chapter 4: promises
got me losing all my cool
'cause i'm burning up on you
Leah ran her hand along an intricate trail of silver rhinestones against soft, magenta satin. "Come check out this one, Beck. It's super freakin' cute."
After a long fight with Algebra and other various tribulations of ninth grade, Leah had finally made it to the spring of her sophomore year, while Emily prepared to finish eleventh grade and the twins approached graduation. Like the year before, tenth grade kept Leah busy; activities jam-packed her color-coordinated schedules. She'd recently completed her second basketball season at QTS, this time alongside Kim, who had made JV as well. Leah had also been reelected to the Associated Student Body as Treasurer in an uneventful election where she had run unopposed. And, most excitingly, she'd joined the prom committee, a weekly activity that she shared with Rebecca. Beyond being a planner through and through, the activity existed as an opportunity for Leah to take advantage of the dwindling time they had together before the twins would eventually leave the rez and she wouldn't be able to see them every day.
The prom committee definitely had their work cut out for them: Students speculated that the big night, only a little over two months away now, would be one of the biggest social events that the Tribal School ever had, with an underwater theme, a photo booth, and a real deejay too (not just the balding gym teacher). All the upperclassmen had been raving with excitement for weeks over it.
This major event had landed Leah, Emily, and the twins on a Saturday afternoon in March, meandering throughout a swanky department store in downtown Port Angeles that had bright fluorescent lights, prices that would put a noticeable dent in their hard-earned savings, and sales associates who couldn't be bothered to pretend that they didn't watch the girls' every move. Leah's friends had come prepared to spend a pretty penny nonetheless.
"Hmm, it's cute for a Barbie doll maybe," Rebecca replied to Leah as she approached her and the sales rack full of prom dresses that embodied the hottest styles of spring 2004. "I don't even know if Andy would wanna get a bright pink tie to match me."
"Shut up—you're actually going with him?" Leah asked her friend, glancing at her with wide eyes. "After all the weirdness?"
"That's old news, Lee," Rachel cut in, sifting through the dresses at another sales rack nearby. "I basically live at PenCol and even I'm all caught up on the Rebecca and Andy situation."
"That's not fair and you know it," Leah quipped at her. "You live with her."
Emily joined Rachel at the display of dresses. "Cut Lee-Lee some slack," she told the twins. "Of course she's not in the know—basketball season just finished. You gotta give her a little time to get reacclimated."
"Thank you, Em!" Leah glanced at the twins. "At least she gets me."
Rebecca smirked in response. "Oh, we all saw you getting reacclimated with Sam's tongue, alright. Does Saturday at the beach ring a bell?"
The other girls erupted into boisterous laughter while Leah rolled her eyes. "Shut up, dude! You popped up on us."
"But for real," Rebecca added once the laughter died down. "Me and Andy decided to go to prom as just friends."
Leah had never kept many expectations for the Epic Saga of Rebecca and Andy, but she hadn't seen this coming. The two of them had maintained a "will they or won't they?" status for years now, characterized by an omnipresent air of light flirting. Out of the different guys Beck had briefly dated over the years, she'd never stopped hanging out with Andy. All the teasing combined with Andy finally getting his braces off had culminated into a post-movie night hookup, quickly followed by Andy telling nearly every person he knew, which resulted in an entire week of radio silence between him and Beck. Leah had been busy with basketball at the time it all went down, but she'd relied on Emily to catch her up on all the fine details. Still, the most recent development still came to her as a surprise.
"I thought it'd be weird for you guys since you hooked up and then stopped talking for a whole week?" Leah asked as she moved on to a rack of short dresses, wishing she had the motivation to try even one on. She didn't bother looking at the prices since it didn't matter, anyway.
"I guess," Rebecca admitted. "I used to think I liked-liked him, but he's not boyfriend material, even without the braces."
Leah snorted. "You mean he's not Nelly."
"Duh, but Andy is just… Andy. He can't even dance, and I don't get the butterflies with him, you know what I mean? It's not like you and Sam."
"That's fair," Leah said. Her boyfriend's name alone set off the butterflies in her gut.
"And, anyway," Rebecca continued, "just 'cause we're better off as friends doesn't mean we're gonna skip our senior prom. He's always been my plus-one."
"That's insulting to me and every other time I've chaperoned so Dad would let you go out with a boy," Rachel piped up. "What does that make me? Your backup?"
An identical pair of dark eyes rolled at Rachel. "As if you haven't been my plus-one since we were wombmates, sissy," Rebecca snapped back. "But you said it—I'm just used to you only going to things with us 'cause Dad tells you to, not 'cause you actually wanna go. Dad said I don't even need a chaperone this time."
"Maybe he's just trying to keep you guys around a little longer," Leah mused aloud, remembering Billy's general protectiveness over his girls and how much he and Beck would argue about it. "You know, since he's being so chill about you and Andy now."
"I was already gonna go to prom, but, the thing is, he knows I'm leaving for college no matter what," Rachel informed Leah.
"Don't remind me that you decided on Wazzu." Leah made the nickname for Washington State University sound like a dirty word. "You just had to pick the school that's pretty much in Idaho."
"Yeah, well, maybe if U-Dub gave me a bunch of scholarships and let me in the Honors program like Wazzu did, we'd be having a different conversation. You can't get mad at me for it and neither can my dad." Rachel paused. "It's not too late for sissy to decide to stay on the rez, though."
Rebecca swiftly changed the topic. She clearly didn't want to entertain the idea of staying in La Push and sabotaging her ultimate goal of escaping and starting over somewhere else. "Question—tell me what you think about me in these?" She held up two halter dresses to Leah, nearly identical except for one being piss-yellow and the other being salmon-pink.
"The style's alright," Leah replied. "The colors are ugly, though."
"Kinda harsh, Lee."
"You invited me here for my advice, right?"
"Sure, sure," Rebecca murmured as she put the dresses back. "The goal is to leave with a dress, though."
"What color are you going for?" Leah asked, turning her attention to Emily, who had joined her near the short dresses.
Emily smiled. "Right now it's looking like red. Joseph would look so good with a red bow tie, huh?"
As much as Leah loved Emily and felt grateful that she'd finally found Joseph after her track record of dating shitty boys, this did not stop Emily from being a complete and utter cornball.
Hailing from a tiny town somewhere in southern Oregon, Joseph Penn, Andy's cousin, had moved to the rez last summer to live with Andy, his parents, and their grandmother. When Joseph and Emily had been introduced to each other that summer going into their junior year, they immediately hit it off. Since then, Emily had no qualms about their relationship. Joseph, her knight in a shining puka shell necklace, freed her from the Three Date Curse, taking her on fourth and fifth dates and then some. That being said, he could show up to prom in a potato sack and mismatched socks while Emily would wear a matching corsage, all because she liked him that much.
Leah nodded. "Yeah, red would look good."
"I know, right?" Emily asked, still beaming. "Prom is gonna be so fun. I just wish you'd come."
"Don't remind me," Leah said under her breath, failing to hide her annoyance with the unfortunate and glaring truth about her prom situation.
The girls steadily made their way to the changing rooms with dresses and heels galore. Leah made herself comfortable on a cushy bench outside of the changing rooms while her friends tried on all of their outfits, only stopping to model for her and each other. This went on for an eternity, and, by the time the other girls showed off their final looks, Leah wanted nothing more than to leave this pretentious establishment, get some greasy French fries, and go home.
Rachel stepped out from her changing room in a black number with spaghetti straps and strappy heels to match. "Thoughts?" she asked as she struck a pose.
Leah gave her a quick once-over. A simple yet sophisticated outfit couldn't do her wrong. "Not bad," she told her, trying not to sound too dejected. "You should wear red lipstick with it."
"I was thinking the same thing." Rachel stared at Leah for a moment. "Sam really hasn't asked you to prom yet, huh?"
Leah rolled her eyes but indulged her friend anyway. No matter how much she liked Sam, she couldn't lie in his defense. It wouldn't be fair to her girls. "Wouldn't I be trying on dresses with you guys if he did?"
"I thought you'd wanna try on one, just for kicks."
"No way," she replied as she shook her head, "'cause if I try on a dress I actually like, I'll just get attached and annoyed all over again."
"I guess," Rachel agreed. "But look on the bright side, Emo Spice: if he doesn't ask, you can forget all about him and come with me. You only need an upperclassman to go with, even if it's not necessarily him."
Leah began to object, only to be interrupted by Rebecca emerging from her changing room in a two-piece, lavender ensemble with silver beading accentuating the top. She blurted out, "Sam hasn't asked you to prom?"
The whole store fell quiet. The other shoppers, the cash registers, the sales associates who'd been keeping tabs on the girls' conversations to make sure they didn't steal… Leah could even swear the volume of the store's radio had been turned down.
"No," Leah answered in a low voice. "We've talked about it a little bit, and prom is kinda corny, but it'd still be nice if he asked me."
"Um, yeah. Who else is gonna hit the 'Crazy in Love' choreo with me?" Rebecca asked, a tinge of betrayal in her voice.
"Better hope Rach and Emily get it together in time for the dance, then," Leah sighed. "'Cause I don't think he's gonna come around."
Emily exited her changing room in her jeans and t-shirt, depositing her unwanted dresses on a nearby rack. "There's still time for Sam to ask you," she assured Leah, sitting next to her on the bench.
Leah's fierce fortress knew her all too well—acting like the prom situation didn't bother her would be lying to herself and them, even if she sounded pathetic.
"You and Beck and every other girl with an upperclassman boyfriend—or an Andy—has already been asked, though," Leah pointed out to Emily. "If Sam's not gonna ask me at all, I wish he'd just say so."
