DIFFERENT [hs] |Complete|

Thirty-Seven -Final-

last part to the story. enjoy chapter turdy seven.... ew bye

1 week later...

Usually he would have been perched on the tattered slide besides me, complaining about the rough edges and the way the jagged metal with the chipped paint would dig into his jeans and tear the seams. And eventually I would have scolded at him for picking at the hole and only enlarging the tear.

'I'll just get a new pair,' he always said, but he never did. He wore those goddamn jeans that faded in colour, that continued to tear, yet he effortlessly looked flawless in them. And he was only one of the few that could pull it off, and something as simple as washed jeans are never thought the same. It all reminded me of him, and as the days go past I can't say it gets any easier. The pack is stable, although there is no Alpha each and every person relies on one another.

I managed to meet them, all of them. The pack was fairly small and exceeded my expectation. I had waited to approach hundreds, maybe even thousands of people, but only came across fourty or so. They asked about Harry, my relationship with my father. Some were in disbelief, some angered at the thought of having a human in their territory. But it was all understood.

It's horrific to think just how relieved they were to hear the news of Dave's death. Yet how enraged they were to hear of Harry's death. Both Alphas gone — nobody left to lead the pack.

John was gone. Possibly forever, or possibly temporarily but I didn't have an ounce of care in me. His wolf became unstable, craving the feel of pure human. I remember Harry telling me how he had 'harassed' previous co-workers, and my mind wondered with horrifically negative ideas of just what he had done. He was responsible for the lives of those three innocent women, as well as Harry's. May it be childish for blaming him, but if he hadn't sought out to contact the Elders then Harry could have possibly — with great chance — still be alive.

And so I sat aimlessly, swinging my feet and fiddling with the Opal stone chained around my neck. It was weightless, carried no life but a heavy amount of guilt. Nothing weighed me down but my misery, and I was succumbing to the bubble of self-torture. Suffocating in my own emotional pain was the only comfort I could find. Comfort in knowing that I could feel something after all these events, where the two most important people in my life were killed; one was innocent, and one was a whole different person. Someone completely opposite of who he really used to be.

Normally I would acknowledge the beautiful way the new season was beginning to form. The rain was less frequent, the wind was slightly a lot less cooler, and flowers were beginning to blossom over the defrosting branches on the trees. Everything was coming to life again after such a dreadful time. The Oak trees with their fauna, which had been hibernating during the Winter, were now awakening from their deep sleep. And as I do notice the changes, I've simply lost the emotional aspect of processing the beauty of it.

Now it's just a physical thing. All I do is see what is happening before me. Any emotion for it is gone, long, long gone. It's an odd concept to be numb. I can't feel the numbness, which is how I know it's there. I stare for the longest time before I do something, not hesitating, but just not having the motivation to do it.

He's just not alive anymore.

I'd rather live my life knowing that he's walking on this Earth, healthy and alive, than knowing that he's in some coffin or morgue; dead.

But I won't have that contentment because that's what he is. Dead.

The thought of knowing that his death has more of an impact on me than my own father is a little worrying. But piecing the puzzle together, it definitely makes sense. Those days where he had forgotten me, it wasn't forgetting. He was just in another place. His own daughter wasn't his main priority. He never ever mentioned his own family. But how peculiar it is to think that the way he used to speak of my mother, in such passion and adoration... makes me think just how much of that was really true. My father is gone and I don't feel any remorse for it.