All of My Promises

Dr. Seuss once said, "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter." I know that this is the truth, but I still find myself questioning everything I come across because of who I am. Because I fell in love with you, really. That changed everything about me. I started to care about what I looked like and what people thought about me, and although I knew I shouldn't have let me, I myself, change. I, Lillian Marshall, became something I was not.

They say young love is a lie. I say that it's a burden. The ones who find love at such a young age are lucky in the aspect of knowing what it feels like to love and to know what it truly feels like to wake up with that light feeling in your stomach and a smile on your face. As much as I enjoyed young love, I instantly began regretting looking. The pain that you caused me made it all hateful. It made me hateful.

I'll admit, at one point I hated you because I loved you.

Even now as I find myself crying into my bed, my heart beating erratically as I cry my heartbroken feelings into a pillow and not your shoulder, I am wishing for nothing more for this pain to end.

It was moments like these that I find myself wishing that you were still here.

I remember back to when we first met—at least, formally—back when we were fifteen and were too blinded by the difficulties of high school to see the curveball about to get thrown at us. We met through a mutual friend: Quil Ateara. I still talk to him often. He's been one of my best friends through the years, and would even listen to what I had to say when it came to you. I wonder what it was like, having your two best friends fall in love with each other. Having to hear the feedback from both sides. I couldn't say that I could guess.

I had walked into school one day, wearing what I normally did—jeans, a low-cut t-shirt hidden by my parka—with my brown hair whipping around my face from the storm's wind. I was an abnormality among the population of the Quileute Tribal School with my pale skin and my origins stating my Forks family tree. I tried not to notice the way that no one looked at me and whispered hurtful things about me. I tried not to notice that I was invisible, but it didn't help when you walked right into me. I practically fell to the ground with the force.

"Whoa," Quil laughed, catching my arm. "Steady there, Lil."

I looked up to see you looking back at me. I didn't say anything, but I felt the blood rush to my face and felt my cheeks heat up with the movement. A smirk played on Quil's face when he saw, and I resisted the urge to punch him.

"Embry, this is Lillian Marshall. Lil, this is Embry Call." He gestured to you, but I didn't need the introduction. We had been in several classes together since we were toddlers. Not that you noticed. I don't think you ever really saw me until that day.

You smiled and I smiled back. This was just a normal awkward situation in a normal day of a teenager's life, nothing special. Even as you were joined by another smirking male and Quil had to introduce me to Jacob Black, I couldn't help but to think about you. I hadn't really stopped thinking about you since I turned fourteen. Your long hair hung around your face on some days, but was most of the time pulled into a low ponytail at your neck. You seemed to be like me, shying away from social situations that you didn't see fit to participate in. Your skin was dark, much like those on the reservation, and your eyes were a dark-chocolate brown with depths deeper than the ocean to La Push's coast. Your smile entranced me. Your voice enticed me. Everything you did called me in.

It was like falling victim to your greatest enemy.

"So, are you from Forks?" Jacob Black asked me seconds after our introductions. I smiled.

"Yeah, but my dad's from La Push. He convinced my mom to leave the small town for an even smaller town."

"I'm sure that wasn't difficult."

"Five minutes, give or take."

He grinned. I wondered if I had the same effect on you, to make you feel comfortable in a friendly environment around me, but I couldn't tell from the look in your eyes. Your gaze was on me, sure, but it seemed like you were looking right through me. As if I didn't get enough of that these days.

Quil threw his arm around me. I doubted you noticed. Even though mine and Quil's relationship was purely platonic, I always wondered if you felt the same flush of jealousy through your system as I got when I saw the occasional girl getting your attention more effectively than I did. I suppose that I was just obsessed. Oh well.

"We're off to English," he told you two. "I'll see you at lunch."

"You coming to lunch with us?" the wrong boy asked. "We don't bite. Well, except for Embry, but we'll protect you."

You nailed a punch to his shoulder. The only sign that you had been paying attention.

"I don't usually stay for lunch."

"Why not?"

I felt your eyes on me as I stammered, "I-I don't know. No reason, I guess."

"Why don't you stay after with us for today?"

He was pushing me to stay, and I couldn't help but to wonder why. Did he have a crush on me or something? Was he trying to get me closer so that he could get to know me better? Before I could come up with another answer you said, "Yeah, come on, Lil, humor us for a day."

And I found myself agreeing.

