Pride, Mates, and Past Mistakes

Welcome to Jungle. We also Call it High School.

*Sierra*

“Sit.” Casey commanded, gently pushing me to the bed and making sure I was seated before plopping herself into one of my chairs. “Now talk.”

Casey had just rescued me from the wrath of being questioned by my mother, who wanted to know why I hadn’t come down to help make birthday brownies with her.

Why I didn’t help her make the birthday brownies…for Cody.

She had told my mom that I had stayed up late last night studying for a test and that now I was really tired, and wanted to take a nap.

“C’mon, Sierra,” she said gently, attempting to coax the answer out of me. “What’s going on? I know you’ve been crying. Your eyes are still red. Your cheeks are puffy. What happened? Was it Nolan again?” he voice dripped with the slightest bit of venom at the last question.

I swallowed, then took a deep, shuddering breath, almost bursting out crying again. Now that Casey was actually here, I realized I had to tell her everything that had happened. But could I do that without breaking down every other word?

At first, the pain had been bearable, when I was surrounded by Nolan’s friends. And I was thankful for that. But ever since I’d stepped into this house, the pain had grown inside me, gnawing at that little place between my abdomen and chest.

It was like that pain you had when you watched a sad movie or read a sad book, except ten times worse.

Casey waited in front of me, staring into my face. I brought my eyes to her steady hazel ones, and when I did, I felt stronger. I could do this. She was my best friend. I could do this.

“Casey, I…I met my mate today.”

There was a single beat of silence, and then she shrieked.

“What?! Oh my—wow! Congrats, Sierra! I’d always known you’d be before me—you owe me ten bucks, and you said that it would be me first—hey…why are you crying?”

I stared into her eyes again, trying to convey the message without speaking it aloud.

“Oh my moons,” she whispered, looking horror struck. Thank God. I didn’t think I could’ve said it out loud.

“Your mate is Quentin Welsh?!” she shrieked.

“I—wait, what?” I stopped, confused.

“Oh, my gosh, Sierra! I’m so sorry…It’ll get better though, it always does, you guys are mates, right? It won’t be so bad, just forget about his fingernails and greasy hair and—”

“Casey,” I half laughed, (only she could make me laugh during a time like this), “that’s…that’s not it.”

She stared blankly at my face. “Then what?”

“Casey…my mate, he…he r-rejected me.”

There was another beat of silence, and then her eyes hardened and lips pursed.

“What?” she hissed dangerously.

I closed my eyes, and let the story flood out of me.

I kept my eyes down as I walked through the hallways of my school. I was able to avoid my pack at breakfast by waking up super early, and was able to avoid my brother and his friends most of the day, and the school in general at lunch by eating with Casey in the small stairwell under the library. I just had one more class to get through, and then I was free.

It was hard to ignore the fact that the stares were increasing, though. Casey remained faithfully by my side whenever she could, but even she couldn’t shield me from the gradually increasing stares. Now Casey had Fashion Marketing, which was in the trailers of the school, outside, which meant I had to go through this journey alone.