Page 37 of Bride of Choice

He hesitated all but for a second.

“Leave then!” I bellowed after him, rushing him to shove him out and slam the door shut.

“Jo?” he called out as I locked the door and pressed my back against it.

I was as pissed as I was crestfallen. Tears threatened but I was sick of them. Screw this emotional bullshit! Angrily forcing them back, I refused to let a single one fall. Not again.

“Fuck you!” I shouted after him, lifting my hand to slam my fist into the door.

I kept this up until my left hand was a throbbing mess and his soft entreaties, cautiously calling out my name, were little more than a memory.

I just couldn’t win. It didn’t matter what I did.

Swiping the wetness leaking from my eyes that was absolutely not tears, damn it, my gaze kept darting to that stupid blocked hole under my bed.

Was I being too easy for beastdom? Was that it? Was I making it too easy for them to fuck and run? Was I just picking guys as messed up, maybe even more, than me? What the actual fuck?!

Picking myself up off the floor, I kept glancing off towards my bed, thinking of that stupid hole.

I couldn’t fix the gaping holes in my heart but… I could plug a known problematic one under my bed…? Remove the temptation of it entirely?

“Fuck it,” I muttered, dressing, washing up, dusting my ass because why let everyone know I give the milk away for free?

I knew what I wanted. I just needed to quit thinking, well, it’s not exactly as I’d imagined but it’s good enough for me, because it so wasn’t. None of it was. It wasn’t me! I kept insisting, even though that little voice in my head asked, But are you sure?

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” I muttered, donning a fresh hoodie and franken-stitched jacket. Scowling, my gaze kept going to the hiding spot for the numerous pelts I’ve already collected. Waffling, I bit my lip.

I had to stop holding onto shit like this, allowing myself something to cling to. I needed to let the fuck go, just like they had.

If I wanted the whole shebang, I needed to hold firm, fight for it, not this bullshit oh, this might work. It was time to embrace this new era of Joanie, Glamazon 2.0.

Pulling the pelts out, I laid them out across my bed. My chest felt tight at the thought of getting rid of them. I could do it. I could. But not today, I thought, quickly stowing them away again. I would, though. I had to. None of this was healthy and I felt like a crazy person.

Baby steps.

My gaze darted towards the hole under my bed again. One headache, heartache at a time.

By the time anyone had come across me, the sun was just starting to peek. My body was sore, even more so than it had been previously. I’d worked through the pain, all of it, using that pain and anger to keep me going even when I wanted nothing more than to crawl back inside my hut and forget all about my stupid, impulsive, cockamamie idea.

“Bauheg hear Jojoanie sick…” the Boogster had started to say. However he meant to finish that sentence, I’d never know. A noise across the water, the sound of something rushing away, wet clopping noises, headed off in the woods, behind me, had me turning around just in time to spy a rather large, wraith-like, familiar type of grey beast I’d bumped into quite literally not so long ago.

A strangled noise left me and I dropped the small gardening trowel I’d borrowed from the humans’ only community garden. Flopping to my ass, I crabwalked towards Boog, trying to speak but finding myself speechless.

My god, it had been right there, watching me? The people of the village? Was it the same beast? Was it looking for me? Did it mean to hunt me or what?”

“What the fuck was that?!” I burst out.

Horrible timing as usual, Rek came rushing up from who knows where doing shit knows what at the squeaked noise I let out.

“What fucks what thing?” Rektal demanded to know. Those furry caterpillars he calls eyebrows winged upward as his gaze darted from the woods, where I was gaping and Boog was growling something fierce, to Boog, then me.

The beast had to do a double, then triple take as he took in the bag I’d been filling with wet mud not very far from the bank, the dried mud caking my body, the telling muddy prints leading right up to my place— didn’t take a genius to figure out what I’d been up to.

“What do?” Rek growled, though he already knew. How could he not know?

“Remodeling,” I murmured dryly. “What’s it to you?”

“What Jo do?!” he bellowed from inside my hut. His snarl as he realized I had in fact filled most of that tunnelway up, bordered on a roar.

---