CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Nick~ Goddess help us. You would think Evan had never had to tone down his wolf traits in front of humans before. Will I be that bad after my first shift next month? I had been making my backwards shot from across the court when Evan’s scent changed. He was exuding excitement, and one glance over at Jake confirmed it was Rachel. I have no clue what it was about her that made these two this crazy. Jake had had a crush on her for years. Even thinking back to first grade I could remember him teasing her about one thing or another to get her to chase him. They chased each other over all kinds of things back then. He seemed alright when she had moved, but when she came back to start 6th grade, you could see it all over his face. He was totally smitten. We were just pups back then. And while we knew about fated mates, it all felt so far away. I mean I had had a few crushes myself on a few human girls throughout middle school, but Jake - he never changed his mind. He

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: It turned out I had sprained my ankle. Some people sprained their ankles doing things like gymnastics, or doing acrobatics. I did it walking down some steps that I’ve walked down plenty of times before. I had stayed home through the next two days, my mom encouraging me to take a break. She was convinced I had misstepped because I was stressed from school or tired. And she wasn’t totally wrong about the latter. It was now Wednesday afternoon. I had been able to take short naps throughout these past few days and I knew I was catching up on sleep. But I still had the worst time trying to sleep through the night the last two nights. I repeated the drowning nightmare, and when I finally managed to fall asleep again, I had a similar dream of falling to my death from a tall building. Both nights. Awful. It was mid-afternoon and I was responding to one of Ally’s texts. She had been trying to keep me updated on all things Pacific in my absence. It was actually pretty

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: The rest of my morning went by pretty uneventfully. Well, other than me taking much longer to move around with these crutches. Sean walked with me nearly everywhere though, so I was not lacking company. I swear, he nearly picked me up a few times. It took a lot of convincing for him to tone down his worry. It was lunch now and I was sitting out with Marsha, Ally, and Maxine, they were catching me up on things I had missed. I had caught up with Kyle earlier at break and he had filled me in on some funny things in his unusual way of storytelling. He was still keeping Vance at bay and I was so grateful. Thankfully I hadn’t missed the big fall event, Food Fest, which was tomorrow. We had shorter class times and a few events throughout our breaks that I was looking forward to. All the clubs in Pacific would have booths and would be raising money for their clubs and the school in general. Sean came back to the bench and sat on the floor by my leg. “What are you d

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: The next day after school Sean helped me out to his car again. I kept asking him what exactly he had planned and he of course wouldn’t tell me. I asked again anyway. “Your questioning hasn’t gotten me to budge all day and it’s not going to start now,” he teased me. He booped my nose. “Did you just boop me?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Maybe, but if I did you had it coming,” he laughed and buckled in his seatbelt. He drove us to the highway but this time we went south. “Are we going to a beach?” I asked, he shook his head. “Are we… going to a restaurant?” I asked. He just laughed and replied, “That’s it, I’m saying ‘no’ to everything you guess. I’m not letting you ruin your surprise.” “Alright, alright,” I said, hands up in defeat. “Be like that.” He continued to drive down the highway and turned up his music, skipping a few songs until he got to one he knew I couldn’t help but sing to and I side-eyed him for it. But after a few bars I sang alo

CHAPTER FORTY: Things calmed a bit over the weekend after my huge talk with Jake. I was more at peace than I had been in some time. His apology would never undo anything, but it was really good to hear it. For him to acknowledge what had happened and how he hadn’t responded in any sort of good way. I would have been able to accept rejection if he had just talked to me, but the silence was uncalled for. We were friends, if anything, when I had confessed my feelings for him in a moment of bravery. I hadn’t deserved that response, and my heart relaxed a little knowing that he knew that. We had continued texting now and then over the weekend, but kept things much more light hearted. He filled me in on some shenanigans, and I mentioned some progress with my ankle. I was going to try to do without my crutches today. Jake thought as long as I wasn’t pushing myself, I would know my body’s progress more than anyone. Sean of course was paranoid that I was pushing myself, and so I lied and told