That day had been one of the best days along with the first. We had sat in the lunch room and talked until after the last bell had rung and the children had left, wanting to leave the campus as quickly as possible as though it were a disease that could infect them at any moment. We talked about stupid stuff. At one point I remember you and Quil yelling at each other about which football team will make it to the playoffs, although you would later confess that you didn't care too much for football. I couldn't tell if I should really be there yet. I couldn't tell what your emotions were.

I would know you for a while until you would go missing. First you would fade out of the now-foursome a year after the foursome came to be, disappearing for a handful of days. And then you would reappear almost a month later, stony-faced and with a sullen mindset, making Quil, Jacob, and myself wonder what could have happened to you. We worried a lot about what you had become. I worried about if you would ever be the same again. You didn't look the same. Your hair was really short and your eyes were guarded. I could see your sour attitude from miles away.

One week after you showed back up, I approached you.

"Embry," I called as I rushed after you, through the hallway, past curious eyes. You turned to look at me but I saw a familiarity about the look—it was the same look you had given me the day you met me, when you looked as though you could look right through me. That was what you were doing now. I suppose it was better than turning away from me and ignoring me completely, as you had been the others. "Where have you been? We were so worried about you!"

You regarded me as worthless. "I was around."

"Well, why didn't you answer any of our calls?"

"I didn't want to."

"Are you okay?"

"No."

If there was to be one more deadpan, I was sure I was going to scream.

You wouldn't look at me. I ended up forcing you to, stepping too close to you to be platonic, and finally you noticed. It looked like you blushed, even. It was nothing short of a miracle. "Em, where were you?" I whispered.

You hesitated before hissing, "Staying away from you three. You're not worth my time. You all are a bunch of losers that are just holding me down, and I can't live like that. I don't want to live like you do, Lil—I don't want to live alone."

I was sure that you had just hit me in the face. I almost reached up as if I would have been able to feel the stinging flesh, feel the tears rolling down my face, or maybe even just feel. I looked at you and felt myself slipping away somewhat, looking at you like you had been looking at us—as if you felt no emotion. As if it all meant nothing.

"I would apologize for holding the great Embry Call down, but I'm not going to. I don't want to apologize to someone that in reality means as much as a piece of dirt and in his mind means more than the gods above. So I'm going to walk away. And I'm not going to look back."

"You do that."

I did. But I didn't. I looked back at you, and I knew that I was stupid and childish, but at that point I was sixteen and sure I was in love. I was sure that there was no way that this could be the end. I remember looking back at you and seeing you watching me leave with a look that was so sad my stomach turned, and I remember the look on your face when you saw my tears. You went to grimace but stopped. Your eyes went wide as you stared into mine, your mouth gaping open as you watched me go, and something changed. You took a step as if to follow me, looking like you had something to say.

I turned back and ran home. I didn't look back to see you.

Jacob disappeared the next day. Quil and I were growing uneasy when we walked up into school after Billy Black had blown us off that morning, the two of us unsure of what was happening. Billy claimed that Jake was sick but something made us think better of it. Maybe it was the way he said it, with the expression that clearly dared us to question into it further, that made us wonder if it was the truth. I didn't know, but I didn't plan on confronting you about it, either.

I stayed at lunch with Quil just for company. To say the least, we were surprised to see you sit down on the other side of the cafeteria next to Jared and Paul, two of the guys that you had always poked fun of with us. I had a feeling that if Sam Uley hadn't have graduated last year, he would be among you.

Quil's fists clenched. "I don't get it."

"I don't either." I turned to him. "Do you think that's what he means about us holding him down?"

"I don't care what he means by it. I want to know what the hell is going on. He was never that buff, never that secretive, and never failing. It's not right."

I knew what he meant, about it all. You were never buff, never close, and I had easily fallen for you then—was it about a girl? And even when you had secrets you would tell them to Quil, sometimes even Jake, once in a while me if the occasion called for it. Never once would you blow off a homework assignment.

And you never took to staring at me across the cafeteria like you cared, either.

Two days into Jacob's absence Quil took to noticing. "What the hell is his problem?" he demanded. He had grown much more moody upon his two friend's abandonment.

"I wish I could tell you. I was just wondering the same thing."

"I don't like it. It doesn't seem . . ."

