𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟖

𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙬𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙣𝙞𝙘 𝙖𝙣𝙙 

𝙖 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙨

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╰┈˚ · ° .   JACOB BLACK HATED THE PACK, that much it had been clear from the beginning. He hated everything but more than everything, he hated the fact that he couldn't see Bella when he was so sure that he was going to imprint on her.

He had exchanged few and sparse words with anyone. The guys were trying to make him feel included— even Paul to some extent— but the fact that he wanted nothing to do with them wasn't making it easier.

Us girls had avoided him altogether, and when Maddison had found another excuse to not put one foot in the Rez ground for the third time in such little time, we knew that she was trying her best to not meet Jacob.

We called an intervention. Amelia and I had driven to her house in Forks and all but peeled her from her couch.

First Beach was the place to bring anyone if you wanted them to feel better. There was no view better than that.

We met Kim and Layla there, already having placed everything across a blanket for the picnic with food cooked from Emily— who unfortunately couldn't join us since she was out searching for a job on that saturday morning— and special milkshakes directly from The Moonlight Diner Cafe that thanks to a spell remained in perfect condition.

"One strawberry milkshake for you, young lady." Layla smiled at the girl, jokingly curtising alongside Kim, "And Emily's best sugar cookies with strawberry icing."

"Chocolate covered strawberries and strawberry shortcake." Kim continued to list.

"A strawberry themed picnic? Really?" Maddi quirked an eyebrow, "I'm impressed."

"Everything for you." I curtused too, following the antics of the other two witches.

"We all know that the best way to make you happy is to overwhelm you with strawberries." Amelia said through a grin as she led the girl down on the blanket.

"Fine, fine." Maddison huffed a laugh, "As long as we do not mention the person whose name starts with the letter J, then I'm staying."

"Him-who-shall-not-be-named will not be mentioned." I promised, laying down on the blanket with my head propped over my hand. "Now let's eat because I have been dreaming about my caramel milkshake since this morning."

"Let's talk about something serious." Kim said after taking a bite from her a chocolate covered strawberry.

"Oh no." Layla buried her head in Maddison's shoulder, "Not this again, Kim. He is going to kill us. We can't do it."

"Oh yes, we are so doing it." Amelia grinned widely around the straw of her mint chocolate chip milkshake.

"Do what exactly?" Maddi frowned in confusion looking around at us.

"That's what happens when you start ghosting us." Amelia tutted in disapproval.

"Sam's birthday is in about a few weeks, and Kim here, had the brilliant idea of throwing him a surprise party." I explained with a mischievous smirk.

"Oh no, that's not a good idea. At all." Maddison shook her head.

"Thank you." Layla sighed, "At least someone agrees with me. They are killing me here, Maddi. You have to promise me to never leave me alone with them. Ever again. Please." She jutted her bottom lip into an irresistible pout and her doe eyes widened comically.

"Oh you can't look at me like that." Maddison whined as she softly pushed the girl aside. "As long as you don't use that pout on me again then yes, I will not leave you alone with the three devils."

"What? She just manipulated you and we are the devils?" Kim complained, "How is that fair?"

A sly smirk crossed the water witch's lips, "Because she likes me better than you."

"Oh take that back, you witch." I snorted at Kim's play of words and the appalled look on her face, and before we could blink, Layla stood up.

"Can't take the truth, uh?"

Kimberly shrieked and she suddenly threw herself up and across the blanket at Layla who fortunately evaded her and sprinted into a run.

"What the hell did you do to the sweet sweet Layla that I left not even a week ago?" Maddison pointing accusing fingers at us, "You corrupted her."

"I'm pretty sure Embry is doing a lot of corrupting himself." I snorted out loud before I could filter my mouth.

"Beatrice!"

"I love you so much." Amelia laughed proudly, kissing my forehead rather obnoxiously.

"You two are unbelievable. I can't believe what I just heard." Maddison hid her smile in her hands.

"Well, hopefully all those tips Paul and I are telling him are working." Amelia said, and for a second, only the sound of her straw sucking up the last drops of her milkshake was heard.

"You and who?" I asked.

"Paul, of course." She winked at me suggestively.

"Oh." I looked towards Layla who was still benignly chased by Kim, "Well, she is in for something if Embry listens. You two are the kinkiest fuckers I know."

"Can we talk about something different than your sex lives, please." Maddison begged.

"Why? Because yours is as dry as the Sahara?"

"For the love of god." I slammed my hand over my face, Amelia and sensitivity were never going to be in the same phrase.

Maddison hummed, she took a bite from a sugar cookie and raised an eyebrow at the air witch, "Still a bitch, I see."

