy breathing. It was even heavier words. "I love—"—pant—"you so—"—sigh—"much. Jared." And she did. She had loved him since the sixth grade, since the time when nobody was ever lovable. She had loved him before he had even known of her.

It was a rare thing for someone from La Push to fall in love with someone else from La Push when they had known each other for so long. That was more of a Forks type of thing, since part-time love was the life around La Push. Kim and Jared were different, though. Different from Leah and Paul, Emily and Sam, everyone. They were the American dream, despite being Native and having their Quileute history taken away to the point of them nearly being whitewashed in today's society, but that was not something to bring up as they were hot and heavy in the back of her car. As if Jared could keep up, anyway.

Jared Cameron was a funny guy; before Kim was a cheerleader, he had never wanted anything to do with her. And now that he had her, he'd do a thousand things with Kim except the one thing she really wanted. He'd buy her ticket, take her to Homecoming, go through all the works, and win Homecoming King and Queen with her (and he was gonna do that, too, in exactly eight days), but at the very end, they were never gonna be close enough. Kim was never gonna be satisfied. It was always guys like him who were holding girls like her back, and if those girls clearly expressed what they wanted, they'd be seen as sluts. If they expressed it a little, then they were teases. If the guys wanted it but the girls didn't, the girls are prudes. If the girls followed through, then their reputations were tarnished. It was as American as a fly taking a shit on an apple pie.

"Come on," Kim moaned into Jared's skin. "You love me, right?"

"I do," he said, his hands up her little navy blue skirt. "I love you." And he did… to an extent. What a funny guy.

"Then what are you waiting for?" she asked. It was not a hard thing to do, really; all he had to do was take all that anger and pity and humiliation of losing an important game and take it out on his girlfriend. That was what funny guys like him did, anyway. And there was a special bonus, too: when the team won, the guys all went out for burgers and beers and the girlfriends tagged along as trophies.

The truth was that Kim wanted him—she had wanted him for a long time and she was ready for him. For somebody as dumb and boyish as Jared, one might think that he'd take advantage of someone as beautiful and wonderful and willing as Kim, but he didn't want to. He didn't want anything sexual to do with her at all, and it made her feel terribly, intolerably inadequate.

The only thing that would make this moment worse would be if he called her a slut again. That was one of his top nicknames for her when she wanted to have sex and he didn't, and she felt a sour taste in her mouth every time the word came from his.

His lips returned to hers, but her thoughts weren't forgotten. He played around for a moment or three. She was still thinking, though. She was always thinking about something else when she was with him. It was that way with everybody, she sadly realized.

"Homecoming," he decided. "Homecoming."

She wanted to ask What's the difference between then and now, besides a week? She knew the answer, though: appearances. They wouldn't want to be a controversy.

And then he left her body. "Lemme drive you home," he said. With her black hair unruly and going back to its natural curls that she didn't dare show in public, Kim climbed across the backseat and into the passenger one. Homecoming rang in her head.

And he did take her home. The Friday night lights were all off, and appearances were back on, even in the most intimate of times.

(He didn't offer to take her out for a burger, though; that only happened when there was a good game. She wasn't that special tonight.)

Kim's mind ran as wild as it usually did after a game. She wasn't tired; her entire world was lit up and she wouldn't want to miss a second of it.

She glanced at her cell phone. 10:12. She should have gone out. She should have gone somewhere, anywhere. She didn't have anyone to go with, or nobody she truly wanted to go with, which was fine with her as long as she was peaceful. Kim was the kind of person who could thrive on her own—she was just that interesting. She didn't need anybody, ever.

Maybe that was why Jared didn't like the real her and things with Leah just weren't the same.

But it was cool. That was all that Kim could tell herself.

It's cool.

She glanced at her cell phone again. 10:16. Damn. She dialed Quil Ateara's cell phone number because she respected his life enough to not have his house phone ring this late at night.

"This number has been disconnected."

Kim groaned. Quil's phone was always off. She spent a good two minutes considering, considering, considering before she called his house phone. She decided wanted to be entertained more than she wanted him to live at this moment.

Quil answered on the first ring. "My mom's gonna kill my ass for having the phone ring this late, Kim," he answered.

"Hello to you, too."

She could see him sneering from here. "Yeah, hi," he said. "What's up?"

"I'm bored. What's tonight's special?"

"Whatever you want, babe."

"Come through, then."

"All the way out to the sticks?" Quil laughed. "Nah, I don't feel like getting murdered tonight."

"And you think I'm gonna drive all the way out to the ghetto?" Kim scoffed.

