A/N: I do not own Twilight. I'm so sorry for the late arrival of this chapter, but I'm still going. Enjoy.
LII.
know that i kept it sexy, and know I kept it fun
there's something that i'm missing, maybe my head for one
Sue's pale, cold hands cupped a mug. Steam floated up past her nose. She shut her eyes as if to take it all in. Leah cupped her own mug. Her fingers burned like hell, and she wondered if her mother would ever feel warm again.
Sue was still recovering. It was a process. It was different and it was slow, but hopefully, it would result in remission. Despite the presence of love in Sue's life, though, Leah could tell she wasn't the same. And why would she expect her to remain the same? She just wanted her mother to know that she missed her.
It was a chilly Saturday morning, and the badlands felt colder than ever.
Leah subtly shook, and she didn't know whether it was from the house's temperature or something else. She was a little excited, a little nervous. Something else, too, but she couldn't name it. Emmett was on her mind, and his fingerprints remained on her skin. They burned slowly, but her skin still couldn't breathe. It was the day after he told her he was still technically married, and the bad vibes were officially settling in. She had tried not to think about it after she and Emmett had had sex yesterday, and on the way home, she had tried to ignore it.
It just wasn't the same today.
She wasn't as angry as she had been yesterday. He had fucked her calm. But she was confused and on the brink of being hurt. She wanted to talk to him, but he was so unavailable over the weekends. It was like he was only real Monday through Friday, and even then, he was something else.
"You look keyed up," Sue said from across the table. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," Leah said curtly. "Just really cold."
"I thought Seth fixed the heater. I should tell him again so he'll actually do it."
"Yeah, maybe."
"How's your internship going?"
"It's fine. Kind of hard, but you know."
"Well, that's law for you. I'm so proud of you, Leah."
"Thanks, Ma."
"Keep your eye out over there," Sue said. "Could find yourself a rich lawyer husband." She winked.
Leah laughed nervously. "Wouldn't dream of it."
Leah was on edge for the remainder of the morning. She met up with Emily at her house for a late breakfast, and the situation was similar to the one with Sue. It was curtness, short sentences. Arctic. Leah decided that if she went to go see her grandmother up in Neah Bay, her morning would feel the same.
"Em, if I ask you something kind of crazy, will you promise not to judge me?" she asked, snuggling in one of her cousin's living room quilts.
"Our whole family's crazy," Emily replied. "Not much can surprise me at this point."
"I need to use your laptop."
Emily widened her eyes. "That is so crazy," she said, her voice low. Then she snorted.
"Well, I need to look up a guy's address. I'm supposed to meet with him later on and I'm too afraid to ask for it again." So Leah was lying, but what was new?
"That's a little weird, but okay." Emily grabbed her laptop off the coffee table and typed the password in upon opening it. Then she awkwardly handed it to Leah. Leah sat up and put it on the coffee table so the computer would be more balanced.
She simply Googled Emmett Cullen Port Angeles address, and after a moment of digging, she soon found his home address. His real one, in Port Angeles. She wasn't a professional sleuth, but it was so obvious that the home in Silverdale wasn't for more than vacations. It was too far away from his job. It was also secluded in its region and empty as hell. It didn't have shoes in the entrance or mail on the table. The kitchen didn't have anything to consume except Scotch. It was far too clean to actually have people—even one man—living in it. And the TV had about seven stations. Emmett Cullen was clearly a fake, and what was even more interesting was that his actual Port Angeles home was shared with a person named Rosalie Cullen. Of course, the Internet probably hadn't updated to support their current marital status, but still.
She pulled up the directions to his house in Port Angeles, and it was just minutes away from Howard Plath, the law firm. She wrote down the address and directions on a slip of paper, and quickly got her things together.
"Off to meet him?" Emily asked.
"Yeah, I think so," Leah said. She wasn't sure if she was going to confront him or not—she wasn't sure about anything.
"Don't let him murder you," Emily called as Leah left.
