this love is good, this love is bad [wenclair]

chapter 25: all the king's horses, all the king's men...

⚠️TW: self-harm⚠️

A/N: Hi guys, I'm baaaack. This was kind of a filler chapter until recently, so yeah. The fact that I just got back from vacation and -surprise surprise- I'm going again (in my traveling era 😤😻💅). But hey, I thought of an actual storyline 😩. Also, I'm going to be stuck on a plane for a LONG time so I'll work on this. Still can't guarantee regular updates, though. I'm so sorry guys. Also, life has been a roller coaster lately (when I tell you actual Wattpad shit happened to me, it's because it DID: we love an almost bestfriend breakup and a real breakup that's about to happen 😍).
PSA: I cringed writing this chapter.
Love each one of y'all!! Thank you🫵🫵 for your support, comment, votes, reads 🫶🫶

Second week of October, Saturday

I put my foot on the bleachers and laced my shoe. Afterwards, I proceeded to stretch without much motivation. I really dreaded practice because, until now, it was all about getting in shape and building up a decent condition. That meant a lot of running, which I enjoyed, even though I hadn't done it in a long time. But that also meant a lot of planking and all kinds of exercises where you have to 'lift' your own weight, which I didn't enjoy. All that was really boring, and the coach, who was literally two years older than me, wasn't that motivated either. Bonus point: he didn't like me personally. All of that just because I refused to join the Nevermore wolf pack since I was already part of the San Francisco one. That guy wasn't even the alpha, not that the title means anything. It's really just a title. But if you don't even have it, then don't get at me and go play fetch, beta.
I looked down and saw that my other shoe was untied. I sighed and put the other foot on the bleachers.
"Good afternoon, people!"
There he was, our lovely coach Marcus.
"I'm late, as you may have noticed."

No shit, man.

"I hope you're all warmed up already because we're starting in a minute with seven laps at full speed!"
I started stretching with more vigor and then warmed up my ankles with circular movements.
"Damn, those are some angry circles," I heard from behind me.
It was Blake. We became friends during the first practice, both animated by our deeply rooted hatred for Marcus. They were also a werewolf and they didn't join the Nevermore pack either. They got bitten during the summer and were new at school.
"I swear, from my perspective, it looks like you're about to bore holes in the ground," they added.
"Quiet ladies!" Marcus said. "You'll get thirteen minutes for the seven laps."
Not the misgendering.

God, I hate this guy.

We were about to start when we saw three silhouettes approaching. And even though they were still far away, I could recognize Wednesday among them. Marcus told us to wait in silence and walked towards the trio. They weren't that far away, so it was easy to follow the conversation. Sometimes the werewolf hearing was a real blessing. I recognized Medina, but didn't know who the third person was.
"What the hell, you can't just interrupt my practice like that?!"
It was always weird to hear someone talk back to Medina. What was even weirder was that Marcus and him were related; he was his nephew or something. I didn't know until recently but should have: not everyone has as light blue eyes as they do. Their irises look pretty much transparent, must be caused by some gene of theirs.
"Who are they anyway?" he asked in a less aggressive, almost calm tone.
"Wednesday Addams, I just brought her here to be sure she wouldn't skip it. And our exchange student Stan, he's from Spain or something," Medina said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "He's still struggling with English, so I'm counting on you to help him."
"You do realize I don't—"
"You're a Medina, you better speak Spanish," the principal cut off. "Your father didn't teach you anything, did he?"
He didn't answer.
"Have a fun practice."
Marcus walked back towards us without even checking if they were following him.
"You speak Spanish, right, Addams?"
"Yes."
"Good."
He sounded so pissed off by that conversation, and just by his body language, I could tell that this practice was going to be absolute hell.
Now came the part where we all had to act like we didn't hear anything.
"Addams, seven laps, thirteen minutes. Explain that to him," coach quickly commanded.
Wednesday shrugged her shoulders and then turned towards him to translate.
"Okay, here we go!"
All twenty of us started running. Quickly enough, you had a group in the front, preceded by coach Marcus, of course, and a group in the back.
Blake and I were running next to each other, we were kind of in the middle. I was holding back to have some energy left at the end.

