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Mia didn’t bother running when she stormed off. The speed of her departure never made any difference anyhow. If any of the others had felt inclined to stop her, they could make easy work of it, and it would have been done long before she reached the tree line.
She knew someone would come eventually. Someone always did, one of her siblings or her parents drawing the proverbial short straw, that person responsible for dealing with Mia’s frivolous human inconvenience of the day. Whoever came after her, it was almost always the right choice, like they all formed a little huddle to decide amongst themselves who could best manage her and her behavior and her mood, like she was something to be handled, a problem to be solved with efficiency and delicacy—a ticking bomb.
It sometimes felt that way to Mia, like she was an inconvenience or something that needed to be constantly managed by the rest of the family, in one way or another, their lives were constantly modified to accommodate her and ensure she didn’t feel left out or less than. But the modifications and accommodations did the opposite and Mia felt sick of it, sick of earning participation trophies when the others all easily took first place. She was sick of being merely mediocre at everything in comparison.
Mia settled on a rock beside the stream, rubbing her chilled hands together and wishing she remembered to grab her coat before coming out, already feeling the cold of the rock seeping through her jeans and into her skin, her thin shirt not nearly warm enough for any prolonged exposure. Shivering already at the wind's bite she knew she wouldn’t last long, but she wasn’t ready to admit defeat this soon so she focused her attention on pushing her heel through the mud, watching as the silt piled up at the end of her foot’s reach.
“I already said no,” Mia muttered, her eyes still on her feet as the leaves crunched behind her.
“Thank you, but no,“ she repeated the words she’d said to them all just before. "I don—” Mia stopped as her father’s shoes edged in beside the wall of mud and earth and she glanced up to him, a deep sigh heaving her shoulders as she pushed her foot forward once again.
“Hi, Dad.”
Carlisle smiled a bit at that, took it as a sign that this would all go a bit smoother than his wife and other children had suggested. His daughter had seemingly calmed herself at least a bit, her heart rate much slower and her words much kinder than they’d been a few minutes prior.
“Hello, Mia.”
Carlisle held the coat out for her and Mia fit her arms inside, wrapping the coat around her and shoving her hands into the pockets.
“Any room for me on that rock?”
“Depends on if you came out to yell at me." Mia mumbled her words, once again pushing her foot through the mud that had slid back into her trench.
“How often do I yell at you?”
Mia's heel worked on a stubborn bit of stone stuck in her path. Carlisle didn’t often yell at anyone, let alone her. Mia remembered only a handful of times in her whole life when she had been the intended audience. And those times weren’t borne from infractions like shouting at her siblings.
“Lecture, then,” she offered with a shrug as the stone broke free and she kicked it from her foot's path.
“Well, that’s a very different thing.” Carlisle smiled. “And I prefer to think of it as a discussion. It’s not often so one-sided between you and me, is it?”
Mia exhaled and scooted over, allowing Carlisle enough room to sit beside her, their timing coordinated near perfectly as she leaned into him and he fit his arm over her shoulder.
"So, what was all that about?” he asked.
“They just wouldn’t stop,” Mia said. “I said, ‘thank you, but no.’ And I tried to be nice about it, but they just wouldn’t let it go.”
“I believe there were a few other choice words you offered,” Carlisle said.
Mia snuggled closer and pushed her sneaker through the mud again. “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean any of that.”
“I believe you didn’t mean to say it in that way, but I know you well enough to know at least some of that was true,” he said.
“It’s just pointless, Dad,” she mumbled.
“What is?”
“Everything. All of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I may have an idea,” Carlisle said, “but I’d still like to hear it from you.”
He could prompt his daughter with open-ended questioning all day, had the sort of patience and genuine curiosity that would eventually bring them around to a point where Mia would give him a more complete answer, but they always played this song and dance in the beginning, always the vague, evasive answers on her part. It was something they’d taught her, how to answer without providing one, something which was often a help to them in many other aspects of their lives.
“You’ll just think it’s stupid,” she answered, pulling out of his hold to settle with her arms rested on her knees. She settled her head down on top of them, facing away from him.
Mia knew it wouldn’t sound as reasonable coming from her mouth as it seemed when it was nestled deep in her mind. How could she explain to him how pointless it all felt in the scheme of things? It wasn’t just about the baseball game. It wasn’t just about feeling as though every one of them held something back for her benefit, that she was holding them back, and the fact that she’d always be the weakest link, the interminable family liability.
“I won’t,” he answered, a hand moving down her back. “You know that.”
Mia shrugged, turning her head to watch the stream. Her father had never once made her feel stupid. Like Esme and Alice, the man didn’t have whatever was necessary to employ a condescending tone and for being the oldest vampire of them all, he was surprisingly in tune with and understanding of the human condition.
