Between the Perennial Blooms || Paul Lahote

Twenty One | Hypericum

"...there is a rage inside him enough to split the heavens, and he swallows it (feels it tear him inside, vast walking storms crying out as they roll out into the memory of the ocean within)..."
—Elliot C. | when the sky turns upside down

• • •

"Bella's gone," Charlie muttered the next morning, staring at Bailey with dark, pained-filled eyes after she had inquired over the whereabouts of her older sister's presence. "She left," he said. "Again."

In that moment, Bailey wished she could pride herself in being one of those people who rarely ever fell prey to their emotions. She wished she could lay claim to the idea of always portraying strength. But she was a girl who felt too much too strongly, and there was no saving her from her fate. She would fall victim time and time again -it was simply in her nature. And this time, like many others, fate did not spare her. Tears burned her eyes suddenly.

Then they streamed down her cheeks all at once.

"Wha- what do you mean?" She stuttered, peering up at the only father figure she had ever known despite having spent so many years raised apart from him. "Why did she leave? W-Where did she go?"

"Dunno," he replied, irritation evident in his simple response. "Left a note," he grunted, slamming the flimsy piece of ripped notebook paper onto the countertop with an echoing bang! Bailey jumped, but otherwise reached out with one of her small, trembling hands. She pulled the note close to her face and right below her nose as the tremors in her hands made the words blurry, and with a shaky inhale, she began to read the hasty scrawl her older sister had left in a half-hearted attempt to explain her sudden jolting absence.

Had to go. Be back in a couple of days. Tell Bay I'm sorry for what I said.
I didn't mean it.
-B

"What'd she say to you, Bay? Did you two get in a fight or something? Do you think that's why she left?"

Bailey shook her head, remembering the cruel words Bella had spoken to her only the day before but opting not to relay them to Charlie seeing as he was so distraught already -namely because one of his best friends had just passed away not even twenty-four hours prior to. It was safe to say Bailey had been both shocked and heartbroken at the news Paul had informed her of after the Imprint pair awoke earlier that morning entangled in each other's arms. She had cried at the thought of never seeing Harry Clearwater's kind eyes and wide smile again -both having been stolen from him at the hands of the heart attack that also stole from him his life- and then all but demanded -softly and without much conviction, of course- that Paul rush her back home as soon as she'd dried her cheeks. The action proved to have been made with a vain effort however, because despite the wiping of her tears only an hour earlier, here she stood yet again with wet eyelashes and even wetter cheekbones.

"We only had a little disagreement, Papa," Bailey whispered after a quiet moment of reflection during which Jacob's hurt face from the day before flashed repeatedly throughout her mind. "And I don't know why she left," she told him, thinking back to Jacob's disappearance soon after she and Paul had reached the La Push border. "But I think I know someone who might."

---

Bailey had called Jacob a total of three times and Paul a total of two. Despite the incessant ringing, neither bothered to answer their phones. She presumed them to be busy -chalked it down to the many shifts Paul informed her of the night before as they laid awake in the midnight hours -Paul on the extra pull-out beneath his trundle and Bailey in his bed, the both of them adamantly fighting off sleep so as ensure more time spent together before Paul ultimately gave in to the urge to climb under the covers beside Bailey and hold her in his arms. He had told her of the perimeter runs they scouted in pairs, how despite its danger, such actions were necessary to protect the people of La Push and ultimately the tribe. He had told her of the bond they shared also, how despite its initial unbelievability, it proved sacred and cherished to not only the males of his pack but him as well. What he had not told her, however, was of his plans for the next day. Because he would not be seeing her.