Part Four
altschmerz: weariness with the same old issues that you've always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you've been gnawing on for years.
XLI.
while you are away, my heart comes undone
Paul ran his fingers through Leah's hair, which was an action she had grown accustomed to. "Move in with me," he said.
Leah giggled. "Why?"
He pouted. "'Cause I want you to."
"You're silly."
"You have all your stuff here, anyway. It won't be that much of a change."
Leah and Paul sat in their bed in his old house. She peered around the messy bedroom. Moving in with him really wouldn't be a massive change to her life; he was right. But something continued to bother her.
"We're broke," she said.
"We have jobs."
It was the middle of September now, and she had just gotten a job as a waitress at Floriano's, the Italian restaurant in Port Angeles. He still worked at the convenience store on the rez with some odd jobs in between. Life was domestic—and normal. Leah enjoyed that feeling after a long, wild summer of peculiarities.
"Don't act like that means anything," Leah replied. "We're literally so fucking broke."
He ran his hands down her back, gently scratching. He knew she liked that; it felt good.
"So let's say we have money," he said. "What's your excuse now?"
"We'd have to get our own place first," she decided.
"And what's wrong with where we're at right now?"
"It's down the street from my house, Paul," she said, giving him a look. "There's no point in me moving in if we're, like, two feet from my mom. And as much as I love sitting on your face, I can't keep doing it in your childhood home. It just feels wrong."
He laughed and fell back onto the bed, his eyes closed. "You're too damn much, Lee."
"I get that a lot," she said. Then she laid down next to him. "Let's just not worry about it right now."
When he really wanted something, he became adamant on getting it. Maybe it was the Aries in him. "Why?" he asked.
"'Cause I'm tired," she said. "And I wanna take a nap. Can you turn off the movie, babe?" The TV screen had gone dim in the last couple of minutes. They had been watching Selena for the millionth time on VHS.
He turned the TV off with the remote, but the VCR still whirred as background noise. "All you ever wanna do is take a nap," he told her.
"I'm always tired. And besides—I've got school."
Paul groaned. "You know I support all your goals and dreams, Lee, but—"
"I know. You're bad at school. I mean, not all of us are good at it."
"Yeah, yeah," he replied, "but we've only got a couple days to keep at this."
"Oh, please." Leah covered her eyes with the back of her hands and arched her back, stretching. She inhaled and exhaled deeply.
"I'm not even going away," she said. "It's fucking community college. I literally get to come home to you almost every night."
"Lee, I'm not stupid," Paul said. "I know all that."
"Then quit acting like it's the end of the world." She uncovered her eyes. "And you never know—it might be a little better for us."
A tiny, tiny fragment of stress appeared in his mind; Leah saw it,
"Not like that," she said. "It'll just get my head out of the clouds." She brought her mouth up to kiss him softly on the lips.
"And some time to stop being sore," she added with a devilish smile.
"Want me to kiss it better, baby?" he asked, putting his fingers back into her hair.
She nodded. "Do what you gotta do."
And Paul already knew—he had won Leah over by proving that he wanted her for real, and now there was no hesitation or deception. He didn't play games because he didn't want to be a shitty person towards her anymore. And the best thing about all of it was that Leah, who required solid proof of authenticity from anyone she liked, believed him.
She finally believed him.
As Leah stood at the bus stop in La Push, impatiently waiting for a giant piece of metal to come chugging over, she decided she hated sunny days. They were inappropriate. Her worst times were always accompanied by a bright, sunny day, like a sick joke.
She also really wished she had made some sort of effort to get her driver's license. She knew how to drive like everyone else around here, but she shouldn't have slept on getting a license. When she had been sixteen, she had been so determined to go to college somewhere far away that she had never thought she'd need a car. And when she had been eighteen, she had been so hung up on the fact that she wasn't going to college at all. So here she was at age twenty, broke and license-less and car-less and hopeless. She just might even skip the first day of classes.
Then a little black Ford Fusion came along. Leah knew that Fusion like an old friend. She'd been there when the driver had picked it out; hell, it was Leah's idea to get that car. She had been with the driver of the car before the driver had even gotten her license. Leah had even driven that car once or twice before almost crashing. The car was damn near home.
