Definitely Not That
I ran inside the house. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest, I didn’t hear Rudy over it. I scrambled up the stairs of my own home like a hormonal sixteen-year-old girl and, glad for the first time today that the twins were currently ignoring me, I quickly barreled into my room and sat down on the floor in the dark.?
What.
Was.
THAT?
I tried replaying the scene in my head, my vision swimming with spots, my breathing coming out in rapid bursts.
Did he just-
No. No, he couldn’t have.
I needed to be rational about this.
How do I be rational about this?
He didn’t mean that.
Mean what?
My mind was racing back and forth, one side to the other, the figurative demon and angel on my shoulders arguing back and forth like they were in a sitcom. I had to cool down, calm my head, and seriously work through what I thought had just happened, because there just… no. There was no way.
“I can wait as long as you need.”
“Start there,” I whispered. What could that have meant?
For a moment, I actually toyed with calling Ivy, because I would have done that ten years ago… but I knew exactly what she’d say. She’d jump straight to the thing I wanted to hear, because yeah, if I wasn’t too busy lying to myself, a decade had not cooled that stupid crush.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against my dresser.
Who was I fooling? Over a decade ago, I had been obsessed with Aegis, and there was no denying it. I had thought I’d had a grip on it; I had definitely come to terms with the fact that he’d never choose someone like me as Luna of the pack. The Luna was meant to be a balancing point in the hierarchy; a human would just… put everything out of whack.
Law required that any planned werewolf turnings be recorded, requested, documented, and approved by each state’s board of representatives. On paper, that sounded fine, but in practice, requests were denied 99% of the time. Probably even more than that.
In other words, unless Aegis decided to go against the law, I had to consider it a given that I’d remain human. Therefore, choosing a human mate- especially when Aegis could possibly find his fated mate, or at the very least, have an actual werewolf that understood the people in the pack- would have been insane.
So I’d been content to crush, hard, from afar. I thought my world at peace. I thought myself safe.
Aegis’s senior year, the last week of school, Brittani Choi struck. She was angry. I had threatened her role in the school hierarchy; I had taken part in Jade’s newfound backbone. Suddenly, she wasn’t the Queen Bee anymore, and people were starting to realize that she didn’t have a lot of control, after all. In her desperation, she chose to make me the example.
And boy, did she.
Somehow, she got hold of my diary, because like the stupid dumbass cringe teenager that I was, I kept one. I wrote all of my feelings in there, on paper, clear as day, because it helped me come to terms with my unreturned feelings for Aegis, feelings I never, ever meant to reveal to him, even if I wasn’t exactly… sneaky.
And Brittani Choi had read my diary, aloud, at school, over speakers, for everyone to hear.
I could still remember Aegis looking at me. The expression on his face was one of distaste. His stood out over the rest, who all laughed, because of course they did. The status quo had been repaired in Brittani Choi’s favor. She had sparked true fear in the student body once more. They had seen what she was capable of, as she crushed my spirit in one fell swoop.
I never talked to Aegis again after that. Not until… well, ten years later.
It was important to remind myself of all of this, because frankly, what Aegis had done made no sense in that context, and that was very, very important.
“Don’t be stupid,” I thought, squeezing my eyes shut. My heart began to slow, the high of thinking what I’d been thinking beginning to fade into disappointment.
Aegis had never liked me. That diary reading had revealed in his face exactly what he’d thought of that accidental confession: Discomfort. Embarrassment. Distress. He even looked disturbed.
And who wouldn’t be? I had basically revealed in the few pages Brittani had been able to read before Ivy or Paul or whoever had knocked her off her pedestal atop the cafeteria had stopped her. I was obsessed.
Even then, though, even then, Aegis didn’t do anything to me. He left me alone, yes, which spoke volumes, but he didn’t call me names, didn’t embarrass me. He put an end to the laughter, got the music going, and tried to redirect attention until my friends could get me away from the crowd. He shut down all attempts to turn me into a running gag.
He defended me, quietly, from a distance.
The damage was done, of course. I didn’t go anywhere public that summer.
Why is he so intent on helping me? I thought, squeezing my hands together. Is it pity?
It had to be. Over ten years ago, a teenaged Aegis had had to deal with that mortification. He must have regretted something, must have felt his actions weren’t good enough or… something. He was not flirting with me. He had not liked me back then, and he did not like me now.
He is just being an Alpha, I reminded myself. It’s how he’s always been. Caring- so caring. It’s why I liked him in the first place.
That part was true. So long ago, Aegis had gotten my attention at all because of how good he was. His ability to see suffering and want to do something about it had sealed the deal.
I let out a heavy breath and lightly thumped my head against the dresser. I could see his amber eyes, feel his height over me, the sheer size and weight of him like a security blanket. One arm on the other side of my head, penning me in…
I clapped my hands to my cheeks, my face burning. Stop it, I commanded. We know what he was doing, now. He wasn’t flirting, or hitting on me, or confessing. That’s ridiculous. I have too much baggage- and they don’t even know the half of it.
Free from the weight of confusion at last, I made my way downstairs and found Rudy playing a game with Lucy on the couch. His eyebrows shot up at the sight of me.
