Fears To Face

∞ Chapter 31 ∞

~ Kayley ~

I gazed out over our driveway, the street, the houses beyond, with a pen in my hand, books filled with homework in front of me, but my mind miles away.

Mallory was still sitting at home because they hadn't found Juan yet, while Gwyn and I headed over to her place after school every day to see how she was doing, get her mind off things, tell her what homework to make and the incredibly bored things happening at school.

Although she had explained to the police where his apartment was and they had barged in, he was gone, along with his friends, and he hadn't returned since. So she was still stuck at home, and with the fear of the whole event slowly finding its way to the back of her mind at times, she was getting sick of sitting home, or so she told us. Yet, every sudden sound made her heart race high in her throat and look around in fear, so she wanted to look stronger than she really was. I thought that was really brave.

With Gwyn and I spending so much time at Mallory's, I barely saw Rayne these days. Thing was, he didn't really seem to care. Not in the way he told me Mall needed us now like he had on Saturday, but more in the way like it didn't matter to him whether he was close to me or not. It wasn't like he suddenly acted strange, but it grew stronger over the days. At first I barely noticed any difference, but as the days passed I did.

He only appeared in my lunch breaks, he told me he was busy in the afternoon, and even when he was with me he seemed far away, gazing into the distance, me being the only one who kept the conversations going. It's not like he ignored me, but he was so far away in his own mind, he didn't even seem to notice I was there most of the time. And it wasn't like there were major differences, at least not to anyone around us, but I noticed them. Like when he normally took me in his arms with love, gratefulness to have me near and immediately cheering up his mood, now he just smiled wearily and the gratefulness was faded. And, yes he still kissed me, but it wasn't filled with the same kind of joy and passion as it had before. He was absent minded the last days, always miles away.

It felt like the fun part and the 'in love' part, butterflies-running-through-your-belly-feeling, was all gone and forgotten, and now we were just together because we truly cared for each other and our feelings were just taken as normal, nothing special. Just regular. And there wasn't anything wrong with that itself, everyone always said that feeling would fade, I knew it would eventually, but it was the way it happened. It was gone in a couple of days, and not with us both, only with Rayne.

I told myself it was my own insecurity. I thought it was just his way of coping with his father's loss, now he accepted it, but over the days he only took more distance. Next to that, before he only had gotten closer to me when he was having a hard time. I didn't confront him with his behaviour, I figured he just needed time. Next to that I thought that maybe it was just me overreacting, yet I couldn't help feeling a bit at unease with the situation. Although I confided in the fact that if he really needed me, he would come to me and tell me what was bothering him.

Yesterday we had this really strange conversation. We were in his car at school and for some reason I remembered his calm posture on the couch with my mother from Saturday, no problem taking me in his arms while she was so close and how I wondered what they had been talking about. When I had asked, he had shrugged and said, "Just wolf stuff, nothing interesting. You wouldn't understand when I told you about it." The words itself weren't necessarily strange, but the bored tone he used was. Like he wanted to say, "You're not a wolf so you're too stupid to be able to understand." I knew hurt was clearly displayed on my face, but instead of looking at me and checking how I took in his words like he normally did, his mouth twisted and he just gazed out of the window, not once looking down at me.