A/N: I don't own Twilight. So I know this seems counterintuitive, but the time in between updates for this story will be longer now than they have been in the past (meaning a new chapter will be posted maybe once or twice a week rather than every 2 days). Due to real life demands, this will likely be the deal for the rest of the story. There are going to be 88 chapters in total. I'm so sorry that this is happening so close to the conclusion of the story.
I'd like to give a special shoutout to those who have taken the time to review and provide thoughtful comments. It's nice to know I'm not doing this alone, and I really do take some feedback into account while writing the story. There have been many changes from the original plan of this story, and you probably can't see them, but some of them are in direct response to questions and comments provided, and they're definitely in the story for the better. Thank you!
In recent Static times: Bella got pregnant, Quil murdered Jasper, Paul won the lottery, Edward has been threatening Bella, Jacob and Leah have been going strong, Paul finally got over Leah (kind of), and Leah and Kim's friendship has been, of course, A1.
So here is chapter 73. It turned out different than I originally planned, which is why it took 9 days rather than the usual one and a half, but I'm happy with the changes. The chapter features a few different things (crude language, social commentary, big ideas, artsy little parallels that only a dorky writer like me would care about - all that good stuff). Thanks for keeping up.
Enjoy.
LXXIII.
it's a love story for the new age, for the six page
we're on a quick, sick rampage
Just a few nights later, Sunday, Leah had Kim in a near headlock as she attempted to apply gel eyeliner on the latter girl. Kim's music bumped from her Bluetooth speaker and everything just felt right.
"It's really not that big of a deal," Kim said, trying to back away from the bathroom counter. "It's just a couple of lines on my eyelids."
Leah tightened her grip on Kim's hair. "No, no," she argued. "I saw this on YouTube."
Kim sighed. "I'm pretty sure Jillian won't—"
Leah stopped, her eyes wide. Then she picked up Kim's phone and paused the music. "You said you were going out with your coworkers tonight," she said. "And you never call them by their individual names."
Kim shrugged her shoulders and tried not to smile. "Whoops."
"You didn't even tell me you were going on a date, what the fuck!"
"It's not that big of a deal," Kim repeated. "We're really just gonna order takeout and get wine-drunk in her apartment."
"Hmm, I see. Who exactly is Jillian again?"
Kim couldn't hold her smile back any longer. "The cute one who works at the coffee shop," she said. "Blonde, dimples, nice ass, Gemini."
"God, she sounds perfect for you," Leah said. "If anyone can come between you and your coffee, I guess it's serious."
"My order isn't that hard, anyway."
"Yeah, but you never go on takeout and wine dates with me."
Kim rolled her eyes, a trait that the girls now shared equally. They had always been best friends, but living together really made them closer whether they were aware of it or not.
"So are you gonna spend the night with her?" Leah wondered.
"Yeah, probably. Drunk driving isn't exactly safe. I also don't want to hear you and Jacob all night. He's a good guy, but—"
"I know. Just be careful, okay?"
"I know, Lee."
"No, really. That's my best friend Jillian's fucking with."
"You can't fight anyone who has the potential to wrong me, you know," Kim reminded her.
"No," Leah agreed, "but that's never stopped me before."
"So aggressive," Kim mumbled. "So is Jacob spending the night?"
"Yeah, except he's running..." She glanced down at Kim's phone. "Ten minutes late. You think he's cheating on me?"
Kim smiled. "Don't kill him. And besides, him cheating with anyone would be like going from a solid 9 to a negative 2."
The doorbell rang, and Kim rushed out of the bathroom, phone in hand. She quickly grabbed her purse from the living room and ran out of the condo. "Bye, Lee!" she called.
The front door slammed shut, and Leah just turned back to the bathroom mirror. She leaned forward against the counter, applying eyeliner. She was getting kind of good at this. "Bye, Kim," she muttered to the mirror.
The doorbell suddenly rang again, and Leah just knew that Kim had forgotten something. Probably her keys. Leah opened the door and was surprised to see Jacob. She'd thought that he'd decided within the last ten minutes to not show up. But when she saw him, clad in a sweatshirt and jeans like always but still looking damn good, all she could think was, Why do I never expect him to come through?
"Hey," he said.
She smiled. "Hey." Then she looked down at the plastic shopping bags in his hands. "I thought we were gonna go out for food."