Rachel had returned to her changing room now. "And what if he does ask you?" she called out. "I think it's pretty clear that he likes you, so you shouldn't worry about that."
Leah's response came out as a confession. "It's just that if he asks me, then I want it to be special. And not just how he asks—the whole prom experience. It's still kinda corny, but not that many underclassmen even get to go to prom, you know?"
"Special?" Rebecca repeated in a suggestive tone, now slipping on a pair of silver heels. "You mean like—"
An embarrassment-induced hot flash washed over her."No, not like that."
"I don't know, Lee. When most people say they want a special prom night, they usually mean one thing."
"My name's not 'most people,'" Leah retorted.
Rebecca pressed the ball of her foot onto one of the nearby benches to get a better view of the shoe, but the interrogation didn't stop there. "See, I already got the idea that you and Sam are doing it, but I freakin' knew it, dude!"
"You don't know anything, you perv."
"Yeah, sure, call me a perv for being able to see right through you. Real talk, I didn't think you'd give it up before prom, but it's kinda cool that you did. So edgy."
"For real, Beck, shut up," Leah asserted. "I didn't give up anything for Sam."
Rebecca's tone remained insistent despite Leah's clear annoyance. "Oh, so you want to?"
It's not like I haven't considered it. "I don't know, dude," she answered in the most nonchalant tone she could muster, but it didn't last long. "You remember what happened the time I told my mom that me and Sam were together-together? She immediately threatened to bust his kneecaps if he ever disrespects me, and then she got me that huge-ass box of condoms the next day! Every time I even look at Sam, I just remember that my mom's assuming we're already doing it. It totally kills the mood."
Leah still cringed every now at the memory of the night she'd told Sue about her and Sam. Almost a year had passed since the most embarrassing day of her life.
She and Sam had told her parents about them back in March of last year, months after Sam had officially asked her to be his girlfriend. (They hadn't done a great job of keeping it a secret.) While Sue had definitely gotten the memo that they'd been close, Leah hadn't expected her to be so prepared. Sue had even provided an updated version of the Talk, which made Leah cringe more than ever.
While her mom seemed open enough about everything and provided her the resources to go all the way with Sam safely, sometimes Leah wished she hadn't told her mother that she had a boyfriend at all and just kept Sam a secret. Of course, the box of condoms remained unopened and tucked away in Leah's closet, but…
Emily's laughter interrupted her string of thoughts. "Aww, we know you're still a virgin who can't drive, Lee-Lee. You can't say Nurse Clearwater isn't looking out for you, though."
Leah scoffed. "One, that's an old-ass reference. It's 2004. Two, I'm getting my learner's permit in the summer. And three, it sounds like Nurse Clearwater's looking out for the wrong person, so you can give me a call when you and Joseph are running low on condoms."
Emily snorted. "Will do."
"Are you guys almost already to go?" Rachel asked, returning from the changing room clad in her jeans and flannel as she carried a few dresses in her arms. "I wanna get fries."
"Fries sound good," Rebecca agreed as she checked herself out in the mirrors that surrounded them, several other Rebeccas moving with her. "And I finally figured it out—I'm gonna get this dress with these shoes."
Leah wiggled her brows. "Better hope your plus-one's gonna be down to wear a purple tie."
In the end, Leah's friends each forked over upwards of a hundred dollars to pay for their outfits at the snooty store—Emily bought the red dress to match Joseph, Rebecca bought the lavender two-piece, and Rachel bought the simple black dress. Her twin didn't press her to find a date in time since Rachel claimed to be "so beyond high school boys." Meanwhile, Leah left the store with empty hands and bruised feelings.
After making a pit stop to load up on crispy chicken nuggets and salty fries, the girls piled back into Emily's mom's Jetta and returned to La Push, chasing the sunset.
The sun could lift Leah's spirits when all else failed. She preferred sunrises to sunsets, but she found comfort in the approaching vernal equinox. Twelve hours of day, twelve hours of night, and the days only getting longer after that… It was a sweet fantasy that Leah could taste on her tongue now as the sorbet sky melted behind the trees that aligned the highway. She made an effort not to dwell on the sunlight eventually running out, instead singing along to her favorite songs on the radio with her girls. They only paused to put on a CD once they grew tired of hearing the same songs clogging up their favorite stations, and the singing resumed. Feeling free as a bird, Leah loudly attempted to replicate the melisma of her favorite singers.
Emily dropped off the twins at their house before continuing up the hill to take Leah home.
Leah unfastened her seatbelt once they pulled up behind her parents' Honda Civic. "It's a long drive back to Neah Bay. Are you gonna be alright?"
"I'll be fine," Emily said, her tone comforting. "I'm gonna swing by Joseph's place first, though."
Leah's expressive eyebrows jumped. "Of course you are."
"I'm just gonna show him the dress, weirdo. I'll see you Tuesday night, okay?"
"See ya, girl. Drive safe."
Leah exited the car and watched Emily drive off to Joseph's place, not far down the road. The sun sank lower in the sorbet sky.
Basketball existed as Leah's favorite thing in the world, but the end of her second season brought bitterness, especially since the girls hadn't even made it to the playoffs. (Neither had the boys team, which made the bitterness taste sweeter.) Overall, it had been a long, tough season—way tougher than her first one at QTS—but the end of it meant the beginning of spring flowers and lighter skies and longer days. It also meant the return of backyard bonfires and extra time with Sam.
Sam often took part in this tradition whenever he could after work. He'd kept a part-time job in the produce section of the Thriftway for a while now, still stocking bags of salad and cutting up pineapple chunks on the weekends and evenings for a check, but he always made sure to stop by the Clearwaters whenever Leah informed him they'd be lighting up the fire pit. Tonight, hours after Leah's uneventful dress shopping session, would feature more of the same.
She'd been idly studying her notes from language class at the kitchen table when she heard him pulling up. Her parents chatted from the living room with the television providing background noise while Seth lounged across the loveseat, having just started reading Where the Red Fern Grows tonight.
"Sam's here already?" Sue asked Leah.
"Yeah, that's him," Leah said, slamming her notebook shut. She got up to go flick on the backyard string lights. "I'm gonna go get him, and then we'll set up the fire pit."
"I gotta grab my UNO cards," Seth said. He almost set the book open and face down before stopping himself, glancing at the loose sheet of paper on the coffee table, and turning to his father, who sat closest to it. "Hey, can you pass me that bookmark?"
Harry simply looked at his wife and shook his head with a faux-solemn expression on his face. "The boy's twelve years old and doesn't even know my name is Harry."
Leah snorted as she made her way back to the front door. Seth groaned and stood up to grab the bookmark himself.
Sue rubbed Harry's shoulder. "Your jokes don't work on Seth anymore, honey."
"Damn, at least I tried."
Leah finally swung open the door, and the image of Sam's car pulling up in the darkness came to her as the most gratifying blessing. Sam had used his hard earned cash to put a down payment on his own ride for his seventeenth birthday a couple weeks ago, with his mom's help. Instead of whipping around in Allison's Jeep whenever she didn't use it, he now drove a clunky, green Subaru Forester from '99 with manual locks and a dent in the passenger door that one could only see "if you turn your head a certain way." He loved that car despite all its oddities.
A vision in soft denim, Sam exited the car and greeted Leah with his killer combo of a warm embrace and a succulent kiss that dizzied her. He possessed a dangerous talent of making every kiss feel like their first, making it impossible for her to hide her reaction. He caught her every time, and he didn't make it any easier as he hooked his thumbs in her belt loops and pulled her in closer.
With the concept of subtlety thrown out the window, she ran her fingers down the back of his neck and opened her mouth against his. Even with the time that had passed since they became official, she still hadn't adapted to all this—every last one of his touches felt like details of a saccharine dream that she didn't want to wake up from. In this fleeting moment, despite her apprehensions surrounding prom and prom dresses and all of its "specialness," she could only think about and see and feel Sam.
She resurfaced from the fantasy eventually. After nearly being caught making out by Sue on two separate occasions before (as well as once by his mother), they knew better than to snog in such close vicinity to the windows of her parents' house.
They pulled away now to catch their breath before leaning back against his car, side by side. He enveloped her in his embrace as he draped his arm over her shoulder, where her hand met his as they interlocked fingers. Her other hand found its place around his waist, and she nuzzled into him, taking in his scent. Sam smelled like home, and he felt like it too, even in the darkness that now surrounded them and still made a tremor run through her body.
"How's it going?" he asked with his arm around her.
"Not bad," she answered. "Just got back from Port Angeles with the girls. How was work?"
"Same old, same old." He shrugged his shoulders before glancing down at her with a soft look in his eyes and an affectionate smile on his lips. "But getting to see my favorite person afterward is worth it, so it's all good."
She concealed her giddiness with a silly grin and a playful swat to his chest. "Ugh, you're so corny!" she exclaimed. "It's actually sick. Like, do you just lay in bed at night thinking up this stuff?"
"Only on Thursdays," he deadpanned.
She smirked. "You're starting to rip off my style with all the sarcasm." But his declaration made her curious, so after a noticeable moment of silence, she peered up at him with curious eyes. "Am I really your favorite?"
"Only you can call me corny everyday and still keep me around."
There's no getting used to this. She echoed his tone yet died on the inside at the affirmation. "Then you're my favorite too."
They took their time wandering towards the backyard, hand in hand. They'd just made it to the deck when she finally got the courage to finally bring up the topic that had been on her mind for weeks now. She sat on the edge of the wood fixture underneath the string lights with him right beside her. His hand was still wrapped around hers.
