Inevitably Yours

QUINN

I woke up early in the morning with achy, puffy eyes. I fell asleep crying, but I couldn’t just cry over him forever. My mom treated me like china when I came downstairs, dressed with my backpack slung over my shoulder. I tried to make myself some toast and pretend like this was any other first day of school.

When my dad dropped me off, he grabbed my arm before I could jump out of the car. “I couldn’t clear up the math class issue on your schedule,” he said. “But I did get your counselor to agree to place you in the AP History class instead of the regular track. We had to pull you out of art, but you have music, so that’s enough fluff classes.”

“Dad! It’s not fluff!” I said quickly. He waved his hand.

“Quinny, you play beautifully, but that is not how you will feed your pups and mate one day. You need to focus on your academics and grades,” he said. “Have a good first day.”

My mouth settled into a tight line; I nodded and climbed out of the car. Brina was waiting for me on the steps.

“Hey! You look… interesting this morning,” she said, giving me wide eyes.

“Please don’t ask. I really don’t want to talk about it,” I said. Brina just slung her arm over my shoulder and smiled.

“Everyone is waiting inside,” she said. “And guess what? Brandon dumped Courtney for a junior!”

“What?” I said quickly.

“Yea,” she laughed. “Honestly, she’s kind of a slut. Not that he isn’t, but man, oh man, were we all waiting for that.”

We headed up the steps and into the large school building. I looked around as we walked inside. Brina led us right to our lockers. With our last names being so close alphabetically, we knew they would be close, and somehow she already knew where. John and Kyle were standing there with Carl and Reese.

“She is alive!” Carl joked. I stuck my tongue out at him. Reese high-fived me, and Carl gave me a one-armed hug. “Alright, let’s see it,” he said, grabbing my schedule out of my hand. Carl was the other super-smart one of us. He looked like he crawled out of a garbage can but took just as many advanced classes as I did.

“How many we got together?” I asked.

“Two but not until next semester,” he said. “At least we all have the same lunch.”

I grabbed my schedule back and looked at it. It had all the information for our classes for the year and which lockers were assigned to us, but not where anything was. I found my locker and stuffed my extra supplies inside, leaving only a notebook and one binder in my bag for the day.

“So, does anyone know where Ganbar’s class is?” I asked, rejoining my friends.

“Um, I think it’s down that way,” Brina said, pointing down the direction we came in. “But I am pretty sure I have to go this way,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction.

“We have like 10 minutes; we should probably find our classes,” I said.

“Q, no one is getting detention for being late on the first day,” John laughed.

“Especially freshman!” Kyle added. “They didn’t even give us a map. Look how many wolves they packed in one building?”

There were more people in the school than I expected. The halls were teeming with people rushing past, only leaving a buffer by the lockers, where pockets of teenagers were stopping to reunite with their friends.

“My class looks like it’s only a couple of doors down from yours,” Reese said. “Let’s go look together.” I nodded, and we waved to our friends, promising to find them at lunch.

“You look sunburnt,” he said as we pushed our way along the busy hall.

“Running is an outside sport,” I said.

“Oh, I forgot,” he laughed. “They haven’t kicked you off for being too slow yet?”

“They haven’t kicked you out of school for being too dumb yet,” I teased.

“That’s because I have smarties like you to help make sure I skirt right by,” he smiled. Suddenly Reese ducked out of the way, and someone crashed into me. I fell back, landing hard on my butt.

“Ow,” I g*****d as the person scrambled off of me. People started making a path around us.

“Quinn, are you alright?” Reese said.

“Sorry about that,” the guy who hit me said.

“No, I’m sorry,” Reese said. “I should have grabbed you.”

“Are you okay?” the guy asked.

“Yea, just my tailbone,” I said, laughing lightly. Reese helped me up, but the other guy didn’t move. “Nothings broken. You’re off the hook.”

He was giving me a funny look. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I’ll watch where I am going. My friends were horsing around, and we weren’t paying attention. Guess we just didn’t see you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yep, gotten that one before,” I said.

“Sure, you’re okay?” he asked, looking me up and down. His eyes stayed on my hair just a moment too long not to notice.

“Yea, great,” I said, smiling at him. “I just need to find my class. Come on, Reese.”

“Oh, you’re freshies? What are you looking for?” he asked quickly.

“Ganbar, 502,” I said.

“Swinsel, 505,” Reese said.

“Easy,” the guy smiled. He pointed down the hall. “Go that way and then turn down that hall with the orange streamers hanging everywhere. Should be toward the end.”

“Thanks!” I exclaimed.

“See you around,” the guy said, smiling as he walked away.

“The guy was weird,” Reese said, looking at him over his shoulder.

“No, I’m weird,” I said.

“No, you’re Quinn,” Reese corrected. “Come on, before any more muscle types decide to use you for tackle practice.”

“You jumped out of the way and left me for dead!” I accused.

“Still his fault,” Reese reasoned. I grabbed onto his backpack and walked close as he pushed us back into the crowd flooding down the hall. The only perk to being the short one in the friend group was hiding amongst taller people.

–

By the time I got to band at the very end of the day, I was utterly exhausted. The only thing that was easy to find in the whole school was the cafeteria as it was right at the center. What I didn’t know is that it was too small for the student body during any of the lunch periods and that most students got pushed to the gym to eat where there were not any tables.

