Chapter 7

Rachel Black

BBQ

Sometimes I felt like my entire life was one prolonged out-of-body experience. There were moments of pure clarity, as I would be going about my normal day, that I would just pause and have a few seconds of utter confusion, as if my mind and my body couldn't remember or understand what I was doing back home, back in La Push, taking my brother's and dad's clothes down from the washing line, folding them up, making mental lists of what had to be fixed all over the house, doing the shopping, cooking, cleaning… This wasn't me. This was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen year old Rachel, coping with the disaster that had been my mom's death all those years ago… this wasn't supposed to be my life, I wasn't supposed to be stuck here… and I would see myself, standing there in the middle of the hallway, or the middle of the kitchen, looking from the outside in, barely able to recognize the woman I had become – the woman I had so desperately wanted to avoid.

And then, just like that, I'd blink away the confusion and go about my day – I'd put away Jacob's and Billy's clothes, I'd cook up lunch, clean the kitchen, call to check up on Emily. Somewhere at the back of my mind, a dull, dead part of me ached with the mundane things which preoccupied my time – here I was playing the housewife, when just a few years back I'd been on my way to finishing college, working my ass off, meeting people and making friends, partying on the weekends and slowly – but surely – broadening the limits of my world until I'd gotten far away from La Push. But the reservation was cursed – it seemed to pull everyone in, it seemed to destroy lives and give teenage boys a silly, magical purpose that would tear them away from their homes, their dreams and aspirations and leave them with … nothing. My brother was only barely getting back to normal – I'd left a bright-eyed Jacob pushing my dad around in his wheelchair, making stupid jokes despite the situation and following me and Becca around like a sad little puppy after mom died; and I'd come back to find a six foot seven something freak that could probably kill a guy with his little finger, let alone what he could do when he turned into a giant, horse-sized wolf.

Jake wasn't so bad, but there seemed to be barriers and thick walls set up within our home that wouldn't let us communicate properly – I couldn't get through to Jake and he didn't want me to; we lived separate lives and he only mostly acknowledged me when he couldn't find Paul or to inform me of some pack bonfire down at the beach.

Where was my baby brother?

Sometimes when he'd be knocked out cold from some long patrol or some winded session with the younger kids, I'd look at him (in a totally not creepy kind of way) and try to find the kid I'd left behind all those years ago. It had broken my heart at the time, but I felt it had to be done – I'd thought of Rachel before the Black family for the first time in my life and all that had happened to me in the past few years was the universe's way of slapping me in the face for leaving a ten year old kid to take care of a wheelchair bound man on his own.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'd cried on the drive to Seattle, when I'd originally left La Push but that had been the extent of my guilt – settling down at college had taken up most of my time and energy and I'd barely called to check back on them. Becca had left too; we'd abandoned Jacob and Dad alone in that house filled with the ghosts of a family who had loved each other in the past. And now, I had to live with the fact that my brother hated me and hated what I represented to him: the sense of abandonment Becca and I had instilled into his poor little heart.

I guess that is why he clings to Seth and Leah so fervently – Sue and Harry had taken care of them, and they'd been the family to him that we'd never been. Sure, Billy seems to have forgiven me – hell, he'd welcomed me back with open arms and cried with happiness that I was back, but Jacob had given me a terse nod and gone back to yelling at Leah on the phone. I remember the sense of dread that had pooled in my stomach after I'd gotten over the initial shock that, yes, that hulking figure in our kitchen was my baby brother – the dread that came along with the fact that my brother was someone I didn't know, and I was someone he didn't care to meet.

Then Paul had imprinted on me and started hanging around our house more often which just served to push Jacob further and further away, and he started to spend more time around the Clearwaters.

The Clearwaters.

I sighed as I folded up another up Jake's tattered T-shirts. Dad was out having a beer with Charlie and Paul was off at work. Times were a bit harder now since Paul was trying his hardest to stop phasing, so tensions were a bit on the high side at the Black residence, especially since Paul got ticked off at the smallest, most random things. But I got what he was doing. And I appreciated the sacrifice – it was basically his way of telling me he wanted to have kids, he wanted to grow old with me… I smiled softly. In a past life, kids had been the farthest thing from my mind but now, did I want anything else other than that?

