Chapter 36 - Joe's Past

Chapter 36 - Joe's Past
Raine

Raine waited patiently for Joe to tell his tale and even though she was being respectful of his privacy and didn’t want him to feel forced or obligated to tell her; she couldn’t help the excitement the was buzzing through her. She was going to learn more about her friend! About his past, his family, his pack or even whether he ever had a pack to begin with and most importantly the reason he ended up at Runagate.

She waited with baited breath, her head still resting against the headboard and her eyes stinging a little from the tear filled embrace that had happened just moments before. Her eyes were trained on him, waiting for him to begin and ready to react.

As Joe took a few shaky, deep breaths and stared down at his hands on his lap; Raine continued to wait patiently. Though she couldn’t help but wonder how far back in his life Joe was going to start.

Finally he spoke again but still didn’t look back up at her.

“Where do I even start?” He sighed, shaking his head.

Raine knew his question was a rhetorical one but she hated seeing him looking so miserable and without realising it, she answered him.

“Begin where all great stories start.” He looked at her with one eyebrow raised questioningly. “The beginning.” She finished with a smile.

Joe chuckled at her answer before letting out another long sigh and staring up at her bedroom ceiling.

“The beginning huh?” He murmured to himself as Raine continued to watch him carefully.

“Alright! The beginning it is!” He announced before turning to face Raine with a smile.

“I was born and raised in a small pack called Canis Minor. My mum and dad were True Mates and I had a pretty regular up bringing; for a werewolf.” He chuckled, but Raine could see the melancholy dancing in his eyes as he spoke of his old home. Nevertheless, Joe continued.

“I grew up watching how in love my parents were and I couldn’t wait until I would experience the same love and affection with my own mate. But I knew it would never be exactly the same as theirs…” He started rubbing the back of his neck again.

“Because you’re gay?” Raine smirked at him.

“Exactly!” He grinned back.

“When did you know?” Raine asked curiously.

“Not really sure to be honest. I think I always knew but I didn’t really come to terms until I was a teenager. I had no interest in girls and when my friends would point out a ‘Hot babe’ or ‘fit cheerleader,’ I would look and feel nothing.” He paused for a moment and then started laughing.

“What!?” Raine demanded as Joe grabbed his stomach from laughing so hard.

“I just remembered something!” He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “I took weeks building up the courage to tell my parents and when I finally had the guts to do it, do you know what they said?”

“What?” She asked curiously.

“They said, ‘We know!’” Joe chuckled. “Can you believe it!? I went through turmoil, lost loads of sleep and was terrified they were gonna disown me and they knew!” He laughed. “My mum said she knew for a long time and my dad begun to notice when I entered high school and would come home talking about guys and not once mentioning any girls.” He continued to laugh but the sad look in his eyes as he reminisced about them did not go unnoticed.

“Is it them?” Raine asked curiously as Joe’s laughter began to die down. “Are you running from them?”

“No…” Joe whispered looking down at his hands again.

There was a long silence between them as Raine stared at her friend waiting for him to continue and Joe stared down; all traces of mirth and happiness gone.

“I loved them both so much, but eventually you want to experience more…” He struggled to continue, but took a deep breath and managed to find his voice once more. “So, when I graduated high school and discovered there was a university that offered magical beings education without the issue of trespassing on another’s land I jumped at the idea. I had the grades and easily got a place, it was far from home but not so far that I couldn’t shift and visit every other weekend…I should have just stayed at home…” He whispered the last part miserably.

“The place was huge! Bigger than my packs land! Bigger than any pack I’d ever seen and I met people from all over and of all species! Humans attended too, most were unaware they were learning alongside beasts from their silly fairy tales but there were a few who already knew. For obvious reasons, the humans didn’t stay in the same dorms as us and we were warned about revealing ourselves to them. But all in all it was a pretty amazing place. I managed about a month of bliss before it all went wrong.” He sighed.

“What happened?” Raine whispered, completely enraptured by his story so far.

Joe turned and looked her in the eye again, his eyes were watery and on the verge of crying.

“I met my mate.” He stated.

“Your mate?” She asked.

“Yup.”

“But isn’t that a good thing?” She tried to encourage. “You wanted to feel the bond like your mum and dad.”

“It was supposed to be the best thing that ever happened to me…but it ended up being the worst.” He choked, trying his best to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill.

Raine thought about his words for a moment and then she thought she realised what he was talking about.

“Oh my goddess! Was it a girl!?” She asked horrified and suddenly realising why that would make things awkward and difficult for a gay man like Joe.

She was expecting him to confirm her suspicions and tell her how he couldn’t love her for he didn’t feel that way about women or how she found out he was gay and rejected him before even giving her loving friend a chance. The bitch!

What Raine wasn’t expecting was for Joe to start chuckling at her again. She stared at him with her eyebrows pulled together wondering whether he had a screw loose.

“No it wasn’t a woman!” He laughed at the very idea. “He was a man! A werewolf actually.” Joe went quiet again, but Raine dared not to speak just in case she made another outrageously wrong suggestion.

She waited and could feel her throat begin to twist painfully as she started to think of the only other reason things wouldn’t have worked out for Joe and his mate. And her suspicions were this time proven correct when Joe finally spoke and broke the thick silence hanging in the air.

“He wasn’t expecting me. He didn’t think his mate would be a man.” Joe choked on his words as he said them.

Raine placed a supportive hand on his shoulder, just so he knew she was still there for him and Joe held on to it with one of his own; glad that his friend was there beside him.

