𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞 / 𝐈𝐈𝐈.

11.

the ice

The police cruiser is gone when I return from work. I climb out of the Bronco and storm up the pathway to the house, hoping whatever supernatural being is currently in charge of watching me won't be eavesdropping.

Inside of the house, it's dark and silent except for the low noise of the TV as Mom sits in the recliner with Mina on her lap, watching reruns of ER. She doesn't turn it off, or even acknowledge me as I switch on the light. It isn't until Mina abandons her and comes to greet me that she finally lets out a sigh and turns her gaze from the TV to her daughter.

"Do we have to do this tonight, Heather?" She asks, rubbing the crease between her eyes. "I've had a long, hard day, and I really don't want to talk about what happened."

"No! Abso-fucking-lutely no! You don't get to do this anymore, Mom!" I snap, snatching up the TV remote and turning off ER. "For almost eighteen years— eighteen— I haven't known who my father is! And now, you're too tired to talk about it? You don't get to do that to me, mother."

"Well, you never asked, Heather." She says casually, acting as if we're talking about the weather.

"I shouldn't fucking have had to! This is my father, the person who made up half of my genes! Were you just never planning on telling me?" I ask, feeling the blood in my veins beginning to boil.

"No, I—"

"When? After I turned eighteen, and became an adult? When you wouldn't have to fight in court to stay my sole guardian?" It's like venom, the words spewing out of my mouth. But I can't stop, I don't take into account her reasoning or how she might feel about the accusations. Because all I can think about is who my father is and the fact that if I'm Jeremiah Clearwater's daughter, I've got the shapeshifter gene coursing through my blood.

"Don't you think maybe I had a good reason not to tell you, Heather?" She finally pushes back, standing from her chair. "I had my reasons!"

"Then tell me the damn reasons! Stop keeping things about my life, and my past from me! I deserve to know why I've never known my father. I deserve to know the reason why he wasn't there, so that maybe all the years of being chastised by classmates, all the father's days I went through without a reason to celebrate, will make some goddamn sense." I shout, my voice filling the room like a loud drum.

"I—" She crumples back down into the graying recliner, pushing the dark strands of hair out of her face. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. Because I was scared of what you'd do, or say. And I didn't want to lose you."

"Tell me the truth, tell me what happened. And I'll make my decision based on that." I say, steaming with anger and grief. With my head, I know she hadn't kept this from me to hurt me, to be cruel or malicious. But I couldn't, despite all the good grades I'd received, figure out why she'd never told me before.

"It's a long story." Mom admits, slumping down further in her chair, ashamed to tell me the truth. Unwilling to share what is my birthright.

"I have all night, mother." She flinches at the steely, cool tone I use to speak. Sounding less like her admiring daughter and more like an interrogating cop who's accused her of a crime.

"Alright. Where do I begin?" She asks herself as I sit down on the couch and cross my legs. "Back when I was in high school, I used to date Charlie, and we had plans to go to UW together. He wanted to be an engineer, I was going to do nursing of course, but he ended up having to stay back here in Forks to take care of his parents who were in poor health. I used to come home almost every weekend to see him, but my parents decided that Charlie was distracting me from the bigger picture. That, he was the reason I wasn't at the top of my class, and that if I kept dating him, I'd never go to medical school and stay in Seattle and become some big-time doctor, so they convinced me to break up with him. I didn't know how to say no to your grandparents, they were the ones financing my college degree, so I did. And it broke my heart, I tried to focus on school like they wanted, but when I found out that Charlie had married Renee, I became miserable."

"I started going out a lot, drinking, partying, trying to distract myself from the fact that I hated the life my parents were creating for me. And then, I met Jeremiah. We'd crossed each other's paths a few times in the past, but this time at a shitty dive bar in Seattle that I probably shouldn't have been hanging around at, we spoke to each other then. And he was, he was hot, and a wild thrill compared to Charlie, drove this old Mustang he'd fixed up, swore like a sailor, and could do amazing pool trick shots. And for a while when we went out, I was able to forget about Charlie."

"And then the first time I came back to Forks in a while, was the September that Bella was born. And it ruined me because I realized I wanted to be the one married and having a kid instead of fighting my way through nursing school. During that time I was back, Jeremiah had also come back and he filled that hole again for me, he would tell me everything I wanted to hear and comforted me like no one else could. That week, and those moments we spent together resulted in you."

"When I returned to school, Jeremiah told me he was leaving Seattle, and had gotten this great job opportunity in Southern California. We decided that it was time for the relationship to end, I needed to finish nursing school, and he needed to take the job. The day he left, was the day I found out I was pregnant with you, and suddenly, I had everything and nothing. I knew I couldn't reach out to Jeremiah, to drag him back to Seattle and Forks where my parents wouldn't have accepted him in but would've also probably forced him to marry me, and where his family situation was a mess. And I was also scared that maybe if he knew, he'd fight me about it. But I knew I had what I always wanted, I had this baby that was mine, all mine, and I'd never wanted anything more. And I knew my parents would be mad, I knew I'd gain this reputation back home for having a kid in college. But I didn't care, you were all I cared about."

My mind is racing as it tries to make sense of what she'd just said. Trying to understand and reason with the truth about my father and her. She looks a complete mess when I get up off the couch, unable to stay sitting. I fight the urge to scream, yell, and kick, resist running from the house and not coming back until I can't remember why I left in the first place.

"Who else knows?" I ask, my internal organs knotted up tightly with a sick feeling.

"Harry Clearwater and Billy Black are the only other people who know or knew. Billy had discovered my relationship with Jeremiah and of course, told Harry, and when you were a baby you looked just like Jeremiah did as a baby, and they pieced the puzzle together."

"Charlie doesn't know?"

"No. I planned on telling him after I told you." She shakes her head.

"I'm sorry. I know I should've reached out to him, should've spoken to him again about on it the few occasions that he came back to Forks. I know my excuses and apologies are never going to make up for the life you lived without your father. You have every right to hate me, to raise your voice and tell me how horrible I am." Mom finishes, bowing her head slightly in defeat and grief. I try to put myself in her shoes, I try to think of what she'd told me and try to find the strength to forgive her. But I can't, not now, who knows when.

"No, you already know that." I finally manage to choke out before storming out of the room and to my bedroom. The door slams shut behind me, shuddering on its hinges as I throw myself on my bed and bury my face into my pillow. No amount of fabric and cotton fluff can completely drown out the sound of my screaming.