"Before we set up the fire pit, I just have to ask you something," she began. "What do you think about prom?"
He responded without hesitation. "It'll probably be fun. Real cool how they got an actual deejay this time."
"No. I mean, yeah," she stammered. "But are you gonna go or what? Like, with me."
Sam hesitated now, and she wished she'd never even said anything to him. "You actually wanna go to that? I thought you were too cool for it."
She concentrated her effort on not glowering. Every last accusation she'd made of him being corny exploded in her face. "I guess, but not every tenth grader gets to go to prom. It's special, don't you think?"
"For other girls in your grade, maybe. We can still have a special night without having to go to prom," he insisted.
Her breath hitched. "Special like how?"
"We can get dressed up, go out to Port Angeles, grab some dinner, and…" His voice trailed off, like he struggled to find the right words.
"And what?" she prompted, slipping in desperation.
"And go catch Shrek 2 in theaters," he finished. "I heard it's gonna be good."
She promptly let go of his hand. "You must think you're freakin' hilarious, huh?"
His voice went flat now. "Leah."
She imitated his tone. "Sam."
"I straight up didn't think you'd wanna go to prom," he reasserted. "I don't wanna make you go to something where you wouldn't have a good time."
"I guess."
His expression brightened. "We'll still be together. You're my girl, and all I want prom night is to be with you. I'll make it special no matter what, Lee-Lee."
Her hummingbird heartbeat returned with a vengeance. Despite everything, Sam could make her feel as soft as putty with his words alone. "Really?"
"I promise. You're my favorite person, remember?" Then he leaned in to plant a slow, tender kiss on her lips.
She stayed in this moment with him for an indeterminate amount of time, where prom and prom dresses and the "specialness" of it all faded away once again. She wouldn't allow herself to let go of the prom thing, even if he couldn't read her mind and hadn't known she wanted to go at all, but he did a good job of making her forget in the moment and effectively putting her mind at ease. The cooperation of their lips and tongues triggered a unique form of amnesia in her brain, so she couldn't be bothered.
The back door swinging open with a loud creak interrupted them.
"Hey, is that fire pit almost ready?" Harry called out to them.
Leah and Sam pulled away from each other and made themselves look busy by scrambling for anything vaguely resembling firewood.
"Still working on it, Dad!" Leah responded.
"Yeah, we just still need to find some, uh… wood," Sam added, clearing his throat.
Leah giggled at him and stole a kiss from Sam once Harry turned away.
Tuesday came by and played out like any other day: classes, lunch, more classes, and study hall after school with Leah's usual crew.
In their time spent in the designated classroom, she and Sam had been poring over their notes in time for their Chem exam tomorrow, while Joseph and Andy studied for Precalculus in between making spring break plans. Rebecca remained intent on putting the finishing touches on her English Lit project. The group usually spent an hour at study hall, but only thirty minutes had passed when Leah's friends all went their separate ways to make it to their respective jobs and responsibilities. She overheard Joseph and Andy talking about getting suits for prom, with Rebecca informing her platonic date of the difference between purple and lavender so he could get a tie that matched her dress.
Leah tried not to feel so left behind in the remaining half hour that she spent studying by herself.
After study hall, she put her textbooks away and stared hard into her locker as her long-time neighbor, Kim, found her. Leah's eyes remained inside the dark space, searching for something that hadn't been there in days, something that would ground her with no worries: her gym bag.
"I was wondering when you'd show your face," Kim greeted her.
Leah acknowledged her before her eyes fell back into her own locker. "I could say the same to you—I didn't see you back at study hall."
"Oh, I was just studying with Jared outside. It was sunny for a minute before it started raining again." Kim began to twist the padlock on her own locker. "Whatcha looking so hard for?"
"Nothing," Leah said with a small sigh. "I keep remembering that basketball season is over. Like, over-over. Real talk, I don't even feel like a human being without it."
Kim chuckled as she put her notebooks away, stacking them on the gray metal shelf. "Sure thing, Sporty Spice. If you're having that big of an identity crisis without basketball, you could just go out for track with me." She turned and her face lit up at the idea before Leah could even react. "It'd be so much fun! Tryouts are right after we come back from spring break."
"More like go out for track with you and Jared," Leah clarified, well aware that Kim's crush hadn't let up even throughout her brief moments with Paul. Her fake-dating ploy with Paul had never come to fruition, but at least she and Jared had been talking more in the past few weeks.
Kim brushed her off with a wave of her hand. "That's way beside the point. Track is just fun. Consider yourself lucky that I didn't suggest volleyball instead."
"Volleyball is a hobby, not a sport," they recited in unison, quoting Coach D.
Leah shut her locker. "If volleyball's a hobby, then what's track?"
"Tight booty shorts and tons of cardio," Kim deadpanned, causing Leah to laugh.
"Yeah, I think I'll stick with basketball," Leah said in between giggles. "Even though you'd rather run laps around Jared in his tight booty shorts than help me tighten up my three-pointers."
"Don't be so dramatic. You were gonna tighten up your threes with or without me, and the season's not even officially over yet."
Leah's eyes widened. "Wait… the team party is today?"
"Um, more like right now."
"I knew I should've written the time into my freakin' calendar!" Leah groaned.
Kim's big brown eyes darted toward the clock across the hallway. "We better get going."
The shorter girl headed for the gym, and Leah followed her, but she didn't get the big rush once they entered the empty gym.
"Are you sure the party's today? Nobody's here," Leah observed as she entered the space. Her voice echoed as she stepped onto the center of the orange-brown floor. Walking onto the court in jeans and shoes that didn't even squeak made her feel like a spectator—to what, exactly, she had no idea.
"I know," Kim replied curtly.
Leah watched her friend make her way to the speakers on the furthest side from where they'd entered, where the scorers' table would be normally set up. As the source of the team's hype music during their home games, Coach D had never allowed the players to blast music during practice—too much of a distraction—but the basketball girls highly favored the sound system. It made them feel like the pros (or college athletes, at least).
"Kim, what the hell is—" Leah protested, only to be interrupted by the dramatic opening of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" blaring from the speakers. She leapt from her own skin due to the loud, sudden noise that made her jump out of her skin. The initial shock turned into confusion as the gym doors opened and her JV teammates came pouring out. Every other girl dribbled a basketball as they moved around the gym in a spread out line, reminiscent of one of their practice drills. The girls, half-dressed down in jeans and everyday sneakers but also rocking their black and gold game day jerseys—wore coy grins on their faces as they saw Leah.
Leah peered around in awed confusion as her teammates circled around her. She wished she'd gotten the memo that they'd all be doing something special for Coach D ahead of time.
Her teammates continued to circle around her until the first chorus came around. They made their way down to one of the hoops on the end of the gym. They lined up evenly on the sides of the key, barely stifling their giggles.
"So you guys weren't gonna tell me we're doing something for Coach D?" Leah asked them, but the loud music drowned her voice out. She turned back to the sound system to find Kim, but she had disappeared. Confused and slightly embarrassed, Leah turned again, and…
There he is.
Sam now came jogging into the gym to the glory of "Eye of the Tiger," looking absolutely ridiculous and endearing all at the same time. He wore black basketball shorts, black sneakers, and a matching jersey—a homemade rendition of Leah's game day uniform. His jersey had her initials ironed onto the back in large gold letters, "L.C," along with her jersey number, 32. He also wore a gold sweatband around his hairline with his hair tied in a ponytail.
Kim dragged Leah to the end line, right behind the basket. As she watched her boyfriend jog across the court and down to the free-throw line, she couldn't hold in her laughter. She hadn't known him to be athletic in their year together, but she could see the effort in the stunt he attempted.
Kim met Rachel and Rebecca, who Leah had missed entirely in all the commotion, and they all stood at Sam's sides. They held posters so large that they needed to stretch their arms out to unroll them properly.
Sam smiled at Leah from the free throw line. "Leah," he began.
As Leah read the large letters on the posters that her friends held, everything finally clicked. The posters served as Sam's lines and the intention of this whole stunt, but she wanted to hear him say it.
She grinned at him. "Yes, Sam?"
"You're my number one and my MVP," he recited. "If I make this shot, will you go to prom with me?"
The cameras rolled in her mind as she took in the moment, her grin plastered onto her face with no sign of disappearing. "Go for it."
One of her teammates, Nikki, passed him a ball. At the free throw line, he bent his knees, dribbled the ball, and centered himself before bringing the ball up and preparing to jump. Leah could see his brows knitting together in intense focus, like she'd miss out on going to prom with him even if he missed the shot when she'd wanted this for so long.
He balanced the ball and finally extended his right arm, following through with his wrist as he jumped—Shooting 101, the kind of fundamentals they taught new players during their first season. The ball shot into the air and sank into the basket with a satisfying swish —the best sound in the world.
Leah's teammates and the twins cheered as she collided with Sam on the court. She didn't care if everybody else watched them. After all, didn't he intend for that and all of the accompanying corniness? Regardless, all the others melted away as he held her in his arms. She didn't even care how they looked to everyone else.
"Thanks for saying yes, baby," he said into her hair as they hugged tightly.
She beamed. "As if I could say no. You made the shot." She gave him a squeeze and then pulled away so she could glance at him, their hands interlocked. Her eyes gleamed with the slightest hint of skepticism now. "Did you come up with all this after I asked you about prom back on Saturday night?"
"I'm not that slick," he replied. "It took almost a whole week for me to learn to shoot like that, and that wasn't even the hardest part."
"Then what was it?"
"Getting your coach to push back the team party by an hour," he admitted with sincere eyes. "Now that's been my project since January. She's tough."