“I was so happy just to find him, finally, that it never even occurred to me that he was expecting a woman.” His voice choked painfully.

“What happened?” Raine nudged him to continue, knowing that once he told her he could begin healing.

“Nothing really.” Joe laughed, but there was no humour in his laugh. It was dry and devoid of any real emotion. “He walked away from me at first, but later found me when we were both alone. He explained how he wasn’t prepared and needed time and I was more than happy to give him as much time as he needed.” Joe spluttered.
Raine give his shoulder gentle squeeze, just so he knew she was still all ears.

“It was actually alright at first. We kept to our respective social groups during Uni hours and would meet in my dorm at night.” Raine gave him a wide-eyed look at the last part, a look that clearly said that if he was about to go into detail about their after hour activities she was not emotionally ready for those details.

Her reaction made Joe laugh; his real laugh this time.

“Not those kinds of night time activities!” He playfully shoved her and she giggled. “We never even kissed, let alone got that far.” He laughed, but his laughter quickly died once he realised what he had just said. “We never got a chance.” He sighed sadly.

“I was happy with just getting to spend time with him and be in his presence.” He looked away from her with a melancholic look in his eyes as he remembered these times. “But I soon began to realise that… he wasn’t keeping me in the dark because he needed time…he was ashamed of us being mates and didn’t want his friends to find out.” He looked down sadly. “He didn’t want others to know…” Joe sobbed and Raine could see the tears beginning to spill from his eyes but she was frozen, trying to process the very idea of someone not wanting to be seen with her Joe.

“Why?” She whispered, unable to find the answer herself.

“I don’t know.” Joe cried quietly. “It’s a question I’ve asked myself all these years.” He sniffed.

Raine wished she could give him the answer to help her friend heal, but unfortunately there was only one person who could give him the answer.

“I actually stayed as well, after realising this.” He laughed coldly. “I knew he was ashamed of me and I still stayed, convinced I was okay with it and it would just magically work itself out. I want to go back in time and punch myself!” He cried, burying his hands in his face.

Raine couldn’t take seeing Joe in this much pain, she leapt from her bed and scrambled down to the floor, sitting in front of her friend on the soft carpet. She pulled his hands from his face and stared into his watery, tear stained eyes.

“It’s not your fault!” She cried. “The past is the past! You can only learn from it and you can’t let it crush you! Not now!” She told him determinedly, speaking for both him and herself.

He stared back at her for a while as she kept her heated gaze trained on him. Eventually his face broke into the gentle smile she knew.

“You’re right.” He mumbled as he took her hands into his and gave them a gentle squeeze and she smiled back.

“I’m here if you want to continue…but you don’t have to!” She told him.

“No, I do! I want to be able to face him and not run! And to do that I have to be able to face what happened!” Joe told her as Raine silently nodded along.

He took a deep breath before going on.

“He began to stop showing up…at night.” Joe continued. “At first I thought maybe he just needed some down time, school work was starting to get serious and maybe he was concentrating on his studies. Thinking back on it now I was just making stupid excuses.” He sighed.

Raine gave his hands a squeeze as a way silently scolding him.

“Sorry.” He mumbled, with the smallest hint of a smile playing on his lips. “I started hearing from my friends that he was going to parties, him and his friends. And I was okay with that…the whole Uni experience not being complete without a few drunken parties. But then one night I felt this strangest sensation…” He gulped.

Raine knew what was coming the moment he said this and it made her heart plummet. She had been told many stories from werewolves over the years about what was to come and it was horrific. Something she didn’t even wish on her worst enemy.

“I was getting ready for bed when my lips began to tingle and then suddenly they were burning! My face felt like it was on fire! I tried my best to do something; I threw water on it, flung my head into a sink full of the water and nearly drowned trying to get it stop but nothing worked! It felt like angry blisters were welting up from my pores and I just couldn’t stop it. My neighbour and friend Roger heard me screaming and burst in, he stayed with me until the burning began to subside and then he told me what it was…” Joe sobbed from the memory.

Raine already knew what it was and the very idea of her Joe having to go through such torture had her lips trembling and tears gathering in her eyes.

“He was with someone else!” He sobbed. Raine whimpered at the sight.

“Roger told me with the pain only being around my face he wasn’t having sex most likely just kissing someone else but…but it was enough! It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced and I couldn’t bear even the thought of him being with someone else…” Joe continued to sob. “I couldn’t Raine…I had to get away, so I ran! I didn’t even give Roger a chance to explain more, I didn’t wait to even try and face my mate, I just ran! I shifted as soon as I was clear of the building and just let my wolf take over and he carried us as far away from our mate as possible! Even my wolf was hurt and wanted away! He’s supposed to try and convince me to stay but the pain was so excruciating even he couldn’t bear being anywhere near him if he decided to cheat further!” Joe was physically shaking from the memory.

Raine said nothing. She rose herself up on her knees and wrapped her arms around him and just held him close. Hoping that her embrace would give him some sort of comfort. After a few minutes of him sobbing into her shoulder, he wrapped his arms around her in return and held her close; as though she were his safe space, a place where he didn’t have to run anymore.

After Joe’s sobs seemed to come to an end, Raine spoke, but still held him close in her embrace.

“And he’s here?” She asked softly, while patting his hair gently.

“Yeah.” Was the reply he croaked.

“What’s his name?” She asked carefully; unsure whether it was too soon to ask or even have Joe saying it out loud.

But he took a deep breath and replied in what she could only imagine was a very controlled voice, though she didn’t miss the heartbreak as he spoke his mate’s name.

“Raymond…” He whispered in her ear.