The Beacon -Paul Lahote 2-

Chapter 26

Mavis stood on the back porch of her house. Nothing felt the same anymore, but she assumed it never would. A while back, she was kidnapped by her biological mother. That trauma just doesn't go away. It takes time. Mavis was okay with that. What bothered her was something else entirely. The world was darker. She was darker. It was because of her own actions. Mavis opened a door inside her mind, and she could not close it.

It was unclear if she ever would.

Bella walked out the back door. A smile on her face as she saw Edward and Renesmee run off. "Hey." Recently she had noticed the sadness inside of Mavis returning. There was the typical teenage rebellion that the Cullens disapproved up. But Bella saw something else. She saw hopelessness. She recognized this type of hopelessness because she once felt that way.

"Hi."

"Are you okay?" But she knew the answer.

"How did you do it?" Mavis turned to look at her. "How did you get over what Edward did?" When Edward abandoned Bella, she went into a depressive state. Paul had told her about it because it made being near Jacob after Edward returned nearly unbearable.

Bella looked at the trees. "I didn't." Mavis stared at her. "Not entirely." She listened carefully. "I was so depressed I couldn't function." Bella reflected on the memories. "And so alone. Even my dreams were full of pain." Mavis could relate to that. "Then the sadness would vanish when I would-" she stopped. "I would do things to get my adrenaline going. Anything I could."

"Did it work?"

"For a while." Mavis thought about her words. She was never one to go to the extremes to find fun, but Mavis had never really done anything for herself. She always followed the rules, up until recently. "Don't go hopping on the back of random guy's motorcycles."

She snorted. "Is that what you did?" Bella remained silent. That got her attention. "Did you really?"

"Maybe." Bella turned on her heel. "Whatever you're going through, you have to fix yourself." Mavis's shoulders dropped. "But a little rebellion never hurt anyone, right?"

"Right." Mavis agreed with that. Bella smiled before walking into the house.

There was very little truth to Bella's words. Rebellion was not good, but Mavis wasn't sure she cared. Her talk with Leah showed her how much she missed out on. Mavis spent all of high school dealing with family drama and vampire/werewolf-related issues. That was anything but normal.

Mavis realized she never did anything normal. Her life was anything but normal. That ended today. Mavis wanted to do everything she missed out on in high school.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mavis walked through the Clearwater household with a sly smile on her face. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe it wasn't. Truthfully, Mavis didn't care. She got to Leah's bedroom and knocked on the door. There was shuffling on the other side, and then Leah opened the door. Her annoyed expression faded instantly. "Hey!" She thought it was her mother who was knocking. "What are you doing here? We have two more hours before we have to meet the others."

"I know," Mavis grinned. "But I was thinking we could hang out beforehand." Leah opened her door and allowed her friend to enter.

"What did you have in mind?" Once the door was closed, Mavis reached into her bag and pulled out the bottle of alcohol. Leah's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Are you serious?"

Mavis shrugged, "yeah." Leah was unsure if this was a good idea. "Oh, come on. It'll be fun."

It was reckless for Mavis, but Leah was interested. "Is this some kind of act of rebellion?"