The Bookworm

Chapter 5 (edited)

Noah

Could you be driven crazy by being denied what your body, mind, and soul undoubtedly know to be yours? That's how I felt, spiraling out of control by unnaturally trying to exercise too much of it.

I used to say with annoyance she was a pain in the ass. Well, ironically the pain had expanded to other places too.

Rocking a hard-on underneath my jeans and loose shirts, in my attempt to cover it up throughout the day, was a given. It was useless to fight it, so I didn't even try to. Her scent was all over the place, whenever she was in the hallway walking to class, or she was simply passing me by out in the open.

However, even when her scent was practically gone, it still burned into my nostrils and mind, no matter where I went. Her image followed me throughout the day and night, it still haunted me into my dreams, too. There was no escape, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to escape. The possessive feeling in me was crystal clear on that, and it didn't care that she despised me, or that she refused to even glance my way.

I was hanging by a thread. Instinct was overruling everything sense of mine. I didn't know what to do, but I had the urge to grab her by the hair and crush her to me. Her mouth, her entire body, and if she ever refused me, shut her up with a kiss so long and deep, she forgot her name and why she hated me in the first place.

This was how my days went by. Every day was a continuous challenge and endless torture. I was fighting myself at every turn because not only was I dealing with her indifference, but I was having to put up with the unwanted attention from teenage girls and their sexual hormones directed at me. I was glaring at them warningly, not to growl my displeasure. I didn't yearn for them and had this not been a school setting, and I an employee, I would have told them to back the fuck off.

I was losing my damn mind, my patience, and my sense of self. I didn't know what to do with that situation, all I could do was get incredibly frustrated and even stalkerish. Fuck, I wasn't proud to admit it, but I had followed her once or twice to make sure she got home safely, and often I was waiting outside of her window at night in case I got a glimpse of her. Although I knew she was okay, I also knew she was better without me, and that did something strange to my chest.

That's why when I saw her walking with this boy by her side, having a casual conversation, smiling, being so carefree and open, the sight cut something deep in me. I felt sick, and my mouth's taste turned bitter as if at any moment, I could empty my stomach. I should be the one making her smile, I should be the one walking beside her, listening to her thoughts and making her happy.

It took me years to figure out that what I felt all along wasn't dislike but a calling. I was staring at her not because I hated anything about her, but because there would never be anyone better to look at for me. She was waking a primal part of me I wasn't familiar with, and I had no idea how to control or manage it. I had wrongfully held her accountable for it. She wasn't, though, the one to blame. I was. I had handled everything wrong back then, and I still handled everything wrong now. It was like, I couldn't fucking do right by her. I was made for her, though, body and soul, and didn't want to give up on redeeming myself to her somehow. It had been my fault, and I had the responsibility to right my wrongs.

I was almost certain she knew I was a werewolf, but I wasn't sure she knew exactly what that meant. Being a werewolf doesn't automatically make you an asshole, but it makes you possessive when it comes to your soulmate. We're social animals, just like humans, only when it comes to our life partners, our perfect match, we don't compromise, we don't share, and we don't listen to reason. We're built for them in every way our body knows it, our cells, it's written in our DNA, pulsing through our veins and printed just like a tattoo over our hearts. No compromises and no sharing.