I felt like I was about to throw up. I had pushed too hard on the previous lap, and there were still two left to run. I held on a bit longer. After all, it was almost done. I tried to focus on other things, but without music in my ears, it was nearly impossible. I stopped staring at the ground and looked around me. I wasn't the last one, but wasn't far from that either.

Keep the same pace. Keep the same pace.

I focused on the others. Syncing my rhythm with that of someone else helped. But the redhead from biology class in front of me went too fast. I synced with Blake instead, which worked.
That was it. The last lap. Marcus was still in front, followed by Wednesday and the exchange student. I couldn't feel my legs anymore, except for the occasional calf cramps. About hundred meters into the lap, I saw that Wednesday was accelerating. She even ran past Marcus at some point, so he accelerated as well. And so did the exchange student for some reason. Wednesday was still first, and that pissed him off so bad.
But the exchange student fell and Wednesday looked back for a second or two, and Marcus was first again. Even though we should've stopped for him, no one did, because the last ones at the finish always got some kind of punishment. So Stan had to stand up alone and try to catch up, but ended last nonetheless. I couldn't see who was first, and just hoped it wasn't Marcus.
I finished fourteenth, just not part of the last five, thank god.
Marcus waited for Stan to cross the finish line. He then started to clap his hands slowly.
"Well done, guys. Really."
He walked over to Stan and put his hands on his shoulders.
"But is this how you're welcoming newcomers?" he sighed.

Spoiler alert: he made us run it again. And another spoiler; no one was done in time, except for three people. Long story short, I did not survive the push-ups he made us do as punishment, and my legs were killing me to the point where going up the stairs to the dorm was nearly impossible.
Alice was in the common room when I got there.
"Hi!"
"Hey," I replied.
"Are you okay? You look..."
"Just tired."
She didn't dig deeper.
"Thanks for asking, though," I added.
She smiled, and I smiled back before getting inside my room. Yoko was there too. I threw my bag under my bed a bit more aggressively than usual. At that very moment, I just wanted to be left alone.
"What's up!" she asked in a light tone.
"Someone is in a good mood!" I said, given how enthusiastic she sounded.
I didn't want to ruin it so I held everything in and tried to put a smile on for her.
"Divina said yes!"
I took a minute to process it and form a sentence in my head.
"That's awesome news! I'm really happy for you—"
"SHE SAID YES!! WE'RE GOING TO THE DANCE TOGETHER!"
I nodded. "Yes. I know."
She calmed down because of that answer.
"You look down, are you—"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look..."
"So would you if you just ran what I ran," I cut off, irritated.
She froze, taken aback.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, that was rude as fuck. Sorry, Yoko."
"It's fine," she sighed.
I grabbed my stuff and walked to the bathroom.
"You never talk, E. What's going on? You REALLY look down today, tell me."
"I swear, I'm fine."
She tilted her head to the side.
"It's just that today's practice sucked ass and I'm kind of... frustrated."
"It's not about today, Enid. I mean, look at your forearms. I know you. It's getting bad again, isn't it?"
My instinct was to cross my arms.
"It's just... I'm adjusting to school again, but I swear-"
"Yeah, 'you're fine', I got that."
I lifted my sleeves.
"Look, they're all fading. They're almost completely gone! It's been over three weeks without anything."
She wasn't stupid, and I could tell she didn't believe me.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I can't do more than this," she muttered to herself.
I got into the bathroom.
I tried to reason with myself. I mean, I didn't lie. Frustrated was the right term for the day, I didn't lie. I really was hoping to walk back with Wednesday, but she was showing the new guy around the campus, and I didn't want to intrude. He seemed nice. They seemed to get along well. 

Cool for him, I guess.