Gravity

The dedication of this series (so far) is split three ways;

Evasive Darkness is for my family. You are all equally retarded, hilarious, embarrassing and amazing. I love you so much.

Full Moon is for dad. Whose absence has gone through me. I don't forget you.

And this one is for Ray. I want you to know that you're my light when the entire world has gone dark. I'd take on the whole world for you.

Please forgive me if I seem forward
But I've never been in front of anything like you
It's the last place I ever thought I'd be
When I woke up this morning
Is it true that you're always this breath-taking?
And you're smart and you're willing
My God this is killing me
Tell me all the things you never said
We could lie here and talk for hours in my bed

Take me with you
I will never let you down
I will love you now and forever

Secondhand Serenade "Take Me With You."

Chapter One

"Hey! Leighton!" I looked up from where I was searching in my bag for my car keys as I walked out the door from work. I was covered in food scraps and I was tired. I had been working two jobs to pay the rent of my ridiculously expensive one bedroom flat. It was Harry who was talking to me. He was an exceedingly average boy about my age who had taken a liking to me since I moved to Seattle about a fortnight ago. He smiled as he held the front door open for me. "I was wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out now that you've finished your shift?"

He looked at me nervously as I concentrated on the bottom of my bag for a moment later. I smiled when my hand wrapped around that rusted key. "Harry, you ask me this every night."

"That's because you haven't said yes yet." It was simple to him. He wasn't even a bad guy. He was nice. He worked hard and was polite. He just didn't understand that I didn't want to make any friends here. I was just waiting until I could stop coming here all together. I had been living a double life for the past year and a half. I went to sleep in my normal life and I woke up here. I went to sleep here and I woke up back home. Well, that wasn't entirely correct. I use to wake up in Forks, WA. I used to dream I was in the Twilight novels. But I left that behind and I was determined to not think about it.

"Well I'm busy tonight Harry," I told him as I walked towards my car. I had forsaken my old Volkswagen beetle and I was now driving and 87' Ford. If it could still be called a car since it barely ever started. Much to my annoyance Harry followed me to my car and he leant casually against the driver's side door, blocking my get away.

"You will say yes to me one day. You know that right?" He smiled at me knowingly. I pushed him out of the way so that I could unlock my door.

"No I wont," I told him as closed the door. I was relived when my car started with out any issues and I roared out of the parking lot.

Seattle wasn't that bad. I lived in Columbia City and after a while you got use to the noises in the night. A car alarm would go off or a siren would wail. It wasn't quiet like Forks. It was also big and I didn't know a single soul. I went to work and then I went to work again. By the time I got home I could go to sleep and slip back to Hudson. I wasn't happy but I was living.

My apartment wasn't exactly the most desirable. It had one bedroom and one bathroom and a small kitchen and living room space. I didn't bring many possessions with me from my house in Forks and I hadn't bought much furniture so I slept on a mattress and I sat on the floor. I didn't eat much but if I got hungry I ate take –out or two minute noodles.

It fitted what I needed, even if the stains on the carpet freaked me out a little.

As soon as I walked in the front door I began to take off my dirty work clothes. I had accidently spilt someone's meal on myself and on top of getting yelled at by that manager the food had now somehow crusted into something that resembled dog vomit.

"Please, Leighton. I did not need to see that!"

I jumped at the familiar deep voice and I pulled my shirt back over my chest as I swirled around towards the kitchen. Standing in front of the open fridge door, spotlighted by the light, was a large Quileute boy. He had short dark hair and had the incredible physic that would be envied by men everywhere. He was wearing an amused expression as he chuckled at my reaction.

"Embry!" I hissed as I turned and pulled the shirt back over my head. "Go home! Get out of my house!"

Embry looked around my small lounge room and grinned. "House? Could you even call it that? It's a shoe box. And is not having any furniture a new decorating technique?"

"It makes the room look bigger." I said through clenched teeth and Embry shrugged and turned and went back to examining the contents of my fridge. "I told you the last time you came Embry. I'm not going back to Forks. So you could you please leave." I pointed to the door but Embry wasn't looking at me. "And don't come back." I added, and I hoped he didn't notice my throat tighten. I had the flu.

"Honestly Leighton. What do you eat? You couldn't possibly have been living off one egg and a packet of two minute noodles." He looked up from the fridge and looked me up and down. "Or on second thoughts maybe you have been."

"Embry. Stop ignoring me. How did you even find me?"

Embry chuckled. "How did you even find me?" Embry laughed under his breath. "Did you somehow forget that I can morph into a giant werewolf and have super human eye sight, smell, speed and strength?"

I shook my head at him. He was incredibly frustrating. The sooner he realised that I was not going back to Forks the better. I had tried to talk to him rationally about this a hundred times before. He was forcing me to be a monster to him. "I'm going to get changed and I'm hoping you will be gone by the time I come back. You know where the door is."

I shut my bedroom door and quickly got changed into the only pair of clothes I had that weren't work clothes, my favourite sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt. Not surprisingly, Embry was perched on my kitchen bench waiting for me. He was only wearing a pair of cut off jeans. I could tell by the look on his face that he thought this was funny.

"What do you do in this place? It doesn't even have anywhere to sit down."

"I sleep here, Embry. Could you please just get this over with?" I was sick of listening to his small talk. It was hard to put Forks into the small box I had put it into when a piece of it was sitting in my kitchen.

"Do you want to go and get some food or something? We could go out for dinner. You look pretty skinny Leighton." Embry reached out like he was thinking out touching me but he quickly pulled his hand away and instead ran it through his hair.

"No,"

"You haven't even asked me. I've come and visited you five times and you haven't even asked me."

