Chapter 2 - Aurela
After a while, it gets easier and easier to make the people around you believe you’re happy.
What girl wouldn’t be happy, going through the motions of a wedding like this? My parents have spared no expense, including the designer they’ve hired to make me a custom wedding dress.
“We should have known nothing off the rack was going to fit you just right,” my mother said, waving her hand dismissively. “Not with the way you’ve been…flourishing.”
Flourishing. Her word for getting fat.
Because she believes getting fat is the worst thing that can happen to a person, she’ll never actually use the word fat. Instead, she opts for fluffy, growing, flourishing.
What she really means is that I’ve been gaining weight pretty steadily for the past five years. My hips and thighs filling out. My tummy adding a little pouch. My breasts growing to a size I could only have dreamed about in high school.
In high school, when I starved myself because the pain of that was easier than the pain of everything else. When I lost the first thirty pounds, when my wrists started feeling bony and my hips sharp to the touch, I realized my mom—and everyone else, for that matter—would praise that body.
They liked that my thighs didn’t touch. They liked that I was often light-headed. That I couldn’t run in gym class without feeling faint. It was like the smaller I made myself, the more people around me approved.
“Aurela.”
I blink, looking over at my mother, who sits beside me in the back of the car. She doesn’t like to drive. We’re the only people in Silverville with a driver.
“Sorry,” I murmur, leaning my head back, feeling exhausted from the day.
“I was asking what you’re planning to wear to dinner tonight,” she says, and my mouth goes dry from the thought of it. Sitting at a table in front of everyone else. The pressure of eating, feeling like a circus freak. An attraction.
“Probably my black dress,” I answer, because I know it’s the right one.
Since I started eating whatever I want, and my body has been changing, my mother has had a lot of opinions about how I can best hide it.
Black and vertical stripes for a slimming effect.
No other patterns. And nothing with a slit or window.
No mesh. Nothing to cover any less flesh than we possibly can.
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” she says, reaching over and touching my arm. “I’ll lend you my pearls. It will look very classic.”
I nod and settle back into my seat, closing my eyes and trying not to think about anything. But my mind wanders to dinner tonight and what it will be like.
Lachlan and Valerie are coming.
When they first started dating, it didn’t go over well with my parents.
A couple of years ago, when Valerie came over for dinner the first time, I was feigning illness.
Lying on the floor of my bedroom with a bag of peanut M&Ms propped on my chest, eating them one at a time, and listening in on the conversation going on downstairs.
Caspian was over for dinner that night, too. He might be my fiancée, but I’ve never really liked spending time with him.
Like I knew it would, the conversation eventually turned to the incident.
“I heard they all fled town,” Caspian’s voice pushed, loud and grating, through the floor and to my ears.
Talking about the group involved in that first fire—me and Tara, Phina, Val, and Maeve.
“I was studying abroad in Ireland at the time—my sophomore year of college. That’s why I didn’t come back to help. ”
I popped another M&M into my mouth angrily. Always talking about his stupid year abroad.
“That one was bad,” my mom said, avoiding talking about the fire in the same way she avoided using the word fat, “but it was just the start.”
“The last thing I want to talk about is fires, Mom,” Lachlan joked, and the sound of his voice made my chest pang. Even though he could be a pain in the ass, I still missed him. I missed having another person in the house, some sort of buffer between me and our parents.
“Fine,” Dad said, and somehow, just from the sound of his voice, I could tell he was going to ask about going for a hunt. He’d been asking me every morning for a week.
Obviously, I’d said no.
“Fine,” Dad said, as predictable as ever. “Then let’s focus on the fact that you haven’t gone on a hunt with me in weeks.”
Lachlan laughed again, trying to keep things light. “I’ve been busy—”
“Well, you’re not busy now,” Dad says, his voice getting louder, but still muffled through the floor. “Come on, we can even bring the girls with us. Maybe your sister could come. A family hunt.”
Fear spiked through me, and I got up for a moment, moving as quietly as I could to check and make sure my door was locked.
When I returned to my spot on the floor, I could hear Caspian’s voice saying, “Let’s do it, Valerie. Let’s go for a hunt.”
“So, it’s settled,” Mom said, and though I couldn’t hear it, I was sure she clapped her hands in that fluttery little way she did. “We’ll go catch an elk! I hope Aurela will come—”
“I might actually sit this one out.” It was Valerie’s voice, coming high and panicked through the floorboards. They hadn’t recognized her yet. If they had, there’s no way they would have let her inside, much less have allowed Lachlan to bring her over for dinner.
First, because Valerie is a non-shifter. And second, because my parents spent a lot of time and energy making sure my name was nowhere near what happened that night. And they sure as hell were not going to let one of the girls involved in the fire walk right through their front door.
After Valerie spoke, the voices through the floor went quiet, and I didn’t hear anything until Mom said, “Been like what, Lachlan? And you don’t have to raise your voice.”
Then Caspian said something I didn’t catch, and Lachlan came back with, “I’m like, two seconds from beating your ass, man. Look at Valerie one more time like that and see what happens.”
