Page 12 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

I’d hauled ass to the bookshop after the final bell. Declining the ride offer from Jared. I told him I’d meet him where he usually parked his Jeep. There was a bus stop near there and I needed to replace Maggie’s umbrella, anyway.

After a quick stop at the ATM to get Jared some cash for my new kicks, and another stop at the pharmacy to pick up a plain black umbrella, I had to sprint to the bus stop—which proved to be harder than anticipated with my ankle still causing me a stupid amount of grief.

I pounded on the glass of the door a split second after Maggie closed it.

“Miss Allie, you done gave me a heart attack,” she exclaimed, her warm brown eyes widening at the sight of me as she opened the door again. “Where’ve you been, child?”

Out of breath from the run and weighted down with the tattered old textbooks I’d been given to temporarily replace the ones I irresponsibly misplaced, I stepped up the two steps and onto the bus. “Hey, Mags.”

She eyed the umbrella in my hand, her gaze zeroing in on the price tag. Then her eyes trailed to my scraped- up hands, and down to my foot. “You got caught in that storm, didn’t you?”

I handed her the umbrella and swiped my bus pass in the reader.

There wasn’t really any point in lying to Mags at this point. She may not have known that I lived alone in the woods, but she knew I walked into them every evening when she dropped me off.

“Yeah. Slipped in the mud and twisted my ankle really bad.” It was only a half lie.

She pursed her lips, taking the proffered umbrella. “And just what happened to my umbrella?”

“It—uh…it broke.”

“Mmmmmmmhmm” said Mags, releasing the airbrake as she pulled away from the stop and onto main street. “Sit down, Miss Allie. I got a route to get to.”

I did as she said, sitting where I usually did just behind where the blue seats reserved for commuters traveling with children or seniors.

Neither rode the bus at this hour, in fact, I usually rode entirely alone—but I felt strange taking up one of those seats anyway.

“You didn’t have to go and buy a new one, you know,” Mags said after a few more minutes.

I saw her watching me from the rearview. “It was yours. Of course, I did.”

Mags kept glancing up at me in the mirror for the rest of the ride, as though trying to figure out if she should say something. I beat her to it. “I’m getting off at Carpenter Creek today instead of my usual.”

“Alright,” she said after a pause, and I could tell she was wondering why and knowing it wasn’t her place to ask.

Maggie made the stop and opened the door, I paused as I walked by her. “I don’t know if I’ll be on the bus much anymore for a while,” I told her, watching her graying brows furrow. “I found a better place to stay.”

Her shouldered visibly sagged. “Thank the lord for that,” she said with a laugh. “Child, I was about this close to taking you home with me.” She pinched her fingers together with about an inch of space between them to illustrate her point.

I cocked my head at her, a chill gripping my chest. “A girl your age shouldn’t be out there in those woods all alone. I know it’s none of my business, but it ain’t right.”

I snorted. I should’ve figured she would know. There wasn’t anything around my usual stop for miles except for a car-pool lot and she knew damn well I didn’t drive. “Thank you,” I told her earnestly. “For not telling anyone…and well…for everything else.”

“You’re welcome. Take care now, hear?” I nodded. “I will.”

It didn’t take long for me to find Jared leaning against his Jeep in the space he usually parked in at the mouth of the hiking trail. “There you are,” he said as I approached. “I was just about to go look for you.”

My ankle had started to hurt again from the walk, and I winced as I made my way over to Jared.

I was still feeling a little awkward after turning down his offer to have lunch today and could barely look at him.

Which made what I was about to suggest a lot harder.

“I guess we should exchange numbers,” I said sheepishly.

“I mean, if I’m going to be staying with you for a little while, anyway. ”

I didn’t miss his slight grin. “Yeah,” he said, tugging a slim black phone from his back pocket. “Good idea. What’s yours?”

I told him my number, my gaze flitting toward his face as it was bent over the glowing light of the cell, punching in the numbers as I said them. “There,” he said after he was finished, raising his head with a smile. “I just texted you.”

I felt my bag vibrate. “Great,” I said, adjusting my pack. There was one more thing I needed to ask him, and the chill of the evening gave me the courage to do it. “Do you think you could give me a ride to the edge of town?”

His brows furrowed.

“To my aunt and uncle’s storage unit. I—I need to grab my jacket and winter stuff…and whatever is left of my clothes.”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course. Do you want to go right now?”

“If that’s okay?”

Jared nodded and nudged his head toward the Jeep. “Hop in.”

On the way to the unit, I returned my uncle’s phone call. It was awkward as fuck with Jared in the car, but I didn’t foresee another time to call, and if I didn’t return his call soon, he might try to call Viv or her mom. I couldn’t have that.

Jared shifted in his seat as I lied to my uncle, telling him that I wasn’t at school the day before because I came down with a bad cold and that I was completely fine now and not to worry about it.

Placated, Uncle Tim told me they were going to try to come home for Christmas in two months, but that the plan wasn’t concrete yet.

I gulped. I didn’t really care to see them for Christmas, or anytime really.

I didn’t even feel like I wanted to celebrate Christmas this year. Besides, I knew Uncle Tim was just saying that to give me false hope. If my aunt wanted to stay in Florida, which I knew she did, he would stay too.