I placed the clothes down onto the table and stared. I did that often now – staring. Before, I barely had time to think, but now in La Push, time seemed to stretch on forever, like a piece of gum that you just keep pulling and pulling. The longevity of it all and the slow pace of life on the reservation put me in a constant state of irritation – sometimes I felt as though I was itching to break away from underneath my skin, like I was trapped inside myself, inside this stupid house, on this stupid piece of land, on this God-forsaken Olympic Peninsula. I'd want to punch a wall or kick over a chair or something, but then I'd see the photo of Paul and I stuck to the fridge and I'd calm down. Somewhat.

Emily and Kim had never known anything outside of La Push and the other imprints were toddlers. I'd always been the one with the most to lose, and I'd lost almost everything, just to be here, to be this.

I heard the front door open and shut, followed by heavy footsteps making their way to the kitchen. I recognized Jacob's gait and turned to see him walking into the kitchen, ducking underneath the doorway. My baby brother was too big to fit through a doorway.

He grunted an acknowledgement at my presence and made his way over to the pot on the stove and helped himself to some food. He couldn't look at me sometimes, but I found it especially difficult to look at him. I hated to admit it to myself, but looking at Jacob was just too painful, especially when looking into his eyes was looking into Sarah's eyes, into my mom's eyes, and I couldn't bear to look into those eyes and see anything bordering on hatred. I didn't want my mom to hate me, but she probably did after what I'd done to Jake. I could see her in the line of his nose and the set of his jaw, the firm line of his lips and the crinkle of his eyes whenever I got the chance to see him smile. My baby brother …

He settled down at the table in front of me and I moved some clothes around to make space for him.

"Thanks," he mumbled and proceeded to shovel food down his throat.

I cleared my throat and crossed my arms over my chest. "So, um… how was your day?"

He shrugged and kept eating. "Not bad," he said between mouthfuls. "Quite a lot to do, but I don't mind it."

I should get a job… I thought to myself. It would surely alleviate some of my mind-numbing boredom. "That's good," I added worthlessly – I didn't really get Jacob's fascination with cars, much less his desire to work on them everyday but I supposed any interest would be helpful in this case.

We rarely found anything to say to each other – I guess having a sister whose sole purpose had been reduced to being someone's imprint was not really good fodder for conversation, and it's not like they kept me in the loop on pack stuff – what I knew about the wolves, I got to know through Emily. Not even Paul was keen on speaking about that stuff around me. I hated that – hated that he treated me like some kind of weak rag doll who had to be protected from all the ugly things in the world, but sometimes I knew he couldn't help it. The Elders had drilled into their minds that we are so precious, no wonder they treated us as if we are made from porcelain.

Jake suddenly cleared his throat and I looked up to find him staring at me intently.

"We're going to have a BBQ tonight down at First Beach," he started, drumming his fingers against the top of the table. That small, irritated part of me wanted to scream at him to stop being so annoying, but I bit my tongue and let him go on. "The whole pack is gonna be there if you want to join so…"

He trailed off, and I nodded, giving him a small smile. "Of course I'll be there," I said, scooping up his plate and walking over to the sink to clean up. "I'll check in with Emily see which food I'll need to bring."

I was already checking things off in my mind, trying to remember what stuff we had packed up in our freezer.

"Quil is bringing his girlfriend."

I froze. I could feel something building up inside of me, some sort of tension, a scream, a rush of emotions that I hadn't felt in a long time. In the past years my emotional palette had become quite limited – since Paul's main reason for being was to make sure that I was happy, sadness, anger and frustration were emotions that I had become quite unaccustomed to. I set the plate down slowly into the sink and braced myself against the kitchen top.

"Girlfriend?" I could barely speak, my voice quivering intensely, my shoulders locking as if my body was shielding itself from this information.

"Yep, her name is Chele. He'll be introducing her to us tonight."