"You know it baby." Amelia smirked slyly and wiggled her eyebrows, "I can rock your world if you want."

"Never say that to me again, please."

"The offer will always be on the table." With a suggestive wink Mia finished.

I fake gagged, earning an elbow in the stomach. "Bitch."

"Witch? Yes I am, how do you know that?" She gasped fakely, "Are you one too?"

"Please lower your voice or the men are going to burn me to the stake." The irony since I was immune to fire wasn't lost as a round of giggles followed just after.

Layla and Kim returned soon after— both covered layers of sand that Amelia had to shake off of them with a bit of her air magic— and the conversation returned to Sam's birthday.

"We are throwing him a surprise party, that's final." Kim stated, "And I'm buying him melatonin pills so he sleeps for once in his miserable life."

"Damn right." Mia nodded, fist bumping her.

"He is going to murder us." Layla complained, "Maybe a gift card for a spa day with Emily will make him change his mind? He really needs it. He is always so tense."

"Sure, beautiful gift." I exclaimed.

"Just because Sam will never go so you'll take his place." Maddison said.

"Exactly. Best gift ever, Layla. Make sure you do it."

"I'll think of another gift, alright." The water witch said with a fake disappointed sigh that I rolled my eyes at.

Suddenly my phone rang, and as I went to decline it, the name displayed made me pause. "I'll be right back." I said to the girls as I got up, "I need to take this."

"Everything okay?" Layla asked.

"Yeah, yeah." I knew that I wasn't convincing anyone but I still turned around and when I was further away, enough to only see the girls but not close enough for them to hear me. I called the number again.

The person responded to the third ring with a sigh of relief, "Beatrice."

"Mom." I cleared my throat from the uncomfortable feeling, "What do you want?"

"When are you coming home?" She said as if the last three months had been nothing. As if she hadn't done anything wrong.

"Again, what do you want?"

A sob broke from the call, "I miss my babies. When are you and Sam coming home?"

Never, I wanted to tell her, but my treacherous heart ached in my chest at her sadness.

"I'll talk to him." I replied before quickly hanging up. I had to take a breath to fill my lungs. It felt like I hadn't had any oxygen from the entire call. I wasn't going to do that.

When I looked up, I recognized the girl that I hadn't noticed before. I knew she had heard the conversation but it wasn't the reason why I spontaneously sat down next to her.

"Hi."

It took her a few beats before she said anything, "Hi."

Leah.

She looked thinner than the last time I had seen her. The bags under her eyes were dark and heavy and her cheekbones were more prominent with the lack of weight.

"I heard you are taking a nursing class." I decided to say almost wincing at how pathetic that sounded.

Thinking the same, Leah raised a judgmental eyebrow and her eyes screamed at me 'are you stupid?' I couldn't really fault her for that.

"Yes." She replied curtly before looking down at my phone. "Problem at home?"

Leah had been there for two years. She had been Sam's girlfriend. I knew that my brother had talked with her about our father and how our mother crumbled to dust after he packed his things and moved away. "That's one way to say it." I grumbled.

"Not good?"

"I'm staying there with her anymore." Not after what she did. "What about you? How are things at home?"

"You mean after my parents blessed the happy couple of my cousin and my ex boyfriend?" She snarked with deep hatred. "How do you think that is going?"

"Like shit? I would say it's going like shit." I admitted. Knowing that your parents hadn't cared that your boyfriend broke your heart to be in a relationship with your cousin, well I knew that might have hurt. Honestly, I would have hated them.

"Yeah, that sums up I guess." She scoffed.

I looked at Leah and then at the sea. I loved Emily, and I loved my brother more than anything, and Leah was an innocent caught in a supernatural trap. Innocent, in love and now with her heart broken in tiny millions pieces.

"He doesn't deserve you."

Leah snapped her head towards me with a slack jaw, "what are you talking about?"

"I'm not going to lie to you, Leah. What happened was shit but it happened. Stop crying over it, stop crying over him because he doesn't deserve even one of your tears. You deserve so much more than someone that leaves you for your cousin. You deserve the type of person that would let the world burn and in chaos just to have you. Sam would have never been that person for you."

Harsh, but it was the truth. And she deserved to have more than just a broken heart.

"Fuck you, Uley." She spat my last name like it was a curse, and I think to her it actually was.

"Fuck you too." I chuckled, "I hope you find it tho." I stood up right after her.

Leah's rage was like a wildfire, it burned everything around her. I could empathize with her.

"Find what?" She snarled.

"That type of love. I really hope you do." She stomped away before she could slap me in the face and I was glad because I knew with all that anger it might have left me bruised for weeks.