Leah's voice went as soft as a feather. "You did all this for me?"
"I couldn't have you spending prom night watching Shrek 2."
"You're the sweetest boyfriend ever, you know that?"
"And you're my favorite person," he reaffirmed, only to be cut off by Leah sealing his words in a brief, PG-rated kiss.
She flashed him a mischievous, dimpled grin once they pulled away. "You're still corny, though."
"And you still love it, so where does that leave us?"
He'd caught her, and she couldn't keep up the façade even if she wanted to. As she caressed his jaw with her fingertips and closed the space between them again, she could only whisper, "God, I wish you were lying."
Sue lowered the point-and-shoot camera in order to give Sam and Leah further instructions. "Okay, now do let's one where he's standing behind you with his arms around you… No, no, not like that. Turn to the side a little bit, Lee. Now, Sam, bring your chin down. There you go."
Leah maintained a stiff smile as she continued to pose with Sam, feeling entirely like a mannequin. Move your arms like this. Turn like that. Say "cheese!"
She and Sam—along with the twins, Andy, Emily, and Joseph—had been standing in the Clearwaters' driveway for ages in their best prom attire. Billy, Jacob, and Emily's mother Beth had all shown up with their cameras. The prom group must have taken a thousand pictures in total, in a multitude of configurations: all seven kids, just the girls, just the boys, just the pairs, rinse, and repeat.
The odd number of prom attendees made it slightly awkward. Much to Rebecca's annoyance, Rachel hadn't put in the time to find a date in between shifts at the rez coffee shop and trips to the Peninsula College campus in Forks. She didn't show her face often enough at the Tribal School for anyone to ask her, and she barely qualified to attend prom at all, given her part-time student status.
Now, a new type of awkwardness overtook as Sue insisted on taking more photos of Leah and Sam.
Leah got it, but she still didn't get it. Sue had finished taking everyone else's pictures, but Leah remained standing around with Sam while their friends watched the photoshoot march on. She understood that her mother's work schedule had changed in the last few months, meaning she didn't usually get Saturdays off. But all this? Over prom? Sue only took a fraction of this many pictures during the important basketball games last season and on her sixteenth birthday back in November, in which Leah had never been subjected to wearing four-inch heels.
It had been a busy day already, and the dance hadn't even started yet. She'd been helping set up decorations with the rest of the prom committee mere hours ago only to rush home to get ready for the most important school event she could attend as a tenth grader. After pulling several strings on her family's humble budget, Sue had made it happen. Her mother had dressed her up to fulfill her long-gone prom fantasies. Sue had never seized the opportunity to go to her own high school prom with a boyfriend, instead working to save every last penny for nursing school.
Leah looked like a princess—just as her mother intended. She wore a long, baby-blue dress with a halter neckline and shawl to match. This look had been paired with her mother's favorite beaded earrings along with high heels that Leah hated. Her tresses sat in a curled, intricate bun atop her head; not even a baby hair sat out of place thanks to Rebecca's careful fingers, several spritzes of hairspray, and no less than a thousand bobby pins. Her makeup consisted of thick lashes, glossy lips, and an unknown, shimmery substance dusted across her face and shoulders, making her brown skin shine like the stars. Emily had likened her to "Cinderella but cuter," and, in the substantial amount of time that Leah had spent in the mirror before leaving, she could see it too.
Leah's words came through her teeth as she maintained a plastic smile. "You don't have to take this many pictures, Ma."
Sue briefly brought the camera down. "Um, yes, I do. It's my first baby's first prom!" (She had only said forty other times all day.) "Now, I just want a couple more and then we'll be done. Pretend like you're fixing his boutonnière."
Leah turned around to look at her date again, who stood just under her eye level due to her footwear. Despite her mother's insistence on capturing every moment, she'd be a hypocrite if she didn't admit that the cameras in her head had been rolling since the moment she'd laid eyes on him today. She wanted to soak up all of her date with her gaze, hoping to replay the memories later when she fell asleep outside of his arms. Formal events like this didn't occur often. Sam looked the most dapper she'd ever seen him before, and, together, they looked like a dream.
Sam made a good Prince Charming (but cuter) to her Cinderella, but Leah had already known that he'd look good to her no matter what. For prom, he'd opted for a basic, borrowed charcoal suit with a baby-blue tie in the same shade as Leah's ensemble. His hair had been styled into a single braid, leaving nothing for his cheekbones and broad jawline to hide behind.
"Well, don't you look hot," Leah said to him in a near whisper as she raised her hands to lightly touch the boutonnière attached to his lapel. Emily, crafty as always, had appointed herself to create corsages and boutonnières out of white carnations for their group. As Leah ran her fingers along Sam's accessory, she didn't want to ruin her cousin's hours of intricate labor, but, thankfully, Sam proved to be a great distraction.
His mouth twisted into a smile, and he met her gaze with his twinkly brown eyes. "You're looking pretty fine yourself."
"Even though I'm taller than you in my heels?"
"What, by an inch?"
"Some guys care about that."
"I knew how tall you are before I asked you to prom," he assured her. "I've still got the prettiest prom date in the whole world."
"Thanks, baby," she said earnestly, giving his arm a gentle squeeze through his jacket. "Just know that if we end up doing prom again, I'm definitely wearing sandals—or better yet, my Chucks—and I don't care what my mom has to say about it."
"Then I'll hold you to it."
"Okay, I'll let you kids loose now," Sue bemoaned.
"I gotta go to the bathroom," Sam told Leah. "I'll be right back."
Right as Sam excused himself, Sue gestured to her. "Leah, one last thing."
She braced herself for another fake smile as she walked towards her mother. In her heels, she walked with the grace of a newborn fawn. Despite silently complaining about her mom's insistence on her dressing to the nines, she lacked the heart (and the guts) to tell her she'd rather not wear heels at all.
"More pictures?" she asked.
"No, no, I got plenty." Sue smoothed out one of Leah's baby hairs, and tears formed in her eyes. "You look so beautiful, baby girl. I wish your dad didn't work such crazy hours these days so he could see you."
"Me too," Leah said with a nod. The commercial fishing season had officially started up again, which meant longer work nights and limited weekend availability for Harry, which had resulted in his absence at this moment.
Part of Leah wished that he'd been here taking pictures instead of Sue—he'd always been the more laidback parent—but Sue's generosity expanded far and wide. She'd also make sure to show him all the pictures and send plenty of pictures to Allison too, who also got stuck at work and couldn't be here for all the pre-prom rituals. With Sue, nobody ever got left out.
"But thanks so much, Ma," she continued. "You really went out of your way to make me look good." There's no freakin' way I have the heart to complain about my shoes. "What'd you wanna talk to me about?"
"You're welcome." Sue wiped her tears away. "Are you kids all still going to Forks afterward?"
"Yeah, we are," Leah answered, but she could barely believe it. She found herself in awe that her parents had allowed her to go at all. She, Sam, and company planned to attend a house party in Forks not long after prom ended, and nobody had to lie about going. All the parents, as well as Andy and Joseph's grandma, had been on board—even Billy. Of course, the event had been severely downplayed as a simple get-together with some friends from Forks High, but she counted it as a major feat.
Leah sensed the seriousness in her mother's eyes.
Sue's tone grew stern. "I'll let you have a little freedom but I want you home by one. You can hang out or kick it or whatever you kids do, but, if anything seems weird, you just call me and I'll come pick you up. You need to be safe."
"Ma, I'm always safe," Leah promised her before pulling her into a tight hug. "Thanks for everything."
Sue's eyes crinkled at the outer corners—a genuine smile. "Have fun, okay? I love you."
"Love you more."
"And I wanna talk with Sam real quick once he gets back out here," Sue added. "You know, a little mom talk."
Oh god. "Alright."
Only mildly nervous for Sam at the hands of her mother's no-nonsense demeanor, she went to catch up with the rest of the prom group. They engaged in excited chatter about their deejay playlist predictions. Sue didn't hold up Sam for too long, so when he joined Leah's side, she'd assumed their conversation had been quick and innocuous.
"You ready to bust a move?" she asked him with a warm smile.
"Been ready," he replied. "I've been practicing nonstop since last Thursday. But first…" He removed his right arm from behind his back, revealing her beloved Chuck Taylor sneakers in his hands.
She sighed in relief at the sight of her white Chucks, and her warm smile grew into beam bright enough to rival the sun. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're the best."
He grinned back. "I've got you, Lee."
"Aww, how cute," Rebecca crooned in an affectionate tone that didn't last for a second longer. "Are you guys ready to dip or what?"
With that, the groups of teens finally got into their respective vehicles and prepared for takeoff. Waving to their family members and promising to come back home at a decent time tonight, the twins and Andy headed towards the twins' trusty Chevy pickup while Leah, Sam, Emily, and Joseph found the most appropriate configuration so they could comfortably fit into Sam's Subaru.
In a split second before leaving, Leah switched her heels for her Chucks and immediately felt better. Once Sam's hand cradled her own after she claimed the shotgun seat, she readied herself for whatever the night would bring.
Prom '04—aptly themed Under the Sea —finally came to life tonight, and Leah would have cried tears of joy if she didn't have to worry about ruining her makeup. Seeing the results of all her plans, fundraisers, color-coded calendars, after-school budget meetings (in between basketball practices), and weekend craft meetings (on top of regular ASB meetings) come together made all the difference.
Her efforts on the prom committee expressed themselves in the details of the gymnasium, like the lighting in the right hue of deep blue, the clear balloons that resembled bubbles, and all the papier-mache sea turtles. Leah knew that most of her peers wouldn't care about those details as much as they would about QTS hiring a real-life deejay, but she remained stoked at the entire spectacle.
