Chapter 180

New Year's pass in the same loving and happy way that Christmas did and soon it's time to go back to school.

As nice as school is with no bullies and no Elise - except for the part about being the only human and the boyfriend to one of the future Alphas because the attention from that wore me thin - I got sadder as each day passed because soon my friends would all have to go to college pretty soon.

Mae and I end up spending most of the time together but even that is limited as she's practicing her healing abilities.

It's Spring again and we're back home, the house is exactly like we left it and I'm so relieved to be back in my own space but it also means that Virgil wouldn't be sneaking in my room anymore, it doesn't exactly feel like a fair trade.

It just rained and the sun rays splashed across the bright green leaves of the pine trees, reminding me of Dale's eyes.

I'm curled up in my bed, it's a weekend and all my friends are busy again, I'm laying vertically across my bed, a paperback novel open in front of me, while Apple doses at one end of the bed.

My mom is somewhere in the backyard, trying to make clay pots, her newest distraction with the clay made wet by the rain.

My phone rings and I roll off the bed to pick it up, tugging down my sweater paws to slide my hand across the lighted screen - it's Shana calling.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Hay!" Shana's cheery voice pours over the radio waves.

I settle on the bed with a smile on my face, tucking my socked feet under my body as I lean against the headboard. "What's up?" I ask cordially.

"Dale wants to kill me." She whispers conspiratorially, fear leaking in her voice.

"W-What?..."

"Found you!" I hear Dale's voice faintly from the background, he sounds livid. 

"Aaaaargh!!! Stay the fuck away from me!!" She screams like she's being flayed alive.

"For fuck's sake, Shay, 'Phonemes' can't hurt you."

But Shana is already running away again if the rhythmic thumping sounds and shaky static is any indication. "It sounds dangerous." She whines on a pout, her voice sounding distant like she's holding it in her hands and running for it.

"I swear, Shana I will fucking leave your house." He threatens and then there's a shuffling sound and a loud thud, most likely Dale tackling her to the ground.

Shana screams even louder.

"Stop kicking, why do I do this to myself?" He asks rhetorically. "I should just leave you but you can't flunk English so let's go." He scolds, most likely dragging her back to their study spot.

Shana sniffs into the phone, placing it against her ear again. "Bye, Hay, if I end up dead, it's all Dale's fault."

"Bye, Shana, good luck." I greet her sympathetically, watching the call get cut off.

I sigh, dropping my phone on the bed with a sad smile, I'd really miss them.

There was still a couple of months before they would have to go but the days we're moving so fast, it was like time itself was against me.

I had a date with Virgil soon, Shana had randomly said one of the few times when we all got together that we should get each other promise rings.

I had blushed my cheeks off but Virgil just hummed, my mom took it to hear though and immediately dragged me along to the city to shop for rings.

The rings at Tiffany's had made me cringe with how extravagant they all were but my Grammy had jumped on the bandwagon of getting a promise ring and wouldn't allow anywhere less.

I didn't see what I liked even then and my Grammy was more than ready to get a custom ring made, the prices for custom rings made me feel nervous, I didn't want to overwhelm Virgil.

My mom had waved away my worries and teamed up with my mom to boss the agents around, I wanted a plain band, not gold but some other metal.

They browbeat me into choosing platinum and I don't think long before coming up with a design, I wanted something simple and beautiful.

I decide on carving out our initials in sapphires, inscribing my name on the inside of the ring.

That was a couple of weeks ago and now the ring is sitting in a silk box in one of my drawers, just waiting for the right moment.

I feel a little self-conscious though, although Shana says that Virgil got a ring but he acted absolutely normal so it's a little hard to tell if he actually did or Shana is just trying to lift my spirits.

The rain starts drizzling again and it hit me that my mom hadn't come in yet, I start to panic because there's a high possibility that she's dancing in the rain.

I throw sweatpants on in a hurry and shove my socked feet in shoes, Apple lazily raises her head to stare at me briefly at my hurried movements and then curls up in sleep again.

I rush down the stairs, tugging up the sleeves of my sweater as the rain increases.

"Mom?! Mom?!" I call out in a panic, making for the back door. "Mom!!"

"B-Baby!" My mom grins at me with her arms wrapped around her, she's dripping wet and shivering so hard her teeth are chattering.

"Oh my God." I gape in horror. "Mom?" I walk closer to her to take her arm, she is mud splashed but she looks beyond happy. "You're going to catch a cold or worse." I scold her unhappily, hurrying her to her room, uncaring of her muddy footprints littering the house, I would clean that up later.

"What were you thinking?" 

Her reply is a wet sneeze and more of that shivering. "The rain wanted to ruin my pottery, I had to get them to safety." She pouts.

"At the expense of your health? You're drenched, please get out of the wet clothes let me run a hot bath for you." I scold her some more, ignoring her whipped puppy expression.

I run the bath as hot as it would be bearable and hurry out to help her in.

"Eek! Hay! Hay! It's too hot!! Let me out!!" She starts struggling to get away as soon as the tip of her toe touches it.

"It's not that bad, mom." I say in exasperation, keeping her in place. 

Eventually, she gets in and I turn away to let her take her towel off. "I'm going to make a cup of hot tea for you, stay in there and don't come out." I tell her expressively, knowing that I could very well come back and find her outside again with her towel around her body, shivering hard.

After the water cools, I bundle her up and force her to take a nap.

It has stopped raining and she pleaded to let her go check her pottery but I don't budge.

Her shivering calms down but she's now exhausted and it doesn't take too long for her to fall asleep.

I clean up the bathroom and the rest of the house, turning in after cooking myself dinner.

Julia couldn't come over as often anymore, she still paid us visits but currently, she's too busy taking care of pups.