He entered the condo and took the groceries into the kitchen. "Me, too," he agreed, "but then I realized I'm broke and tired of pizza."
She helped him take the food out of the bags. "That's fair," she said. "So you're making spaghetti?"
"Yep. Homemade sauce recipe. Family secret."
"Oh, yeah, Ragu?"
Jacob chuckled. "'Course."
The vibe of the evening remained light as they cooked dinner—or as Leah observed since burning water was a very real possibility for her. They later sat on the rug in the living room and it didn't feel too forced.
"This is so good," Leah said. "Who taught you how to cook like this?"
"My dad. He'll tell you the sauce is a family secret, too."
"Mm-hm. Sure."
"How do you even survive not knowing how to cook?" he asked.
"I can make Ramen noodles and toast perfectly fine, thank you," she replied. "But I don't know. Kim can cook—like, really well. My mom did a lot of the cooking at home, too. I guess I never realized me and Seth would be screwed for life. Well, he'll be okay. Bella can cook—kind of."
"Wait, what does Bella have to do with any of this?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"Oh, God, I totally forgot to tell you," she said. "My mom and Charlie are engaged."
"Holy shit, since when?"
"About a month ago. I should have told you, but things have just been… super busy."
"It's okay," he said, now less confused but more surprised. "That's crazy, though."
"Yeah." She trailed off. "How've you been, Jake? I miss you since the last time we saw each other."
"Since what, a couple days ago?"
Leah nodded and made her eyes all wide. "I've been a wreck since we parted. I haven't been eating. Haven't been sleeping. I could only sit in front of my window and helplessly wait for you to come back as sad indie music played in the background."
He laughed—hard. "You're too much."
She smiled. "Am I?"
He leaned in, and his voice was soft and low. "Way too much," he murmured.
She carefully traced her fingers along his strong, sturdy jaw and shut her eyes as she kissed him. She tried to feel all of him, use her sense of touch to create pictures in her mind so the essence of them—Jake and Lee and nobody else—could last forever. They both knew that in their world, things were so prone to change. Life around here could be mundane, and then it could be wild, and then it could be mundane again. Things changed. People changed. It was a lot to keep up with.
Leah had never been so good with change, and neither had Jacob. That was why they worked together, though. She was like water, capable of being everywhere but in different forms. She was overpowering, but she tried to convince herself that it was only a security mechanism. He was like earth, grounded and strong and always sure about what he wanted. He didn't mind being overpowered.
Within minutes, she guided him to her bed where she overpowered him, naturally. He was right—she was too much. She was too much in every way, but it was what he needed.
Or what he'd thought he needed.
Prior to tonight, Leah and Jacob had planned on not having sex for a while, as if that really meant anything. But based on their previous relationships and how quickly they had jumped into sex ("you know," Leah had said, "the real shit—intercourse"), they had decided that taking things slow would probably be best for them.
With Jacob's weight on top of her tonight, Leah wondered what had changed.
She could applaud his foreplay skills anytime and any day, but when it came down to "the real shit," Jacob didn't stand a chance. Leah didn't want to feel regretful because she really did like him and knew that their relationship should not and would not thrive on sex, but when she realized that he was just about at the edge and she wasn't even close, the feeling began to dawn on her.
Jacob came sooner than Leah would have preferred, and she felt like she was sixteen again. Her attitude was about to go back four years, too, but she was grown.
And besides—Jacob felt bad enough for the both of them.
As they cleaned up, he kept apologizing. "Shit, Lee, I'm sorry," he would tell her. "I fucked up. I fucked up."
"It's fine," she told him as she shoved the sheets into the washing machine. She wasn't even lying. "I must have been doing something right."
He just wouldn't quit. "It's just that it was our first time together and—"
"Jake, it's fine," she repeated. "It's something we've gotta work on. I have an attitude and you nut fast. We're even."
His voice was quiet. "I know I'm not really… what you're used to," he said. "I mean, I'm not Paul."
She crossed her arms and just peered up at him. "What does he have to do with anything?"
"The other day, when I came over really early in the morning, I came back later to see you. No one was answering the door and your phone went straight to voicemail, but I saw your car and Paul's car in the parking lot."
Shit, Leah thought.
"Are you still seeing him?" he asked her.
"Jake, you're trippin'," she told him. "Me going from you to Paul is like going from a solid 9 to a negative 2."
"But you were with him before."