Good refreshments, great conversations, and even better music characterized the event of the year. The deejay kept the students dancing to the clean versions of all their favorite songs, and Leah spent the majority of her night on the dancefloor in a cluster with her friends. The faculty chaperones interrupted their gyrating twice. Aside from that, Leah only took breaks from all the dancing to grab punch or get dragged by her girls to the photographer stationed at the clamshell-themed setup for a photo op.
The night passed in a rapid, energetic blur. She'd lost her concept of time to only regain it once the deejay announced the final song. Leah eyed her schoolmates pairing up around her. Emily and Joseph stuck together like magnets, to literally nobody's surprise. Rebecca and her platonic plus-one, Andy, had been awkwardly dancing near each other whenever they could help it, but not really with each other. Beck had danced more with Leah tonight. And Rachel, who had assumed the role of the social butterfly since they'd all arrived, conveniently chatted with some old friends near the refreshments table.
Quirks and all, Leah didn't want the night to end. Every last one of her nerves over prom had melted away with every moment she spent in Sam's embrace.
As the slower song started up, Leah glanced up at him. "Dang, it's really the last song, huh?" She spoke in a more wistful manner than expected.
"It's a good one," he replied, his eyes twinkling under the blue lights. "You wanna dance, or is that too corny for you?"
She couldn't prevent neither a goofy smile from appearing on her lips nor a pang of guilt from hitting her. "Like that's even a question."
"C'mere, then." He used one hand to gently pull her by the waist while meeting her hand with the other.
Leah had heard this song and its warm guitar chords a million times since it had dropped. It didn't get old. It had soundtracked last summer, when she and Sam had been inseparable without the rules of school keeping them down. He'd even serenaded to her with this song one time. The song reminded her of brain freeze-inducing, cherry-flavored slushies from the gas station. It reminded her of feverish nights in the backseat of his car, parked near the trail by Third Beach with fogged up windows and the stereo turned up extra loud.
As they swayed to the mid tempo beat with the singer's honey-like vocals crooning through the gym's speakers, the cameras rolled in Leah's mind again, recording this moment in time and adding it to the collection. She felt higher than the ceiling, and she couldn't have manifested a sweeter fantasy for tonight.
But she'd be lying to herself if she didn't address the very thing that had almost prevented this fantasy from happening. The pang of guilt hit harder the longer she danced with him. Her body tensed with each passing moment.
"So about what you said," she began with a deep breath. "I'm so freakin' sorry for calling you corny all the time, especially when it came to this dance."
His response came easily. "It's okay."
"No, no, it's not," she continued, growing so vulnerable that it almost scared her. "It wasn't fair for me to act like I didn't care all year and then get an attitude like that when I thought you weren't gonna ask me."
"You? Getting an attitude? Nah, there's no way."
She lacked the ability to roll her eyes this time. "Sam, I mean it. You've been there for me the whole time. Any other guy probably would've just been like, 'Screw it,' and stopped trying altogether. So thanks for not giving up on me."
"I wasn't gonna give up on you at all. You're worth the effort, Lee-Lee." He paused, observing her gleamy eyes. "Wait, what's wrong?"
"I just didn't wanna mess us up," she admitted, blinking back her tears. "I've never done this kinda thing before. Dating, relationships… all that. I'm the worst at it."
"I haven't done this kinda thing before either. But, just like I said, I've got you."
Her eyes went wide and her brows raised, gathering in the middle. "Do you mean that for real?"
"Baby, I've been all about you," he affirmed with honest eyes, effectively tugging on her heartstrings. "The only thing that's changed is that I'm into you more and more every day, and that's just how I feel."
She already felt her pulse in her ears, eagerly awaiting his next word.
"I might've come on a little too strong, though," he added. "How are you feeling about all this?"
"I'm feeling like the luckiest girl in the entire world."
He closed in so only she could hear him now. "Then that's all that matters to me," he murmured before sealing his promise with a kiss so electrifying that it scorched every last nerve in her body.
Their lips had only touched for an instant by the time Leah heard someone loudly clear their throat next to them. Her eyes snapped open, and she turned to find none other than a chaperone staring them down.
The couple didn't verbally say anything that their wide eyes didn't already say for them. The chaperone walked off once it became obvious that she'd embarrassed them for being bold enough to show PDA at a school-sanctioned event.
"Oops," she whispered to Sam, her face burning with slight shame and an unmistakable yearning.
His hands met the small of her back. "Sorry about that."
"Don't be." She draped her arms over his shoulders and rested her head on his chest, continuing to sway with him as the final song faded out and the gym's fluorescent lights flickered back on.
Once Leah and her friends exited through the Tribal School's gym doors, Operation: After Party went live. Their schoolmates' energy buzzed around them as excited chatter pertaining to the party filled the air. The group made it back to Andy's place in mere minutes, where they all rushed to get ready for the night's next event.
Leah, Emily, and the twins all found themselves crammed into the bathroom mirror of Andy's basement with several tubes of mascara and lip gloss strewn across the counter alongside random articles of clothing.
"You guys think the deejay will play the new Nina Sky song?" Rachel asked as she took down her chignon and pinned her hair away from her face with a claw hair clip. She replaced the glitzy earrings she'd worn to prom with the hand-carven, wood earrings she'd made herself a little while back. She didn't carve very often, but Leah had always admired her ability.
Rachel then redirected her hands to the deconstructed bun on Leah's head, where she helped her finish removing the rest of the bobby pins. With the assistance of a paddle brush, Leah's dark hair fell down in loose waves.
Emily dabbed cotton candy gloss onto her lips with manicured fingertips. "I don't know, but I hope so."
Rebecca, who had worn her hair straight down her back, tapped the hot plates of the electric crimping tool she had borrowed from Emily with quick fingers as she checked the temperature. "I hope some cute boys from Forks show up to the party," she said. "And the music better not be the clean versions."
Leah found it easy to roll her eyes as she applied mascara to her bottom lashes. "The deejay at the dance was pretty good, though," she said as a proud member of this year's prom committee. "It was all clean songs or nothing."
"Lee, can you do me a favor tonight?" Rebecca asked as clamped her hair between the plates, her hair becoming wavy as she released the strands from the tool.
"Yeah?" Leah's eyes met Rebecca's in the mirror.
"Let loose!"
"You don't think I'm trying?"
"I know you're trying. But this is your first party, right?"
"What, you can already tell?"
"Um, yeah, dude. Just leave all the high school shit back in high school and you'll be fine."
"I was gonna do that anyway, but okay," Leah assured her with a front of laidback confidence. She figured that with some time, she'd end up feeling confident for real.
Because Sam had heroically assumed the role of designated driver (and also because the twins' old truck had no chance of making it to and from Forks without disrupting every single neigbor's house it chugged past), the group all piled into his Subaru with the twins and Emily in the backseat, while Andy and Joseph took one for the team by hopping into the surprisingly spacious trunk.
"Not the most legal choice," Sam commented toward the other boys as they got in, "but it works."
"We're going to a party with high schoolers and jungle juice," Rachel reminded him. "I think we're way past legalities."
They'd been on the road for five minutes before Andy spoke up. "Oh, shit! I forgot the MapQuest directions."
Everybody else in the car groaned aloud as Sam hit a U-turn to return to Andy's house, where they retrieved the important sheet of paper and then headed back out to Forks.
The party house sat in the sticks. The boonies. Buried in the trees and far away from any streetlights, partygoers could vanish from thin air one moment and then appear dead in the woods the next. Yet it served as the perfect setting for a party full of high schoolers and jungle juice.
All the homes in this part of Forks remained far apart, separated by wide fields and plenty of greenery, but anybody who drove this way could tell that activity inhabited this particular house. A multitude of cars parked around it. Several cars littered the vast lawn, and most others sat haphazardly parallel parked around the curb.
The closest parking spot anybody in Sam's car could find sat around the corner from the house, near the other side of the block. Once they parked and got out of the car, the group headed towards the residence, trailing behind other groups of teens. In the pitch-black darkness, Leah couldn't identify anybody—only various voices talking and laughing along with sneakers stepping onto the road. Sam's comforting hand interlaced with hers, the sole thing keeping her from frantically flying away like a moth and crashing into the closest light source.
"Whose party is it again?" Rebecca asked, her voice carrying over the footsteps and other conversations. "I forgot."
"Trevor Newton—he's this guy I take Calculus with over at Peninsula," Rachel answered. "Or he's supplying the beer, I guess. His parents are finally gone for the weekend, so he's helping his little brother Mike throw a rager. I think Mike's in the same grade as Lee—he goes to Forks High."
"You've got the inside scoop, huh, Rach?" Andy asked.
"We have been sharing Calc notes since January. Trevor's cool, though. I'm just not sure about his brother."
Mike Newton, Leah thought. For better or worse, she knew his whole deal as a Forks High hero due to his booze connections and general popularity. He'd also kicked it at First Beach with his friends every other weekend last summer and made sure that everyone knew it. "Oh, I know Mike," she said.
"Maybe I'll remember him when I see him," Rebecca mused.
They'd arrived at the right time, when the bass of the music pulsated before Leah even set foot inside the house, but nothing had prepared her for the rush she received once she finally entered.
The Newtons adorned their generously sized home—mostly dark on the inside—with twinkly Christmas lights and awkward family photos strung along the walls. Hot, sweaty bodies of equally awkward (and hammered) high schoolers filled the room.
It didn't take long for Leah's group to disperse. Rebecca went to find her friend Jodi, while Rachel went off to the kitchen. Andy met up with some of his homeboys from school. As expected, Emily and Joseph snuck off to do their own thing outside of Leah's line of vision. Thankfully, Sam—who also had zero experiences with house parties—remained by her side.
