Chapter 28

They’ve walked most of the way back into town now. People are passing them, but no one stops for their usual greetings with Kira, like they can tell this is an altercation not to be intruded on.

“Come back to school,” Will adds, and Kira shakes her head.

“I don’t want to go back to school,” she says, and saying it out loud makes it so resolute. Only spoken so clearly in her own voice does she realize that it’s true. 

This town is not what has done this to her; Jayden has not done this to her. For months she’s been dragging her feet, delaying her thesis, struggling through case studies with a constant migraine and an anxiety tremor in her hand. 

Since arriving in Woods she hasn’t felt bad once. With that stress lifted from her shoulders, she’s come to look at what it was all doing to him in the harsh light of day.

A clear head, in spite of everything.

“Don’t be daft, Kira,” says Will in earnest, and his worry is etched all over his face.

“This is everything you’ve worked for.”

“I don’t want it.” Repeating it strengthens the resolve deep in her that has only become clear here and now.

“I don’t want it,” he says again, in a whisper, this time for her own benefit more than Will. It’s the truth.

Her heart pounds at the realization.

Will rubs his eyes, clearly growing more frustrated and more anxious, like he’s losing his grip on him and scrabbling to get it back. 

“So what do you want? You want Woods? Forget Jayden; I mean the town. You want to stay here? There aren’t going to be any jobs. That house isn’t even liveable yet. What kind of future are you going to be able to plan here?”

“I don’t know, but I know that I’ve spent a lifetime planning a future that I never even wanted. Maybe being here is a chance to press pause on that and just think about being alive for a minute, because you’re right: both of my parents have died. I’m in a difficult place emotionally. My own mortality is staring down the barrel at me and nothing feels permanent. For whatever reason, I feel safe here. I know it’s strange and I don’t expect you to understand it but I need you to respect it.”

The rain has turned to icy sleet. They’re only a short walk from the inn. Thin lines of sleet paint the windows of the shops, driving from the west.

Seokjin looks into his eyes.

“I’m going to drive back to the city tomorrow morning. I want you to come with me. My car is out front and I’ll leave at seven o’clock, so if you come to your senses then I’ll be waiting.”

Angry now, Kira swallows.

“I’m not going.” 

“Please.”

“You can stay in my room, it’s all paid up,” Kira says  and throws him the key. 

“I’ll go to Jayden’s .”

“Kira  ”

“You’re my best friend, William,” she says in a shaky voice, “and it means a lot to me that you came here to check on me, but this is my life. It’s time I chose something for myself for a change, instead of doing what everyone else wants me to.” 

She’s  dedicated a lifetime to that, trying to fit into the mold that others have made for her. For the first time, here in this town, she feels like no one is pushing her from any side. She can breathe. 

“It’s my life,” she repeats, and she turns on her heel to stalk through the sleet as if falls heavier and heavier around her

Walking in the rain was a bad idea.

The town might be small, but it isn’t that small, and Jayden’s house is on the outskirts. By the time that she reaches it, following the maps in her mind that have at last begun to fill in the last of the details, she is drenched through to the bone with the icy sleet, despite the weight of her coat.

Her teeth chatter. She shivers so violently that she struggles to knock on the door because her gloveless fingers are stiff like blocks. 

Rain is in her boots and down her spine and it soaks her hair until it’s dripping down her face. The dramatic effect of flouncing away, she decides, is not worth this punishment. 

Even the second that it takes for Jayden to get to the door is too long, and she stumbles over the threshold without invitation, her lips beginning to turn blue.

“Shit, Kira !” Jayden holds her back with hands to her shoulders to examine her before pulling her in against his chest even though she’s sopping wet. 

“What the hell were you doing out walking in the rain? You should’ve called me to pick you up.”

Kira sniffs against him, because ever since the argument with Will she has been fighting the urge to cry. 

She doesn’t enjoy being forced into a position where he has to choose between Will and Jayden, or between her old home and her new one. 

She buries her face into his neck and breathes in the now-familiar combination that makes up Jayden’s characteristic scent. 

When her trembling becomes obvious, Jayden curses again and pulls her inside to sit down on the couch.

“What did he do to you?” That’s Jayden’s first question, and it carries all the strain of an Alpha who has found one of his pack in distress. 

Perhaps his most beloved of the pack. “I was worried when you left with him. He seemed angry.”

“Don’t be silly,” Kira whispers, wiping her running nose on her sleeve. Then she realizes that’s disgusting and tries to take it back somehow by fidgeting, but Jayden doesn’t seem to care.

“What did he say?” His eyes are dark.

“Nothing. It was nothing. He just wanted me to go back with him and I said no. He’s my best friend. He’s just trying to do what’s best for me but he doesn’t understand.”

Jayden fusses over her. First, he helps her out of her wet coat, throwing it down by the empty fire, and then he strips her out of her wet shirt and even her soaked jeans, folding them up and placing them down on the other seat of the couch. 

For some reason, Kira doesn’t feel shy being unclothed in front of him. After the first change, when she was feral, Jayden must have put her back into clothes before carrying her to bed. She has nothing to be shy about now.

“You need to get warm,” he murmurs.

He bustles around the room, loading wood into the fire and bringing it into life, and he wraps three layers of warm blankets around her body. 

This is what she likes about Jayden, what makes him different from those guys in the city. They’d have talked a lot about not intruding on her personal space, or her independence, so early in the relationship (when in truth they just didn’t want to do the work).

Jayden doesn’t perform for points like that. He’s a care-giver, someone who was raised to look after someone in need.

And Kira has waited a lifetime for that person to come along.

She thought she didn’t need it. She thought with a blank mask and a high-class degree she could move through life pretending she didn’t need any help. 

But God knows she needs it. How long has she needed a hug? Not from a friend, but from someone who loves her more intimately than that: only a mother, or a lover, could provide that kind of embrace.

Jayden does it for her.

He pulls her into his lap and wraps his arms around her, a better radiator than the blankets.

Kira doesn’t cry like he did after opening up about his childhood. 

A conflict with her friend isn’t enough to make her shed tears. She has that much of a mask still, at least  but shs folds into Jayden in a desperate search for warmth and for reassurance that doesn’t come from words. 

That’s another thing that’s different about Jayden. He doesn’t try to talk about everything. He doesn’t push her for explanations and answers; nor does he offer every ounce of advice under the moon that she has learned from books or the internet.

No platitudes.

In the most old-fashioned way, he simply reminds her with the physical that he’s here to share her pain.