I could finish his unfinished sentence and I knew that it had been a word that we had been using often to describe you in the most negative fashion: right. Normally I didn't explore into the concepts of right and wrong. Honestly, it was because I didn't care, and that I automatically knew what was right and wrong and I no longer needed to delve deeper into it. But now I found myself wondering. Was the way he acting wrong? It was wrong according to his normal behavior, but didn't normal teenage boys want to buff up in the same way girls wanted to be thin? Wasn't it normal to have a secret you didn't want anyone to know? Wasn't it normal to fail a class? Wasn't it understandable to hang out with new people once you mature, because maybe the old just weren't the right compatibility? Maybe it was reasonable in the way you stared at me, although a cold chill slipped down my spine when I sensed rather than felt your gaze on me, and maybe I could understand that you were suddenly looking at girls a little different. You were sixteen. Weren't boys supposed to be horny bastards?

But still, something about you didn't fit, like a puzzle piece that had been lost and not yet found, as if something was missing.

Jacob would return to school. And he would sit with you at lunch. He would pull out the same cold reserve when Quil or I confronted him, and this time, he didn't look at us as if he didn't want to hang out with us. Jacob had always been a softer, kinder soul—he looked at us as though he wanted to sit with us, but something was holding him back.

Quil and I were beginning to panic.

You still looked at me strange when I saw you, which was normally in the hall between classes and during lunch. Sometimes I would catch sight of you and Sam Uley's group of misfits as you laughed, walking the beach, and I would watch from the slanted rooftop of my home. That was the only place where I could see you and you couldn't see me. It gave me the ultimate high. I was able to watch you and wish that you loved me while you never knew. Perhaps that was similar to the way you looked at me at lunch.

I doubted it. Perfect Embry Call, the egomaniac of the century, didn't love calm and optimistic Lillian Marshall.

One day my father asked me why I looked so down, and I couldn't answer him honestly. I couldn't tell him the boy that unknowingly held my heart had long since dropped it and stepped on it. He wouldn't have wanted to hear that. So I grinned and said, "Something that doesn't deserve it."

The day that Quil disappeared as well was the day I began to panic. It was also the first day that you came up to me in the hall, grabbed my arm, and pushed me into the damp atmosphere of outside. I pushed you away but you came closer, a lost look in your eyes. You were looking at me like I was the map that was going to lead you out of your personal Hell.

"Lillian," you started as I continued to push against your chest with all I had in me. Either I was too weak or you were too muscular, but I didn't go anywhere. "Please. Hear me out."

"Get away from me," I hissed. "I have to go find Quil."

"You won't be able to see him. He'll either send you away and hurt you more or ignore you completely. It's too late. The fever has set in."

I looked to you sharply. You knew what was going on. You knew!

"What are you talking about? What fever?" I felt my eyes go wide. "What is going on?!"

You looked sheepish. "I suppose I've said too much, haven't I?"

"You haven't said enough! Embry, what is going on here?!"

You sighed and reached out, putting your hands on my shoulders and pushing me softly against the building. A flash of fear went through me. But too many people would be able to hear if I screamed. If you wanted to do something like that, this wouldn't be the situation you would pick. That, and your eyes held a softness about them that I had never seen before. I didn't think that you had ever looked at me like that, not until I remembered that time of our fight, when I had looked back and you saw me crying over you. That was the same expression.

Your hands squeezed my shoulders, calling me back to reality. I needed to stop being a hormonal teenager and daydreaming about love.

"Lil," you whispered, "do you believe in werewolves?"

"Get off of me," I repeated, attempting to push you away once again although I knew that you wouldn't budge. Maybe I just wanted another chance to put my hands on your chest, feeling the muscles underneath. I blushed at that. You looked as though you didn't understand why I was blushing but all-together didn't care.

You shook your head. "No. Lil, you have to listen to me. This is going to sound so crazy, but I've been waiting since the beginning to tell you this, even if I was sure you wouldn't believe me. I finally got permission, and I'm not going to wait any longer."

"Permission?" I scoffed. "What, like a thirteen year old girl who wants to go to the beach with her friends?"

"Exactly."

I rolled my eyes.

"Metaphorically, at least." You grinned. "Lily, you know I didn't mean anything I said a couple of weeks ago."

"Actually, I don't know anything anymore, and I certainly no longer know you."

You winced, as though I had burnt you. That hurt by me. "Have you heard the Quileute legends? Any of them?"

"Some." I frowned, looking up into your clouded eyes. There were too many emotions to decipher. "What is going on, Embry?"

