Anti-Hero || Leah Clearwater

24 - Ashes

"I didn't have it in myself to go with grace
And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves"

my tears ricochet - Taylor Swift

The colour of the walls in her bedroom was a light yellow, almost white. From her position on the bed, she could see her desk with the computer on it, the posters she had hanged on the wall during the high school years and the large window overlooking the courtyard of the house.

Outside, spring was still a long way off. The leaves on the trees were almost frozen by the cold and the rain that had been raging for days. Or, at least, since she had come home.

A plate with some toast on it was abandoned on the floor, next to her bed. Her mother had made her something to eat, the night before, but she had not been hungry.

The sky was grey and the clouds were heavy from the rain, so she couldn't really tell if it was early morning or almost lunch time. She had fell asleep around 4 am, too tired to keep thinking.

She kept replaying in her mind the moments when she had shared information about the pack with him. She kept thinking about how much information she might have given him and whether or not it was important enough to put her and the people she cared about at risk.

Within her, a constant battle raged between the anxiety of the unknown, the guilt of betraying her pack to a vampire - a Volturi -, and the gnawing pain. As she did with Sam, she tried to push it all away, to focus on anything but the dull ache in her chest that intensified with every thought of her foolish trust.

She couldn't think that she had dared to believe, even for a fleeting moment, that he cared for her.

When he had held her in his arms, while she was crying, when he had confessed her that he had order just what she liked for the grocery shopping they delivered at his house, when he had shielded her from Demetri... when he had touched her with an intensity that hinted at an unspoken, but consuming, desire.

With Sam, her anger had been a raging inferno, capable of consuming the entire world. But now, she felt an emptiness that drained her soul. The realization of her own foolishness made her feel like the very thing she had sworn never to feel again: a failure. Yet, her imprinting had been a tragedy waiting to happen, a disaster she had blindly embraced like a stupid girl.

She wasn't sure she would come out of this whole in one piece this time. It was impossible to think of surviving the intensity of the emotions that were crowding her mind.

She closed her eyes, feeling a fresh wave of tears welling up, and released a trembling breath. Outside, she heard the sound of paws on the wet ground, the soft scraping of claws against the wood that covered the exterior of her house.

Jacob.

If he had shown up in animal form, it was obviously too early to ring the doorbell.

Leah turned over, facing away from the window.

She had refused to speak to anyone but her mother and Seth since she had arrived at home.

When she had landed in Vancouver, she didn't had bother calling anyone. She simply had got into her car and had drove, without stopping once, until she had reached home. Since it had been approaching evening, she had greeted her mother, who had scrutinized her as if she were a stranger, and had claimed to be exhausted from the journey. With that, she had gone to her room and never got out.