"Hey, your privilege is showing. For someone who's Quileute, you sure act white as hell."

That stung a little. "You know I'm just fucking with you," she said. "I can be there in ten minutes. Is your mom home?"

"Yeah, but she's asleep. Come in through the basement."

"Alright, I'll see you soon."

Kim hung up and changed out of her cheer uniform and into sweatpants and a hoodie. She didn't straighten her hair again; she only wore her hair like that in front of the people she needed to impress. She didn't really know what was in store for her tonight at Quil's, but being anywhere but alone with her thoughts was good enough for her. In front of others, she was impeccable and undeniably free. Alone, she wasn't as independent as she liked to think she was.

The twenty minute drive to Quil's was a silent one. She lived out in the bare side of Forks, the outskirts that was all fields and no trees. Truly the sticks. But she felt as safe as ever. It was La Push that gave her some trouble, deep down. An entire side of her family was from there, except for the one she lived with since they had come from someplace else, but whenever she entered La Push, she always felt fear and danger hanging over her head. Maybe she did act white. Maybe she really was as white on the inside as everyone thought she was. Or maybe she was just freaking out; everyone knew that the area—Forks, La Push, and anything in between—was the badlands. It was where people destroyed themselves and everyone else around them. That was what scared Kim more than anything—she couldn't even fathom the idea of tearing herself apart or authorizing anyone to do that to her.

Kim parallel-parked on the side of the road by Quil's house and headed towards the basement door. She used the old childhood code (knocking seven times) and Quil promptly opened the door. Trap music idly played from a boom box in the background. Jared had mixed the music for Quil, she could tell. He'd made her the same mixtape. She stepped into the basement. It was just her and Quil. Lonely-ass party.

"I think Jared's gonna be over in a little bit," Quil informed her, settling in on his couch. The basement was relatively neat; his mom was still making him clean it up every day.

"You think I give a fuck?" Kim asked, sitting down next to him. She pulled her feet up onto the couch and hugged her knees.

"Just saying," he replied.

"What do you have?"

"What are you in the mood for?"

"I doubt you've got a grocery store of this shit here in your basement, Quil."

"You got no idea, Bambi," he replied. "This is gonna be a trap house in a minute."

"I'll be waiting for it," she said with a roll of her eyes. "You got weed, right?"

Quil got off the couch and went over to his desk. "You already know," he said with his back turned.

"Do you even have anything besides weed?" she asked him. "Not like I'm interested in anything else, but I was just wondering."

He turned back around with a freshly-rolled joint. "Then don't worry about it."

She grabbed a lighter off the little table in front of the couch. "Let me light it."

He handed her the joint and she had it lit in no time. It was nights like these when she needed to chill the hell out. With weed smoke in her lungs and the sickest bass drops known to mankind in her ears, she didn't care. She was chill. She was even chill when Jared came over. The three of them didn't care for or know anything else in the world besides their weed and their music. That was all that mattered.

Kim didn't know how long she had been at Quil's, but sometime in the night, Quil's mom started to come downstairs into the basement. Joy was in her bathrobe and old slippers, and she was pissed.

"Quil, what did I fucking say about having your music on too—"

And then she saw Jared passing the blunt to an eager Quil.

At least it was good while it lasted.

The next morning, Joy sent Quil to Neah Bay to live with his aunt. He caught the earliest bus to Neah Bay; nobody even got to say goodbye. In fact, nobody had even known that Quil had moved until Emily called and told Leah that she saw him in Neah Bay the day he arrived. Quil was going to be living with his Aunt Jodie to get clean and off of his mom's nerves.

"That sucks," Leah had told Emily.

"It's fucking ruthless," Emily had said.

That October Saturday, Sam Uley visited Emily in Neah Bay. Since the end of last summer, Emily had fallen off the edge of the earth. She still went to school in Forks (semi-regularly), but once it was two o'clock in the afternoon, she drove back to Neah Bay and went back to hiding. She was used to it.

She hadn't seen anyone—especially Sam, because Embry was just as cowardly as Emily—in what felt like years, so when he visited her, she had no idea how to react.

She stopped looking through the peephole and gained the courage to open the door. "Hey," she said, trying to keep everything together. She wasn't sure if she knew him anymore. She didn't know if she could pour herself out to him freely, or if he would just look at the mess and keep walking by.

"Hey," he replied, curt as ever.

She hated him. She just wanted him to go back to La Push and never look back, but it was a ninety minute trip. His car was in the process of being repaired by Jacob, so he had to have been desperate enough to take the bus. He had to have some purpose in being here.