"They're true. Lillian, they're all true—werewolves, vampires, imprinting." Was it just me or did you almost choke on that last word? "You have to believe me—Quil and Jake, they're werewolves, too. We're here to protect the tribe. Come on, Lil, stop giving me that look. I'm not crazy, I promise!"

"Then prove it." I pushed your hands off of me and crossed my arms, even jutting my chin out for good measure. My defiance didn't stop there; I actually leaned back against the building, waiting for what I was sure you couldn't show me. Waiting for a lie to be proven as such.

You weren't lying, that's for sure. I remember the feeling of my heart stopping in my chest when a wolf returned from the forest in your place, and I felt my heart drop. If I hadn't have been expecting you, I would have been pressed against the wall of the school building, speaking to the wolf as if it were an equal in calming tones. As if, if I spoke to it nice enough, it would spare me. But this wasn't a normal wolf that lived in the forest, this was you. That wolf was Embry Call.

I could tell also by the eyes. No one else could have those eyes.

You stepped out of the forest with a grimace, perhaps mistaking my shock as horror. You stopped a handful of yards away, watching me carefully, poised as if you expected me to fall and as if you expected to catch me. I didn't know if you were right in your assumptions.

I swallowed heavily. "Oh my God."

"It doesn't get much better than this. I suddenly have four legs, can chase my own tail if I want to, and I have strange impulses to howl at a full moon."

My giggle sounded almost hysterical.

"Lily, say something. Please."

I noticed that this was the second time you had called me Lily. No one called me Lily, not unless they were assuming that it was the nickname I had chosen for Lillian. It never had been until the day I heard it on your tongue. But I knew that it was your name for me and yours alone, and I knew that I was never going to ask someone to call me that as long as I lived. Not while it was yours.

I took a deep breath. "Holy crud."

"I know what you mean."

"So it's not just you? It's Jake and Quil too?"

"And Sam, Paul, and Jared. Those three were the originals, I suppose."

"Why are you telling me this now when you could have weeks ago?" I asked you as I rubbed my face, almost as if I wanted it to peel away and reveal a much more attractive Lillian Marshall, to be someone that would deserve the looks that Embry Call was giving me, one of attraction. You took a step closer now that you were sure I wasn't going to freak. Your hand twitched as if you were debating on taking mine. You thought better of it even though I was silently wishing you would.

"I finally got permission to tell you, after a lot of begging and pleading. Sam is the alpha, and what he says goes, you know? Like I couldn't ignore his orders even if I wanted to. So I couldn't tell you. But he knew that it was torture for me to be away from you."

You stopped suddenly after you said that. It was as though you wanted to say more but someone slugged you in the stomach, leaving you breathless, unable to continue. You closed your eyes.

"Shutting up now," you announced.

"You're starting to creep me out a little."

You flinched and looked truly sad. Even with your eyes closed, I could see it carved onto your face as if it were stone, forever there, somewhere in the recesses of the material it was formed from. You pushed it away as you opened your eyes, grinning at me with the attitude of being able to blow off everything and not care. I hated when you got like that.

"Aw, Lil," he said, "no one's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf."

"What did you mean when you said that thing about being away from me?"

"It's a long story."

I leaned back against the building and smiled to you. You relaxed visibly. "I have time."

So you explained, telling me stories of imprinting, sharing not only Sam's experience but Jared's. There was this look in your eyes as you told me these stories that made it obvious that you were comparing it with me. And although it was flattering, really, I wasn't so sure. I didn't know if I should believe you, even if I did about you being a werewolf, being a protector of the tribe. The irony, huh? I believed the myths immediately but I was afraid to believe the truth.

When you finished, you smiled again, and it was like the sun was rising into the morning sky. Like the dormant forest that was beginning to awake as the light spilled across the canopy of leaves. Like the water winking against the rays of sunlight. Like the colors spilling against the sky like scattered paint on a canvas, you, Embry Call, were stunning in all aspects. Maybe I was biased. Maybe my judgment was too crowded by the way I was wondering how I felt about you, and maybe I was still high from the stories of never-ending love spilling from your lips, but I knew this much—I knew that I would stay at your side. Even if it was as a friend.

Which was why I stayed.

I followed you to Sam Uley's house, where you introduced me to everyone. I met Emily Young, a beautiful girl whose face had been ruined by scars that would never fade, but with a personality that practically made the flowers around her grow. I talked to Jake in the first time in weeks, and he looked like he knew you were going to tell me. It looked like there was something in his eyes that made me wonder if he hated you for doing so. I wondered why. But it didn't matter, because Quil came in, and he looked surprised.

