rebel | leah clearwater

17

Leah leaves Arlo to sleep, sneaking downstairs in his shorts and a t-shirt to grab some breakfast. She's surprised to see Charlie sat at the dining table staring off into space. "Oh... Hey chief. I thought you and mom were going fishing?"

Charlie looks over, clearing his throat. "Ah, no she got called into work." He smiles. "Where's Arlo?"

"Sleeping. We didn't get in from the bonfire until like 2, so he's probably gonna sleep until midday." She giggles.

Charlie forces a smile. "Good... Did he drink last night?"

Leah takes a deep breath. "He has one or two beers, sure."

"So he had more, fantastic." Charlie mutters, looking out of the window.

Leah frowns, crossing her arms. "What are you insinuating? He had 2 beers, maybe three? Nowhere near as much as half of us there. He was mostly singing all night." She snaps.

"It's never just one beer with my son, Leah. It's never just one of anything." Charlie says, looking at her. "He needs help."

"Help? For what!" Leah glares.

"He's got a problem Leah. A bad one. And I don't know how to help him." Charlie says.

"So he likes a drink every now and then, don't we all? You certainly do." She says.

Charlie stands and goes to the cupboard the put the empty bottles. He swings it open and motions with his hand. "One drink? I only just emptied this cupboard a month ago. Usually there will be one or two bottles in there every month, minus beer bottles." He snaps.

Leah looks at it and bites her tongue; currently, there's 2 empty whiskey bottles, a vodka bottle and the tequila he got from Paul a couple weeks ago. "So? We both drank them." She lies, shrugging. "I drank most of them, my tolerance as a wolf is ridiculous."

Charlie shakes his head. "This isn't helping him Leah! He's harming himself-" Charlie's voice grows louder, angering Leah.

"You keep your voice down right now!" She snaps, glaring at him to silence him. "He does not need this kind of negativity. Watch your tongue. You have no place to say what he needs help with, you don't know him! Am I clear!?"

Charlie bites his tongue and watches Leah storm away, back upstairs. He sighs and rubs his face - he isn't wrong about this. She's too close to him to see what the problem is. He knows how this imprint thing works and she won't see any wrong, she'll always protect him. But is that what's best for him?

Meanwhile, Leah shakes Arlo gently. "Babe? You wanna come out with me? Get some food?"

"Mm?" He stirs a bit and looks up at her. "Naa, I'm gonna stay." He smiles tiredly. "Bring me back something though, yeh?"

She kisses his cheek. "I'll be back soon." She promises, heading out. She glares at Charlie as she passes him getting into his cruiser.

Arlo listens to both cars leave before he hops fast to the bathroom, just making it before he throws up. His arms shake as he holds himself against the toilet, breathing heavy as he looks at what he bought up.

Blood.

With a shaky hand he flushes the toilet and sits against the wall taking a deep breath.

"Well... That's not good." He whispers to himself, his hands still shaking. He pulls himself up and hops back to his bed, his right side aching. He sighs and sits on the edge of his bed, pulling his t-shirt off as he grabs his hoodie. Though it is usually oversized, it suddenly feels overly huge on him. Has he lost weight? How? He eats more than the Quileute boys most of the time.