"Wouldn't dream of it!"
Leah arrived at Emmett's house, and upon sight she found it foolish that he even owned a vacation home. This house was incredible on its own. It was big and white, adorned with silver finishes. It was secluded but part of a neighborhood, and it had a huge, empty driveway leading up to it. The overall look reminded Leah of Kim's house—or her parents' house now, really. It was extravagant. Leah parked at the very edge of the driveway, closer to the street than the house, and slowly approached the property.
The house didn't have the feeling of a home at all. The front door was unlocked, and when Leah entered the foyer, she found the place to be cold. Freezing, just like today.
The foyer led to a narrow hallway, which Leah quietly wandered through. Her eyes scanned the walls on both sides of her. It was a shallow, stylish way to make a cold house into a home. Then again, what did she know about the Cullens?
The hallway was a gallery. Each photograph, framed in silver, had a name engraved in silver in the bottom left, and then the date on the bottom right. Emmett and Rosalie seemed to both be controlling people, but Leah had a feeling that this was all Rose's work.
A photo of Emmett and a very pregnant blonde woman caught Leah's eye. She tried to un-see it, but she couldn't shake the fact that this woman—who was drop dead gorgeous in a very classic way—had to be Rosalie. Emmett had his arm wrapped around her tightly, and they were grinning like the happiest couple, and she was crazy pregnant. About to pop, basically. In the picture, they stood in front of a huge Christmas tree, and even though it was in black and white, Leah could feel all the colors. The caption on the left wrote Emmett + Rosalie (+Evelyn, en route), and the one on the right wrote 12-25-13. That was literally a month ago from today.
Either they currently had a baby, or they had one on the way.
There was no fucking way Emmett was divorcing his wife.
But Leah tried to believe he still was. Over the frantic pounding of her heart, she tried to believe that Rosalie, all pregnant and glowing and obviously happy with her perfect husband and perfect life, really had cheated on Emmett, and they really were getting a divorce.
"Rose and I… we don't work out."
They were as perfect as a picture.
Leah's eyes kept scanning the hallway, and she was about throw up when she saw the next photograph.
Bella, clad in an oversized shirt and denim shorts, stood on a beach—way too nice to be First Beach—with a guy who looked somewhat familiar to Leah. The first caption said, Edward + Bella and the second one said, 7-4-11.
It was Bella and the guy who had bailed Leah and her girls all out of jail last summer back in Venice. Except back in the day, he looked less stupid. Leah didn't understand how someone in their early 20s could look worse than they had when they were a teenager. Regardless, Leah understood that scumbags ran in the family.
She'd had enough, so she continued to walk through the hallway before she hurt her own feelings again.
The hallway led to the kitchen, and Leah walked in on a sea of roses. She couldn't even attempt to convince herself that they had anything to do with her.
On the kitchen island, Leah counted nine bouquets of pink roses, and in the center of all of them was a note attached to a sonogram.
Can't wait for the new addition of our family to finally arrive. I love you forever.
E.
Rosalie was due—presumably very soon. The pink roses, the nine bouquets… Emmett was a proud husband and soon-to-be father. If he wasn't human garbage, Leah would want to marry him herself.
But in reality, she was a mere intruder. A home invader. A mistress. An actual homewrecker.
Then she heard the front door swing open.
That evening, Leah joined Emily and Kim in Forks a late dinner in the latter girl's condo. Leah and Kim got over their issues at once, and it just felt right since Leah had been feeling wrong all day.
"So I'm laying there," Leah began, "nut all over my tits, and I'm like, What the fuck am I doing?"
Emily nearly snorted out her pasta.
"For real?" Kim asked, sitting across her square dining table from Leah.
"For real, for real," Leah replied. "He leaves to go get the warm rag and shit, and I've literally never felt so awful."
"So did you break up with him?" Emily asked.