And then, he just left. No goodbyes, no further explanations. A small part of me was convinced he'd said that stuff just to get a kick out of seeing me freak out. Just to be mean. But Jacob wasn't a mean guy – sure, he despised me and my existence but he was never intentionally mean. I turned around to face my bleak kitchen, the one my mom used to make pancakes and birthday cakes in when we were little, with the white paint peeling off at the corners and the cracked tiles below the sick white light overhead. All of a sudden, I felt really trapped, like the walls of my childhood home were collapsing, falling in on me, threatening to trap me in this house forever, never leaving, never moving forward, always trapped here in this sad state.

A scream bubbled up in my chest, and simultaneously I felt as though my whole body was breaking. The dull, dead part of me, the part of Rachel that had resisted La Push, the imprint, everything, was getting stronger every second. It was like she was gripping the sides of my head so tight, crushing my brain.

I told you so, she screamed. I fucking told you so.

And she was right. Quil's girlfriend meant that imprints were not forever binding, that the magic that held us together was magic bullshit, that I'd given up college for Paul based on a lie. Tears gathered and spilled forth, staining my cheeks and my blouse. I could see Paul's face, feel his love and his touch – he was so present all the time, always there, always suffocating me with his love. I cried and cried and cried.

I cried for Paul.

I cried for my dreams, broken and forgotten.

I cried for me, for Emily, for Kim.

I cried for my baby brother.

I cried.

-:-

Going down to First Beach had taken up more of my energy than I'd anticipated. I had no idea if Emily knew of the recent turn of events, and I didn't really want to know. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and stay away from all this bullshit. I set the food down beside the BBQ and wandered off onto a random log set around the fire, sitting all alone. As an imprint, it was generally taken as a given that I would be manning the food station, making sure that all the guys got their fill and all that jazz.

In a past life, I had been this super feminist who believed that men should cook their own goddamn food, but after the imprint I'd just let all that go and accepted that Paul deserved to be pampered, much in the same way that he pampered me. So I whittled down my pride and accepted my fate as serving girl to around twenty overgrown teenagers for the rest of my life.

The voice inside my head laughed bitterly. Let the fuckers cook their own food. I had no idea who I wanted to teach a lesson to, or who I wanted to get back at, all I knew was that I wanted to gain a little bit of control over my life again, whatever way. Fuck the powers that be. A headache had blossomed at the side of my head – part of me, despite whatever Quil's girlfriend represented, was still adamant about the power of the imprint and my feelings for Paul, but the other part was furious and I'd basically made myself sick thinking about all the connotations this recent development brought about with it.

I heard some of the guys mumbling that Paul had gotten caught up at work, and sure enough, I found a text from him explaining the situation. I could feel all the love and emotions through the text message – it almost made me physically sick. I chucked my phone back into my pocket and rested my chin on my knees, eyeing the pack over the bonfire. Emily and Kim had no time to waste checking up on me, they were far too busy with the food, and all the others seemed to be engrossed in conversations with someone else. I was left mostly to my own devices.

Jacob and Leah were set off from the rest of the pack, discussing something heatedly. Heatedly was a useless word in this case, because whenever Jacob and Leah talked it was always heated. It was like they were always ticked off with each other, just waiting for the other person to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and they would just go off. Leah was facing the bonfire and Jake was standing behind her, positioned such that his lips were close enough to her ear that they could talk barely moving their lips. Their frames both seemed tense; the set of their eyes and the grips of their jaws. I could see the tendons in their necks clearly even from this distance and they did not seem happy.

Leah caught me staring at her and her eyes narrowed, her beautiful face collapsing into one of almost irritation. Before college, Leah and I had been inseparable, but I guess in the same way that I'd broken Jake's heart, I'd broken Leah's too. Leah's dreams were my dreams, and while I'd gotten out, she'd never had the chance to step foot outside the reservation. I'd heard Sue mumbling to my dad late at night, expressing her worries for her sweet daughter, but Emily mostly couldn't sympathise with her. I'd barely spoken to her since I'd gotten back – she always seemed to have more important stuff to do than to catch up with her childhood best friend, like keeping a whole pack of kids and my brother in line. And to be honest, I'd never pushed her for a conversation either.