"Lil?" he demanded, looking to Sam curiously. "Hi?"

"Hey Quil. Do the fleas itch?"

"What?" he asked as the others grinned. His eyes were wide as he looked around at the faces, coming to the conclusion with ease. "Have you known this whole time?"

"Nope," you said for me. "I just told her a couple of minutes ago."

Quil touched his heart. "Oh thank God. For a second there I wondered if you had turned into a wolf. I think I was about to have a heart attack."

It was one of the best nights of my life. It would never top the best—all of the bests would come much later, from all of the nights that I spent laying next to you under the moonlight—but I still found myself feeling so happy I felt above the clouds. Not aloof, just happy. It had been long since I had felt so happy.

As you walked me home, I looked to you. "Is that why you're warm?"

"Yup," you answered, popping the 'p'. "One-oh-eight degree average."

"I thought that you were dead after one-oh-five."

"I've got magic running through my blood, angel. I don't die quite that easily. If the temperature effects me, my genes fixes it for me automatically."

I regarded the pet name as if I hadn't noticed it, but I sure as hell did. I was a girl. For some reason, we seemed to notice most everything small in detail. "Does your mom wonder where you go?"

It was a touchy subject, and I knew that before you winced and drew in a deep breath. I knew that your father had walked out on your mother long ago and that you didn't quite know who he was. I knew you were too afraid to ask your mom, too. But that didn't stop you from saying, "She notices. I've been grounded a lot, but she's realizing that doesn't stop me from leaving, that I just go through the window. She's starting to worry about me, I can tell. Where has her son gone?" You asked the question as if you were asking yourself. As if you hated the answer.

I reached out and took your hand, as if I could transfer all of my positive feelings to you that way. You stiffened somewhat. "Her son is standing right here," I whispered, "and she would be proud."

You looked sad as you said, "She'll never know the truth, not unless I absolutely have to tell her. The only way she will know is if she figures it out on her own."

I stopped and you stopped with me, my hand still linked with yours. I squeezed. "She's still proud of you, even if she doesn't know. She will be proud of you because she can look at you and see who you have grown up to be. And even though her son might look a little more buff and act a little more secretive, she knows you underneath of all of the exterior. She's proud of you because of it, I'm sure."

I don't think I expected the blinding smile you would give me. You smiled as though my words meant more to you than they would have if Jake or Quil could have managed something so insightful, and maybe that was why I expected it. Because I probably shouldn't have, as sudden as it was.

Your lips were on mine before I could comprehend how. I felt my eyes slid shut and my fingers leave yours to twine around your neck, pulling you closer as your hands found my waist and did the same. I felt you smile into the kiss and I smiled, too, because it was a dream come true. The fingers that radiated warmth through my coat were your fingers. The lips that covered mine were yours. And the way my heart was beating in tune with yours was because of you, and no one else. No one else could do to me what you did.

You pulled away, grinning. "I've been waiting to do that for a while."

"So what took you so long?"

"I thought you would punch me in the face."

"Well, I guess now you know."

You smirked. "I would like to know again."

"You're something, aren't you, Em?"

"Yeah, I am." You leaned down so that our noses were touching. "I'm yours."

***

I wondered if it would be tacky if I put an ellipse of some sort in the middle of my letter to you, wondering if that was more of something someone should do for a story in a novel. Maybe even in a novella. I always wanted to write a story about you, did you know that? I suppose that this was the closest I was going to get, rewriting my story as if you had forgotten. I remember the times where I got the impulse to write about you, how I would grab a pencil and paper and sit on my bed as I thought, but no words would be a brilliant enough beginning to our story. There was nothing. It even took me quite a while to think of the beginning to this letter.

I used this ellipse because it would be easy for even someone who wasn't you to fill in the blanks. Anyone else would assume that we were the golden couple in our own eyes, and that we had our ups and downs, and that you were still a werewolf, and would be when they checked back in. And what do you know, they were right. I suppose that there was nothing that I could write about involving our interactions.

I could write a book about every moment we spent together, along with my Hollywood ending. But then it wouldn't be right.

Right and wrong. Two opposites on the spectrum that I had gotten to know.