I didn't have to ask what he was talking about. The look on his face told me. He was talking about Jacob Black.

"I didn't ask you to come here, Embry."

"I guess it was for the best anyway. I couldn't have told you how he was. Somewhere in Canada at last look –"

"What?" I cut him off. He seemed pleased at my reaction. "He's not in Forks?"

"No," scoffed Embry. "Did you really expect him to stay? For the first week we all looked for you. He was convinced something bad had happened to you. But then we found the note and we realised that no one had dragged you off."

He paused for a moment as I determinedly focused on a particularly nasty stain on the carpet. I remember the note I had hastily written when I decided to leave Forks.

Jake. Don't look for me. It is better this way. I love you. I'm so sorry.

"What's he doing in Canada?" I tried to keep my voice steady; not interested.

"Looking for you," I frowned. Jacob never listened to anything I told him.

"He thinks that you would have gotten as far away as possible. But I knew better. I knew that if you managed to leave you still wouldn't be able to go far away."

I continued to look at the carpet. I decided that the stain was either blood, red wine or cranberry juice. "Tell him to come home. Tell him to stop looking."

"He won't stop looking. He wants you to come home. We all do. What are you even doing here Leighton? This is stupid."

I felt frustrated at his lack of understanding. Why couldn't he just accept that I wasn't supposed to be in Forks? Why did everyone have to fight me with every step that I took? It was hard enough fighting the part of me that wanted to stay in Forks.

"I don't expect you to understand. But could you just get Jake home to Forks? Just don't tell him where I am."

"Sure,"

"Sure?"

"Yeah. Sure. Ill try anyway. The pack wants him home as much as you do. But what do you want me to tell Bella? She's like a zombie these days. First the blood sucker leaves, which I'm not complaining about, but then you leave as well. You didn't even say goodbye. What should I tell Charlie while I'm passing messages around? Surely you've seen all the posters he's stuck up everywhere. He's put them up in every city on Washington peninsula."

I looked at the ground as Embry continued with the list of everyone I had hurt. I didn't mean to hurt so many people. It only showed me that I had hung around to long already. I should have left the first day I arrived, or I shouldn't have meddled in their lives. I should have left everything alone. I had seen the posters Charlie had put up around Seattle. I had to pull one off the door of the restaurant where I worked. "Have you seen this girl?" was printed in bold along the top of the page. Underneath it was a candid picture of me that Bella snapped at her Birthday last year. I was smiling at something off screen, probably Emmett. I was surprised that Edward had left this photo when he would have cleared out Bella's pictures. I could clearly see the Cullen's living room in the background. Surely, that was a reminder of them.

"Leighton?" Embry asked pointedly and I wasn't aware that he had asked a question.

"Don't tell anyone else anything. Just get Jacob to come home, it's where he belongs."

"And where do you belong?"

I paused for a moment. I thought that this was a good question. "I don't know anymore,"

"Do you want me to tell you?" Embry asked, his voice was softer now, less accusing. I looked up at him. He was staring down at me intently.

"No thanks. I'll figure it out for myself."

"So there's been no sign of the Cullens then? They haven't come back to Forks?"

Embry made a low growl in the back of his throat. "No! And good riddance I say. I hope those leeches never come back. Why?"

I shrugged and passed it off as general interest, but I couldn't stop my eyes from trailing over the front page of the newspaper that lay on the floor.

DEATH TOLL ON THE RISE, POLICE FEAR GANG ACTIVITY.

"Leighton!" I looked up from the dress I was holding and Eleanor shook her head in frustration. "Don't even try to tell me that the dress was so captivating that you ignored me!" she placed her hands on her hips and looked terrifyingly like our mum. I shrugged weakly. I had let my thoughts drift back to Forks for a moment. I had promised myself that I wouldn't think about it while I was in the real world. I had other, more important, things to think about; like helping Eleanor pick out a dress for her junior prom.

"You look so beautiful in that one," I smiled as Eleanor did a turn for me. This dress was probably the hundredth that she had tried on and looked great in. I was running out of compliments. On the rack the bright red and black stripes were distracting and just a little bit too loud for my taste but on Eleanor it wrapped around her body and drew the eye to her small curves. It was short and the back was low cut but it did have full coverage of the chest area. I decided it was a fair compromise.

"Do you think it's too rock star?" She asked, checking out her bum in the mirror. I wished I had inherited her small frame, or her motivation to exercise. I didn't know where she got it from. I loved my mum, and that was lucky because there was more of her to love, but looking at her was like looking into a mirror and seeing myself in 30 years. It was only slightly terrifying.

"No. It's just the right amount of Hollywood." She smiled at me broadly and I knew that she had finally set her heart on something. "Get changed and I will go and pay for it." I told her quickly before she could change her mind. If she did we would probably just spend the next five hours looking and then come back and get the same one anyway.

"So, you and Jacob haven't made up yet?" Eleanor asked tentatively on the way home. I pursed my lips and concentrated on the road ahead. I didn't want to talk about it and the last time I had checked Eleanor didn't want to hear about it either. I knew that she still hadn't quite forgiven me for forgetting her birthday. I hadn't forgiven myself either.

"No,"

"Are you going to go back?"

"No Eleanor. Let's talk about something else. I'm sure you haven't told me everything about this boy who is taking you to prom." I did a smooth change onto the only subject Eleanor couldn't resist talking about. Even though I was sure that she definitely had told me everything about him.

For a moment Eleanor looked as if she might resist my subject change and I saw on her face her realisation that this was what she had asked me for. She couldn't exactly take it back when it had come at such a cost.