But the look she gave me now was the same one Jake reserved for me most of the time – contempt. That I'd been handed the world on a silver platter and I'd thrown it away.

From across the fire I could see Leah's lips start to move again, her eyes focused explicitly on me, never moving. Jacob, too, suddenly turned his gaze to face me and I felt like a wounded animal being stalked by its prey under their gazes. Both of them acted like wild animals, I guess. There was a certain beauty and elegance to the way they moved, like Leah could feel Jake, and Jake could feel Leah. They moved in tandem, a duo, a team, and sometimes watching them was so satisfying that I got distracted; other times, watching them was almost scary – the way Leah's eyes sometimes turned almost feral, or the way the muscles in her slender arms tensed up truly showing the power she harboured and her ability to kill anything in sight. In some ways, Leah was actually more dangerous than Jacob – whilst Jacob's size and presence clearly marked him as a dangerous being, Leah was carefully encapsulated into a beautiful, albeit freakishly tall, body that was all things elegant, graceful, strong and resilient whenever she needed to be.

A part of me was envious of her – she was a vital cog within the whole pack structure and she was rarely kept out of pack conversations, she always knew what was going on and she seemed like she had everything under control. When I'd first got back, Emily had steered me away from Leah, given me the low-down on the horrible love triangle that had transpired between them, and warned me of Leah's temper. She'd proven herself several times over the past few years – sometimes I'd found her screaming in our backyard, covered in some tattered clothes, half naked for all the world to see. She'd stomped into our house with one of the pups in tow several times, to treat him for a black eye or a bruised lip that she'd inflicted because she hadn't liked the way his eyes had wandered on the tone of his thoughts. She cursed around my dad, hit my brother almost constantly, and mostly snapped at anyone who asked too many questions or anyone who wasn't pack.

But for someone who seemed constantly on edge, she still sort of mothered a lot of the younger ones. I'd seen her with them, especially recently, breaking up fights and keeping them apart when she feared they would lose their self control and ruin their phasing streaks; checking up on them at the school during her lunch break from the library…

Jacob told her something she didn't like, which was clear even from a far, as she elbowed him and roller her eyes and stalked off, to find someone else to torment. She ended up with Embry and Seth, and as she joined in on the conversation, Embry slung his arm around her casually. She allowed a small smile and eyed Seth as he was jabbering on about something and even for a small second, she almost seemed content with her lot in life. The way Sue spoke about Leah, it was as if she was a complete outsider to the pack, but that was clearly not the case – she was like their sister or their mother in some ways, and she definitely had her place with them.

A small pang of pain resounded in my chest – everyone seemed to have found their place, their role, their responsibilities and they all seemed to be happy that way – all except me. Maybe everyone was calm because they hadn't been given the wonderful news by Jacob from beforehand of the almost catastrophe that was going to take place tonight, or maybe they just didn't care …

As I looked up from the fire, where Leah, Embry and Seth were still joking around together, my eyes wandered off to the side, to my brother. Jacob was staring intently over the other pups at Leah, his eyes trained on her almost reverently, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

What the…?

My mind was about to start racing at the prospect when Seth suddenly started hollering, "Quil's here!" and everyone around the fire just turned to face the approaching couple curiously. My stomach swooped and dropped and I could feel the bile starting to rise up in my throat; I trembled slightly and lifted my gaze, and whilst everyone had their backs turned to me, facing Quil, Leah and Jacob were staring straight at me, eyes blazing in the glow of the fire.

Oh, so that is what they were so agitated about.

Leave it to Alpha and Beta to keep tabs on the most volatile of the imprints in these situations. I was starting to wonder if Paul was actually still caught up at work or if it was just one of Jacob's little plans to ease up the situation. Having Paul around tonight and him trying to comfort and cling to me to prove his love might have pushed me over the edge so, yeah, it had probably been a good call.

They slowly walked around the fire and sat themselves on either side of me – I suddenly felt like I was in a really stupid chick flick where my life was ruined by the constant presence of my dad's overbearing bodyguards – and Leah mumbled slowly beneath her breath, "Stay calm, Rach."

