Chapter Two

SEVEN YEARS AGO (Continuation)

I woke up at sunrise to feel my bed for the beautiful stranger I had slept with, but all I could feel was only bed. The stranger had disappeared.

I batted my eyelids open as morning light washed into my room. I sat up and forced my mind to be alert, half puzzled, half astonished. Has the stranger gone to use the restroom? I wanted to call his name.

But it's funny. I didn't even know his bloody name.

Someone had given me the best ride I'd had in a while in the middle of last night. And I didn't know his name!

I decided to stand from my bed to go search the restroom. "Hello," I said and knocked on the restroom's door.

No answer.

I opened the door for confirmation. It was possible he was taking a shit and would be too embarrassed to answer me in the middle of it. But the restroom was empty of the dude. My towel on a stand was as neatly folded as I had left it.

I shut the restroom's door and headed back for my bed, making sure to check the bedside table for a clue, a note, a pointer, a phone number, anything to assure me the wolf hadn't just upped and left, that he was coming back here.

But I found no note.

Then it hit me.

I had been used.

The fcking boy had used me. I wasn't usually a deep sleeper. But I slept like a baby. When did he wake up? How did he do it? We were under the same quilt last night. There's no way he'd have slipped out of the quilt without me stirring. But even if that hadn't been enough to wake me, at least his belt should have done it. Men generally are clumsy when wearing their belts. The clack of metal against metal should have woken me up. The sound of him turning the keys into the keyhole should have woken me up. But instead I slept like a....

A drugged bitch.

I didn't remember being drugged, though. I hadn't abandoned my drink in the bar to use the toilet or something. I was with him all the while until the sex. It must be the sex. G****e says sex itself is an aphrodisiac. A great sleeping pill.

I lifted the duvet and a red stain caught my eye. It dawned on me without warning.

I had lost my virginity to a one night stander.

And it was my fault I didn't get his name last night. I had refused to exchange names thinking I was going to see him when I woke up. Then again, who's to say he wouldn't have given me a wrong name?

The once illuminating sunlight suddenly went dim, and my room felt as though it was closing in on me, like it was too small to contain me.

I was about to cry when my phone buzzed. The urge to cry temporarily faded as I thought to myself: perhaps he took my number after all and was sending me a message to let me know he was back home safe, and we could  grab lunch someday soon and maybe kick off from where we stopped last night.’

I picked up my phone with enthusiasm. But it turned out to be messages from my two best friends who were dying to know how it went. They had dropped so many texts, especially Jody, and I didn’t know where to start replying.

Jody: “Hey badass gurrrrl!” (smiling emoji)            “How did it goo!”            “Omgg can’t wait to hear the details.”            “Spare nothing. Spill it like spoilt milk”             “Why ain’t you replying, Gracie? Is the D so good you can’t get up?” (Emoji whose eyes are love)             “Should I come over? You still going back home today right?”              “Call me!”

I cringed at Jody’s messages and dropped my phone.

On my bed, I bring my knee to my lower jaw and grab my folded legs, feeling angry. Although honestly there should be nothing to be angry about. It was a one-night stand! Then again, nothing stops a one-night stand from being respectful. I didn't deserve this sudden abandonment, this leaving without the simple dignity of dropping something as little as a note.

It's like he never even existed. Like yesterday didn't happen. Like I had made out everything from my imagination.

............

NK: “Hey friendship, how are you? Are you okay? How are you feeling?”        “How did everything go? Did you really get some with the white shirt Mr. Chardonnay guy? You guys seemed so smitten by each other, I won’t be surprised if you turn out to be mates.”         “Text or call me back or I’m coming over to your room!”

NK was sweet but always authoritative as usual. Jody and NK are both my best friends and they didn’t mean to be insensitive, (As they didn’t even know their friend was dumped by the so-called Mr. Chardonnay) however, I felt as though they were being nosy and pushing me to the wall at that moment.

I was definitely going to tell them but that was going to be later. Surely not so soon. The whole thing still felt raw and biting. 

I still wanted to die. 

I turned off my phone and went back to bed, not bothering to wash up or fix breakfast or do anything that needed physical strength. I slept till mid-noon, still harboring some teeny weeny bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, he was going to show up.