Leah nodded. "I did. I felt so… wrong, you know? I mean, there's gotta be something fucked up with me since I found out he was happily married and expecting a baby after literally breaking into his house, but I still willingly slept with him when he caught me. I don't know. But there's gotta be something deeply fucked up with him to want to be with me in the first place."
"Yeah, I hear pregnant sex is amazing," Emily replied.
"Also, I'm only twenty," Leah added. "He has no business wanting to be with somebody as young as me, but he took the chance, anyway, and I feel so fucking gross. And I know my situation was not the same as hers, but I felt how like Claire probably felt when she was with Quil."
The three women fell silent. Nobody really thought of Claire anymore, and now they were forced to.
"So what are you gonna do now?" Kim murmured.
"I'm gonna leave the firm," Leah replied.
"You're just gonna quit?" Emily demanded.
"It's not like I can stay. I guess he could pay me to keep quiet, but I'd rather just leave."
"You're burning money, though," Emily continued. "You worked so hard for that interview and now you're just giving up."
"Em, please," Leah sneered. "It's not like you've never quit a job before. And besides, I don't like law studies. I don't like arguing with people. It's boring. You have to be really smart to get into that profession, and honestly, if I was a smart person, I would have been able to keep an internship without sleeping with my boss on the first day. If I was smart, I'd just do my job like a normal person." Her voice was cracking now. "I'm an idiot."
The women were silent again.
Leah began to speak from a sort of stream of consciousness. "I'm so stupid," she said, "and I don't think I'll be able to live it down. Like, people in music and on the Internet and shit treat cheating and being a ho like it's a culture. Like, 'Oh, I wanna be a homewrecker. I wanna ruin a marriage.' But no one actually wants that. It's one of the worst feelings in the whole world. And then there are all the accusations. Once you're for real a homewrecker, you feel awful about yourself, but I never understood why that's even a term, anyway. How could I be the homewrecker when it was the man who opened the door in the first place?"
"That's so messed up," Kim said.
Leah nodded. "Yeah. Oh, and did I tell you? Emmett is the older brother of Edward, the guy who bailed us all out of jail when we fucked up in Venice last summer."
"Bella's ex?" Emily asked.
"Mm-hmm."
"Shut up."
"I know!"
"Small fucking world," Emily muttered.
"I think we all need a break," Kim suggested.
"From what?" Emily asked.
"From being bad," she specified. "Like, we've all made a crazy amount of mistakes and we're not even old enough to buy beer yet. It's kind of ridiculous."
"It's super ridiculous," Leah said. "It's just so hard to stop, though."
Kim shook her head. "Except it's not. It's really all on us to start being good again."
"Okay, so suddenly you're a saint," Leah said, her tone snappy. "Understood."
"It's not even about that," Emily piped up. "We've all gotta get our shit together, and not even just the external stuff, like finding better jobs or moving out. We should become better people. Get a conscience or something. Personally, I'm tired of being pregnant or arrested or constantly drunk."
"Except this isn't a communal pool of sins or whatever," Leah replied. "The issue is completely subjective. You guys can get good with God all you want, but—"
"But what?" Kim asked. "You don't wanna be better?"
"I just don't see the point in making it a big deal, that's all."
"So you've literally fucked your boss and currently plan to quit your job due to your own mistakes," Emily began, "but you have the nerve to have your pride popping this hard?"
"Nuh-nuh-no," Leah replied. "I just don't want to take it from the same approach as you guys. I don't have to nearly drown myself in order to prove I can swim."
"Well, you say you don't like arguing with people," Emily challenged. "I guess you'll just have to prove yourself to me and Kim that you'll stop sinning."
"You're on," Leah said. "I'll stop sinning, but just know this—I don't like to argue because I like to win instead."
"So a toast to no longer sinning?" Kim asked, raising her plastic cup of water.
Leah and Emily raised their cups in response. "Here's to newly established moral purity," Emily said.
"To purity," Leah echoed.
A/N: Thanks as always,
HS