Swans Don't Quit

Center Stage

 "Eli, you have to come." Dad said firmly into the phone and I sighed, running a hand through my hair.

"I don't think she would want me there." I said hoping that would work.

"Of course she does. You're her brother." Dad argued. I was running out of excuses to give him.

"I promised Sue that I would help install her new ceiling fan today and paint Leah's old room to turn it into the guest room." I said and I heard dad sigh. Leah looked up at me from the other side of the table and raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged and she shook her head as she chuckled at me. It was true that I had promised to help Sue, but sometime this week, not exactly today.

"Elijah, I doubt Sue would be mad if you pushed that off to another day so you can go to your sister's graduation." Dad said.

"Isn't this a little hypocritical? She didn't come to my graduation." I argued.

"She also lived in another state with a woman that wouldn't let her come to your graduation. There is no excuse Eli. You will be at Bella's graduation." Dad said and hung up the phone. I put the phone down and ran a hand down my face.

"What is so bad about going to the graduation ceremony?" Leah asked as she burped Alex.

"I always hated that school. So many bad memories. Kerry is the worst decision I ever made and being around her is my punishment. Her youngest sister is graduating today, too. She's sure to be there and she's sure to search me out. Kerry plus my sister's boyfriend and family equals one crept out Eli." I said. Alex let out a burped and Leah's set him down to sleep in his bouncy chair.

"I hate the idea of you being in the same room as those leeches, but there's nothing I can do. Though if that girl so much as touches you I will feed her the bitch her heart on a silver platter." Leah said as she wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me in closer to kiss her. I let my hands wander down her body as I started moving us toward the stairs to go up to our bedroom as the moment got more intense. I reached to remove Leah shirt when twin howls pierced the air. We broke apart and Alex started screaming from his seat. Leah gave me a quick kiss before running out the door. I moved over to Alex and picked him up to calm him down. It took a couple minutes, but he finally calmed and went back to sleep.

With Alex sleeping I took him upstairs and laid him in his crib. I walked into our bedroom and collected the lock box from the top of the closet. I had been replaying the conversation that I had had with Harry before he died. I had cut out of work early two weeks ago and made a trip to Port Angeles to a jewelry shop that made one-of-a-kind rings. The woman that owned the store had helped me make a ring for Leah. It was a simple rose gold band; the main stone was a black diamond that was set in-between two moonstones. The woman had gushed over how beautiful the ring was and that my girlfriend was one of the luckiest women alive. I thought she was going to faint when I replied and said the clichéd line that I was the lucky one. I even had had her inscribe My Friend, My Life, My Love on the inside of the ring in Quileute.

The woman was puzzled by the odd symbols and the words they represent in the language she didn't recognized and seemed a little frustrated when I refused to reveal their meaning in English. Billy had been helpful with the engraving. I understood a variety of Quileute phrases having been on the rez and hearing them throughout my childhood, but I don't know the expanse of the language that Billy did or how to write it. The elders and their children did, but I trusted Billy not to tell anyone about my request or what I was planning to do with it. I hadn't even told dad about my plans to propose to Leah, he gossiped like an old woman and this was my best kept secret.

I sat on the bed staring at the ring. I had been trying to figure out how to propose for a while now, but with Harry's death, Leah's phasing, and now the recent vampire activity there never seemed to be a perfect moment or a certainty that if I planned something she wouldn't be called away before I could get the question out by a howl or by a pack member interrupting the moment. I heard the door shut down stairs and quickly moved to put the ring back in the lock box and put the box back in the closet.