Page 86 of Impossible

Shame. Shameshameshameshame. He’s full of it. He feels so small.

I think of him. I show him. Larger than life. Capable, coherent, eloquent Hollis. Tall and brave. Earnest and hardworking. Always up up up. So afraid to fall. A shortcoming of pride. An earnest picture. I won’t lie to him. He needs to know.

Gratitude. The truth. Always better than a lie. Always better than silence. He knows now. His teeth on my neck, cutting relief. I moan. I bask.

We’re rock bottom. But we’re looking up. All of us. Together. I paint the picture in my mind. The bottom of a ravine. A sliver of sunlight shining through. Us. In pelts. Like cavemen.

An echo of laughter through the bond.

An amiable silence.

A leg cramp.

More laughter. More silence. Then. Joshua. “Never again, ok? Never. Not even a moment.”

“Never,” Hollis agrees, penitent.

“Never,” Leon echoes, reverent.

I show a picture. All of us. Indie too. Flushed and vibrant and aching, incomplete without us. Incomplete without her.

Plans come later. But we all know—we’re close. But not complete.

25

Indefensible

Indigo

“Whichiswhyitis so important to get the full B-complex represented in your diet, at least a week or two ahead of—Indigo, are you listening?”

Ms. Kayle, the nutrition professor—yes, that really is her name—is glaring at me.

“Sorry.” My cheeks heat as the attention of the class turns to me. I would have thought that the nutrition class would be comprised entirely of omegas, considering it seems most domestic duties would fall to the often-singular female member of a pack, but it’s a pretty even split between alphas and omegas, all of whom are now staring at me.

“Just because you don’t eat doesn’t mean your pack won’t.” Kennedy smirks from the side of the room. My jaw drops—it’s just so stunningly cliché.

Kennedy’s friends titter, and Ms. Kayle drones on, seemingly oblivious to the 80’s high-school flick playing out before her.

Outside of Cecilia and the soon-to-be-minted Drake Pack, I know almost nobody my age at the Complex. I feel like that’s a problem, but if girls like Kennedy are the only options, I don’t particularly feel like I’m missing out.

“She’s just jealous that you actually had a pack to talk to on Wednesday night,” Cecilia whispers to me. “She was high and dry, all by herself.”

I rack my mind, trying to recall if I saw her at the mixer at all. “It was just Leon’s pack,” I whisper back. Midas Pack, who I was daydreaming about when Ms. Kayle embarrassed me in front of everybody.

“Just Leon.” Cecilia makes air quotes around the words. I watch her phone light up and bite back a smirk.

“Like that’s ‘just Jake’?” I quip. The contact on her screen is three duck emojis.

“Uh, no, actually.” She flushes her signature red and flips the phone over so I can’t read the text. Before I have a chance to pry, the bell rings.

“No actually what?” I push as she slings my threadbare backpack over the handle of the wheelchair. Before she can answer me, however—oravoidanswering me if her expression is any indicator—Leon enters.

“Oh!” Cecilia squeaks, nearly rolling me into his shins. “Hi, Trainer Midas.”

“Hello, Cecilia,” he greets her, but his eyes are on me. He wears his usual well-constructed mask, but his scent gives him away. It’s somehowstrongertoday, even more intense and overpowering than I usually find it. I squirm in my seat. “I’ll escort Indigo to her doctor’s appointment. If that’s alright, Indigo?”

“Sure,” I stammer, turning to Cecilia. “I’ll uh, see you later?”

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