Mask | ✓

49 [part two]

Eli

People don't stay.

It was a harsh lesson that I'd come to learn at a young age. People weren't stationary objects but constantly moving—constantly leaving. Growing up, that was the reason it had been so hard for me to make friends. What was the point of getting close to someone when you knew that, eventually, either you or them would disappear? That was the life of moving from foster home to foster home.

Then they found out I was a werewolf, and suddenly the constant switch came to a stop. A wolf couldn't stay with human families, so Maria, my case worker, made call after call in an attempt to try and find someone to hand me off to. Those people ended up being my Dads.

At first, I was hesitant. Sure, they said I wouldn't be moving again, but what if it was a lie? What if I got comfortable just to be sent off to a new family and ended up having to start all over? Those thoughts scared me. The fear of losing everything around me kept me frozen in one spot and made it hard to make friends. But as time went on, I slowly began to realize that maybe they were telling the truth. Maybe they weren't going to just send me away again.

When I asked my dads why they had chosen to adopt me when they technically could've had biological children of their own, they just smiled and said that there was no need to bring another child into the world when there were already so many without families. That was the first time I realized that they actually cared about me—they wanted me.

And I wanted to be with them. I wanted to be a family. I wanted to make friends. So I tried to step out of my comfort zone. I tried to be friendly and connect with those around me.

However, it proved to be more challenging than I thought to do so. Most people already had friendships that went back years and weren't looking to add anyone new to the group. I tried not to let that stop me, though, and continued to meet new people; everywhere I went, I tried to make new friends, and everywhere I went, there was one person who kept popping up: Nixon.

I was told by my dads that he was the Alpha's son; however, he was always alone. Nobody tried to talk to him, and he didn't speak to anyone else either. At first, I tried to avoid him, but the more I began to see him, the more I began to realize that maybe he wasn't that bad.

To say forming a friendship with him was hard would be an understatement. It was rocky at first, but slowly he began to open up, and we did become friends—no, we were closer than friends. He was like a brother to me.

So when the Isaiah situation broke out, and Nixon told me he was leaving, devastated wouldn't be a strong enough word to describe my feelings. By now, I did have other friends in the pack, but they weren't Nixon, and not to mention, a group of them were avoiding me too out of fear that I'd helped him in killing Isaiah.

I stopped talking to people for a while after that. I didn't want to listen to them shit-talk Nixon. I was okay with being by myself.

Then Fen came.

Though he was born in the pack, Fen didn't actually live in pack lands. He lived with his grandparents and visited his parents on holidays due to their busy schedules. I'd been sitting outside of my home when his parents stopped by, and my dads introduced us to each other.

That was the start of a friendship.

Afterward, Fen began to show up much more, and we began to start hanging out a lot more too. Though he was quiet, I enjoyed his company. It was nice having someone else around who wasn't so absorbed in pack drama.

When Nixon told me he was coming back, I was excited to introduce him to Fen. However, the meeting went nothing like I was expecting. It became clear to me that the two wouldn't get along, but they were both my friends, so I tried to make it work.