┏━━━━⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆☾ ﾟ｡⋆━━━━┓
ALL HE DOES IS WALLOW..
IT'S SO GROSS
"TO THE LOVELY BELLA,
I'm sorry for a lot of things; like how long it's taken me to suck it up and write you back— like how I wanted to kill you that night. I'm sorry.
Rose says I shouldn't even bother writing this, that we should all be trying to move on or some garbage. But I had to apologize in some way or another, otherwise I think the guilt would eat at me for the rest of my undead life (lol).
As for Edward, I haven't heard from him in quite some time. I think he still blames me and Jas for what happened, and that I definitely understand. It was our fuck up that sent us packing, so if anyone is deserving of the cold shoulder, it'd be us.
Please don't drown yourself in the 'what ifs' and all that; you deserve to live the most human life possible. You need to fall in love a million times over, get into a good college, get tequila drunk on a spring break. Do it all. 'Cause I wish I could, but I've literally never been dealt a winning set of cards.
This is the last you'll hear from me for a while.
Your friend always,
Augustine Cullen."
ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆
Paul read over the letter in his hands at least twice before he turned to the brunette beside him. "You've gotta be kidding."
Upon the Cullens departure from Forks, the following months had been dreadful for Bella Swan. Eventually though, she turned to her friendship with Jacob Black for solace, only to end up uncovering their tribe's secret.
And imagine her surprise at seeing how Augustine's 'best friend', Paul Lahote — she remembered, was in on it too.
Which led them to where they were, merely a week after Bella discovered their secret when she'd received a letter from her departed friend in the mail. She'd grown accustomed to hanging out on the reservation with the rest of her newer 'friends', if you could even call them that, and turned up to Sam's that afternoon with the letter in hand.
When Paul overheard Jacob and Bella discussing its contents, the boy practically tore it out of the human girl's hands to read because for the last few months, Paul Lahote was having severe Augustine withdrawals.
Patrolling near the creek became somewhat of a chore. He would always leave the room when Jared would have Kim over, or if Sam and Emily were being overly affectionate. And above all, he was angrier than usual. When he first got his hands on the letter, he almost memorized the messy handwriting that screamed Augustine.
After the night the young vampire left him standing in the woods, heavy guilt plagued his mind. Y'know that saying, you never know what you have until you lose it? Yeah, Paul was feeling the repercussions of that now.
Selfishly, he wondered if Augustine was feeling the same. Only, she made it abundantly clear that she didn't want anything to do with him anymore. And something about that fact, coupled with the fact that perhaps she would never return at all, made his stomach churn uncomfortably.
"She's the only one that's sent me anything back," Bella stated, watching as Paul's eyes raked over the page one last time. "I've tried Alice, Edward, even Emmett— nothing."
"She tried to kill you, Bella," Jacob reminded the girl, obvious disdain for the entire family laced in his words. "I wouldn't be celebrating over getting a damn letter as an apology."
Bella shook her head. "It wasn't her fault, Jake— you don't know what's she been through," she responded, coming to to her friend's defence. "I'd never hold it against her, or Jasper."
"It doesn't matter, 'cause she's still a killer; just like the rest of them," he all but spat, lips curled back as he stared down at Bella. He didn't know Augustine, hadn't even met her, but he just couldn't understand why Bella was protecting the people who left her.
Killer. A word that Paul used to associate with the girl in question; but that was before. Now, hearing it come out of Jacob's mouth, he couldn't stop his fist from twitching at his side. "Don't say that, man."
Jacob's attention flickered to Paul's. "What? You suddenly on team leech now, too?" he scoffed out, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're just saying that 'cause she's your Imprint. I'm surprised you even believe in that shi—"
Paul's fist connected with Jacob's jaw in an instant, and it was paired with an aggravated growl.
Bella had stumbled back when the boys literally dragged each other outside, phasing before her to have yet another fight. It was giving her deja vu, because the way she'd uncovered their secret was due to a brewing fight between Paul and Jacob, with her in the middle. Here they were again.
Sam ended up emerging from somewhere within the home, squeezing past Bella in the doorway to go try and break up the snarls and growls that filtered through the air. Now, Bella had seen Paul angry before, but last week's spat was nothing in comparison to the rage she practically felt radiating off of him.
It seemed like Augustine was a sore subject for Paul, and no one was allowed to comment on her honour.
Jared crept up behind Bella, the girl tending for a moment when she heard his voice snicker from beside her. "My money's on Paul, again," he said, crossing his arms over his bare chest as he came to stand beside the human girl. "Almost lost my fingers when I asked about her the other day— would not recommend."
"You know August?" Bella questioned, turning her attention to the boy next to her rather than dwell on the sounds of distant teeth clashing in the woods.
Jared scoffed. "I'd see her by the treaty line, yeah, but she's all Paul used to talk about," he started normally, just before his tone turned high pitched in a mocking way, "Oh, I just hate how she smells like the ocean, and oh I just hate that she's "one of them"— and did I mention that I hate how good she smells? Like shit, never thought we'd hear the end of it."
Bella laughed lightly, shaking her head. "Surely he wasn't that bad," she responded, "from what I've seen, I thought he kinda liked her."
"Oh, he does," Jared wistfully replied, slouching against the wooden doorway with a sigh. "And ever since they left, which I'm so not complaining about by the way, all he does is wallow... it's so gross."
"August is probably wallowing around, too," Bella mused, leaning her head against the adjacent doorframe when Sam came back into view from the treeline with an agitated Jacob in tow. "If it weren't for the eyes, I'd think she was human. She's very... normal."
"Not normal enough—" came Jacob's grumbled tone, just before he was cut off by Sam smacking the back of his buzzed head. He pushed his way inside, Jared eagerly following him to get the details of the scrap.
Bella's gaze flickered to the woods when a low, almost pitiful howl sounded through the air. Sam must've seen her inquisitive gaze, so he piped up. "It never ends well for a shifter to be away from their Imprint for so long," he told her, the girl's eyes zeroing in on the taller shifter. "No matter how hard he's been trying to fight it, the spirit warrior within knows that he needs her."
"Yeah, but I think it's a bit too late for that," she mumbled, equally as pitiful as the howl in the forest, "cause they're all gone, and I don't think they're coming back."
⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆
[ wyn's note ]
paul in his wallowing era! cue: come back... be here by taylor swift LOL
started it with a letter because out of all the cullens, there's no way our augustine would've left bella completely high and dry after what happened because as bella said; she's very... normal. very human to her core, honestly.
till the next! (oh and paul obvs won the fight, duh) all love xoxo