Witches at war

Four

Jack and I left the apartment and met up with the other werewolves at a local diner. After hugging the alpha, the two of us had fallen into an uncomfortable silence. There were no questions asked about the book, for which I was very grateful. At the same time, he also never asked about the hug.

I was ready to think of an excuse; pretend I had tripped or mistook him for my roommate. Saying anything without being asked seemed strange so I had been waiting for Jack to ask. He never did.

We made it to the diner without exchanging any words and my mind had run wild. "Guys, over here!" Kris' voice called to us from a booth inside the diner. Seeing them brought me relief from the awkwardness between Jack and me. I smiled gratefully as we took our seats with the other werewolves.

It was an odd predicament, a witch spending time with the leaders of a werewolf pack. I wondered how rare of an occurrence this was and whether I was the first to be so casual with werewolves of their stature. This would never have been the case if I hadn't hidden my identity. Witches were not beings you should befriend. We were obnoxious, threatening and unfriendly...at least that's how our ancestors had made us look.

It was saddening, really, that our entire species was judged based on a small part of our vast community. Every other species got a chance to prove themselves, living alongside one another in relative peace for many years. Meanwhile, witches hid away while the distrust towards them continued to grow. The present showed an undeniable rift between witches and other species that seemed almost unfixable.

"Adelaide? Are you listening?" Tia's voice broke me from my trance-like state, my thoughts gradually dissipating. Everyone's eyes were on me and I realised that I had blocked out those around me while I pondered on an internal battle.

Shaking my head slightly to release the tension I was feeling, I let out a forced smile. "I'm sorry, what were you saying?" I asked with a sweet tone, trying to act nonchalantly about the situation. Luckily, Tia didn't seem fazed by my previous mindlessness and immediately reiterated her question.

"Are you seeing anyone?" She asked with a cheeky smile.

I was unsure what she meant, and restated her words in a questioning manner. The phrase was partially familiar, but not something ever used in our world. There was no way for me to know what it meant, so I was left a clueless idiot.

"Yeah, are you dating someone? Do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend?" Tia's words suddenly cleared up my misunderstanding and I made a note of the phrases meaning in my head. To 'see someone' meant to be dating a person.

A smile made its way to my face at the revelation and new knowledge and I quickly formed my answer. "No, not at all," I said, probably too happily for the contents of the sentence. Tia, for some reason, was smiling brighter than I was with a mischievous look in her eyes. I couldn't fathom a reason why she would be looking at me the way she was and so I pushed it to the back of my mind and focused on attempting to behave in a human way.

To my surprise, it was Max who spoke up next, saying something that caused the other members of the group to gasp and send him a glare. "Did your boyfriend break up with you?"

A napkin was thrown at Max while three pairs of disapproving eyes looked down on him. The small boy cowered in his seat, a grouchy look on his face. Once again I was left in the dark. To me, the question seemed fairly logical. In human culture, dating before my age was normal. To assume I had a partner previously who I was now separated from seemed just as logical. However, to everyone else this was offensive.

I didn't know what to do. If I went with Max's story, the others could potentially see his words as more offensive to me. There was already a divide between Max and me, one that I didn't want to increase any further. Instead of risking that, I decided to take a different route. A more truthful one that I hoped wouldn't be too strange to come from a human.