A/N: I don't own Twilight. (Happy 8th birthday to the first movie, though.) So I don't like to make excuses, but I've been going through a lot these last couple of months, which explains my infrequency in regards to updates. I've been really consumed with school, family, and depression lately. I try to write when I'm feeling low, but I've been feeling so low that I haven't been able to write. It's been rough but I'm determined to finish this story, and I will. It's the least I can do since some of you have remained so loyal.

This chapter, chapter 76, is Emily-centric. Last time we checked in on her, she was still writing her story and was still with Sam, who doesn't pay attention to her. If there's something that both Emily and I have learned, it's that history doesn't mean a thing if you're hurting. This chapter isn't wildly exciting, so if you skip it I won't be too offended, but it means a lot to me. This chapter features a little callback to chapter 26, because promises matter.

Thank you and enjoy.

LXXVI.

this is not about me
i can see you taking it personally
i see you put your pride aside
i'll wait a minute while you try to compensate

yeah, this is not about me
i see you thinking i'm the missing piece
to the puzzle that you think is your life
i'll wait a minute while you try to come for mine

If there was any habit that Emily had kept up for the longest time, it was writing her novel. Throughout the changes and subsequent adversities she had faced, that was the one thing that had truly remained the same.

She'd been writing it since the onset of her depression during her freshman year of high school. She'd been inspired by plenty of things over the years since she had started. She'd tried the scene kid look, with the long bangs and an excess of eyeliner. Her mom had called her ugly for it. She'd tried the lazy athlete look, which only Leah was able to pull off. It just wasn't Emily's thing. She'd tried the bad bitch look (long before white girls hopped on the train), with the long acrylic nails and big hoop earrings. It had been a good look on her, but she hadn't been able to keep up with it. She'd felt like a baby, having to re-learn how to use her phone and pick up coins and put on any jewelry with a clasp. She'd given up the nails, but her septum ring still remained.

But regardless of all the physical change she had undergone since the raw age of fourteen, her novel was still here. Her little novel was Emily's best friend, and it was the most loyal thing she'd ever known. Emily had been with Sam for as long as she had been with her novel, but if there was anything that really drew the line between her two habits, it was that one would never wake up and act like it didn't love her, and the other would find that to be extremely easy.

Sam had been in a mood for years now. That was his unhappy medium. Things could be bad or not bad, but never good. And Emily, being Emily, had cared. She had begged and pleaded and worshiped him at his feet, dying for him to open up. Dying for him to not be so cold for once in his life. She had constantly set herself on fire to make sure that he was warm, and he hadn't done anything but watch her burn just a little too bright, afraid of getting scorched himself.

Emily supposed that one thing that Sam and her novel had in common was that their respective relationships with her were on and off, but one was more forgiving than the other. Emily could abandon her novel, desert all her notebooks, and forget about everything for a month only to come back more creative than ever. She could do the same with Sam, but he wouldn't like it. Sam didn't like anything. He didn't like himself. He didn't like being on this road trip.

And not even that far into the trip, Emily realized that he didn't even like her all that much anymore.

Somewhere between Las Vegas and Phoenix, as Kim was driving, Emily began to rummage through her bag. She was in a semi-good mood (and her phone was dead), so she felt like writing her novel. She had multitudes of notebooks, and none of them were labeled by whatever content was in them, but she knew just where everything was. She didn't write her scenes in order, of course, but she knew just which one she wanted to work on, and the notebook she knew it would be located in was gone. She looked through her bag for the specific notebook about three times, and she still couldn't find it. Two other ones were missing, as well.

"Goddamn it," she muttered.

"Everything okay back there?" Kim asked, turning the music down.

"Yeah, it's fine," Emily said, except it wasn't fine. It really fucking wasn't. She began to go through Sam's backpack, and he quickly got defensive.

"What are you looking for?" he demanded.

"My newer green notebook," she replied. "And the older green one, too—oh, and the blue one. Have you seen them?"

He just shrugged. "Maybe you lost them. You've got ten of those things."

"I have twelve," she corrected him, "and I don't lose anything."

"It's not that big a deal, Em," he said.

She felt her face growing hot and red. She could almost cry with how angry she was. Sam didn't know shit about her novel—he didn't know shit about what it meant to her. He didn't know that every little piece was important, even the ones she would eventually throw away. He didn't know anything about her or her novel because he didn't deserve to. The only person who had that piece of her—the most important piece—was Embry. And Embry was in the car behind them, probably listening to Quil freestyle about weed and pussy as he tried really, really hard not to say the "N" word.

Emily just turned away to the window and stared out at the cacti. She let Sam win like she always did.

Kim looked at Leah for a second with widened eyes. Wow, she mouthed.

Are we like that? Leah mouthed back.

Kim rolled her eyes and then turned the music back up.