Even though Paul didn't mean that much to Leah now, she couldn't just tell Jacob about the lottery. It wouldn't be right, and she always kept her word. Even people like Paul deserved that.
"I feel like that's not the real issue here," she replied.
"There are many issues here," he countered.
"There weren't," she corrected him, her attitude kicking in, "but since you wanted there to be an issue so bad, I guess now we have a fucking issue."
His mood was a lot more temperate than hers, but she could feel the tension in his voice. It filled the entire condo. "Then what is the real issue?" he asked. "C'mon, try me."
"You know what you are, Jake?" she asked. "You're insecure, and I'm not even talking about what just happened. You're so fucking insecure in how I feel about you. It's like you don't believe me."
He couldn't even fight it—that was how insecure he was. She didn't like turning the focus of the conversation around, but because it was true, she couldn't stop herself. She could read right through him, anyway, since she knew him better than he knew himself.
"I fucking love you," she went on, "but you won't even give the idea of me loving you a chance because you have such little self-worth. It makes me sick, Jake. Paul doesn't have anything that I want. Shit, your dick is way bigger than his, yet you worry about me still seeing him as if he hasn't fucked me over a billion times? As if even thinking about him isn't a mental trigger? How bad do you hate yourself, Jake?"
He didn't answer.
"You've made me feel so much happier," she told him, "but you're still hopeless. You're damaged goods, Jacob. You have so much potential to treat me and yourself so well, but you just throw it all away because you'd rather spend your time feeling sorry for yourself."
"If I'm so damaged," he replied, "then you know exactly why. Leah, I've been through shit—so have you. We're the same. If you'd get your head out of your ass and see that, then—"
"We are not the same," she said sternly. "The difference between me and you is that I know who the fuck I am and I know my worth. You don't even know where to start."
"You're so self-centered," he told her, and she knew he had lost.
"Who the fuck else am I supposed to be centered on?" she demanded. "Don't get it twisted and don't hurt yourself, Jake."
"What, was that a threat?" he asked her, his voice the angriest she'd heard it. "Am I supposed to start accepting myself because you wanna talk all tough?"
"No," she said calmly, "but I can easily see you running off to go fuck some self-loathing bitch who needs you to hold her hair back while she vomits and doesn't mind how fast you come."
He went back to the bedroom, put his shoes back on, and headed to the front door.
"You're too much," he muttered.
"Am I?" she mumbled sarcastically.
He just left the condo without looking back.
Leah stayed up late that night, curled up on the couch and watching Selena on DVD. It didn't feel the same without Kim, but like an answer to her silent prayers, Kim quietly entered the condo. She slipped off her boots and slumped onto the couch with Leah, and it felt normal.
"I thought you were spending the night with Jillian," Leah said.
"I thought Jacob was spending the night with you," Kim said.
"I guess neither of us can ever have a good night."
Kim snorted. "If I have a bad time, you have a bad time. We're a package deal."
Leah smiled in response to that—they really were soul mates. Maybe Kim was all she would ever need. Then she turned the movie down. "What happened to you tonight?" she asked.
"Never trust a big butt and a smile," the other girl quoted.
"Words to live by. But for real, what happened?"
"Nothing much. I just need to stop falling for people who say one nice thing to me. It's exhausting."
"Uh-huh, honey," Leah agreed. "Me, too."
"What happened with you?"
"Jacob and I had sex when it wouldn't have killed us to wait." And that wasn't even the half of it.
"But haven't you—?"
"No, we did the real shit this time," Leah clarified. "But he came so fast it wasn't even funny. I guess my pussy's too bomb or something."
"Uh-huh, honey."
Leah laughed. "I kinda bitched him out afterward, though," she continued.
"That's not something to bitch someone out over," Kim said. "You still could have found a way to finish yourself off."
"No, it wasn't over that. He asked me if I'm still seeing Paul because of when his car was over here the other day when we drove out to Seattle."
"What did you tell him, then?"
"Not the truth."
"That explains why you're sitting here watching Selena. Did you not tell him the truth because of the lottery?"
"Yeah."
"Why are you protecting Paul?" Kim wondered. "Why do you owe him anything?"
"It's his business," Leah said. "I didn't wanna expose that."
"Jake's your boyfriend, though."