She made an effort to make her rounds and say hi to everyone as she and Sam snaked through the crowd, connected by their interlocked fingers. The party must have reached full capacity within the first few minutes of them arriving—at every turn, they discovered a new person to greet.
In between catching up with their peers and dancing together, Leah and Sam found themselves in the kitchen, falling into separate clusters. His flock involved some of his friends he'd hang out with at First Beach from time to time, Johnny and Matt. The guys tried to give him crap for spending all his free time with his girlfriend, calling him whipped; Sam just called them jealous.
Leah's batch of friends consisted of a couple students from her Chem class. They discussed the flop state science fair from last month. They had high hopes for next year's fair, though; in the fall, the Tribal School and Forks High would be merging in an after-school Biology Club, and rumors had spread that the faculty advisor from Forks High took science fairs seriously, so the local schools would finally have a fighting chance. Leah briefly considered joining the club—while she and Sam had competed individually at the county science fair back in January, neither of them had placed high enough for state. The judges had preferred some boring white kid's cliché volcano.
The safe, inoffensive conversation didn't last long, but, by the end of it, Leah had convinced herself that she'd already failed this party by failing to leave the high school shit in high school. Rebecca had dared her to be more than herself, more than regular Leah. She didn't know if she could.
While Leah's group had essentially scattered, a familiar face wasn't too far away. As the conversation with the kids from her Chem class ended, Leah found herself next to Rachel, who advanced forward to hug a pale guy with shaggy blond hair, jaded blue eyes, and a neck tattoo.
"There you guys are!" Rachel said as she released him from the hug and embraced two girls who had entered the kitchen with him—one of them being tall with brown skin and thick, dark hair with a pink streak. The other girl stood shorter and pale, and she wore a nose ring and a jaded expression. "I was worried you were gonna have me posted up at a high school party for nothing."
"I didn't think you'd make it," the blond guy replied to Rachel. "Glad you did, though."
"Aren't you the nicest." She placed a hand on Leah's shoulder and glanced back at her college friends. "So, guys, this is my friend Leah. Leah, this is Angel, Liv, and Trevor. It's Trevor's party."
"Mike can keep all the credit tonight, though," he countered with a sly smile as he shook Leah's hand. "He made the jungle juice. I'm just here to supply the booze and make sure no one throws up in any of the vases."
"How noble." Rachel smirked at him before her tone then grew insistent. "Did you bring something for me?"
A loud voice interrupted them, bellowing from the other side of the kitchen, near the back door. "Yoooo!"
"Booze is here," Liv—the one with the pink streak in her hair—said as she wiggled a pierced eyebrow towards Angel.
Angel nodded. "We better get some before it runs out. You want some, Rach?"
"Nah, I'm good," Rachel replied, much more interested in the items that Trevor had revealed from his pocket.
Mike Newton and another kid from Forks High who Leah recognized from the occasional Saturday at First Beach, Tyler Crowley, had entered the kitchen. He and Mike drew all the attention from the other partygoers. The crowd cleared a pathway for them as they hoisted a large plastic tub filled with a dark red liquid onto the kitchen counter, some of its contents splashing out.
While Mike grabbed a ladle from one of the kitchen drawers, Tyler pulled an industrial sized bag of red plastic cups from the cupboard and started to set the stacks of cups onto the counter. Every other partygoer snatched a cup of their own. Soon, everybody had been supplied with a serving of the mysterious liquid. Mike and Tyler made sure their own friends got their share first. Leah couldn't recall the others' names but recognized them around town. Along with Mike and Tyler, the group consisted of a shorter girl with curly hair and the ability to talk at a million miles a minute, a tall girl—even taller than Leah—who wore glasses and didn't talk much at all, and a boy with a bright smile and bad jokes. The friends clinked their plastic cups together and cheered.
Even as the big guy on Forks High's campus, Leah could tell Mike lived in an older brother's shadow by his mannerisms alone. After greeting his friends from school, he flocked near Trevor. His close proximity with Trevor only highlighted their physical similarities. They resembled each other in their blond hair and blue eyes, but Mike had more of a youthful freshness to his demeanor than Trevor—Leah supposed that college-level Calculus just did that to people.
Mike joined the huddle with a red plastic cup in each hand. "Thanks for hooking me up, bro," he told Trevor. "You're a real lifesaver."
"No problem," Trevor replied before turning towards the kitchen counter.
He remained next to Rachel, huddled over the counter as Rachel fidgeted with something. A moment later, Leah glanced at her friend to see her running her tongue along the edge of a rounded, dark-brown piece of paper. Seeing the act in person jarred Leah. She expected to see people roll blunts in movies, but she didn't anticipate seeing her best friend from the sandbox days do it.
Mike's eyes lit up when he saw Leah. "Oh, shit! What's up, girl?"
Rachel finished sealing the blunt and nudged Leah. "Aww, Lee-Lee, you didn't say anything about you and Mike being friends."
"We go way back," Mike said. (They did not, in fact, go way back. They didn't go back at all.) "How's it going?"
Leah waved. "Hey! I'm good."
"Glad to hear it, Lee-Lee. You played a good season, huh? I heard you kicked ass out there."
"I tried, man!" she laughed while resenting Rachel for enabling a stranger to refer to her as Lee-Lee. As Mike went on about basketball, she searched for an out. Her hand found the sleeve of Sam's red flannel shirt, and she yanked him towards her. "By the way, have you met my boyfriend Sam?"
Sam, who'd been pulled away from his friends, played along the best he could as Leah grasped him. "Hey, Lee. Hey, uh…" Sam's forehead read, Huh?
"Mike," the blond boy reminded him.
"Oh, my bad, Mike."
"I was just telling Lee-Lee here that her basketball season was friggin' awesome," Mike reiterated. "You've been killing it on the track too. I swear, you guys should transfer to Forks and show the rest of us how it's done."
Um? "Sam doesn't run track," Leah replied.
Confusion washed over Mike's face. "Oh, I thought…"
"You probably have me confused for someone else," Sam said, reinforcing Leah's statement.
"What?" Mike asked. "'Cause I swear I just saw you walk in here with another girl." He held his hand out just below his collarbone. "She was real short, had curly hair…"
"Um, that was probably Kim," Leah said. "And you probably saw Jared with her."
Mike's eyes widened. "I swear, man, you don't even look like that other guy," he told Sam. "Honest mistake."
Sam gave a slight nod of his head and exchanged a look with Leah. As a new song began to blare over the speakers, he gripped Leah's hand. "Wanna go dance?" he asked her.
"I was hoping you'd ask," she replied, giving him a squeeze.
They hadn't turned away before Mike interrupted their departure. "Wait up," he said to them, holding out the red cups in his hand as a peace offering. "Thanks for showing up tonight, guys. Jungle juice?"
Sam declined the offer while Leah took a cup and dubiously glanced at it before looking at Mike again. "Thanks. What's in it?"
The blond laughed. "Rum, vodka, tequila, you name it. Tastes good, though. Trust me."
She couldn't be too sure about that, but she accepted the cup anyway.
Leah and Sam had begun to make their way back to the living-room-turned-dancefloor when Sam leaned in and asked over the music, "Do me and Jared really look alike?"
"No way," Leah reassured with a scoff. "Mike's just super white."
His thick eyebrows jumped. "Good, 'cause I was about to say…"
She laughed at him. "Shut up, you know you're one of a kind."
They finally made their way back to the edge of the living room, near the back wall adjacent to the kitchen. The area remained illuminated with Christmas lights. Swaying to the music, Leah carefully cradled her cup in her hands and looked up at Sam, who'd been gazing at her first.
"What?" she asked.
"I get why that kid back there was flirting with you," Sam said as he swayed with her.
Leah rolled her eyes. "No, he wasn't—I think he's just really into sports."
"Nah, he definitely was," Sam went on. "I can't blame him, though—if I wasn't already with you, I'd be doing the same."
She pressed her lips together to play coy, but she couldn't pull a poker face to save her life. Her face began to grow hot. "Then I'm gonna have to hold you to it if we ever get there. Thanks for letting me wear your jacket, by the way." She gestured to her outfit, which consisted of black jeans, a scandalous red tube top she'd never get away with wearing if her mother saw her in it (courtesy of Rebecca), and Sam's denim jacket that she'd worn on their first date. She'd given it back after that night to be polite, but she'd quickly reclaimed it for herself soon after that.
"You know it's all yours, Leah," he reminded her. The way he said it made her want to ditch this party with him altogether.
"Damn straight," she murmured.
The bass pulsated to conceal her heartbeat. She shut her eyes and brought her mouth up to his. They didn't have to remain PG like they did at prom. One of his hands cradled her jaw while the other tucked her hair back, and she simply melted away. A song passed—maybe two—but nothing would keep her body away from his. Desire had taken over, and she had zero problems with it.
They only pulled away to catch their breath. Her legs would have given out from beneath her had she not swiftly regained her footing. She glanced around to ensure she remained on planet Earth.
She peered back into the kitchen and spotted some familiar faces among the crowd. Rachel lit and then took a hit from the blunt she'd rolled before passing it to Trevor. Rebecca stood in a lopsided circle of people including Andy, Jodi, and a tall boy with dark curls and an intricate sleeve tattoo running down his arm. Leah could see Beck shooting cartoon heart eyes at him from a mile away. On the other hand, Leah couldn't find Emily and Joseph anywhere, but she had expected this. They'd been attached at the hip for months with no signs of slowing down.
