howl // c. hood

six

lowercase intended.

school the following week was interesting. i constantly missed jackson before class, having retreated to the library with headphones in to keep me in check every morning. i could certainly smell all the hormones in the air, it gave me a headache not even ibuprofen and advil could help. god knows it would be the worst once football season was in session.

i sighed to myself.

the information the boys had shared with me that night had been keeping me up every night. i mean, i even did some research of my own, you know, if you count googling "werewolf." obviously, there was a lot of bogus results that mostly fanfiction writers would count as helpful, but nothing was helpful to me. aside from what the boys could tell me, i was going into this new aspect of life blind. i didn't even know how to prepare. should i start stretching more? should i become more active? i hope not.

if only i didn't have to take that damn shortcut through the woods.

classes were interesting; i couldn't wear my headphones, as it was against school policy, and you can't tell the teacher "oh, these help me with my new werewolf senses, can you make an exception?" fortunately, i had at least one of the boys with me in a class at all times. luke in math, michael in music, french, and history, calum in psychology and english.

in music classes, i almost had to excuse myself during warmups, as the sirens and constant high notes were driving me up the wall. michael saw, fortunately, and discreetly navigated to stand where i was in the soprano ii section, gripping my hand. of course, we were called out, the music teacher now believing that the two of us were dating, especially since it happened almost every class.

it was at lunch about a week after everything, when i was with jackson, that i really lost it.

"so why are we eating in the hallways like losers again?" he asked, cocking a brow.

"i told you earlier today jackson, i have a headache and don't feel well," i replied.

he nodded, "yeah, but one, you've said that for the past week, and now we can't watch calum hood. plus i already told maxwell to meet us there in the cafeteria."

"can't you just text him to meet us out here?" i asked.

jackson gasped, "no. then he'll leave us because he'll definitely think we're losers."

against my better judgement, i sighed, "okay, okay, fine. we'll go to the cafeteria."

i knew it wasn't going to end well, but i still tagged along with jackson anyway. i wanted to seem completely normal, jackson couldn't suspect a thing. i didn't know calum's policy for humans learning of the existence of werewolves, but it couldn't have been good. i couldn't even imagine what would happen or how jackson would even react to finding out i was transitioning into a werewolf.

the two of us reached the cafeteria doors, and i took a deep breath. jackson opened up the door, and just the sheer difference of volumes between the quiet hallway and the practically-concert-volume lunchroom was astonishing. i grimaced, putting my hand on jackson's bicep as an anchor.

even as a non-transitioning human, my anxiety-driven sensory overload in the cafeteria was a reason jackson and i would have to leave before. when i was particularly bad, i would have to run out before my anxiety attacks rendered me paralyzed. but this, the whole transitioning thing and heightened senses, this was a whole new world of sensory overload. i could hear the table of jocks pounding their fists on the table while howling with laughter, the scrape of eating utensils against the plates like nails on a chalkboard, talks of dieting and restricted eating, casual gossip of who's fucking who. i wanted to scream.