The Outcome

Leah’s house was nice and she made me cup of hot chocolate before asking me who told her she was the bitch to turn to.

“No one told me that, it’s just…I have no where else to go.” I told her, so embarrassed I wanted the ground to swallow me up whole.

“Right, but we've never even had a proper conversation. What makes you think I’m gonna let you stay here?” She asked me, her voice hard.

“I don’t know…” I stammered. This, too, was turning out to be a bad idea. Weighing my options, I could probably brake my way into the high school, sleep in the nurses office…

Leah’s little brother, Seth, interrupted my thoughts. “Relax, you can totally stay here. Leah’s just being a bitch as usual.”

“Watch your fucking language, Seth! I hate it when you do that!” Leah yelled to him, but her brother just shrugged his shoulder.

“Honestly, she’s pretty intrigued by you anyway. She’s never met a girl with wolf blood who didn’t turn.” He revealed about his sister.

Leah’s breathing began to pick up to a pace that made me fear she would turn right there in the middle of the living room. She had so much anger pent up inside her all the time it seemed, I’d never seen anything other than a scowl on her face. Abruptly, she turned away from us and stormed through her front door, letting it slam back on the frame as she exited. I was ready to pick up my bags and just camp out in the woods, but Seth got to them before I could.

“I’ll take these to the spare room in back, I think you’re cool, so you can stay as long as you want.” He told me, unperturbed by the scene his sister just caused.

“But what about Leah? She doesn't really want me here…” I trailed off.

He was half way down the hallway as he called back to me. “Oh, Leah has other problems that have her all pissy, don’t let her scare you. She’s always wanted a sister, especially after everything with Emily.”

“Who’s Emily?” I asked confused. I was sure there was only one girl in their pack.

“Hmm, I’ll tell you about it another day.” Seth replied, his eye on the door.

Leah stepped back through looking slightly calmer, but not by much. She stood there a moment, glaring at the both of us before brushing past us; going to what I assumed to be her room. A door slammed in the distance and prepared myself for the first night away from my own pack.

A few hours later as I lay in the bed Seth prepared for me, my mind instantly went to what was going on back home, more specifically; what was going on with Erick back home. I could feel him. I could feel him through the distance, feel him through his anger, and feel all the hurt and abandonment. He was laying in his own bad, staring up at his own ceiling, and thinking about decisions we’d both made.

He wasn’t supposed to exile me out, keep me away from what was pack. Just the same, I wasn’t supposed to just grab my bags and leave. He was meant to continue to argue with me, smother me until I caved in and submitted to the future we wanted together. I was meant to bang on the door as the rain poured down around me. I was to call out his name, beg him for forgiveness, beg my pack brothers for forgiveness. But he didn’t and I didn’t.

There was a part of me that knew I should leap out of bed and run to him, that I would be brought back in and we could leave this place, sent in another pack group to deal with this, but I couldn’t. This was the chance I’d been waiting for since those nights in New York when I could feel myself becoming more and more of the outcast that I was. I was not a wolf, I would never be one. I was an anomaly, a fluke of nature. As long as I was with those who had known me from the start, I would always be just that.

Yet, here in La Push, with Jacob; I felt like something different. A living split line between supernatural and super-normal. I felt like I belonged in a way that was unlike anything I’d ever been a pert of and I wanted it more than I wanted peace with Erick, with the pack, with my parents…

So those were my options, live the life planned out for me, or take the risk of losing it all for something I wasn’t born into; a pack that won’t want the birth-defected outsider. I stared up at the ceiling, my eyes growing more and more acclimated to the darkness and accepted the sever placed upon me by Erick. The decision took my breath away, forced my torso up from the mattress, and sent my heart into overdrive. There was a pulling, pulling, pulling in my chest. I string coiled up and taunt. It consisted of everything that was me, my past, my present, my future. Within that string were my memories, my hopes, dreams, and fears. That string consisted of my blood.

It snapped.

A howl sounded in the night air; a howl of pain and loss.

I was no longer a part of any pack.

I was alone.