After a while, I began to worry about you. The Cullen clan had returned and you were on more patrols, sometimes not even being able to be there to sleep besides me in my bed as you had been in the beginning. I found myself wondering where you were and what you were doing all the time. I know that I sound clingy, but it was truth. I was so worried about you. I spent most of my time hoping that you were okay.

You climbed into my room one night and grinned, seeing that I was up. You slumped onto my bed and threw an arm around me, lips immediately seeking mine out. I let you kiss me for a handful of minutes before I finally pulled away, knowing exactly what I was going to say.

"You're keeping something from me."

You looked at me unfathomably. "What makes you think that?"

"You're patrolling way too often and all of the wolves have been acting weird, including you. Don't lie, either, I'll know if you are."

"Lily," you sighed.

"I'm listening."

You sighed again, I felt it against my hair. You pulled me closer, sensing that the news was going to bother me in some way, because you knew. You always knew too much about me. It was the same way with the way I knew you, though. "Lil, the Cullens have asked for our help."

My head snapped over to look at him. "The same help as the time that Jake came back half-dead?"

You grimaced. It was answer enough.

"No," you answered, taking me by shock. "It's worse. Much more dangerous. I wish you could understand."

"I understand that I can't lose you. Not now."

"I know." You sounded like you were about to cry. "This is going to be a battle with the vampire royal family, the Volturi. It's about Nessie—they want to know if she is an immortal child or something. Apparently, they have something against them. Carlisle thinks that they just want an excuse to exterminate his family."

My throat was thick as I asked, "And you're going to help them?"

"Nessie is Jacob's imprint, Lil. We would do the same thing if it was a threat against you."

"I didn't ask that."

You kissed the top of my head. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

For some reason, I was sure you were lying. I looked up into your eyes, looking down at me with the love burning in your heart, and it was like I knew that there was only a numbered amount of times I was going to look into those eyes. Like something bad was going to happen.

"Promise me," I whispered brokenly.

You desperately rubbed away the tears that fell from my eyes, your eyes lit with concern. "Anything," you whispered.

"Come back."

"I can't stay away." You kissed my lips softly. I felt the butterflies in my stomach get ready to fly. "I love you."

"I love you, too." I hugged you tightly, pulling myself against you as best as I could. You held me close as I curled against you, leaning my head onto your chest. You played with my hair. Little did you know that you were also playing with fate with the promises you were willing to make. I buried my head in your chest. "I love you, Embry Call. I really do."

***

Again, the tacky ellipse.

You were getting ready to leave for that battle. That was a lie; I suppose you were already ready, since all you needed to supply was yourself. You had me tucked into your arms as you rubbed my back, your heart beating a steady rhythm to match mine. Your fingers touched my chin to tilt my head up, placing a loving kiss on my lips, smiling widely as you pulled away. You touched my cheek. "Don't worry about me, Lily."

"This discussion is pointless."

You rolled your eyes.

"Stay safe."

"I've made all of my promises," you told me as you ducked down for another kiss. "I promised that one, too."

I let you kiss me.

"I love you, Lillian," you murmured.

"Don't say that like you're saying goodbye."

You didn't say anything for a second, just held me close. I didn't speak, too afraid that my voice would shatter the silence as if it were a glass wall. You sighed, causing the pieces to fall apart. "I should be leaving now."

My grip tightened. You chuckled.

"Lillian," you whispered as you pulled me away, holding my face in your hands as you looked into my eyes. I would never forget those eyes. I saw so many secrets in those eyes, but it was too easy to see the love that only an imprint's bond could create shining among the secrets, too. I held onto an image of those eyes, storing it in my mind as if it would stay there forever. As if you hadn't dominated my memory since I met you. You kissed me again, deeper this time. "I love you. Don't worry, okay?"

I stayed silent other than, "I love you, Embry. Be careful."

"Promise me something," you said as a wolf howled softly from my backyard. It was time. Your eyes didn't waver from mine as you smiled and said, "Don't cry."

"I promise."

"Good." You kissed me again—not being able to help yourself. You grinned and inched to the door, knowing that your alpha was out there and wanting you to stand in his ranks. Even the pull was making your hands shake. "I'll be home, soon, angel."

And then you were gone. The door was closing behind you and you were running across my backyard to the woods beyond, your hands shaking as you prepared to phase into the Hyde to your Jekyll. I watched you as you went and let out a sigh as you left. I was suddenly all alone.