When I returned to the girls they looked at me weirdly, "Just needed to have some girl to girl talk with my brother's ex who didn't deserve to have her heart broken that way." I shrugged before going right for the last sugar cookie. As I munched away I ignored Amelia's whines about that being hers, and I listened to Layla excitedly talk about the plot of the last book she read.

══════ 🜂🜁🜃🜄 ══════

𝐓𝐰! 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐦𝐚.

╰┈˚ · ° .   Paul's bedroom was on the ground floor so it wasn't hard for me to climb inside. It wasn't like I couldn't just knock on his front door, his father wasn't even home— like always— I just liked the thrill of sneaking in.

"You are silent like an elephant in a china shop." That was the first thing that Paul said as I closed the window after me, "fortunately you are not actually sneaking in."

I gaped at him, "Did you just call me an elephant?"

"Oh don't twist my words baby." He gave me a pointed look. He twirled on the chair where he was sitting at his desk to look at me. I could see his homeworks and books open there. "What are you doing here?"

"Now it just sounds like you want me to get out, Paul." I tsked disapprovingly, "you are really begging me to break up with you now."

His stare darkened dangerously even as he displayed his easy going smirk, "You try that and see how that ends, brat."

"With me single?"

"With you all tied up and begging me just make you come after I edged you for hours."

"Oh I might have to break up with you just to see if you are serious." I teased. It looked like torture and maybe he was right and I was a masochist because I was actually finding it kinda hot.

Paul laughed, breaking my stare as he pulled me closer until I was on his lap, "You are killing me here."

I just hummed under my breath finding a comfortable position, "Go back to your homework." I whispered my head on his chest.

"Are you sure? Because edging you sounds much more fun."

I let out a breathy laugh, "as much as I would like to try that, I just want to be with you now."

I felt him tense, "Something happened?" He said slowly, almost trying to sound unbothered as if to not let me know how concerned he actually was.

"Everything is good."

He ignored me, and suddenly we weren't sitting anymore but laying on the bed. "Your homeworks." I complained.

"I'll do them later." I tried to speak, to complain again but he stopped me with a sharp stare.

Paul rested his back against the headboard, dropping me over him so that I was lying on top of his body. His fingers through my hair, lightly scratching at the scalp and making me relax, and moments later I was talking.

"My father was always angry." I started, "I can barely remember one time when he hadn't been. We used to have dinners together, but no one talked or made any sound because he hated when we interrupted him from watching the news or whatever. Even a fork scraped against the plate and he was throwing glasses at us." The first tear fell and I didn't brush it away, too scared that if I moved I would never talk about it again. "He hated noises, even in winter he made us go outside in the tree house so that he didn't have to hear us. But it wasn't always enough. Sam used to hide me in his closet. Sometimes it worked, sometimes no. And when he was really angry-" I choked up on my words, unable to fully say it.

I knew that Paul had been aware of my home situation. He was there when my mother hit me. It wasn't that hard to figure out why I hated my father that much. He had seen my body, and he had said nothing. He had kissed the scars and loved me the same. He hadn't asked, knowing that when it was time, I would open about it. This was the time.

I took from my pocket my zippo. It had been so long since the last time I had used it since now I had my fire, but it was always in my pocket. I brushed the carved U.J. at the bottom. "This was his." I said. "This had always been the only thing about him that I actually loved."

"What about your mother?" he asked after stealing the tears that were on my cheeks with his fingers .

"Nothing." I replied as I looked at him, "She never said anything or did anything to stop him. And when he was finally gone, she was so heartbroken that she fell apart. She disappeared for a man like him when she had two kids, and I will never forgive her for it."

"You don't have to forgive her if you don't want to." Paul stated, before softly kissing my lips. "Whatever happens, whatever you do, now, tomorrow, forever, I'll be there with you. I'm not leaving, I'm not disappearing. It's us, okay? We take care of each other."

✎

˗ˏˋ 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ˊˎ˗

Hello everyone! I LOVE this chapter omg. From the beginning! Girls' time!! Oh, those girls are everything, istg. I love their friendship and how they literally made a strawberry themed picnic for Maddison because she was ghosting them because of Jacob.

LEAH. Leah my beloved!! You deserve the world! Paul is honestly the best. He is an asshole but he is her asshole, you know. Crying because wtf. The ending? Papa Uley you're the worst, mama Uley I hate you too much.

Thank you for reading this chapter, I'll see you on Tuesday!

˚ · ° . 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞 . ° · ˚

𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞!

– 𝐋𝐨𝐥𝐚 ☾