Leah sighed. "I know, I know. But in the end, I was going off about how little he thinks of himself, and that part is true. Like, he really is damaged goods. I thought I knew how to deal with that, but I don't. It just pisses me off that I could tell him I love him and that he's so amazing and that he's done so much for me, but he wouldn't hear me. He thinks he's undeserving and I hate that."
"I think you mean well, Lee," Kim said. "I feel like you just have an issue with telling it like that to him because you can get so riled up. I get that you don't wanna be fake about anything, but that doesn't mean you have to be a bitch."
"I guess I was being a bitch about it," Leah admitted.
"Quit being a bitch about the wrong things," Kim told her. "It's not worth it. Better yet, give some of that bitchiness to me. I sure needed it tonight before it got all fucked up."
"You still never really said what happened tonight."
"I wasn't even that wine-drunk," Kim began, "but I slept with Jillian. I felt bad about it afterward, and even told her that—since I'm good at trusting anybody who's nice to me, of course—and then she called me a bad feminist."
"What?"
Kim nodded. "She told me that I should feel so lucky and so empowered to be able to sleep with another girl in this day and age—as if gay girls became a thing just this year." She rolled her eyes.
"She said you should feel lucky to sleep with her," Leah echoed. "Did she…?"
"No, no, I definitely said yes," Kim clarified. "I just shouldn't have."
"God, I am so fucking sorry, Kim."
"It's fine. It really is. I just fucking hate how sex is treated now by all these 'good' feminists." Kim was actually angry; she usually didn't cuss this much. "It's counterproductive. Good feminists like Jillian are always like, 'Be a ho and do whatever and whoever you want, whenever you want,' but that's not the point. Bad feminists like me still get fucked over. We still end up having negative feelings about sex, and suddenly we're the enemies because we're not empowered by it. We're the oppressors. Jillian straight up told me tonight that there has never been a better time to be gay than right now as if I'm white. Then I told her I'm actually bi, and she fucking called me a slut for it."
Leah's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "She's fucking crazy!" she said. "She's no better than Jared."
"She's no better than Jared," Kim repeated. "She's just like him."
"She guilted you into having sex and then called you a slut when you gave in."
"Exactly. And bi girls are called sluts left and right. I can't win and I'm tired."
Leah nodded, and she wished that nothing bad could ever happen to Kim again. She was always getting the shit end of the stick, whether it was from guys or girls. And even worse, she was a good person. She was a great person. She was the sweetest person Leah had ever known. All of Kim's romantic failures truly proved that karma didn't exist.
Leah looked down at Kim's hands, and she saw the trust no one tattoo on the side of her left one.
Good choice, she thought.
Home and work life had remained relatively the same for Paul and Bella, except they talked more. It was just a little more conversation here, a little more conversation there. Their communication skills still weren't the best, but it worked out for them, even for the bigger topics. The bigger topics usually came as they were getting ready for their day at work. It was like nothing had changed.
The following morning, Bella asked Paul where he wanted his money to go if something were to happen to him.
"And I'm not gonna try to kill you," she added as she began to get dressed for work. "Promise."
"Fair enough," he said. "The money's going to you and the kid. Easy. I also wanna give some money to my mom. I'll probably buy her a car or a new place. Sue and Charlie should get a new house, too."
"Giving everybody a new house is how lottery winners end up broke," she warned him.
He zipped up his work pants. "I've just got a lot of giving back to do," he said. "It's only right."
"You and your order," Bella mumbled. "Is there anything you wanna do immediately? Like, right now?"
"I wanna blow off work," he admitted. "I wanna go out and buy you a nice ring. And you know what? Pretty soon, I wanna go on a road trip next month for my birthday."
"That sounds like fun."
"Yeah, I want all of us to go. All ten of us. The whole squad."
"Okay, you lost me there."
"Baby girl," he began.
She crossed her arms. "Don't even start. We have priorities and a road trip with eight other people who don't even like me that much isn't one of them. You know what I want."
"You wanna get a house," he said. "I know."
"It's important," she told him. "I love you and I've grown to love Forks and La Push, but I can't have our baby here. We need to be somewhere more… stable."
"Forks ain't never hurt nobody."
She smiled. "Your dedication to spouting out shit is amazing."
"Then we'll get a house," he told her. "We can start looking now and settle down in August or September."
"August," she corrected.
"August," he confirmed, "but the road trip will be our last ride before we've gotta start getting our shit together."
"You don't even like the other eight people we know," she reminded him.
