The memory rings in my ears until I’m almost certain I can feel her at the other end, weeping and alone. But I know it’s just my imagination running away with me again. There is no mate at the other end of my thread, and there never will be. It’s only a dead end, a shriveled hope, a future of full moons sat in this cage with no one to keep me company but Mother and Vanessa.
But at least my wolf is content to sit quietly tonight. I rest my eyes as I wait for the pain to pass and the moment I can return home.
Chapter21
Stupid is as Stupid Does
IRIS
Isit possible to be heartbroken when you’ve never been in love?
Probably not, right? That doesn’t make any sense. What would there be to be heartbroken over?
But if that’s not possible, then why does every breath I take feel empty? And why can I taste the salt of tears on my lips? If heartbreak without love is not possible, why does the steady rhythm in my chest feel so foreign? As if I’m hearing it for the very first time?
It is quiet, a persistent whisper in my ears.
All I want to do is reach down my throat and pry it free. If only it would go back to being silent.
But maybe this is my punishment for being foolish. For allowing myself to believe for even a moment that someone, somewhere, could love a monster like me.
Or maybe it really isn’t heartbreak.
Maybe I’m just hungry. Or angry. Or some combination of the two.
Whatever it is, it hurts, and I spend the better part of an hour drowning in it before I’m able to pull myself into a seated position.
Thank fate, Elsie is out with her secret. She wouldn’t take kindly to me getting snot on the sofa cushions, and she’d probably ask me a million questions. Questions like, ‘what’s wrong?’ or ‘what happened?’
Questions I don’t have an answer to.
What would I say?
A boy hurt my feelings?
“Big whoop, eat him,” she’d say.
I put my faith in a man?
“Stupid is as stupid does,” she’d say.
The only man I’ve ever trusted lied to me?
No, that’s not right, not quite.
The only man who’s ever seen me for what I am could never love me.
What would she say to that?
I don’t think I want to know.
Moonlight is streaming in through the windows, and there’s an Iris-shaped dent in the couch when I finally get up, but I quickly slouch off to my room to make another in my bed.
The plush fabric of the pillows softens the harsh reality, but she’s a persistent old bitch, and the moment my eyes slide shut, she re-establishes herself.
My phone starts to buzz.
I ignore it the first time. And the second and third. But on the sixth or seventh ring, I decide to make use of the rage scratching at my skin to be free.
