I turn to see Tom sitting beside me, but I choke on my breath when I see it is Rory there instead.
The fire in his eyes burns the brightest. So bright, I feel like I am drowning in his gaze. I can hear his thoughts in my head and feel the desire in his eyes. His yearning is the most painful, the most urgent for some reason, and I can’t resist needing to give in to it.
He leans forward to kiss me and when he does, desire floods through me like a dam unleashed. I feel the heat from his body coming from inside mine as well and I feel like the two of us together are even hotter than the fire. I pull him over me and am overcome by the sensation that we are somehow tied together both physically and more.
It’s only now that I hear the howling I craved.
But this time, it’s different.
I open my eyes and for a moment I see Tom on top of me instead of Rory—and I let out a strangled choke.
I struggle against my mind and the influence of the mushrooms and try to decipher what is real and what isn’t.
The longing is real. The extremely deep connection is real. I can feel them, all three of them here with me. But my mind and eyes are playing with me because the face that I am kissing keeps flickering back between that of Rory and Tom.
Part of me wants to be sick, but the other part, the part that desperately craves the boys who were supposed to be here with me, forever, is the stronger part.
I close my eyes and will the face I see when I open them to be Rory.
And like magic, it is.
I keep my eyes on the face in front of me, that beautiful, sharp line of his jaw. The dark hair falling into his eyes. The passion hidden behind his stoic expression. I don’t let myself blink, don’t let myself close my eyes for fear of losing him again.
Rory.
I don’t know if I think it, or if I say it. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not the only one lost in the heat of the moment.
Hands fumble with the button of my jeans, and I don’t stop them.
It’s Rory. It’s Rory. And I won’t stop him this time.
I fumble with my fingers to undo Rory’s pants as well, and he leans in to kiss me with such fervor and passion that I have to close my eyes. Hands fumble in the dark, cold air rushes to meet my exposed flesh, but I keep my eyes closed and wait for the moment that I can feel him. Every inch of him.
But in the split second before that happens, the howling pierces my head so loudly that it jars my eyes to open and …
And it isn’t Rory.
It’s Tom on top of me. My thighs are open to him and in a single moment, he will claim the innocence that I’ve saved for someone else. For Rory. For Marlowe. For Kaleb.
Panic seizes me, and for a moment, I think I don’t have the strength to push him off of me. Bile rises in my throat, choking me.
I turn my head away and see the trees in the forest. Between the trees I see yellow, glowing eyes. At first there is only one pair of them … then suddenly, there are dozens. Hundreds.
And the panic is broken.
Immediately, I knee Tom in the groin and push him off of me. He hollers and curses as the other boys laugh in hysterical fits. Tom was right, this did make me feel something, and it’s that feeling that makes me yank my pants back on and take off running through the woods toward home.
For all the times I was made to feel like the outsider, here I am, the one acting like an animal.
I get lost more times that I have ever gotten lost before.
More than the night I went to see Remus.
The night I lost the boys.
The mushrooms are making my mind a mushy garble of sights and sounds and emotions. I try to clear my head, but it’s impossible because I don’t have control over my own mind. The emptiness that I’ve been feeling almost caused me to have sex with Tom, Tom of all people.
I stop once to be sick behind a tree.