Soul not Included

Chapter 120

Leah and I were sitting outside of an ice cream parlor. She was enjoying the sun on her skin pushing her hair back away from her face. She was in casual jeans straight cut and spaghetti strapped top. Plain white. I never hung out with her outside of Forks or the reservation. I supposed people were used to Leah. She just existed in that world and blended in with the background. It didn't help that she never dressed up to stand out. She was legitimately one of the guys type of girl. Around here though, she was making heads turn. It was hard to ignore all the single dudes that would take a double take but more than that I noticed something else. Leah wasn't one to care about her hair mostly. She kept it short for convenience and did nothing to it ever because once she shifts it wouldn't really matter. She had her hair pinned up at the side of her head with little floral hair clips. She wanted to make sure that there was nothing in the way of taking the attention from a choker that i have never seen before. The choker itself was a simple black ribbon. On it dangling was a resin covered flower in the shape of an oval. The flower inside: a red spider lily.

"Grace give you that?" I asked her after scooting my seat to follow the shade the umbrella provided. Augie had given me a parasol he owned for me to use today. I can't express how much I appreciated it.

She smiled. "You can tell?"

"The Lycoris Radiata. Part of the Amaryllis family."

"Huh. Didn't know you were into flowers."

"I hate flowers," i said.

"I know. I was being sarcastic."

"It's the flower that represents Grace's previous home. Their Queen's name is Amaryllis. Everyone wore the insignia on their uniforms... you could say her people are very dedicated to their Queen. So it's pretty important."

Leah looked down at her choker. Not that I think she could see it well.

"I don't know anything about where Grace came from before," she said.

I cleaned up my ice cream cone and looked onward to the sea of people. It wasn't crowded but there were still a good amount of them walking around to make me feel sick. I got used to the quiet and spacious place like Forks. Anything more populated than that makes me feel sick. I'm getting sick of large crowds.

"She talks to you about it?" Leah asked.

"A long time ago," I begin after licking my melting cone clean again. "We shared dnd character sheets. She told me a bit from the characters backstory."

"DND? You don't play dnd."

"It was just a lie we used to share with each other about ourselves without arousing suspicion... Edward was stalking me at the time."

She scowled. "Ew. He's such a creep."

I laughed. "Yeah. Creepo Edwardito."

"Especially the way he gets into your head. Hasn't he ever heard of privacy?"

"No. I'm pretty sure the concept is foreign to him. Sort of like how being polite seems foreign to you."

"Hey! I'm nice."

"Sure sure."

"I'm nice."

I gave her a smile. "The sweetest in the world."

Snorting she took a bite out of my melting ice cream. "That's better." There was a moment where we watched people together. Every strangers face was someone that could die and probably would if we didn't figure something out. "So?"

"So what?" 

"About Grace," she kicked my seat a bit. "About her place. Her world."

"Talk to Grace about it."