Love, Bitterly Sweet

Chapter Six

My life falls into a nice rhythm over the first few weeks of school. Max and I mildly flirt with each other every day, although it’s still slightly awkward sometimes. Nothing has really come of it though. We’re…friends. It’s nice, but also confusing because I’m not sure how strong I should come on and what I should expect from our friendship.

I do know that he’s a good person, which makes me oddly grateful for the daily torture I go through being near him. No matter how hard it is to be around him without being with him, I’m glad that I’ve gotten to know who he is as a person. He’s still quite reserved, especially around other people, but he’s also gentle, thoughtful, and considerate. It makes me happy that he’s my mate, even if he still doesn’t know it.

We don’t have many opportunities to talk to each other, and when we do, we never actually talk about the fact that he’s half-were. I’m dying of curiosity, but there isn’t really a way to bring it up in conversation, especially since we’re never alone. I really want to know what he knows about weres. I want to know if he knows about mates. I want to know if he’s willing to give our bond a shot, even if he doesn’t feel the same pull towards me as I do towards him.  

But since I can’t ask, at least not yet, I’m satisfied just being around him every day during school. He sits behind or next to me in all of our classes together, and I love being able to breathe him in, to feel his presence. He calms me, even though my body hums with awareness whenever he’s near. I can feel him brush his fingers lightly across my hair every once in a while. I notice when he stares at me for a few seconds before turning his attention elsewhere. And although it’s killing me, I love it. I love the idea that maybe he’s falling for me. I love the idea that maybe he likes me for who I am. And because of that, I’m happy for now not telling him that we’re mates. I actually relish the idea of falling in love the good, old-fashioned human way. There’s something secretly thrilling about the prospect.

So it’s okay that everything is moving much slower than I thought it would when the idea of my mate was still in the abstract. I’m fine with not rushing Max because in the end, it will hopefully mean that his feelings for me are genuine.

Of course, as a result of our budding friendship, Clair has stopped talking to me completely, not that I can really blame her. I still feel guilty because I know she had a crush on Max from the moment she saw him. Dylan keeps telling me not to worry about it, that it’s not my fault, but I can’t help but feel like I wronged her and ruined our friendship. She continues to sit at our lunch table, but she manages to avoid me completely. The whole thing has put a strain in my relationship with our other friends, and I feel even guiltier for forcing them into the situation. They haven’t been pushed to take sides, but I can tell that they feel uncomfortable when we all sit together.

“Sweetie, I know it’s rather last minute, but your mom and I need to go away for a couple of days,” my dad says while we’re eating breakfast, interrupting my thoughts.

“What? Why? Is something wrong?,” I ask, noting the tired expression on his face.

“Kind of. Another pack has been slaughtered by a few of its members who turned on the Alpha. The Alpha’s entire family was killed and there are only a few survivors. The Alphas of a couple neighboring packs have decided that we need to get together to figure out what we can do to stop these massacres. We’re going to have the meeting on Apium territory since it’s a central location,” my dad explains as he palms the back of his neck, obviously trying to work out some of the tense muscles there.

I suck in a breath. Another pack has been destroyed, making the total number now up to five. Even if all of those packs were relatively small, that’s still probably over three or four hundred weres who have been killed over the last five or six months.