Flowers for Lilah (Seth Clearwater)

chapter fourteen

  "Hello?" I heard my moms clear voice ring through the house as she answered the house phone. I was sitting at the dinner table, across from Leah, as I pushed my pasta around on my plate. I refused to look up, hating the pitying looks Leah and my mom and everyone else would give me if I met their eyes.

Depressed wasn't a strong enough word for the coldness I felt without having Lilah in my life. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sit there without thinking of the way her lips felt on mine, the way she blushed so easily, how her heart beat like a drum when she was near me.

"No, Lilah's not here. She hasn't been here in weeks." I hear my moms tone on the phone turn worried to whoever she was talking to, my ears perk up at my love's name. "Is everything alright?" My mom asks, her eyes flicking to me.

"Absolutely, let me ask," My mom covers the mouthpiece of the phone, and looks towards us, "Seth, have you seen Lilah today?" My mom's eyes look wary, she doesn't know of our fight, but she knows that we haven't been talking. She knows that I've been drudging around like my heart has been ripped out, which it has. She missed having Lilah around, Lilah was hard to not love, shy and sweet and soft.

"Not since school," I mumble, thinking back to how Lilah looked today as she avoided my eyes after 7th period. She was glowingly breathtaking, like always. I had stopped and stared at her for an immeasurable amount of time as she gathered her books from her locker, until Leah had pulled me along.

My mom nods and moves back to her conversation, "No we haven't seen her, but I know Seth will go out right now and look for her. I'll call back later, it'll all be okay." My mom hangs up the phone on the wall and turns slowly around to the dinning room table.

"Mom? What happened to Lilah?" I try to hold back the panic in my voice.

"Seth, sweetie, it's probably nothing to worry about," My mom's gaze shifts nervously, "Her grandparent's just said that she didn't come home from school today."

"What?" I ask, my tone raising in anger, I feel the fork in my hand bend with my clutched fist. I look outside, fuck, it's freezing out, I can tell by the way the trees are bending in the wind. The image of Lilah's small, frail body shivering in this weather only enrages me more, then a pang of sadness hits me.

"Um, I saw her," Leah pipes up, and I snap my gaze at her. "I walked a bit of the way home with her today after school but left to go home,"

"Why didn't you tell me?" I try not to yell, "Where did you last see her?"

Leah looks guilty, and sinks in her chair. "Seth, I'm so sorry. We parted like a mile from her house on the Oak Trail, I figured we were so close to home that she'd be okay." I start shaking at this, but pinch the birdge of my nose and take a deep breath in.

"Seth, Leah didn't do anything on purpose. We can solve this, maybe we can go to her house-"

"I have to go find her." I cut off my mother, "I have to make sure she's safe."

Before my mom can respond, or Leah can speak up, I dash to the porch. Throwing open the large wooden door, I'm phased before my feet can touch the snow.

I reach the northern part of the Quileute woods, close to Lilah's house. Her scent is strong around La Push High... but then it drops off on one of the trails leading North. Damnit damnit damnit, I cursed a string of obscenities in my head, my rage pushing me to run faster, smelling furiously for any trace of Lilah.

"Relax, Seth, there's no scent of the bloodsucker anywhere near La Push." Sam soothes me through our mind link, he is helping me search the woods frantically.

"She's kind of a loner," Quil's mind is picturing my beautiful Lilah walking shyly in the hallway at school, he eyes cast down and her cheeks flamed. He's playing back a memory in his head of him bumping into the small girl accidentally, and her running away in nervousness, barely stuttering out a sorry. The memory makes me smile, it's such a classic Lilah moment.

How could I get her to see how beautiful, how smart, how powerful she could be if she broke out of her shell? She didn't need to feel shy or embarrassed around me, everything she did was infallible. She was perfect, she never had any reason to feel inferior. I need to make sure she knew just how incredible she is.

I'm pulled from my thoughts by the feeling of coldness against my fur, small white flakes are starting to dust the forest, accumulating quickly. There must be a blizzard coming, by the way the snow gradually picks up. Shit, I picture my beautiful Lilah in my head; lost in the forest, shivering, as snow decorates her dark hair.

The thought makes me growl and run faster, I stop as soon as I catch a faint whiff of freesia and lavender. My heart nearly inflates. It's her. I follow the scent through the woods, growing more confused when it cuts off. I'm about to turn around, when I catch a strong whiff. The sign above me says two chilling words: La Push Cemetery.

And sure enough, on a bench to the side of the entrance is a dark haired beauty, shivering as silent tears fall down her ice-kissed face.