At twilight, the group stopped at a camping ground just outside Phoenix, in the desert. Emily was watching Seth and Quil attempt to light a fire as she sat on a nearby bench, trying to write. She knew just which scenes she was missing from her lost notebooks, but it was hard to recreate them. There was nothing like a first draft, no matter how bad it was. She felt like she had been robbed. She watched Seth and Quil struggle to light the campfire, and she felt just like the slabs of wood in the pit. She felt cold.

Somebody tapped her on the shoulder, and she closed her notebook, looking up. It was Sam. "Yes?" she asked.

"Walk with me for a minute."

She pointed her pen down to her notebook. "I really can't right—," she began.

"Come on," he insisted.

She stood up and followed him. They began to walk far away from the group. She could hear Seth and Quil howl in the distance as they got the fire going. She wondered what Sam could possibly say to her that he couldn't say in front of everybody else. What was he hiding?

It had to be serious, so she already forgave him before he could say anything. He was tired of her, and she kind of hated him, but he was her broken boy. He was all that she knew, and she may have given up on a lot of things, but he wasn't one of them.

"What's going on?" she asked him, her voice soft and blindingly supportive even though he didn't deserve it.

"I took your notebooks," he told her. It was the first time he had been straight up with her in years. She hadn't had to pry it out of him, and she wished he hadn't changed all of a sudden.

All she could ask him was, "Where are they?"

"They're somewhere back in LA," he said. "I threw 'em out. I didn't see the point in you having a billion diaries, and I know you were talking about me—"

"They're not even diaries," she said defensively, half-lying. Some of the passages were autobiographical. Others had people's names changed for the sake of her own pain and sanity. "And that's pretty conceited of you to assume that they're about you, Sam."

"I know, but—," he began.

"But nothing," she said. "You had no right to do that."

It was now that she realized that Sam didn't know her. Nobody could ever make her feel as lonely as he could, and that feeling had gone on for years. She'd been lonelier with him than without him, so for him to suddenly act like he cared didn't make any sense. It was like he was coming back from the dead when she had only known the ghost of the person he used to be.

"Em, I know everything," he said. "This book, or whatever… It is about me." She practically saw him put his pride away for a moment. "It's about us."

"No, Sam, this is not about us." She wanted to elaborate. She wanted to tell him that her novel was all about her and her experiences, and while he had been around for a lot of them, he did not share the same being with her. Her novel—or the pieces of it, really—was a love letter to adolescence, and she wasn't fond of sharing.

He just wouldn't get it, though. That, she was positive of. This was confirmed when he admitted, "I don't get you."

"But it's not like you've ever tried," she said. She expected herself to cry, but she had no tears to shed for him. She was all out. "I'd tell you to keep reading in order to find out about me, but you already threw my work out."

"It's not work, Emily," he said, his voice aggressive. "It's… it's bullshit. You've quit jobs so you can stay at home and drink yourself blind and write this. And the worst thing is that you never told me about whatever the hell you were going through."

"I'm always going through something," she replied. "You just never listened to me. You were never around, so I—"

"So you turned to Embry. I know."

"So I kept writing," she finished. "Not everything is about you. This is the one thing I had to my damn self, and you just ruined it."

"You've got a hundred other notebooks," he said, his voice harsh, "so don't even try that shit."

"But it was the one thing I never had to share with you," she told him. "You literally took the thing that means the most to me and fucked it all up by taking it personally when it has nothing to do with you. You're fucking selfish, Sam."

"Everything I do is for you," he said, his voice starting to break. It was the first time she'd seen him get this emotional since they were practically kids. "Since we were fourteen, fifteen, everything I've done was for us, and you know that. You know that."

"Well, something changed," she said quietly. "But I'm okay with that. I'm capable of being by myself."

"Don't say that," he said. His eyes were stinging with tears that he was too macho to release. "You know that's a lie. You know you need me."

She shook her head. "I don't need you," she said. Then it dawned on her. "I don't even think I want you."

"Is it Embry?" he demanded. "Again?"

It might be. I never really got over him, anyway.

"Is it?" he urged.

"It doesn't even matter," she finally said. "Sam, whatever this is, or whatever we lost—it's over. We're over."

She turned away before she could see him cry, before she could join in. She didn't want to share one last thing with him.

After night fell, Emily sat around a campfire with everybody else, and for the first time, she saw Sam across the flames from her. He was usually at her side. She didn't feel lost or like she was missing a piece, though. At least, not yet. She would have to rewrite history in order to not feel like that.

Bella, who sat next to her, nudged her in the arm. "See," she said. "I told you I'd take you to the desert."

"What, you thought I forgot?" Emily asked, remembering when she and Bella had been drunk at Kim's house ages ago. They had just planned their trip to Venice, and Bella had told her that she would write better if she wasn't drunk. In the end, she had been kind of right.

Bella shook her head, smiling. "No. Never."

"I'm glad I made it," Emily said.

"I'm glad you did, too."

A/N: On deck: Blackwater. Again, I apologize for the late update.

Thanks as always,

HS