That piqued my interest—what I wouldn’t give for that to happen. To see my brother take on Caspian finally shut him up. Cas was—and still is—one of those alphas constantly puffing out his chest, trying to prove to everyone that he’s higher up in the hierarchy than he thinks he is.
“I just don’t see why you’re angry that we’ve invited her to come hunting with us!” Mom’s voice was getting to that shrill sort of octave, nearing broken syllables.
“First, your inclusion should not be some sort of fucked-up consolation prize.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my gasp—as far as I knew, neither of us had dared to talk to our parents like that before. But it was Lachlan’s voice, loud and sure, coming right through the floorboards.
“And second, I’m pissed off because you’ve been taking little shots all night. I’m tired of it, and she doesn’t deserve it.”
Rather than responding to Lach, Mom said with a gasp, “I just remembered where I’ve heard your name before! Valerie Foley. You were one of the girls who started that fire!”
“Oh, shit—” Caspian’s voice again.
Then Dad: “The stray of the group. That’s you—”
“Lachlan, I’m sorry, darling. Obviously, you didn’t know—”
Mom and Dad were talking at the same time, then their voices moved away. I stood quickly, moving to the bathroom, listening through the vent to hear better.
“…didn’t you hear what I said?” Mom’s voice was still shrill, coming from the foyer to the front door. “She started that fire, she—”
“We’re done,” Lachlan said. “All this fucking talk about decorum, about doing the right thing, and you spend an entire dinner making your guest feel like shit. I’m over it.”
And with that, the front door slammed, and the downstairs went eerily quiet.
Since then, I assume Mom and Dad gave Lachlan some sort of passable apology. Especially when they found out Valerie was pregnant. My mom couldn’t stand the idea of not being around her grandchild, even if she and Dad weren’t fans of the woman carrying the baby.
Little Levi, a few months old, but already with a head of golden hair like Lachlan and me. The little boy I hardly see, because I’m so busy hiding myself away. Dealing with the pain in the quiet of my room is much easier than doing so out in public, with other people.
Now, we pull into the driveway at home. Mom springs up and out of the car, not waiting for me as she hurries inside, just leaving the door open behind her.
“Hurry, Aurela,” she says, turning on her heel and heading down the hallway to her bedroom, her shoes clacking noisily against the hardwood. “We don’t want to make Caspian wait!”
I bite my tongue and climb the stairs. Since I started gaining weight, she’s seemed to think it a miracle that any man would want me as I am, not just skin and bones. According to her, I’m constantly at risk of driving Caspian away by not being perfect in every other aspect.
In my room, I close the door and let out a long breath. Immediately after, my stomach growls loudly, reminding me that my mother insisted we didn’t need breakfast—and only a granola bar for lunch.
Crossing the room, I open the bottom drawer of my dresser, pulling out several fig bars, an apple, a little box of cereal, and a candy bar.
I sit on the floor and eat all of it, still feeling hungry when I’m done, but knowing I don’t have much time until she’s knocking on my door, insisting it’s time to go, or that she wants a say in how I do my makeup.
Taking all the wrappers, I ball them up as small as I can and stuff them in the bottom of my trash can. I’m just pulling some tissues from the box to hide them when something tugs at my chest, hard.
An urge. A summons.
I turn and look out the sliding glass doors leading to my balcony, my eyes landing on the ridge in the distance. For a few minutes, I stare at it, the tug in my chest willing me out there.
Just like it did all those years ago. And like it has, periodically, ever since that day.
I’ve managed to avoid the feeling, to ignore it, but recently it’s been getting stronger and stronger.
Five minutes later, when my mom knocks on the door, I’ve stuffed myself into the dress and have on the plain black flats she likes me to wear.
“Oh,” she says, tilting her head and looking me up and down. “I’d thought maybe you’d be a little less bloated today.”
Adrenaline blows through me, the thought that she might stride into my room and find the wrappers. Figure out that I’ve been feeding myself outside of what she knows about.
“I think my period might be starting,” I say, then realize that’s not the right thing to make her happy. She’s still hoping that I might spontaneously get pregnant, despite her constant reminders to me that a bastard would not look good for the family.
It’s not like I’m just gnawing at the bars of my enclosure to touch Caspian. I’ve already told him I want to wait for marriage, and the idea of having to go through with it on that night makes me sick to my stomach.
“Hmm,” is all Mom says before reaching out and taking my arm, tugging me down the hall and toward the front of the house. “Come on, we don’t want to leave everyone waiting.”
When we climb into the car, I try not to think about seeing Caspian again tonight. The way he’ll smile and try to slip his hand under the hem of my dress at the table. The discomfort he’ll force on me with his comments.
How, last time I went out to eat with my family, he followed me to the bathroom and pressed his hot, slobbery mouth against mine until I choked.
I try not to think about that, and I try not to think about the wedding dress I’ll have to wear to the wedding I don’t want to attend.
I’ll try not to think about how this dinner is supposed to celebrate my mother hiring a designer, things coming along, the event hurtling toward me with a speed I can no longer ignore.
And the fact that there’s only one man I really want to marry, and that chance evaporated a long, long time ago.