A/N: I own no part of Twilight. At all. Ever. So, anyways, here is chapter 33 of Static. It's already my longest story already. It is very weird. I keep referencing back to old chapters for various reasons, but it's getting harder and harder to do. Whatever. This chapter is a short one, and pretty reflective. I originally planned this chapter way differently, but I thought I'd do Leah some justice. We're beginning to move out of this Venice arc and onto a new one.

Enjoy.

XXXIII.

every second, every minute
man, i swear that she can get it

Leah got lucky enough to end up in Port Angeles but unlucky enough to run out of money in Port Angeles as well. She knew she had people who would help her out. She had resources all over the badlands, and it truly felt like home. She didn't even know why she'd ever left. What had she even been looking for?

Paul picked up the phone on the first ring. She hoped he would still like her even though she was sober. He wasn't into the dumb girls, was he? He had been so far away from her for so long that it was hard to tell.

"Hey," she said, her voice cracking. That was the second she wished she'd never called. "It's me, Le—"

"Leah," he said, instantly knowing something was up. When did he ever start caring? "What's going on?"

"I'm in Port Angeles," she explained, "and I'm out of cash. Could you pick me up?"

Even though he was good at running away from her, he was better at returning.

Paul's old lemon of a pimp mobile pulled up to the bus terminal in Port Angeles that July evening, and it could have convinced Leah that she was truly in heaven. Shit like this just didn't happen in real life. Even though Paul was all sorts of bad, he was a savior to her now. He could be as bad as he wanted to be.

She got into the car and ran her hands along the cracked gray leather. She was finally able to breathe, despite the faint smell of cigarettes. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. Then she turned her head to look at him. It had been a long time since she had been in a car with him, and his profile was just as beautiful. He didn't look back; he was focused on driving. His eyes were red, straining against the dark road.

The sky was starting to get dark, too, and all he did was drive out to the coast—home. Leah remembered when he had felt like home to her. Is there a way to go back? she thought. Would you even care to remember?

Then she realized he had to care.

He wouldn't have picked her up if he didn't.

All he did was drive her back to reality (or reality's evil twin), and she wondered how he was feeling. He was probably tired—tired of her calling him (sober or not), tired of not knowing what to do or where to go, tired of not putting his invincibility to good use—and she could see it in his eyes. Every now and then, the moonlight would bounce off his face, and she would see those bloodshot brown eyes. Did he regret picking her up?

"You're quiet," he observed, startling her and forcing her to snap out of her thoughts. "What's up?"

"I've just been thinking," she said solemnly, turning her gaze to the windshield.

"About?"

She shrugged. All the feelings we've been hiding from each other. What we are. Where we've been. Where we'll go. "A lot," she finally said. "You've been quiet, too, though. What gives?"

"I'm just tired," he told her. She tried to quickly move past the fact that she set him up to say something worthwhile, but he instead said the obvious. He just wasn't a deep guy, at least not when she wanted him to be. They functioned on completely different wavelengths. She needed to stop forgetting that.

They entered the reservation, and he slowed down the car as they got closer to their neighborhood.

"I was wondering," he began, turning his gaze to her, carefully switching between her and the road, "if you'd like to come back to my house with me."

She would follow him anywhere. It was corny and cliché and so very not Leah, but it was the truth. She nodded and he drove down the street, past Embry's house.

"You don't live with Embry anymore?" she asked.

"I moved out. The government gave me my dad's house once he got locked up for good. I guess it pays being Indian sometimes."

She chuckled, the air gently blowing out of her nose. "Don't you ever get haunted by going back there?"

He smiled back. "I've sat down and had a beer with all those ghosts. They ain't even half bad."

It was when Paul opened the door to his house that Leah realized she had hardly been there. She didn't have specific childhood memories of it. They had always gone to Jacob's house or Embry's house or the park or the beach or anywhere but here. Paul had always run to her house from here in the middle of the night, and they had exchanged secrets. Since Prom, they had shared one hundred fifty-six secrets.

His house was just added on to the growing list of secrets, because this was Leah's first time being here in over a decade. She knew the storms that had occurred in this house. Some of the aftermaths in the walls revealed themselves. She knew that this very house had held (and to most people, bred) trouble, and it scared her. She had to realize that if he could get comfortable with his ghosts, she could do the same. But with her own ghosts? She wasn't too sure. She still had some apologizing to do.

He led her to his childhood bedroom that didn't hold childish things. It was basic, gray, lacking any color, lacking anything but the essentials: a bed, a box television, a nightstand, a lamp upon said nightstand, a dresser, a desk (for what? She didn't know), and a chair.

She sat down on the bed, and he sat down next to her. Before she could say anything, he turned to her and put his hand on her cheek. He kissed her. Really kissed her. He almost knocked her breath out with that kind of kiss, the kind of kiss only reserved for lovers. Committed lovers. He kissed her like she was his girlfriend and he hadn't spend the last week or so fucking around with other girls in the county. He kissed Leah like he actually wanted to have something with her, and something more than sex.

Her skin started to burn slowly just with his touch, and she brought her hands to his, just at her lap. She traced the familiar scar on the back of his hand with her thumb. He was real, but it didn't feel that way.

Then she froze, seeing as she was clearly not in reality. Her brain must have still been somewhere under the neon lights in Southern California.

She wasn't in high school anymore—she now knew the real world and the assholes who occupied it—but she didn't want to believe that Paul Lahote was kissing her right now, acting like he hadn't burned so many bridges between them. Had he truly forgotten how he had broken her heart over and over, by leaving and then coming back for a hot second only to leave again, and then to push her out into the cold at her nineteenth birthday? Had he truly forgotten that he had ignored her for months on end after that?

And did really he think his dick had enough power to make a fool out of her again?

No fucking way.

She loved him, but she wasn't stupid. That was where he had her unconditionally and irrevocably fucked up.

"Lee-Lee, what's wrong?" he asked.

She got a bad taste in her mouth hearing that childhood nickname, especially since he was using it only because he wanted to fuck her. He had a lot of nerve, and she wished he didn't even know it, but he did.

Her voice was gentle when she spoke. She couldn't treat Paul the same way she had treated Tom Anderson back in high school. Paul actually meant something to her, unlike that old douche bag.

"I don't want to do this right now," she said.

He didn't fight back. "Okay. Are you okay?"

She let his hands go and then started to stand up and pick up her backpack from the floor. Her voice remained soft. "I'm okay," she assured him.

"Then why are you leaving?"

"This isn't high school anymore, Paul," she said as she started heading to the front door.

He followed her. "Of course, it's not. What does that even mean?" he asked as she swung the door open.

She didn't look back. All she saw were the streetlights that illuminated the street. Her home was just a few houses down, past Emily's and past Quil's and just a little past Jacob's. She knew she'd reach reality at her own house—not in Paul's.

"Let me know when you want me for real," she told him.

A/N: Up next: some bridge burning (as per usual).

Thanks,

HS