The white wolf (GxG)

Surviving lunch (part 8)

Hi everyone! Hope you enjoy these chapters,
these little author notes will start to happen less and less as I get on a more routine schedule for updates but I just wanted to once again tell you guys that there will be mentions of eating disorders, self harm, and probably some gore later on. I'm not sure how detailed I'll make these, but if you're sensitive to those I definitely think you should tread lightly! (Also that's a better picture of what I imagine Willow would look like!)
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Lilly's POV:

The first few classes were never that bad, English and history were basically a walk in the park to me and the other two classes I had were just plain study halls. However, lunch was always a difficult thing for me. Jason often restricted food and had since he had found me at my mothers house, smelling like a shifter. We all sorta smelt like wet dogs to other shifters, no idea why, it's just how it was. Most shifters shift at random times and have no idea what happened or how, whichever alpha finds them usually determines which pack they'll go into, unless they're born into a pack like most are. Most shifters are usually born from shifter parents, but the odd shifter can be born from two human parents, it's not common, but it happens. He was going through town and realized he knew the house, so he stopped in and saw me there internally freaking out because of the new voice I had suddenly acquired that could talk back to me. The rest was basically history.

I glanced at the lunch line and almost immediately got smacked in the face with the smell of cardboard pizza. I wrinkled my nose up even as my stomach growled out for food and took my seat at one of the smaller tables in the cafeteria. Shifting wasn't allowed at school, unless you took the shifters special gym class. Then you got to wrestle and play games as your wolves, most of the students that could take it enjoyed it. I could tell that was what was happening by the loud barking and snarling I could hear outside of the school walls in the field. Snarling also usually wasn't allowed, it was seen as a threat, especially if you did it to non-shifters. If you did you could get detention, which I guess was a fair punishment. "Lilly?" My thoughts clunked around in my brain at the sound of someone calling me and I came up out of the fog.

"Hey! You were definitely in outer space there, huh!" Alex's lunch tray clattered on the table as she sat across from me, and Willow was following closely behind. If I had a tail I imagined it was wagging so hard it'd hurt. She sat down carefully next to Alex and gave me a soft but nervous smile. 'I'm happy to see you guys, but why are you here?' I tapped the whiteboard with my finger and raised an eyebrow up in question.
"Well Willow-" Willow cut her off with a loud bark of nervous laughter.
"Alex decided that you always looked lonely so we thought we'd come sit with you today, if that's alright." I tried not to let the heat rush to my cheeks but I couldn't help it, just being next to her made me happy. I nodded and wiped the marker off of the board. 'That's fine, it's nice to see you guys. Were you guys doing rounds last night?'
"Yep! Protecting the border and all that. Nothing interesting happened but doing borders isn't too bad." I nodded as if I could ever understand that. The feeling of shifting must feel so good, not being able to shift feels like a constant sneeze that'll never come.
"Yeah, when we got back Carter was eating pancakes that he made apparently," Willow laughs quietly and takes a bite of her pizza. "He's a dork, but he does make pretty good food." I could feel my face scrunch up as I tried to place Carter. 'Big guy? Red/brown hair? Brown eyes?' They both nodded. 'I like him, he's always been nice to me.' He snuck me food pretty often, sometimes he'd even go down to my room and give me a plate just for myself. It was a small gesture to him probably, but a huge one to me.
"He is really sweet. Big teddy bear of a guy, but he looks scary and that's good for the pack! His wolf is huge, he's almost as big as Jason." Alex gushed, taking a long swig of her drink after her words.
"Ignore her," Willow laughed, rolling her eyes in an obviously joking way. "Are you eating?" She pointed with her fork at the empty space in front of me. 'Oh, no I'm ok! I don't like the pizza very much. I haven't eaten in a little bit anyway so it'd probably just make me feel gross.' I showed her the whiteboard and she frowned a little bit. "You should eat something, do you want some grapes? They shouldn't make you feel gross. Just dampen the hunger a little bit?" I hesitated for a second but then I nodded and held my hands out. She dropped about twelve into my outstretched hands and I placed them down on the table in front of me before I popped one into my mouth. It was sweet and a little bitter and I resisted the urge to shove all of them into my mouth. Hunger wasn't so bad until you ate, then it came at you in full force.
"Wow, Princess Willow, being nice? That's shocking, I figured you'd always follow in daddy's footsteps, maybe there's hope for you yet!" Alex grinned proudly at me first and then turned to Willow. I let out a tiny laugh at her expression and both of their eyes widened. "You laughed! Holy shit!" Alex slammed her hands on the table in excitement and I jumped at the noise. "You can make noises?! I didn't know that!" I nodded and grabbed my marker to start writing quickly. 'I can still talk, technically. I just don't like it, mostly I can't in front of people. But I can make noises and stuff, like screams and laughter and other things.' I tapped on the board quickly and they both read it.
"I didn't know that actually, dad always said you were mute." I erased the board and wrote down 'selective mute.' "That makes a little more sense I guess. Maybe one day you can talk comfortably!" Willow smiled and I noticed her eyes crinkled up when she did. Her foot tapped mine gently under the table, a constant sound of gentle knocking. Even thought it was touch I didn't mind it so much, it just felt like a gentle reminder that she was there. Alex had to know, but she didn't say anything, just smiled and ate her food. I didn't even notice I had been eating the grapes carefully, I was just distracted by their mannerisms and enjoying not being alone all the time.
We settled into comfortable silence while they hurried to eat their food before the bell rang. I always left two minutes early to avoid the crowds. 'I go to class two minutes early, so I have to go now, is that ok?' They both hummed at the same time as they read it, still biting into their pizzas. "Yeah of course that's fine! I'll see you in choir?" Willow questioned. I always thought it was funny that I was in choir. I didn't sing anymore but I used to, my passion for music never left, just my voice. I stayed in choir by being the teachers assistant, I'd help people with their tone or particularly hard notes or helped them read music if they weren't quite sure how to yet. It was actually pretty fun. Willow was always seen as untouchable in my eyes, she was an alto and she basically had perfect pitch, probably one of the strongest singers in the choir. I nodded quickly and waved goodbye before I shoved my whiteboard in my bag and headed off to class.

It felt completely surreal that that had really just happened, it was a bold move for Willow and Alex to abandon their usual table in favor of my own. I don't think anyone really noticed, but I felt anxiety prick my skin anyway. It was weird having Willow be so nice to me, Alex was always sort of indifferent, but Willow was always a little harsh, probably following her dads example. While her being nice didn't make up for everything she did, it was definitely something, especially when Jason was probably the main issue with her acting like that anyway. I sighed as I reached my next class, science, and just let myself breathe. As terrifying as it was to admit, maybe everything wasn't all that horrible.