Intimacy | ✔️ {Wattys 2017}

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I can recall years ago, exactly to the day I met him and we hit it off. He was outgoing and I was the typical shy girl finding her place in high school. For him, high school was a social experience where he made friends while he also learned. To him, I was the shy girl who some people knew and he wanted to know me, he wanted to make another friend. We become best friends, doing everything together from talking in the hall to having crazy experiences that we would laugh about for years to come. He was my muse. He broke the shell of the shy girl and devoted most of his time to me. But friends is all we ever could be. The night I turned seventeen and found that he was my mate, I was broken.

How do you tell your best friend that you love them more than a friend? It's hard. It's nerve racking...especially when you know they don't have eyes for you in that way.

I stand in the hallway, the school busy as chatter is all around me. Countless stores from prom night still are talked about, some of the couple's still together as they smile and laugh. One couple has caught my eye in particular, the couple that is breaking my heart and have no clue about it. What does Molly Moore have that I do not? She has my best friend and my one true mate, Augustus Brown.

I tear my eyes away as they walk down the hall, knowing that they will stop by me and have a small conversation. I know what will happen tonight for them. Augustus told me. He told me he was taking her to our favorite local restaurant. Grabbing the handle to my locker, I open it up and put a few books inside, wondering if I could just avoid them and leave for the day. Maybe I should. But if I cannot make it through this day then I cannot make it through the last two weeks of school. I have two weeks and then the summer begins. Once the summer is over, I plan on leaving and never looking back. I cannot live in a town where my mate is with someone else. Hell, I cried myself to sleep last night and prom night all because I cannot even reject my mate without him knowing I am not human.

I make my decision, heading for my next class and skipping the talk with Augustus and Molly. I have to get away from them at least. I cannot do that kind of torture and put on a happy face. Wearing masks will only hurt you at the end of the day more than you wish.

"You're going to have to face him sometime," I mutter to myself, passing Flynn and his future Beta, Cole, on the way to my first class. Even though Flynn's date dumped him two nights ago, he's already got a girl back by his side. She's werewolf, from our pack, and in the drama club here. I recall her being a sweetheart, but Flynn seems to bring out the worst in all of these girls. "Just think of the two weeks remaining and you'll be fine."

I enter my math class, taking a seat in the middle as no one is even in here. It's a ghost town and I have a good reason to be here, twenty minutes early. Molly is in this class as well, a straight A student with no teacher ever finding her a torture to teach. She's someone you cannot hate. She's someone, that although she has my mate, I could never hate her. Why? Because she has done nothing to me, hell, she only knows me as Augustus' best friend and nothing more. To her I'm just someone to get along with because she is dating my best friend for all she knows. She's with the man fate has paired me up with.

The minutes fly by and soon, after everyone has taken their seats, the room quiets down and a chair scratches across the floor. I already know who it is by their scent and the fact that we do this every Friday. "Run tomorrow morning before the sunrise? It will be fun," Flynn asks, putting his backpack down as he takes his seat beside me. "We've missed you lately."

I shrug. "Things have changed." He nods, knowing what I am referring to, how I don't like shifting that much. Every Tuesday morning a group of ten of us would meet up at four in the morning by the pack house and we run and watch the sunrise. The last time I took part in the event was four months ago. Four months ago when Augustus told me that he was in love with Molly.