CHAPTER TWELVE: EVERYTHING RETURNS TO NORMAL.

       EVERYTHING RETURNS TO NORMAL.

The morning sun crept lazily through the curtains, casting long, golden slants across my bedroom floor. I sat on the edge of my bed, toes brushing the carpet, trying to absorb the quiet. Everything was strangely normal.

I let my gaze wander over the room I had been in for only a week, but it felt like a lifetime. My clothes were folded neatly in the drawer. There were no signs of chaos, of disruption, of the rogue storm I remembered. My mind kept reaching for last week, for the events I couldn’t quite believe had happened, but they seemed distant like I was recalling a story about someone else.

I tried to remember Damien. Where he had been, what he had said, the way his presence had filled the room. But now, there was only emptiness. Not a single trace of him. I blinked, hoping that my mind was playing tricks, that I would catch sight of him around the corner, leaning casually against a wall, smirking. But the house was quiet. Empty. As if he had never existed.

“Good morning, Emily.”

I turned to see Grandma moving through the kitchen, a soft smile on her face as she hummed quietly, arranging the breakfast table. Everything about her was gentle, serene, perfectly normal. She poured orange juice into glasses with steady hands, muttering nothing beyond small pleasantries. Not a single tremor in her voice betrayed the chaos I had witnessed just days ago.

I nodded and muttered a half-hearted “Morning,” but my throat felt tight. My words seemed inadequate, swallowed by the calm that filled the room. My chest pressed inward, a strange ache settling there, not fear, not panic either, but a quiet, confusing tension.

Even Bella, who had always been so loud and lively, her words a constant reassurance to my future, seemed to be avoiding me. She flitted from task to task, sweeping the floors, fluffing pillows, rearranging napkins, never meeting my eyes. Every time I tried to approach her, she drifted just out of reach, busying herself with chores that didn’t need doing. I tried to tell myself it was nothing. That she was simply preoccupied. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that her avoidance was deliberate, that it had something to do with me or with last week.

I sank back onto the bed and closed my eyes, letting my hands rest in my lap. The quiet pressed in around me, almost tangible, insisting that everything was fine. But I couldn’t let myself believe it. I had seen things, felt things, done things that could not have been imagined. Damien --- the hunt, the strange tension in the pack. 

All of it had happened. And yet, the house, my grandparents, the pack—they moved as if none of it had.

I let a slow breath out, my mind clinging to the one thread of reality I could trust. My wolf.

Underneath my skin, a subtle stir. Awake, alert and aware was a foreign feeling that felt like my own body - my wolf. The quiet presence hummed through me, steady and grounding. It was the only proof that last week hadn’t been a hallucination. That I wasn’t imagining Damien, the hunt, or the tension that had suddenly appeared on my appearance here. That I wasn’t going crazy.

I placed a hand over my stomach, feeling the faint pulse of awareness beneath my skin. My wolf didn’t speak in words, but it communicated in small, quiet ways—a pressure here, a tingle there. It was awake. A reminder that, finally, I wasn’t allone. That at least one part of me had survived the surreal calm that had swallowed the house whole.

Breakfast was just as ordinary. Toast, Egg Benedict, juice, the clink of forks against plates. I ate mechanically, barely tasting the food. I kept my eyes on the table, trying not to watch Grandma and Grandpa exchange calm, mundane conversation as if nothing had happened. As if the pack hadn’t spent a week teetering on some unspoken edge, as if Damien and I had never come back from the hunt that had upended everything.

Bella sat across from me, her fingers fiddling with the edge of her napkin. I glanced at her, trying to catch her eye, but she kept looking away, down at her plate, then toward the window, then at the floor. I wanted to ask her if she remembered last week, and why everyone was acting like it never happened . But the words wouldn’t come. My throat constricted again. I wondered briefly if she was avoiding me because I had been imagining it all.

After breakfast, I wandered through the house, letting my fingers trail along the smooth surfaces of tables and counters. The floors gleamed. Windows reflected the morning light. Everything seemed spotless, arranged, controlled. I tried to remember the sound of chaos, the barking, the shouting, the clamor of paws and voices and it felt almost unreal. I had lived it. I had felt it. Yet the house, the pack, my grandparents, everyone, they acted as if none of it had ever happened.

I stopped at the living room window, watching the trees sway gently in the breeze. Outside, the world carried on. Birds chirped, leaves rustled, the wind whispered through the branches. Life moved normally. But I felt… separate from it. Detached. Watching a world that had gone back to its rhythm without me.

The wolf under my skin stirred again. A quiet presence, vibrating faintly through my ribs. I placed both hands over my stomach, pressing gently. Awake, always awake. The one constant in the strange calm that surrounded me. Its presence reminded me that I wasn’t imagining the last week, that I hadn’t lost myself entirely, that I still existed in a world that seemed determined to forget me.

Hours passed in a blur of quiet chores and muted conversation. I tried to talk to Bella once, about the hunt, about Damien, about anything. But she excused herself abruptly, muttering something about needing to check on the garden, and slipped away before I could even finish my sentence. My wolf hummed faintly, a low vibration under my skin, and I knew it shared my frustration. Shared my confusion. Shared my inability to make sense of this calm that felt so wrong.

I retreated to my room again, closing the door behind me. I paced slowly, letting my hands brush the walls, the furniture, anything tangible. The wolf was quiet, but alert, a tether keeping me anchored. I let myself sink onto the bed, leaning back against the pillows.

I remembered the moments of last week—the hunt, the rush of adrenaline, Damien’s presence, the tension that had crackled between the pack. I remembered the sharp edges of fear and excitement, the way my heart had felt too big for my chest. And yet, here it was gone. Everything dissolved into this eerie calm. No fear. No tension. No reminders. Just quiet. And avoidance.

Bella. Damien. The pack. Everyone moved on without acknowledging the past week. As if it had never existed. I wondered if I had slipped somehow, if I had imagined it all. But my wolf hummed beneath my skin, a soft, steady pulse. 

I lay back, staring at the ceiling. My wolf shifted faintly under my skin, stretching, rolling, as if testing the limits of its cage. I could feel it responding to my thoughts, my unease, my confusion. It was quiet, but it was awake. And I clung to that quietness like a lifeline.

Even as the house hummed with normalcy outside my door, I knew I wasn’t imagining the chaos, the hunt, the people who had filled last week. I wasn’t insane. I wasn’t lost. And somehow, that small awareness, that quiet, vigilant presence beneath my skin, was the only thing keeping me sane.

I shifted slightly, letting the weight of the wolf’s awareness settle through me. It was patient, persistent, unjudging. I realized I didn’t need answers yet. I didn’t need acknowledgment from the pack. I only needed the quiet presence of the wolf, awake beneath my skin, steadying me in a world that had gone on without me.

Outside, life carried on. Inside, I held onto the small truth I could trust.

My wolf was awake. That was more than enough.