Instinct [TEMPORARILY ON HOLD]

We Love Counting The Days

A/N: This chapter has been completed for about a month and a half, and I just couldn't get it to turn out how I wanted it to. So, if it is awkward at times, I apologize, I've tried. Perhaps, once I'm done with this book, I'll re-write this.

***

We were just a few days away from Christmas, and the insanity of the holiday buzzed in the blood of everyone. The whole city was turned upside down - even more so than usual. Crowds flooded the stores, hunting for last minute presents; random ice skating arenas got smushed into every free corner of town; the whole city was decorated and turned into a giant snowball of a shit-show.

Me, on the other hand, well... I wasn't in the mood.

Unsurprisingly, my mind wandered back to that one certain thing that I couldn't tell anyone about, but made my head spin. It wasn't that I couldn't keep a secret - my parents were bothered enough by my resistance to release information as a child, even when they tried to punish me - it was simply that I couldn't make sense of everything.

I learned so much, yet I was still in the dark. And there was no one I could bounce ideas around with. No one to share this weight upon my shoulders...

Except for Alexander, of course. Who has been, what the Americans call MIA.

By the time I got back from the park that day, Alexander was out the door. I only caught a quick glance at him, before he rode away on his motorcycle.

Secretly, I stood outside for a long time, staring into the emptiness he left behind. I imagined listening to his motorcycle roar down the street, the sound getting further from me. In my mind, I was able to trace him, and differentiate that specific sound from the rest of the traffic.

Of course, that was the kind of insanity only Xander could pull.

Boring old me was only left behind to wonder what was next.

And looking back, there wasn't a whole lot of that happening. Xander took off that night, nearly two weeks ago, and I haven't heard from him since. I knew he still came to the hospital - Kala, who graciously forgave me in the meantime, updated me on his visits.

But somehow his appointments were arranged so that we would not run into each other. As one would say, he was avoiding the fuck out of me.

My parents were flying into town tomorrow, and my brother Leo was already in the city somewhere. Since I couldn't get out of clinicals during the holidays, my family decided to bring the holidays here.

I should have been mentally preparing myself for the horde of questions I was no doubt going to get, but I couldn't make myself care. In fact, I nearly flunked a test because of my inability to gather my crap together.

Thankfully, school was out for now, the semester being over. Which gave me even more free time than before to sulk.

"Sulking is looking great on you, Sophie!" Ellie, my best friend in town, grinned, teasing me. "I haven't seen this much lean muscle since Dr. Kensington took us to the morgue."

I scrunched my nose up, remembering the stench.

"Let us not go there..." I smiled over at her, despite everything.

Ellie waved me away. "Seriously. What do you do?? I have never seen you in such good shape!"

The bitter irony of my emotional mess was that I had nothing better to do than run. I took Demo out three times a day to the park, and we increased our distance every time. It was hardly a deed to my wolf, but my muscles were straining to keep up.