Leah would always remember.
It was an ordinary day.
The sky was overcast as usual.
It was drizzling lightly, but just enough to have to use the windshield wipers.
The annoying, high-pitched sound they made caused her to cringe the whole drive.
Her mother needed something from the grocery store, and like a good daughter, she volunteered to go.
The reservation grocery did not have what Sue needed, so she begrudgingly ventured into Forks.
She regretted it.
The moment Leah parked the car, she could smell that pungent scent.
The aroma of decay and aged molasses.
Yet, there was another smell.
One that made her shove open her door.
"There's a dog here, Alice," the most alluring voice whispered from across the parking lot.
It was then that Leah saw her.
"Fuck," she muttered.
The blonde's head snapped in her direction.
Eyes the color of molten gold pierced through her very soul.
A powerful feeling of connection knocked the breath out of Leah's body, like being crushed by a fallen tree.
As they stared at one another, wide-eyed and horrified, she gripped her phone so tightly that it shattered in her hand.
Blood stained her shoes, but there was no pain.
There was nothing, but her.
When the shorter vampire pulled the dumbfounded blonde away, Leah moved to follow them.
However, she stopped herself, realizing the severity of what just happened.
"A leech," Leah whispered. "I can't...Not a leech."
There was always something in the way of her being happy.
A fiance who wanted her cousin.
Her father dying because of who she is.
A vampire as an imprint.
There was always something.
So she watched the vampire walk away, only stopping to glance back at her once.
When Leah returned home without the minced garlic her mother needed, Sue didn't bother to say anything out of the way.
Her daughter stormed past her and straight into her room, locking the door.
The look on her face. It would never be forgotten.
It was as if her father had died all over again.
Weeks went by like pages being turned, and Leah Clearwater did not leave her room.
The power of the imprint was tearing her apart.
Day in and day out, she lost herself in daydreams of her imprint's face and the sound of her voice.
Nothing could reach her when the blonde was walking through her mind.
Walking away from her, over and over and over...
It didn't matter if it was Sue or Sam or Seth or Jacob banging at her door.
She could not move.
Paralyzed by heartbreak.
On rare occasions, she felt good in her chest, but she could never get that to her head. Sometimes she felt good in her bed. Get up, and she didn't feel good anymore.
Leah wanted what they gave her at the dentist.
That drug that made her numb.
She didn't want to feel anymore.
"Leah, honey," Sue called from outside her bedroom door. "You have to eat something."
She didn't say anything. Not because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't.
If Leah opened her mouth, she feared the sound of her sobs would shake the house to the ground.
After a month, she was content to die in her bed.
She'd heard of it, before. Dying from the rejection of an imprint. In agony, it sounded sweet and hopeful. Like the promise of an afterlife.
Death would make the pain go away.
Make all the pain go away.
However, even death rejected her.
"Who okayed this?"
"What are the leeches doing here?"
Starving and wracked with unbearable pain, Leah could not care less about the commotion going on outside the house.
Until, she spoke.
"The girl is dying. I can feel it," the familiar voice of her imprint growled. "Take me to her. Now."
When the pack began to argue, Jacob stepped in.
"Edward can read minds. He knows that Leah imprinted her. We can't harm an imprint."
The commotion returned in earnest.
With strength Leah did not know she had, she removed the blanket that covered her head and tried to get up.
She failed, but still she fought.
The only thought in her mind was to protect some vile, disgusting creature that she did not know.
Her imprint.
The most beautiful woman she'd ever seen.
"Rose, don't," an unfamiliar male voice shouted.
Suddenly, the door to Leah's room was opened and someone was touching her.
Someone cold and familiar and welcome.
Leah opened her blurry eyes and saw the sun for the first time in over a month.
The blonde vampire stared down at her with trembling lips, touching her skinny, weak body like she would vanish at any moment.
"Can I hold you," she whispered, her voice gentle and full of emotion.
It was impossible for Leah to speak, but she managed to nod ever so slightly.
That was all the other woman needed.
In Leah's small, uncomfortable bed, her imprint held her from behind, and her body remembered that it was not yet a corpse.
There was still life in her... somewhere.
She could hear the loud, fast heartbeats of her pack standing by the door, watching.
Until, one by one, they left.
"My name is Rosalie Hale," her imprint murmured against the back of her neck.
"And everything is going to be alright."
Leah blinked and a tear fell from her eye.
Not because she was sad or happy or angry.
But because after all the pain she'd endured in life, she couldn't bring herself to believe it.