“I’ll never be as good as them,” Mia finally said, her eyes trained on the water.
“In what way?”
Mia took a deep breath, a part of her annoyed for having to explain, frustrated that Carlisle wanted her to tell him how it felt when the assignments she worked so hard on made their way to the fridge while the others got perfect scores on nearly everything without trying, and they didn’t even care. She had no desire to tell him that being celebrated by them felt forced because whatever she produced, whatever she achieved, it wasn't even worth being celebrated.
“I never win at anything, not really, and even if I do, it’s just because they’re going easy on me.”
“Because you’re human?”
Mia glanced at him and huffed. “And you’re all not.”
Carlisle frowned. “We have some additional skills at our disposal but—”
Mia rolled her eyes and groaned. “Dad."
"Everyone has their own strengths, Mia.”
“And weaknesses,” she answered. “And that’s me. The family weakness. I’ll never be as strong or fast or smart or clever or well-read or anything.”
“We’ve had much more time than you have. Your brothers and sisters have had a few collective centuries more than you to study and—”
“Exactly,” Mia answered, thinking of the wall of graduation caps, the family joke she wasn’t a part of and would barely ever contribute to. “I’ll never catch up. Even if I’m fast, I’ll never be the fastest. I could be smart but I’ll never be as smart as any of you, never be as good at anything. May as well just give up now.”
Carlisle nodded as she spoke. He didn’t love her phrasing, and he certainly wasn’t comforted by the expression coming from his daughter’s mouth.
“I didn’t mean that exactly how it sounded,” Mia added after a few seconds’ pause. “I just mean it seems a little…futile?”
“Your siblings would love another chance at being a teenager and human.”
“Well if that’s true, they can have it. I’d gladly trade any of them. It’d be nice to be something other than an unexceptional burden for a change.”
“You’re not a burden,” he answered. “Not a weakness.”
“Whatever you say,” she answered, turning back towards the water again.
“And you know, your siblings were all exceptional before. The things they have now, they had in them before the change, too.”
Carlisle gave that notion a moment to settle but Mia didn’t respond, still staring out at the stream and the woods beyond it.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Not really.”
“They didn’t all know what they were good at as humans. The transition helped some of them identify it, hone it, but there was always a natural predisposition. There always is.”
“Great and since I have no natural predisposition towards anything useful, I can someday be as boring and worthless as a vampire as I am as a human.”
Carlisle didn’t love discussing the prospect of his human child having a vampire life. Even if the possibility was always there, even if that had been the eventual plan since she joined their lives, the decree passed down from the Volturi, he still didn’t like discussing it.
“Do you truly believe that?”
Mia shrugged. She didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to believe she was merely ordinary or weak, but a part of her seemed determined to hold onto the notion.
“Everyone is good at something,” he answered. “What are you good at?”
“Nothing,” she answered. “I’m not good at anything.”
“Nothing?” he repeated. “Now, I kno—”
“Not comparatively,” she answered. “I’m okay at some things, but I’m not as good as any of you.”
“I don’t compare you to anyone else and neither should you,” Carlisle said. “Now, I could tell you what you’re good at, tell you all the wonderful things I see in you, but I don’t think you’re in a place to hear it. So you have to tell me— what’s something you’re good at? Don’t think about your brothers and sisters. Don’t think about the other kids at school. Just think about you.”
Mia glanced at him. “It’s not like that’s an easy question.”
“It’s not,” he answered. “People spend their whole lives trying to figure out the answer, trying to match that answer to another of life’s important questions. What makes you happy? The answers don’t have to be a perfect match, Mia,” he said. “They rarely ever are, and the answer to the second question is much more meaningful.”
Carlisle took the baseball from his pocket and slipped it into her hand. “If something makes you happy, it doesn’t much matter who wins, does it?”
Mia ran her thumb over the ball’s red stitching. “What if winning makes me happy?”
“Then I’d say you’re just as competitive as your brothers and sisters,” Carlisle answered. “But I would also say you shouldn’t give up on what makes you happy just because you don’t always win at it.”
“Are you trying to tell me I should play baseball?”
Carlisle nudged her shoulder. “If you don’t play, we lose our secret weapon.”
Mia smirked. Her human weaknesses were at least good for something. She forced her family to dial things back, forced them to lean into things they were no longer very good at— moving slowly and tempering their strength. None of them pitched as well at the speed she needed them to pitch at. None of them hit as well at the speed she needed them to match, but it was good for them to practice at playing human, necessary to their survival, even.
“I’m much better at being human than you all are,” Mia answered.
Carlisle laughed. “I would hope so.”
“I keep you all on your toes.”
“You do,” he answered. “And you remind us every day what a beautiful thing it is to be human.”