Still Breathing [Jacob Black]

Chapter Seven

Felicity

As the week progressed, Paul kept finding new ways to annoy me about working on Valentine's Day. He even tried to convince me to call in sick and take the day to myself. As if that was ever an appealing idea. So when the day rolled around, I hadn't budged even a little and went to work as planned.

I was only there for an hour when I started to regret not doing as Paul had urged.

Because Bella Swan walked in—with Jacob Black in tow.

Really, I shouldn't have been surprised. Lots of people were stopping in for last minute things for their Valentines. Whether it was flowers—which we were beginning to run low on and I was already dreading the moment when we ran out, for I would definitely have to deal with frustrated customers after that point—or chocolates—which we still had an abundance of, thank goodness—or whatever odds and ends people needed to make their plans go well, we were exceptionally busy. It only made sense that Bella Swan would stop by. She lived in Forks. There was only one grocery store in town.

And it only made sense that she would bring Jacob Black with her, too. Since he appeared to be her boyfriend...a fact that caused an emotion I refused to acknowledge to burn in my chest.

They walked in, arms brushing, and didn't even notice me. So I turned my focus back to the cash register and tried to act as normal as possible. I'd already acted like an idiot at dinner last week—and had been avoiding eye contact with Bella at school ever since. I didn't need to make things worse by embarrassing myself now, in front of an entire store of people.

About five minutes later, the second reason I regretted showing up to work walked in the door.

And marched straight up to me, slapping a small stack of papers down in front of me, ignoring the customer I was handing change to.

I gave the customer an apologetic smile and shoved the change into her hands before turning to face the newcomer—Leah Clearwater.

Now that was surprising. I'd never talked to Leah Clearwater before in my life. I knew who she was—most people who lived in Forks and La Push did, thanks to her big drama with Sam however long ago. And I'd seen her around even before that. But we'd never been introduced, never had a conversation. So I had no clue in the world as to why she was in front of me right now glaring.

"Sign them," she ordered, her voice full of anger. What had I done? My mind tried to figure out what was going on, and I just stood there gaping at Leah. This apparently pissed her off even more because she leaned closer and barked, "Sign them!"

That snapped me out of it and caused me to look down at what, exactly, she was so eager for me to sign. My eyes ran over the words once—twice. Nothing registered. I was in shock. What was even happening? I was at work...but Leah was here...and she wanted me to sign...

"Oh," I murmured, blinking in an attempt to clear my head. "Oh." I blinked some more, then started glancing around. Surely there was a pen somewhere...

Leah slammed one down on top of the sheaf of papers—the divorce papers that she wanted me to sign. To officially separate myself from Elijah. Because, if my reasoning skills were still up to par, Leah Clearwater is the woman he left me for. "Hurry on up, little girl, I've got plans tonight." The smirk on her lips was outright cruel.

But I was feeling nothing. My stomach had dropped when I realized what the papers were and what was seriously happening here—right now, on Valentine's Day, while I was at work—and my emotions had been stifled ever since. All I could do was blink and uncap the pen, signing my name at the places indicated. There were colorful sticky notes marking the places and everything. I guessed they were eager to get me out of the picture.