“Something happen?” He asked, a little too casual.
“Nope,” I said, firm. “Nothing at all.”
“You sure about that? You looked like you saw a ghost.”
“Nope. Nothing.”
Rudy snorted.
“By the way,” I asked, leaning over the counter and frowning. “Just what did you tell everyone happened all those years ago?”
Rudy stood and came to stand in the kitchen, lowering his voice as he spoke. “Not… much. My lack of foresight meant they already had no answers. All everyone knew was that there was suddenly a funeral for the Lake family, and you weren’t there. I cleared up the fact that you were alive, and that your family had been murdered by an illegally changed werewolf, but other than that… I didn’t say anything.”
I let out a breath. “They don’t know I found them, do they?”
“No.”
I put my face in my hands. “Damn.”
“I don’t understand” Rudy said, frowning slightly. “You can talk about it with me, why not the people who clearly love you?”
I looked up. “You already knew. You were the one who arrived first. I don’t have to deal with reliving it when I talk to you. I don’t have to bear anyone’s pity.”
Rudy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “We’re too alike, you and I.”
“Speaking of which…”
Rudy glanced up and saw me looking at him. He seemed to age again, looking older than he should have.
“When I return,” he rasped. “When I come back, I’ll tell you.”
“Then you have to make sure you come back,” I said firmly. “Promise me?”
“…I promise.” He sniffed in bitter amusement. “Are you trying to prove something to me?”
“Any way I have to.”
“You have to talk to them. Tell them what you saw, Sylvia, or it’ll eat away at you.”
I looked down at my hands. “I’ll do my best.”
“And consider, also, that perhaps people are genuinely happy to have you back.”
I smirked. “Not Brittani Choi.”
“You are obstinate, aren’t you?”
I pushed away from the counter and moved to sit with Lucy. I could still feel my skin slightly flushed from the not-what-I-wanted-it-to-be that had happened outside. I felt stupid; how quickly being back home in Werewolf Hollow turned me from a nearly 30 year old woman to a ridiculous sixteen-year old.
“Mama?”
I looked down at Lucy, who was watching me curiously.
“What’s up, honeybun?” I snuggled closer to her, and she placed her controller down on her lap.
“Did we come here because Collin’s a werewolf?”
My face fell. “What? Where did you hear that?”
“Collin said it yesterday. He said the only reason we had to come here was because he turned, and Dylan didn’t, and we got kicked out of our home because Collin wasn’t human anymore.”
I tried to control my expressions. “That was not something Collin could control. It’s not his fault, not even slightly. Everyone around us refused to see our side of things.”
“But they did kick us out because Collin’s different?” I didn’t answer, and Lucy frowned, looking down. “That’s not very nice. I think I’m kinda glad they did.”
“Why’s that, honey?”
“Because I don’t wanna be in places where there’s people like that.” She looked up at the TV. “And besides. Now that we’re here, there’s loads of people now that come to see us. Everybody’s so friendly, and nobody cares that Collin’s a werewolf, and that big werewolf guy is really nice. And Ivy, and Jade- everyone’s really nice.”
I swallowed. Another mistake. We could’ve been living here all along, I guess, and they wouldn’t have felt so lonely- except I had tried, really tried, back in LA, to make things work… Doesn’t that count for anything?
“Yeah,” I said aloud. “Everyone here really is nice.”
“I hope we stay,” Lucy said, decidedly. “I hope they come around lots. And I want Mr. Rudy to come around, too. He’s like a Grandpa, I think. I always wanted a Grandpa and a Grandma.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to stop the pain that exploded in my chest. “Your Grandma and Grandpa would have loved you very, very much, sweetheart.”
“I know.” She looked up. “Mr. Rudy will come back, right?”
I looked over my shoulder. Rudy was in the kitchen, back to us, but ramrod straight and stiff. I saw his shoulders shaking slightly.
“Yeah,” I said, turning back to her. “Mr. Rudy will come back. He said he would.”
“Good.” Lucy promptly picked up her game. “I want our family to be full of lots of people now. Mr. Alpha guy, and Mr. Rudy, and Sheriff Ivy, and the gamer girl Jade. All of them.”
I heard my cell phone ding, and I glanced down to see that I had a text from Aegis, of all people. I ignored the hammering in my chest and clicked it open.
Aegis: I’ll be by tomorrow morning
Aegis: Jade might be with me
Aegis: I’ll bring coffee
I snorted.
Me: You don’t know what kind I even like
Aegis: I heard you earlier. Pumpkin spice
I rolled my eyes, but reminded myself: He’s an alpha. It’s his job to pay attention to people he considers pack.
My phone vibrated again.
Aegis: Don’t worry about Collin.
Aegis: I’ll help however I can
I slid my phone away and rubbed my forehead. Whether I wanted to or not… I was definitely going to need his help. Collin was suddenly oceans away from me, and he wasn’t interested anymore in what I had to say…
I needed Aegis more and more with each passing day, and it wasn’t even by choice.
How embarrassing, I thought dimly. They must all be wondering how I managed to keep us together this long, if I’m this pitiful.
It was what it was. My kids needed the help, so… my pride could go kick rocks.