Quil was introducing his girlfriend to the pack and I suddenly caught sight of Kim and Emily next to the BBQ, mouths hanging open and their faces filled with a look of utter confusion. Emily quickly searched for me, then did a small double-take when she saw me sitting next to Leah, before she mouthed a What the hell?! in my direction. Quil was making his way over to us and Leah got up, pulling me up with her in one fluid motion.

"Hey Chele," she said chirpily (Leah was never chirpy), and leaned in to give both Quil and the girl small hugs. Chele was a petite girl with waist-length dark hair and large eyes. She seemed a bit shocked that Quil's friends were just like Quil – unnecessarily large and loud and scary, but she seemed to know Leah and Jake already. Of course, Quil probably had to introduce her to them beforehand so that they could approve of her themselves. "This is Rachel, Jake's sister."

"Hey," she smiled softly, leaning into Quil as if she was afraid of me or something – like I was the most dangerous thing around.

"Nice to meet you," I tried, but it fell flat. I couldn't muster up the energy to fake it, and Quil seemed to take the cue because he immediately shuffled Chele away from me and towards someone else.

Emily and Kim quickly made their way over to us, their eyes teeming with panic, their voices getting more high pitched by the second. I was still a bit shocked from everything, but all of a sudden, Leah started herding all three of us away from the bonfire and towards a more secluded part of the beach away from the group. If this was Jacob's way of diffusing the situation, I had to admit that he was smarter than I gave him credit for – using Leah was a surefire way to put the fear of God into us and she didn't seem at all amused by us.

"No one mentioned Quil has a girlfriend! Since when did this happen?"

"Yeah, isn't he imprinted? He's still imprinted on Claire, right? What's happening with Claire?"

"Uh, yeah, why isn't she here?"

"How can he be imprinted and have a girlfriend?"

"Did he break the imprint? Ohmygod, is it possible to break the imprint?" Kim started crying at this point and Emily was a bit shaky too, wrapping her arms around her and trying to comfort her.

"We were told the imprints were unbreakable, the most permanent things in our lives, how can they do this to us?"

Leah was just standing there watching the other two break down into almost hysterics, whilst I was having one of my out-of-body experiences where I couldn't seem to grasp that this was actually happening to me.

"Are you ladies just about finished?" she snapped finally, crossing her arms over her chest. She towered over all three of us and she seemed totally unimpressed. Kim quieted down into small sobs, but she still clung to Emily as they eyed Leah warily. She started muttering to herself – "I can't believe Jake's making me do this… Yes, Quil has a girlfriend. Yes, he is still imprinted. No, he didn't break the imprint. I don't know why Claire isn't here. I don't know if imprints are really unbreakable or not just for once in your lives please try to understand a situation that is not explicitly about you. Quil is imprinted on a seven year old girl, which means that to fulfill the destiny which we believe is written for him, Quil has to spend the next twelve years waiting for a kid to grow up into a the woman that he will marry and eventually have kids with. Do you honestly not realise how cruel and just downright wrong that is? Do you really expect him to wait out these years and marry the girl whose shit he spent years wiping up all so he can fulfill the meaning of an imprint as it is to you guys? For fuck's sake, don't do anything stupid. I like Chele, Quil likes her and you will surely not fuck this up for him, is that clear? I hope so. Any issues you might have, hash them out with the Elders or your imprints, just keep your insecure bullshit to yourselves. Now you will go back to the bonfire and you will calm the fuck down and you will not make this another situation about yourselves again."

She stomped away from us, not looking back to see if we were at all rattled by her rant. She was mostly right – Quil's situation was not our situation by any means, and feeling threatened by his relationship was perhaps the knee jerk reaction to this news, but not the only reaction … I eyed Kim and Emily, who were swiping at their eyes to remove any tears or traces of crying from their faces. They looked at me, and we all took a deep breath in, schooling our features to do what had to be done. I would accept Quil's relationship and even be happy for him, but this new turn of events had given me food for thought about my own imprint and suddenly, I felt as if the universe was placing my ability to choose my own paths in life back in my lap.

Maybe instead of seeing it as something solely negative I could learn to see the positive part of it.

I was back in control of myself.