"Baby girl, they're family." Since his trip to Seattle with Leah and Kim, he had been thinking a lot about how much his friends—or at least the people he'd grown up with—meant to him. In the end, they meant a lot. He wasn't too cool or hard to admit that.
"And besides," he added with a smirk on his face, "We've gotta see the entirety of this great country some time. It's just not the same on TV."
She just looked up at him, her arms still crossed. "I guess we can go on this trip," she said, "but only if you leave the chop shop for good."
He put his hands up. "Say no more."
"And you're gonna have to recruit everybody," she told him. "Good luck getting eight other people to agree to drive around the whole country with us."
"Don't worry about it."
Bella had forgotten about Paul's idea by her lunch break, and she was genuinely surprised when he called her saying that everybody else was down to go on a cross-country road trip with them.
"I guess you really love your friends," she said. "You're so persuasive."
"My friends really love not having to pay for anything but gas and food," he replied.
"So everyone's just gonna drop their lives for a couple weeks to come with us?"
"It's a vacation, not a chore," he reminded her. "And a bunch of them have spring break next month, anyway."
"Do you have a route for this trip?"
"You know I do. It's kinda perfect. I'll show you."
"Mm, efficient," she said. "You're serious about this, huh?"
He laughed. "Yeah. I'll call you back later. I gotta meet with some guys from Craigslist."
"For?"
"You need cars to go on a road trip."
She laughed. "So my truck's been ruled out?"
"It may be better, but I never said I wanted anybody to die," he said. "I'll talk to you later."
"Love you."
"Love you."
She hung up and just found herself laughing to herself. Paul was such a dreamer—she was amazed that that childlike quality of his had never gone away. Not even once.
Paul wasn't just a dreamer anymore—he created realities. Within weeks, he and Bella had organized the entire road trip and had found the time to even buy her a new engagement ring. She appreciated the gesture, but she was still attached to her pawn shop ring.
The old group met up at Paul and Bella's house on a Friday afternoon in mid-April. It was Paul's twentieth birthday, and he was getting the only thing he'd ever really wanted and hadn't even known it: real friends. Bella and the other eight people he knew crowded his living room, ready for vacation with luggage and camping equipment, and it all felt real. He and his people were meant to coexist. Nobody (except Leah and Kim) even found the fact that he was paying for almost everything super weird—they just assumed he was still making dirty money elsewhere.
Leah and Kim chattered away as everybody waited to head out. Leah knew Jacob still existed, of course, and they still talked after their fight back in March, but something was still unresolved. The awkwardness lingered, but Leah couldn't force herself to act like they had broken up. It wasn't so cut and dry. In the meantime, she had gotten even closer with Kim, and they were prepared to take a variety of aesthetically pleasing photographs of each other on this trip. It would be like Venice, except legal and mostly sober and overall just better.
But still, Leah couldn't cut Jacob out of her mind, and vice-versa. He approached her and Kim in the packed living room, and even though she'd had the thought that everybody would be going on the trip, she hadn't realized that Jacob was part of everybody.
"You excited?" he asked her.
She looked up at him, slightly caught off guard. "Yeah," she said. "I didn't know you were coming."
"I didn't know all of us were coming. I thought it was just me who needed a vacation."
"I think we all do," she said. "You especially, though."
Their discussion didn't get much deeper than in that the moment, but she didn't want to dwell on it. The buzz of constant conversations around her reminded her that there were so much more people in her circle than just Jacob. She needed this vacation just as much as anybody else.
Bella was in her bedroom, going over inventory for the last time. Even though she had micromanaged just about every detail to make this trip as smooth and interesting as possible, she still felt unbalanced. She went over her checklist and everything was ready. Then she looked down at her engagement ring.
It was nicer than the first one, with more noticeable diamonds, I.L. engraved in the band, and a princess cut like no other, but she wasn't materialistic. She also wasn't showy even though Paul certainly had the resources to be showy. She slipped off the ring and set it down on the table in the room. It made her feel normal but naked. Then she quickly slipped it onto a necklace and put the necklace on, hiding the ring underneath her top.
Good choice, she thought.
Minutes later, the group of ten—separated by three cars—finally met their departure from the badlands. For the time being, everything just felt right.
A/N: It's time for a change of scenery. (Just don't assume any or all preexisting issues have been negated.)
Thanks as always,
HS