Still reeling from the moment she'd shared with Sam, she realized she'd been clinging to her cup of jungle juice. She held it out towards him with a teasing brow raised. "You wanna try?"
He shook his head. "No chance—I'm driving."
"Suit yourself."
Rebecca's words—leave the high school shit in high school—returned to her, so she sipped from the plastic cup. The sweetest, strongest flavor she'd ever ingested danced on her tongue. Beneath the fruit punch and lemonade, she tasted something potent. She knew she should have been more cautious, but, between catching up with Mike Newton and watching Rachel smoke weed, she clearly didn't know what to expect tonight. The sip became a long gulp, and she suddenly chugged the entire cup. She crushed the plastic in the palm of her hand and let it drop to the ground, not unlike a veteran frat boy.
Sam laughed. "Damn, okay. I didn't think you could handle all that."
"I can handle myself," she said to him with a smile and a playful roll of her eyes. "C'mere."
They met for another kiss, letting the conversation dissipate. The jungle juice overtook all of Leah's instincts to be PG with him and play by the rules. For the next few songs, she and Sam got closer than ever before—as they gyrated to the explicit versions of recent chart toppers, she could barely recall a moment when her body didn't touch his. They only stopped dancing to resume their flirtatious conversation during the slower songs.
The following hour blurred all their moments together. Leah and Sam spent part of it dancing and flirting, while the other part had them detached. Leah grew more talkative as the jungle juice set in, running into more and more people to talk to and laugh with. She felt Sam nearby, but he did his own thing, and she did hers. They would join their own independent, nearby groups of friends before meeting in the middle again.
Somewhere between dancing with Rachel and catching up with Kim (as well as laughing with her over Mike confusing Sam for Jared), another cup of jungle juice had entered Leah's bloodstream. When she found Sam again near a corner of the living room, she collided into him and nearly tripped herself with her own feet. Half of her third cup sloshed onto the floor and on the sleeve of his flannel.
"Shit, my bad," Leah yelled over the music, her voice slurred. She caught his gaze with glassy eyes, peeking through thick lashes. "Hey."
He kept her steady on the outside, but she spun around on the inside. "Hey," he said. "How're you feeling?"
"I'm feeling so good, you don't even know. I'm having the best time ever. Like, everybody is here. Kim and Jared, Rachel and her cool friends from PenCol. I also think I saw Beck, but she and this one dude were all over each other. You should've seen them."
Sam chuckled. "I saw 'em. Glad to hear you're having a good time."
"It's even better with you here," she giggled, running her fingernails along his arm with her free hand. "I was really starting to miss you." She moved in to plant her lips on his, but he stepped back, effectively curving her.
"Back at ya." He gestured to the cup in her hand. "You should slow down on the jungle juice, though."
She made a sour face, but it didn't hold a candle to her tone. "What, you don't trust me?"
His thick brows knit in confusion. "Huh? It's not even about that."
"Then what is it about?"
"You're drunk."
"Um, we're at a party, in case you couldn't tell."
"That doesn't mean you've gotta get wasted."
"Who said I'm getting wasted? And I already told you I can handle myself," she retorted, rolling her eyes as her words all ran together. "This is the one time where I can just let loose and do my own thing, and you start trippin'. What the hell is that?"
He didn't appear any less confused. "Listen, babe, I'm just trying to look out—"
"Yeah, whatever," she cut him off, letting go of his arm. "I need space, Sam. Come and find me when you wanna act like my boyfriend, not my freakin' dad. I'll see ya later."
She turned around and started to disappear into the crowd. Somewhere over the music, she heard him calling her name, but she didn't look back.
The remainder of her third cup worked her system. She hadn't anticipated getting this messed up, but, once she found Kim again—this time in the dining room of the house—she'd gotten past the point of no return.
Totally uninhibited, she danced with Kim to a number of songs without a single concern over how messed up her hair might get, if she looked sort of awkward dancing at her height, or if Sam saw her. Part of Leah wanted him to come and find her already, so she could put up a chase, but then she remembered that she'd told him to give her some breathing room. They could've lived in different time zones with the amount of space he'd given her already.
She didn't think about it too much. After all, she could handle herself.
The party had been going at full force with no intention of slowing down when Leah suddenly heard the beginning of Nelly's "Hot in Herre" blaring through the speakers. The voice of Rebecca's favorite celebrity filled the air, and Leah immediately felt inclined to locate her. She didn't know what kind of friend she'd be if her friend's favorite song came on and they couldn't dance to it together.
"Shit, where is she?' she muttered to herself as she peered around the kitchen. In a split decision, she decided she'd get a better chance of seeing Beck if she had a better view. Taking two long strides, she scaled a kitchen chair and stepped onto the dining room table, ending up near the white-gold lights of the chandelier.
As her eyes searched for Rebecca in the dark sea of plastered partygoers, she quickly realized she had no chance of finding her in time. She figured it'd be embarrassing to get up here and not dance. She swiftly removed her (or Sam's) jacket and tossed it into the crowd.
Just as the beat dropped, she heard Kim yell out, "Get it, Lee-Lee!"
Having danced to this song only a thousand times before (except sober and not in front of many strangers), Leah's instincts overtook her as she finally let loose. She moved like a wild tornado as she dipped low several times, whipped her long hair about, and gyrated on the dining table, completely in the zone. At one point, she dropped to her knees, embracing the track like she would never dance to music again. All the other partygoers cheered her on like they knew her.
The crowd had grown even louder until the end of the first chorus came around, and the noises of encouragement (or appreciation for the entertainment, at least) had been replaced with gasps and various utterances of "oh shit!" After dropping it low once more, Leah got back up too fast and smacked her head against the chandelier that she'd managed to avoid up until now.
Holy. Shit.
The sudden impact of hitting her head against the light fixture sent her collapsing into the crowd that surrounded her. Somebody with a familiar touch caught her before she could crash to the ground. Once she opened her eyes, she saw no one other than Sam. He had gone and found her just in time, like she'd wanted. She began to utter a jumbled string of words to him, but her world went dark.
"Thanks for not letting me crack my head on the floor back there," Leah told Sam in a timid, slurred voice. On their way out of the house, she'd downed the remainder of the second water bottle that he'd grabbed for her. "Hitting my head on the chandelier was already stupid enough."
"You're telling me," he replied. "I just hope you don't have a concussion."
"I think I'd know if I did. Back in eighth grade, I got a concussion playing ball," she countered. "This ain't it."
After he'd caught her from her table-dancing stunt, Leah and Sam had retreated outside in search of fresh air and a place to decompress after she drunkenly convinced their friends that she was okay. Leah and Sam settled on a bench in the garden behind the Newtons' house. Pockets of people stood outside, talking and smoking.
Leah, having retrieved Sam's jacket, wrapped it tighter around her torso, clenching the denim with a tight fist as she downplayed the coolness of the breeze. The cold air, as well as the distance between her and Sam, sobered her. He'd gone and found her, alright. He'd found her not slowing down on the jungle juice and not hesitating to act like a fool.
"I can still go get the rest of our group and then take you home, if you want," Sam offered. "I've already seen a few other people leaving."
With glazed eyes, she watched the silhouettes of the other party attendees through the kitchen windows. Sam, Rachel, and Kim had brought her out here, but she'd insisted on the girls going back to enjoy the party. "No. I can't ruin everyone else's night just 'cause I ruined my own," she replied.
"I thought you said you could handle yourself."
"I was handling myself just fine until that chandelier came outta nowhere." They sat there in silence until she asked, "Why aren't you more mad at me?"
He took a while to answer. "Don't get me wrong, I am kinda mad at you. I mean, you looked really hot up back there, but you scared the shit out of me tonight," he admitted. "I wasn't just gonna let you fall, though."
She blinked slowly. "I scared you? Why?"
He nodded. "I thought you were gonna seriously hurt yourself."
"Be honest," she told him. "Did you really wanna come tonight?"
With an earnest expression, he replied, "Not really. Parties like this aren't my thing."
She sighed. "Yeah, I'm starting to think they're not my thing either."
"At least we know now."
In the silent moments that they shared, Leah worked up the courage to ask him a question that had lingered in the back of her mind all night: "What did my mom say to you earlier?"
"You wanna know for real?"
"Of course I do."
"She told me to tell you that you look nice," he began, "that you're super pretty, and to get you home safely, for sure. But I was gonna do all that anyway."
"And?"
"And then she told me to wrap it up."
"As in your dick?" she blurted out.
"Well, yeah."
Leah snorted in an attempt to hide her morbid embarrassment. "Nuh-uh, no way."
His eyes widened. "Have you met her? The same lady who said she'd bust my kneecaps if I ever disrespected you? She was dead serious."
"Then what'd you say back?"
"'Okay.' I couldn't say much more than that."
"Right."
"And I was not about to get into that with her."
"I guess, but I don't know, Sam," Leah groaned. "I mean, it's like everyone's done it already. There's Emily, Rebecca probably…" Her face grew hot as she gazed at him. "Are we missing out or what?"
Despite her inebriation, she noticed the nervousness in his voice. "I mean, that's just them," he said.
"Right, but Beck already thinks we've already done it anyway, since we've been together so long." She took a breath as she hyped herself to ask him the big question. "But I've been thinking about it, and… I mean, would you want to—"
Suddenly, blaring police car sirens interrupted her. The red and blue lights flooded through the backyard, and her heart jumped out of her chest.
"Oh, shit. Cops are here," Sam said. "Watch it be Chief Swan with our luck. We better get going."
"We've gotta get everyone else," she urged, standing up. Her head spun, and she nearly tipped over onto the grass.