She just wished the driver would decide to be mean and keep on driving.
Kim stopped in the lane and rolled down her window. "Where's your ride, girl?" she called.
Leah squinted her eyes against the rare September sun. "Late."
"Boyfriend?"
"No, the bus."
"Being late to the first day of class is a bad look."
Leah shrugged. "Taking a gap year only to go on to community college is a bad look."
"Get in."
Leah wasn't angry with Kim anymore, but she certainly didn't forget how she'd thrown her under the bus—twice. "What? No."
"Lee, you're going to school today," Kim said sternly. "So get in the car."
"Get outta here. I'll just wait for the bus."
As much as Kim knew how hated she was, she did miss Leah—somewhat. A larger part of her was still angry, and she considered leaving her there in all her bitterness, but Kim couldn't. She was too damn nice of a person.
"Lee, c'mon."
Leah gave in and hopped into the passenger seat. She settled in and it really did feel like home. She didn't forgive Kim, though.
"So who's all starting school today?" Leah asked awkwardly as Kim headed towards Port Angeles. It had been a while since she had even thought of Kim; it was hard to talk to her now.
"Uh, let's see," Kim began. "Bella and Jacob are carpooling."
"They're together again?"
"Yeah, I don't know about that. The girl's bored, I guess. I haven't talked to her in a while."
A part of Leah was relieved to hear that. "Who else?" she asked.
"There's Sam," Kim continued. "I think he's going alone, but he's been going there, anyway. Emily and Embry are doing the online school thing, which makes a lot of sense. And then there's us."
"No Quil?"
Kim side-eyed Leah. "Not in a million years."
Leah snickered. "I should have known that."
The rest of the car ride was awkward. Kim turned up the radio, a station of Top 40 hits, and Leah didn't recognize a good number of the songs. Kim, however, tapped her fingers along the steering wheel to every single track that played. It was interesting to watch.
When they arrived at the school, they had nothing to say to each other. They knew where their classes were; they knew where they were supposed to be.
They just didn't know how to apologize. Leah was convinced it was a pride issue.
Emily's eyes bored into her computer screen. She was a hermit, sure, but maybe she needed the reality of a normal classroom. Whatever she was doing online wasn't working out very well. She'd have to transfer at the end of the semester—or quarter, if she was really suffering.
Then again, maybe she shouldn't have been drinking while attending school. Look at you, she thought to herself. Drinking at 11am on a Monday. New record.
In actuality, she was dying. She truly felt like she was dying. She hadn't talked to Embry since the last time, when they had exchanged news. As far as she knew, he was still at Floriano's, trying to figure out what had just happened. She missed him—it was hard to go from seeing somebody nearly every day to not seeing them at all.
The best and worst thing she'd done that day was call him.
"Hey," she said as soon as he answered, trying to keep it all together. "Can you come over real quick?"
"Y-yeah," he stammered. "Is there an issue?"
"I think there's something going on with my computer."
"I'll be over in five."
He was over in three, and she admitted to lying to him about the computer.
"Oh, man, Em," he said. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," she said as they sat down on the living room couch. "School's just killing me right now. I can't focus."
"You smell like vodka," he told her. "There's no wonder." His eyes wandered over to the computer desk, and there he saw the clear glass bottle. He got up and retrieved it, toying with it in his hands. The bottle was halfway empty and relatively new.
"Chill out," she said slowly, clearly a little tipsy, but not making any effort to get up.
He hid the bottle away in a cabinet under the kitchen sink. Then he sat down across from her on the couch. He cupped his chin in his hands. "Em," he began.
She blinked, her face blank. "Yeah?"
"Can you tell me something?"
"Of course."
"Why?" was all that he asked her.
She took a second, trying to gather her thoughts. Then she sighed.
"Let me tell you about it."
A/N: Sorry for bringing on another short transition chapter, but I've got it all planned out. Up next: Jacob x Bella, a conversation between Jacob and Paul (have I done this yet in this story? I don't think so), and revelations.
Thanks as always,
HS