The other person on the stoop is a beautiful Native American girl with short, black hair and a gold stud in her right nostril. Before I can ask who these people are, the girl spots Marlowe behind me and pushes right past Romulus and throws her arms around his neck, practically knocking me back a step.
“Marlowe, you dog!” she says as she squeezes him and kisses his cheek. Then she spots Rory and Kaleb and throws her arms around each one of them in turn. “I’ve missed you guys something fierce! Why in the hell haven’t you been writing to me?” The boys all smile and launch into explanations of how they’ve been busy with school, and preparations for the eclipse ritual, and “other things”.
I imagine that the last part is supposed to refer to me.
I’m the “other thing”.
If the cheek kiss didn’t already make my temper rise, this makes me see red. It’s everything I can do to keep my heartbeat steady. The last thing I want is this new shifter hearing the way she’s made my pulse race.
The girl locks arms with both Kaleb and Rory and turns on her heels to walk into the house with them without a single glance back. So much for Romulus’ concern.
She didn’t even seem to notice that I exist.
As Romulus invites the other man in, Marlowe pulls me along out the door.
“What’s the rush?” I ask. “Who are they?”
“Just some friends,” he says. His pace down the hill is much quicker than usual. I was hoping that we could have a slow walk together, a chance to discuss what’s really going on this weekend, but Marlowe seems to be in a big hurry to get back to the house.
I got that they wanted to get me away before these trespassers arrived … but now that they’ve undoubtedly seen me, smelled me, recognized me for what I am—despite the girl’s insistently ignoring me—I don’t understand the rush.
When we get to my cabin door, he gives me a quick peck on the cheek and tells me that he’ll see me soon. And just like that, he leaves me alone on the porch, the only sign left of him the swaying branches in his wake.
What the hell was that all about?
I don’t like the way that girl seemed so comfortable with them … way too comfortable to be just an acquaintance from another pack.
For what feels like the first time in months, I find myself alone at the cabin with my mother in the middle of the day. As much as I want to put off the inevitable, that’s the thing.
It’s inevitable.
I might as well face it head on.
“Hi, honey.” My mother’s voice is dry and stiff, as if she’s practiced for this moment. She’s sitting at the little kitchen table with an almost empty bottle of wine in front of her when I walk through the door.
That’s new.
“Hey,” I say, eyeing the bottle warily for a moment.
“We should talk about some things since you’re home now,” she says. I can hear her words slurring slightly at the end of her sentence. “You haven’t been home much lately.”
“Yeah, I know,” I answer. I eye the bottle a second time. “Not tonight Mom, okay? I’m tired.”
Not to mention she sounds drunk.
I climb up the ladder into my loft and plop down on my mattress to look up at the fake moon and stars painted on my ceiling. Rory helped me with that one night when she was gone. It was a surprising moment of quiet tenderness, nothing like the ugly temper that likes to rear its head at me at every opportunity.
Down below, I hear the swish of wine being poured as my mom refills her glass. Between her and
everything else going on, I have the feeling that things are coming apart. I try to chalk it up to jealousy and exhaustion, but part of me knows that I’m playing the fool.
Things will have to fall apart eventually.
They always do.
It takes me a while to fall asleep that night. At first, I stare at my phone waiting for the boys to text like they always do but when no messages come through, I start to get worried. I text them, starting with Kaleb and ending with Marlowe, but none of them answer.
They’re ignoring me.