Two

Sydney's POV

"You're pregnant?!" Penny was hysterical. I didn't bother to cover her mouth as she pranced on the park's lawn. "How did happen?"

"I don't know." I held my head in my hands.

"No, I'm serious. There were condoms in that room. Did you guys not use them?" Her voice rose as if she was blaming me.

"I don't know," I replied, feeling ashamed of myself.

I didn't tell her I slept with someone else. Seeing her reaction to the pregnancy news, I didn't think she needed to know the rest.

"Well, finals start in one week. Focus on other things for now," she said breathlessly. But I didn't fail to hear her whisper, "How do you end up pregnant at eighteen?"

Without a word, Penny left me to my thoughts. A part of me knew she was going to judge me. But she was my best friend and we didn't keep things from each other no matter how bad they were. I guess this was the one thing I would have kept to myself if I knew how to handle it.

For one week, I didn't see Penny. She was always in school but just not with me. The other kids threw me weird glances, looks I was sure they had been giving me for a long time but I had failed to notice until now.

"Hey guys." I smiled as I greeted some guys from the football team. Luke was their quarterback. "Have any of you seen Luke recently?"

Their captain came over and gave me a side hug. The football team had always been nice to me even before Luke and I started dating. But looking at their faces now, I wasn't sure if their niceties were because of my status in the pack.

"Luke hasn't been here all week," Brandon, their captain told me.

"Oh. Isn't he going to play for that sponsorship company immediately after our finals? I thought he'd be practicing."

He shrugged. "Me too. Seems we were both wrong. How are you doing?"

The already existing knots in my stomach tightened. "I'm fine. How's practice going?"

"Good. I'll see you around then," he said before jogging back to the center of the gym.

Looking further for Luke was useless as the school was emptying and I needed to get home before my mother caused a scene.

A bright light hit my closed eyes, forcing me to turn to my side before peeling them open. Day two of my final exams and I couldn't feel worse. Yesterday was a disaster. Looking at my blue sheets, I knew I'd be failing French and AP Physics. My hand groped around for my phone under the sheets till I found it. Wanting to dial Luke and Penny's numbers again, I unlocked it.

My heart leaped. An SMS notification from Penny.

Hey sweetie. How are you doing? Sorry for being unavailable these past few days. I've been at a loss for your situation but I think I found a way out of this. I'll tell you when we meet at school today.

At a loss for my situation? If I wasn't forcing myself not to puke, I'd have laughed. Either way, I wanted to hear her solution so I kicked off the covers and rolled out of my bed. Recently, I started rolling off the bed because it made it easier for me to get up amidst the fatigue. Ten minutes, a rushed bath and some ill-matching clothes later, I was downstairs in my mom's personal kitchen to take an apple. What I wasn't prepared for was seeing my dad.

My dad rarely saw me and vice versa. It helped actually because I was scared of him. Living in the pack house made things easy because that way, I could avoid him even if we ran into each other.

"Good morning…Dad," I stuttered and got a growl as a reply. "Good morning, Mom. I'll see you two when I get back."

"It's ten minutes past 9 AM," my mom pointed out.

Oh shit. I didn't check the time. And my exam was supposed to start in twenty minutes. "Exam starts at half past nine. Better I get there as soon as I can." I went in for the peck Penny said I should give her every time when my dad's voice shattered me.

"You're not going to school today. We have lots to discuss with you." He always sounded grumpy but today, Alpha Jackson sounded like a man who was ready to kill.

"But my exam-"

"We've taken care of it. Go to your room and wait for us to call you."

I looked at my mom who was engrossed in whatever she was baking. Knowing I wouldn't get any backup from her, I obeyed. Hands shaking, I typed a message and sent it to Penny explaining the situation as soon as I got to my room. My dad was an unpredictable man. I couldn't even guess what he wanted to talk about. Maybe the school called about my grades? They'd been dropping for a while now anyway. I took deep breaths to calm myself. It didn't work.

Beads of sweat decorated my forehead as I waited. Just as I left the toilet after spilling my guts, my heart jumped when the door opened and my parents strode in.

"You said…you'd call me," I managed to say. The looks I received got my heart pounding faster. My father, a well-built six-footer stared down at me in disgust as he retrieved a stick from his pocket. I almost died at the sight of my pregnancy test.

"Explain this," my mom finally spoke.

Bending my head in shame, I replied, "It's a friend's."

A chuckle escaped my dad's lips. "Wow. So your friend got pregnant and you became the custodian of her test?"

"Yeah. A teacher almost caught us and-"

"We saw the box under your sheets, Sydney," she said. "Rather, your maid saw it and brought it to me."

I noticed my dad's fists clench. "Okay. It's mine-"

"We've established that," he said quietly. Was he going to punish me physically? I didn't even know what he'd do to me. "How could you be so reckless? You're a disgrace to this family and this pack!"

I heard him yell for the first time. If they came to my room to keep the matter private, his voice ruined that. "I'm sorry." Tears fell from my eyes. "I'll do something about it, I promise."

I don't think he heard me because he continued yelling. "And you want to be Luna someday? I just wonder what you'll do by then!"

"I'm very sorry," I whispered, holding my hands to my ears.

"And to think that boyfriend of yours is supposed to be the responsible one. How do you even have a boyfriend at your age?" he continued.

"No. Luke has nothing to do with this," I pleaded, my eyes wide.

"He'll have to tell us himself," my mom said.

"Please, punish me if you want but leave him out of this," I begged.

"Too bad I already invited him over," my dad replied. His chest rose and fell with the anger he undoubtedly had left in him. "You will not leave this room till we call you." With that, he slammed the door on their way out.

I slid to the floor in tears and stayed that way for what must have been hours. By the time a maid came to get me, my back hurt and my knees were stiff from being in one position for too long.

By the time we arrived in our private living room, my dad was inches away from punching Luke. Everyone looked up at me: my mom was disappointed, my dad was angry but I was more surprised at Luke. He just sat there as if we were meeting for the first time.

"Repeat what you said earlier," my father ordered.

"I am not in a relationship with your daughter, sir. We're just in the same grade. And we don't even share the same classes."

"What?" My heart shattered. "Luke, why?"

He frowned. "I have a girlfriend. Penny — she's my mate. She's talked about you once but I don't even know you like that," he insisted. His eyes showed he knew me but I couldn't wrap my head around the rest. It all made sense now but my banging head, shaking hands and wobbly legs still couldn't understand as tears traveled down my face.

My father ordered him to leave before turning to me. "So you don't even know the father." His voice came like a silent missile. Then he got up and dragged me to the busiest part of the pack house.

"You, Sydney Cambell are a disgrace to this pack. Henceforth, you seize to be my daughter, and you are banished from York pack. have twenty minutes to get your things and cross the border."

People murmured around us when my father finished his decree and left me standing in my pile of humiliation.

In ten minutes, I had some essentials my mom packed for me in a backpack and a duffel bag. "I can't go past this house. So find this address and stay with your aunt for as long as you can," she whispered as she squeezed a paper into my hand.

Numbly, I walked out of the house I grew up in with a broken heart, an unknown direction and without a clue of what to do next.