“Is this it?” Jared asked about an hour later, after I’d finished gathering up the last vestiges of my belongings from the packed storage unit.

His eyebrow was raised as he glanced down at the small box in his arms. He was kind enough to offer to carry it back to the Jeep for me after I nearly dropped it with all my limping.

I dropped my gaze and brushed my hair from my face.

“Yeah,” I told him, looking around at the vacuum- sealed Hermes pillows, and the Tiffany lamps.

The dusted jade Ethan Allen sofa set, and glittering gold coffee and end table set.

Not to mention the bagged-up winter parkas and boots that were worth more than everything I owned in all the world.

I mean, who the fuck needed a nine-hundred-dollar jacket, anyway?

Jared seemed to be doing the same thing I was, looking around all the fine things gathering a fine layer of dust in storage.

Meanwhile, everything I owned in here could fit in the little box in his arms. “Is any of this stuff your dad’s?

” Jared asked in a breath, his voice neutral even though the distaste was clear in his expression.

I gestured to the massive Maico bike covered in a taupe sheet back behind a fancy ottoman and mahogany headboard. “That’s Dad’s,” I told him. “But my aunt and uncle don’t want me riding it, at least until I’m eighteen.”

“That’s it?”

I pursed my lips. “Yeah. That’s it.”

They’d gotten rid of everything else when he’d passed.

Saying there wasn’t space in storage, and they didn’t want to pay for another unit.

My father hadn’t been able to leave me much, either.

Ours being a single income household my entire life, his medical bills took every last cent before his illness finally took him. Leaving me with almost nothing.

I’d wanted to look for a new picture of my dad to take with me, but with stacks of boxes piled ceiling high, I knew it would take too long. Besides, I couldn’t even be sure my aunt and uncle kept any…

I hoped they had, though.

The only photos I had of his now were the ones on my phone, and they were taken just before his passing. I didn’t want to remember him like that. I wanted to remember him healthy and happy and full of life.

“You ready?” Jared asked gently, pulling me out of my head.

“Hmm?” I murmured, swallowing hard and spinning on the spot, not realizing my eyes were damp with tears until Jared had already seen them. His jaw clenched. I sucked in a breath, easing the ache in my chest. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Jared set down the box atop a gilded table and closed the small gap between us.

I looked up at him, my heart suddenly aching for an entirely different reason.

He wasn’t looking at me with pity like he did before.

This time the emotion buried deep in his amber eyes was something more like understanding. Like…like he was sharing my grief.

I parted my lips to say something, but his arms came around me. I stiffened at first, but then his cedar and birch scent filled my lungs and I sagged into his embrace, pressing my cheek against his warm chest. My chin quivered as I tried to erect a dam to stop the swell of emotion rising within.

He rubbed wide circles into my back.

I fisted my hands in the material of his soft t-shirt.

The dam broke, and I let go, shaking as the first of the tears came.

It was like he’d given me permission to feel the pain, and I hadn’t had that in a long time. Not ever, really.

I couldn’t cry like this in front of my aunt and uncle. And I didn’t want Viv and Layla to worry about me, so I kept the pain at bay.

They’d seen me cry once and only once—at his funeral. Then I had to be strong. I had to hold back my pain so I could get through going to school and to work. So I could get to my refuge in the woods each night without collapsing.

I had to be strong. I didn’t have a choice.

But for the first time, with a perfect stranger holding me, giving me permission to feel my pain, I let it out. It was like letting something go, a weight that I’d been carrying but unable to put down even for a second, finally hit the ground and I felt heavier and lighter all at the same time.

I cried for what felt like only a few minutes, but when the tears finally dried and I began to pull away, I knew it’d been a lot longer.

My shoulders were stiff and the wide circle of damp on Jared’s t-shirt spoke of more tears than I cared to admit.

I sniffled, completely unable to look at him as I withdrew my arms, using my sleeves to get the worst of the wetness and snot from my face.

A warm touch beneath my chin made me tilt my head up. I met Jared’s amber eyes with an angry red blush clawing up my neck. I was surprised to find that his own eyes were damp—my own chaotic emotion had drawn some of his own pain to surface. For the first time I wondered about Jared’s parents.

He lived in that cabin with Clay. Neither ever mentioned their families. I’d never even seen Jared with his mom and dad. His uncle came to pick him up from school once, though. I only knew that because I was in the office when he came to call him out from class.

What had happened to him? To his parents?

“You don’t need to hide your pain from me, Allie. We all carry scars. Some people wear theirs like armor. Some hide beneath them. Neither works. You have to own your pain. Accept it. And maybe find someone who understands it to share it with, so the burden isn’t so heavy to bear.”

My heart swelled in my chest and I had to blink away the new tears trying to form. “Thank you,” I whispered, truly meaning it.

Jared brushed the hair away from my face, tucking it gently behind my ear before he stepped back and lifted the box from the table. He winked, trying and succeeding to lighten the mood. “Anytime Allie. Now come on. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving,” I muttered under my breath as I drew down the metal door and latched the lock.

“I heard that.”

I chuckled, stepping up into the warm Jeep and shutting the door behind me.

Excited to get back to the cabin. The fear I’d felt the day before at the prospect of sleeping in a house full of wolves all but vanished.

They may have beasts inside them, but that didn’t have to mean they were monsters… and I was starting to see that.