It was still weird how they called baby Werewolves that, it was also cute.

I didn't mind, I planned to take care of my mom anyway so that she would stop starting fires in the kitchen and flooding the house by trying to wash the bathrooms.

Cooking dinner isn't difficult but it's just for me so I don't do anything elaborate, making myself a cup of tea much later before bed.

I didn't have issues waiting for Virgil but it was the time that we would have to spend apart that made it so difficult.

He would be gone for the entire time because he had bluntly said that if he came back for the holidays and saw me, he was dropping out of college and I couldn't allow that, he needed the degree.

The future was so far away yet it filled me with a tingling feeling of anticipation, I fell asleep curled up around a pillow, it's really hard adjusting to sleeping alone.

~°~°~°~°~°~°~

"Hayden? Virgil is here!" My mom calls from the living room.

"I'm coming!" I call down to her, in a sweatshirt and knee-length shorts, it's a sunny Spring day which is rare considering it's been rainy with dark gloomy skies for almost a week straight.

I finger comb my hair, knowing it'll only get more tousled, and grab the small glass box from my drawer, slipping it in my front pocket and tugging my sweatshirt over it, the striped top easily hiding the small bump.

I hurry down in time to see my mom gifting Virgil a small clay cup with swirly designs, a bright smile on her face.

"Mom, don't share dirt to people." I tease her knowing she'd go on the defensive.

"Dirt?" She gasps, cradling the clay cup protectively. "You dare call my art dirt? Why won't you? When you'd never join me in the first place, if you did then you would know that…" she starts ranting.

I just quickly give a bewildered Virgil a quick kiss and grabs his hand to pull him away. "Love you, mom!" I call to her.

She huffs a breath out, cutting off her ranting. "Bye, baby."

Her pottery was actually beautiful and it still stunned me how she could just effortlessly do things, I had tried joining in her pottery making once but the dirt had buried itself so deep in my nails that I was washing them out for days, not to talk about my hair and… let's just say, I'm not gifting anyone clay cups anytime soon.

We're taking a stroll through the woods which is no surprise, Virgil really likes it and I couldn't say I didn't, plus we didn't deal people do it's the perfect spot.

"I missed you." I murmur when he lets me get on his back, hugging him around his shoulders.

It's a little ridiculous because we're still in front of the house and not even on the hiking trail yet.

"You just saw me yesterday." He snorts, corded arms holding up my thighs.

I scoff as well. "Yeah, for like a couple seconds."

"I literally slept over."

"And left before I even woke up, just say you miss me too and we can end this argument." I tell him importantly, looking around when we enter under the cover of the pine trees.

He easily eats up the distance of the hiking trail, his breath even that I almost start panting on his behalf.

"Of course, I missed you too, snowflake." He teases.

I groan and hide my face in the crook of my arm. "You're never going to let that go, are you?" My mom had taken to calling me that, all through winter.

"Nope."

The sun is shining brightly but it doesn't sting, it's rays giving off a gentle warmth that bounces off pine cones and the furs of the squirrels running around with them.

Virgil had said we would go on a run so when he stops at the end of the hiking trail, I know to come down, slapping my hands over my eyes as he shifts.

He had asked why I always did that and I said it made it more magical which made him crack up.

A cold nose nudges at the back of my palms and I take them away to see Virgil staring down at me with gold-tinted eyes, I gently pat his face and climb on when he leans down for me.

Running with Virgil is exhilarating, like a roller coaster or skydiving, especially when he decides to run so fast that I just hide my face in his fur and hang on for the ride.

He takes his time this time around though, moving at a slow pace but is still fast enough that we make it to the creek in no time, he speeds up slightly to make the jump over the creek.

I prefer watching him do it than jumping with him because it's a lot cooler seeing him sail smoothly to the other side than having your throat in your mouth and seeing the overflowing creek rush under you.

He stops when we get to the other side and I carefully come down, the trees are thicker on this side so there's always a covering of soft leaves on the ground.

It's nice to fall asleep on Virgil in his wolf form, his gentle breathing, and the sound of flowing water lulling me to a deep peaceful slumber but there's no way we can swap rings like this so I cover my eyes again.

This time, his familiar hands pry mine away from my face and I look up into his blue eyes, he's shirtless as expected and I wasn't sure why that always happened, I guess it's way better than him turning up naked when he shifts.

That would be a whole lot inconvenient, for all parties involved.

The quiet atmosphere of the forest, the sun shining through the trees and reflecting off the water, and Virgil staring down at me like this, like I'm really special just makes me.

"Are you crying?" Virgil breaks me out of my reverie, lifting a hand to my face.

"W-What?" I avert my face and touch my cheek instead, horrified to find my cheeks wet.

Rubbing my face would make it more suspicious so I just throw my head to the side to throw the tears off my face before turning back to Virgil with an affronted expression. "I-I'm n-not, the wind just blew something in my eyes."

He gives me a knowing look but doesn't say anything else, pulling me into a hug.

We settle under a tree and I truly burst out crying when he gives me his ring, it's a delicate silver band, burnished so it almost looks grey, like my eyes.

The tears fall hard when he says that and my shaky hands drop my box a couple times before I finally get the ring out.

'Promise' is carved in italics on the inside of my ring and the letter 'V'.

I smile happily with teary cheeks when he doesn't bat an eyelid at my expensive ring, his eyes lighting up when I help him wear it.

I blush bright red when he kisses me, complaining about the snot on my face and how I look a mess.

He wipes my face with his hands and goes like… there, now you look just fine, like you always do.

I place my head on his thigh, our ringed hands entangled together and reflecting off the sunlight.

Even when I close my eyes I can still picture them twinkling, blue and grey…

With this promise to keep me, the wait doesn't seem so bad.