"How's it going?" she asked, being the queen of conversation. She hated herself even more for opening the door. There was a reason why they had fallen out. Why would she just let him back into her life like this?

"Alright," he replied. "How've you been?"

She didn't want to lie, but she did it, anyway. "I've been okay."

"Wanna talk?"

"Sure."

Emily and Sam bought an ungodly-sized bag of gummy worms at a corner store and then took a bus back to La Push, where they would always be, talking the entire time. All of Emily's remaining money went to that bus rides and those gummy worms, but she didn't care. Her money was well-spent, and she realized she didn't hate Sam so much after all. The only thing she hated was that ninety minutes wasn't enough time.

"I'm not entirely sad about last summer anymore," Emily admitted, looking down at the gummy worms between them. "What made me the most sad was the fact that we didn't talk much after that." She looked up at him. "Why is that?"

He shrugged. "We get caught up in shit," he said. "It happens. I should've at least called you."

She nodded. "I should've called, too."

"I'm sorry," he told her, "for not being there."

"It's alright. We get caught up in shit."

"Wanna start over?"

She nodded. "I'd like that."

Paul had followed through on his movie date with Leah, and it had been nice even though the feature sucked. (They should have just saved the seven bucks and watched a film at home instead.)

Leah looked down onto the sidewalk, waiting for the crunch of the red and orange autumn leaves with every step she took in her fake Converse.

They walked close, but not holding hands or anything. They were the best of friends, but not like that. Leah didn't want to be that way as a result of her pride, but she could easily give that up if Paul could focus long enough to sustain it. She could—and would always—change her ways for the sake of Paul. But as a result of his ADHD, they both knew that a relationship like that wouldn't happen. The entire ordeal would just be frustrating for the both of them.

"Did you hear what happened with Quil?" Paul asked.

Leah scoffed and nodded. "Emily told me this morning. Quil's ridiculous."

"I had no clue he was doing weed."

"Me neither. The guy's as dumb as a bag of rocks, though. Like, his mom's basement? That's stupid as hell."

"I talked to Jared about it earlier," Paul said, staring ahead at the road. "He doesn't feel bad, but he's a little fucker, anyway. Have you talked to Kim since it happened?"

"I haven't talked to Kim at all this school year," Leah admitted.

"Well, they got caught, too, but Quil's mom didn't tell their parents. Jared's parents wouldn't believe her and Kim's parents are uppity."

For someone as smart as Kim, she sure is a fucking idiot, Leah thought. "That's so wild."

"I know."

"It's a good thing their parents don't know. They wouldn't be able to go to Homecoming if they did."

"Pffft."

"We should go to Homecoming," Leah suggested.

Paul narrowed his eyes. "Why?" he asked crudely. "It sounds dumb."

"Well, because you're my favorite person in the world, for one thing," Leah said, "but if that's so dumb, then I guess it doesn't matter. It's whatever."

They started to approach Paul's house. They let the conversation dissipate as much as she didn't want it to. She wanted a reason to keep going because she could always keep up with him.

"See you Monday?" Leah asked as they went up the steps to his front door. She didn't know why she tried to get solid answers from Paul (probably because she became an optimist around him), since he hardly ever came though.

"I'll try," he said.

You always say that.

He pulled her in for a tight hug, and they held on for longer than they usually did. With his chin nuzzled into her shoulder, he breathed her in like it was the last time he was gonna see her. She didn't want to think this could be the last time.

Loving Paul, knowing Paul in the way that she did, and simply being graced by Paul's presence made Leah's world a bright, passionate red. With Paul, she felt the heat pulsating through her entire body. He just had that effect on her; he made her feel alive. Leah's world was red with Paul by her side.

"You're my favorite," she whispered into him.

He rubbed circles into the small of her back, where her flowing hair ended. "And you're mine."

She let go before he did, and even when he did, he wasn't finished. He looked down at her and gave her the classic smile that was hers and hers only. The smile that said, We've got this.

He went into his house and she started to head back to hers. She braced for the yelling, braced for the screams. And on Monday morning before Paul got into first period, she braced for the black eye and scraped arms, but she didn't see a new bruise on him.

Leah had never been so thankful for the silence and stability.

A/N: Sorry this took forever. My computer's been a bit of a fucker. I'm literally using Internet Explorer right not and this sucks. Here's a few other things to expect from this story, ship-wise:

-Leah/Paul

-Jacob/Bella

-Bella/Paul

-Potential Leah/Jacob

-Leah/OC

-and more

Thanks for reading. I plan on updating soon.

-HS.