"Do you wanna wait in the car?" he asked, catching her by the hands.
"No, no, let's just get everyone and dip."
Leah and Sam re-entered the house as the other partygoers scattered in a panic. They didn't have to look far to find their friends. Sam found Emily and Joseph in the hallway near the living room, and Leah found the twins with Andy in the kitchen. Rachel quickly gave her goodbye hugs to Trevor and her other PenCol friends, but Leah had a more difficult time with the other twin.
Leah found Beck near a coat closet with the tattooed stranger she'd spent all night with. "C'mon, Beck, we gotta go," she said. "The cops are here."
"One second," Rebecca said. As the red and blue lights shone throughout the house, she finished writing her phone number on the palm of the boy's hand with a permanent marker. She then sealed the exchange with a bold kiss on his lips that made Leah's jaw drop.
"Call me tomorrow night, okay?" Beck told the boy as parting words.
Leah and the twins met Sam, Emily, Joseph, and Andy outside in the garden. They booked it for the Subaru in a nick of time. Once Joseph and Andy snuck into the trunk, Sam drove in the other direction, dodging the cops by looping a few blocks over before heading back to La Push.
"Holy shit, you guys!" Rachel exclaimed. "That was close."
"For real," Sam agreed, visibly shaken. "What happened at that house stays at that house."
"You're telling me," Leah muttered, her head spinning.
After dropping off Andy and Joseph at their house, and then the twins at theirs, Sam finally took Leah and Emily to the Clearwaters' house before one in the morning.
As Emily headed to the front door, Leah lingered back in the car with Sam.
"So I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked him.
"I've got work, but I'll try. Drink some water and get some sleep, okay?"
"I will," she promised. "You too."
She thought she had it together as she walked towards the front door, but, as she reached into her pocket for her house key, the taste of pennies invaded her mouth. She doubled over in the bushes, heaving as every last substance she'd consumed tonight collectively joined forces to turn her digestive system inside out.
"It's okay, girl," Emily crooned as she held Leah's hair back. "Just let it all out."
Once she expelled her guts into the bushes, she straightened up and finally unlocked the door to her house. When she turned to look at the street, looking for Sam's car, he had left.
Her father's snoring filled the house from the moment she stepped inside, thankfully. She didn't mind sharing her bed, but she knew Emily liked to stretch out, so she cleared the floor space for her after grabbing a couple of extra pillows and blankets.
Leah didn't feel human again until she brushed her teeth, took off her jeans, and plugged in her nightlight, the Spider-Man one from Sam. As she crawled into bed, she saw that Harry had left her a glass of water on her nightstand. She downed it and curled up in her bed, letting the disastrous night fall behind her.
Leah and Emily rose relatively early the next morning to hastily get ready and meet the twins at their house. They'd had their time to play, but finals lurked around the corner. If anybody wanted to pass, they'd have to take advantage of the majority of their day by studying. With a pounding headache, Leah downed three aspirin pills and mentally prepared herself for the headache that would come with studying.
Today's plan, drunkenly formulated on the way back from Forks last night, involved grabbing breakfast at Cora's diner in Forks and then hitting the library. Leah and Emily arrived right on time, and, once they left the house with their backpacks, they saw that Harry and Sue had already departed for the day. The girls briefly said goodbye to Seth, but he followed behind them to walk to Collin's house.
The dark and dreary sky that Sunday morning matched Rachel's tone once the other girls reached the long red bungalow. She stood out on the porch, her own backpack slung over her shoulder.
"Beck and my dad are getting into it again," she explained.
"No way," Leah snarked.
From the porch, she heard another argument between two of the most stubborn people she'd ever met. She could already tell that this squabble wouldn't end without someone's feelings getting hurt.
"I'm gonna be eighteen in two weeks!" Rebecca exploded, and Leah swore the entire house shook. "I'm leaving La Push whether you like it or not."
Billy didn't back down. "You don't even have a plan! No college, no job, no nothing. With that mindset, you're gonna end up on the street, and your sister's not gonna be there to save you."
"Sure, sure," Beck sneered. "I could move away to Hawaii, for all you know."
Billy scoffed. "Good luck making that happen."
"Way to have faith in me, Dad."
"And don't even think about taking the truck to Forks. There's not enough seatbelts. Just take the bus."
"Yeah, alright."
Rebecca then rushed out of the house to meet the other girls. Last night's mascara smeared on her bottom lashes and the crimps in her hair had flattened. She let out an exasperated sigh and hoisted her messenger bag onto her shoulder. "I need hash browns or else I'm gonna pass out."
"Um, are you okay?" Leah asked her. "It was getting kinda heated back there."
"My dad's just being annoying as usual. And, to top it off, we can't even take the truck."
"Yeah, I think we got that part."
With that, they all began to head onto the street, towards the bus stop. As they had all dressed in hoodies, sweatpants, or baggy jeans, they resembled the morning sky: gray and gloomy.
The bus stop in La Push required a trek from the twins' house, but none of the girls would question Billy's wishes. He never negotiated on car safety; he'd been that way ever since Sarah's passing. The twins' truck only had three seatbelts on the bench up front; if he knew that more than three people would be going, they all had to take the bus or add someone else's car. No questions asked.
Leah didn't mind the quiet bus ride to Forks, though. Emily and Beck blamed the silence on their hunger, while Leah blamed it on her hangover, and Rach blamed it on her weed hangover. Leah watched the raindrops shakily race down the window.
Another beautiful day in Forks.
Cora's diner served as a cute spot in Forks, very cozy and worth the trek through the rain. Nobody ever mentioned its real name, or even really cared about it. The diner simply belonged to Cora, the gracious owner and nicest woman alive.
The girls pored over the laminated menus from the moment they sat down.
"God, I'm hungry," Leah groaned.
"Me too," Rachel said. "I've still got the munchies."
"You know what's funny, Rach?" Leah began. "I didn't know you were a stoner, but it's all starting to add up now."
Rachel laughed. "I'm only a stoner when I smoke."
"That's hardly a surprise," Emily said. "Now, Beck, where the hell did Hawaii come from?"
Rebecca smirked. "The guy I met last night at the party is from there."
"The same dude you were with when the cops busted the party?" Leah asked. "What's his name?"
Her smirk turned into a full-blown beam that radiated throughout the entire restaurant. "His name's Solomon. He'll be nineteen in October, he has a bunch of tattoos, and you know I love curly hair. He's hot. He's so cool to be around too. He lives on Oahu, and get this: he's gonna be in town this whole summer for surfing."
"Holy crap," Leah uttered. "How does he even know anyone here?"
"La Push's got some surfing cred, you know," Rachel told her with an enthusiastic nod. "He's staying in Forks with his auntie and cousins."
Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. "You're gonna date him? You don't even know him."
"I'm gonna get to know him. I've got enough money for a one-way plane ticket, anyway."
"Dude, he's got you looking so crazy right now," Leah said.
"That's what I told Rach last night!" Beck replied.
"Wait, you're not seriously thinking of moving over there with him, are you?" Emily asked with concern in her voice. Leah found it funny how she referred to Hawaii as "over there." Forks qualified as "over there." Hawaii could have been on a different planet.
Rebecca shrugged. "I don't know. But I gave him my number last night, so I know he'll call me."
Emily shook her head. "Your dad's gonna freak when he finds out you're moving away with a guy you met at a party."
"I've got the whole summer to figure it out with Sol, and I'll just say I met him at the ice cream shop or something when we get to that point," Beck said with a wave of her hand. "All I know is that he can dance, and I felt the butterflies when I was with him last night."
"Are you sure that wasn't just his boner?" Leah deadpanned.
"Right, 'cause you're the boner expert." She balled up a paper napkin and tossed it at Leah's head, which Leah dodged. "Since we're on the topic," Rebecca added, "where was Sam when you got up on that table last night? Did he leave you for dead or what?"
Leah shook her head. If she knew Sam at all, she knew him to be solid. Her party foul had been her fault. "I told him to leave me alone before I got up there," she told Beck. "I only got up there because I was looking for you, anyway. He was just there to catch me."
"Did you guys get in a fight?" Emily asked.
The twins and Emily all shared a look that Leah would have missed if she didn't know them so well.
"Kinda," Leah admitted. "I just told him to let me do my own thing."
"And did you make up with him?" Rachel added.
"Yeah, I think so." She knew that Sam couldn't stay mad at her, but Leah's unanswered question from last night lingered in her mind. Maybe she'd find the courage to ask him again in a more sober setting.
A waitress came by to take the girls' orders and drop off glasses of water. Just as the waitress collected the menus, the windchimes rang. Leah turned to see a familiar group entering the diner: Mike, Tyler, and the other three from last night.
Before she could turn away, she made eye contact with Mike, who wore a funny expression on his face like he knew something that she didn't. Leah sneered at him and then turned back to her girls.
"What's his problem? Did I miss something at the party?" she asked them before raising her glass to take a sip of water.
"You know how I told you to let loose last night?" Beck prefaced.
"Yeah…?"
"Well, I didn't say that loose." Rebecca leaned forward on her elbows and lowered her voice. "Don't freak out, but legend has it that everyone saw your left boob when you were dancing on that table."
Mortified, Leah choked on her water. "Huh?"
The twin grinned. "I'm just playin' with you, dude."
As the other girls cracked up at Leah's expense, she balled up a napkin and threw it right at Rebecca's forehead. She didn't miss, but she couldn't help but join in their laughter. The laughter made it easier to forget that her group would disband soon. In the moment, she didn't feel so left behind.
Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable media or characters mentioned here. All histories and cultural aspects of the Quileute tribe belong to them.