I had written my final exams last week and stayed back to celebrate with friends. Yesterday was the deadline my parents gave me to return home. I couldn’t stay back here any longer, and I felt like if I leave today, I was going to lose my chance of ever meeting him again. 

If my phone was turned on, they would have literally killed my battery with calls by now. So I got up, washed myself thoroughly like I was washing off stains from a rag, took my time to pack my bags and stuff as I wasn’t going to come back anymore. 

I indirectly dragged the packing process till late evening. Secretly hoping, wishing, and supplicating that he comes back. 

But he never did.

And with frustration and anguish, I hurled my pathetic possession outside after saying a last pained good bye to my beloved college room. I had so many happy memories in this room, but it was utterly saddening that I was leaving with such a horrible one.

I left for the airport that same night and by dawn, I landed in the outskirt of London where my parents lived inside our pack.

Few weeks later, barely crawling out from my bouts of depression, I started sending resumes and application letters to publishing houses and magazine companies. 

I was tired of the self-loath and despair I had plunged myself into and even felt bad for my parents who had to endure all that, so I decided to job hunt.

I majored in creative writing and my results were excellent, so I wanted to work at a place where I would put my skills into good use with hopes that it was going to make me feel better. 

All those times, I still avoided my friends like a coward, like they were the reason I got fooled and played.

However, things didn’t get better for me.

Two months after leaving school, still jobless and depressed, I had a shocking discovery.  

I was pregnant. About eight weeks pregnant!

My parents were livid, they wanted me to abort the pregnancy after I admitted to them I didn’t even know the name of the baby’s father. 

“This would ruin your future, Grace.” my mother had wailed, hitting me on the back softly.

“Went through so much to put you through school! Werewolves without ranks have to work ten times harder than the privileged ones. We expected better from you, Grace,” my dad had yelled from gritted teeth.

I was torn, devastated, knocked over the edge. I didn’t believe in the Goddess like everyone else, but I blamed her for heaping such a tragic family responsibility on me.

I felt sorry for my parents, I wanted to make it up to them, and however, I couldn’t let this innocent budding life in me go. I wanted to keep whoever was inside of me alive. 

They pressed me for days, saying I was in no position to have any say, I didn’t even have a job to take care of myself or the child I was expecting.  

I couldn’t take it anymore so I ran away from the house with just a little change for transport fare, a few clothes I had shoved into my bag hurriedly and nothing else. 

I fled into the center of London with no place to stay, no significant cash at hand, a baby in my womb plus the fact that I knew absolutely no one here. 

I knew Jody and NK lived in London but I had no idea how to locate them and even if I knew, I could never go look for them, not after staying estranged from them for more than two months, ignoring their calls and texts without any explanation. 

After few months of pure struggle and hardship, I decided to go back to my parents, my pack but on reaching there, I was told by my father’s distant cousin that they both died in an accident while looking for me. 

Life couldn’t get any worse than that, I thought. So I decided to stay back at the only house my parents had before they died as they left it to me in their will according to my uncle.

At that time, my pregnancy was already obvious and another dilemma was waiting for me. 

As rankless werewolves that I and my parents were, we could never keep a firm hold onto our property, especially when it came to land ownership. 

Just few days into living in my parent’s house and trying to settle in, an agent from the biggest real estate company of a neighboring pack came to my house asking me to sell my parent’s house to them. 

Of course I protested, of course I was adamant and stood my ground, saying I will never concede no matter how much they threw at my face.

However, I had no one to fall back to, even my pack refused to protect me or stand by me since my parents were unranked wolves, and with the accusation that I had killed them. If I hadn't run away, they'll probably still be alive.

I was lobbied, pestered, and threatened to the point where I just had to give it all up, for the sake of my child and for my life.

Shelby Realtors (UK) LTD. That was the company's name, a name I’ll loathe for the rest of my life.

I used the paltry sum they gave to me to get a little room in London and continued struggling till my best friends found me. 

Jody and NK found me working as a waitress in central London.

And that was how my life in there began with an almost due pregnacy.