After standing in line for almost half the period to get lunch, I noted that it would probably be better to pack a lunch going forward. I was excited to find out Christy and many of the upperclassmen in band shared a lunch period with the freshman. Christy came over to meet all of my friends, and I didn’t miss Stuart’s relieved look as she skipped away from him to eat with me.

“How’s the first day?” Tommy said, coming up behind me and ruffling my hair as I got my saxophone from its case.

“Long,” I frowned.

“Did you hear?” I heard Aaron as he entered the storage room. “f*****g Alpha kids bailed with the Luna. Someone said she ran off to another pack because Alpha Lawrence has a side piece.”

“No way,” Tommy said with wide eyes. He looked back at me, but I had no idea what to say to him.

“You’re the one who’s friends with him,” Aaron said. “Where the f**k is he? I mean, ditching practice is one thing but school altogether?”

“He isn’t here today?” Tommy questioned.

“You’re friends with Michael?” I said.

“Shut it, freshman princess. Unless you are going to tell us what’s going on with your little Alpha b***h,” Aaron sneered. While we hadn’t talked much, and he tended to look at me weird, he had never been so nasty to me.

“Hey, man, what’s your problem?” Tommy said, stepping in front of me. “Leave her alone.”

“Look, I have no respect for the ones that just open their legs for him then play the victim when people find out,” Aaron said. He grabbed his instrument case from the shelf. “Sucks too. She was the only good-looking one out of this group.”

I peeked around Tommy to see Aaron walking out of the room. He turned to me with a contrite expression. “He’s an a*s, but it’s not his fault,” Tommy said.

“I didn’t….” I started.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“No, I don’t think you did. And Sunni said she knows it’s not true. Plus, he didn’t say anything about you. I was trying to figure out if that was good or bad, honestly, but he hasn’t been around much in weeks,” Tommy said.

“So you are friends?” I questioned.

“Not as close as we used to be, but yea,” Tommy said. “Michael’s not all bad. He plays into the whole playboy thing a little too hard sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” I asked. “Do you know how many times I wanted to stop coming?”

“Sorry, Quinn. You have to understand. There is a fickle line to all this. Michael invited drama because of who he is. I did believe the talk at first because I know firsthand how large his v-card collection is, but I knew it wasn’t true after I met you. You just aren’t like that,” Tommy frowned.

“So, do you know where he is?” I asked quietly.

“Do you?” he countered. I shook my head and grabbed my things. Tommy stepped aside, letting me walk out of the room. As soon as I got down the hall and into the main room, Christy was on top of me.

“Q, oh my gosh, are you okay? I heard during third period,” Christy said.

“Heard what?” I asked her.

“About Michael,” she whispered. “Getting sent away by the Alpha and Luna.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked her.

She c****d her head in confusion. “So, it’s not true?” she asked.

“Christy, I don’t know where he is,” I told her.

“Well, I knew the thing about your dad beating the s**t out of him had to be a lie because your dad is way too nice, but man, I really thought for a second that the Luna was taking him to some boarding school across the country because he’s such a w***e,” she rambled.

“Oh my goddess,” I exclaimed. “Seriously? That is what people are saying?”

“Yea…” she said. “You haven’t heard any of this?”

“No!” I said. “I’ve spent the whole day figuring out where everything is and moving through the stupid crowds. I mean, really, all these damn people in one building? Who designed this? Then every teacher had like a forty-page packet with syllabus and assignments-”

“Quinn!” Christy shouted, grabbing my shoulders. “Hey, breathe. Come here,” she said. She held my hand and pulled me with her to the color guard closet that was empty now.

She shut the door and looked at me sympathetically. “I feel like you knew he was gone,” she said softly. I turned away from her and nodded my head. No more crying.

“Do you know what is going on with him?” she asked. “Cause the rumors….”

“No,” I said. “He didn’t tell me anything. Why would he?”

“Because he didn’t have s*x with you,” she said. I turned around to see her shrug. “The girls he has s*x with quickly usually only last a little while. The few that he didn’t f**k in the first week or so, they lasted longer.”

I nodded my head. I took a deep breath before speaking, “Look, I don’t know where he went.” I brought my hand to the necklace that I continually found myself clutching throughout the day. “He left. I just want to be normal. Do this high school thing. It’s been a long day, and I still have practice after school. I don’t care about the rumors, and I can’t confirm or deny them because I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about Michael. He isn’t here, so he isn’t a factor now.”

Christy gave me a pained expression but nodded. “Friday, you don’t have cross country practice, right?” she asked. I shook my head. “Okay. Then stay after school with me. There is a flute player going into cosmetology. She is amazing at hair and makeup. Since I still don’t have my show makeup down, she’s going to help me. Maybe we can braid up all the blueness into something cute, so you don’t look crazy at your first game.”

I closed my eyes, letting out a heavy breath. A small smile formed on my lips. “Sure,” I said. “If she is okay with that. I can stay.”

Christy came closer and pulled me into a hug. “I’ll try to push off any rumors about you that I hear, okay?” she whispered.

“Thank you,” I said, hugging her tighter.

“What are best friends for?”