I sat down on my coach and turned on a program I never really watched. I let the words on the sitcom roll over me as I stared at the screen, my thoughts on where you would be—among your greatest enemy, looking what could easily be the end in the face as calmly as you shall. I didn't let myself think morbidly. I had never been the one to look at the end, but to keep my eyes on what I was at now. And what I was looking at now was the present.

It would be three hours until the knock on my front door. I jumped up and ran to it, tearing the door away as if it was the only thing standing in the way of you and me—which it was. But when the door was out of the way, my face fell to see Sam Uley standing on my doorstep, a sobering look on his face. He looked like he had been crying. And, let's face it, Sam Uley doesn't cry. Not unless disaster has struck.

I caught sight of most of the pack standing a little behind him. Watching me.

I looked at Sam, knowing in my stomach that this was going to be the news that I never wanted to hear. I looked into Sam's eyes and saw his sorrow, his unbelievable pain. His eyes watered even as I looked.

"No," I said.

"Lillian," he started slowly, "I'm so, so sorry." His voice broke. "He's gone, Lil."

"You're lying!" I cried through the tears that started falling from my eyes even as I spoke. I gasped in air. "You're lying!"

"Lil." He reached out for me.

"No. NO! SHUT UP!"

"Lillian—"

He caught me when I fainted, not you. He carried me to the couch, not you. He was the first person I saw when I woke up, not you. He was the one that told me he was sorry, not you.

You would have had a lot to apologize for. You had broken every promise that you had made to me before you had left me for that fight, and you would have had to come back and apologize for every one of them. You would have had to beg for my forgiveness because I would have been angry, very much so. It would have taken a great deal of time for you to finally soften me enough for me to fall into your arms and forgive you, but I would have forgiven you. And now it would be my turn to apologize. I would have apologized for crying.

But you weren't here. You, Embry Call, were killed in a battle that killed five on your side. I guess that at least you died honorably, even if it took you away from me forever. Even if I would never see you smile again because of it.

You weren't there when I opened my eyes. Sam was. Jake was. Quil was. But you were gone too far for me to find you.

All three of them were crying.

Before I knew what was happening, I was crying onto Quil's shoulder, sobbing loudly as I continued to deny it, as I continued to let it be impossible. Something in my heart told me that it was true. That life, a force that had once been fair to me, was turning it's back on me once again. My heart told me everything you couldn't that day.

My heart told me that you had lied.

My heart told me that you knew someone was going to die.

My heart told me that you were gone.

My heart told me that you never thought that the only wolf that wasn't going to come home that day was you.

A lot of people would come over to give their condolences. My parents wouldn't know what to do when I refused to even look at them, when I wouldn't eat, drink, move, sleep, anything. When I just sat there and stared at the wall but seeing you. I wouldn't hear when even Bella Cullen would show and tell me how brave you were, how you had given your life for your pack brother. How I had to be proud of the man that had more courage than anyone else. How, despite the fact that you were gone, you were the best person she had ever met.

I wondered if you thought that I was lying so long ago, when I told you that I wouldn't be able to live without you. I wondered now if you were up in heaven where you belonged, begging me not to, but me not being able to hear you. Because it was too late for me to wonder if you were out there, looking down on me. It was too late for me to wish that you were here with me.

I dug up some of my mother's pain pills—she had just gone to the pharmacy and it was a new bottle. My father was at work, my mother as well. Perhaps it wasn't the smartest choice to leave me here alone, with no one to question my motives, with no one to stop me. I am writing this letter now, but in moments I will swallow that full bottle of pills. I will lay on my bed. I will wait for them to kick in. And then I will die.

I'm not going to make it dramatic like Marilyn Monroe did upon her suicide overdose. I was wearing a pair of jeans and your sweatshirt, the one that I swore smelled like you although I shouldn't be able to smell a scent. That was a shifter thing, you had told me with a teasing grin, but you had looked pleased. No, I wasn't going out too dramatically. I was going to die peacefully. I was going to lay on my bed and stare at my ceiling, seeing you as I left this Earth. Life owed me enough to go out with no pain.

No one knows about my intentions, so I don't know who is going to find it. Quil has come to check on me every once in a while, so maybe he'll stop me in time, maybe he'll be the one to find me dead. I don't know. I suppose it's fate's decision now. And fate took you away from me. Fate owed me as much as life did.

And I was willing to wager that it was enough.

Even now as I write the last of this letter, I know that you love me, and you know that I love you. I wish that you could read this, just to know. But you're gone. You left.

So I'm going to leave, too.

With love,

Lily