Page 54 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

I’d been both right and a little off base about why Uncle Tim had reached out to Vivian.

He had been notified about my failing grades. That was why he’d phoned the principal himself to speak about what could be done for reparations. At the onset of that call, Susan, the receptionist, had mentioned that she hoped I was feeling better after leaving suddenly from the office on Tuesday.

Susan had reminded Uncle Tim that he’d called to vouch for my absence.

What a shitty fucking time for him to suddenly decide to be involved.

When Uncle Tim demanded to know if it was Devin who’d called pretending to be him, I was all too happy to point the finger at my ex.

And then to explain that we’d since broken up and he’d moved away. That set Uncle Tim’s mind at ease.

You’re a good kid, Al, he’d said. I’d hate for someone else’s bad influence to get you into any sort of trouble.

Little did he know I’d gotten myself in all the trouble I’d been in. It was my actions that put me here, caught in a tangled web, trying to claw my way out of the lies I’d been spinning for months.

The receiver fit into the cradle with a dull click as I hung up. With a promise to behave myself and apply myself more in class, Uncle Tim had let me go. My friends wouldn’t forgive so easily.

All the turmoil had upset me to the point that my wolf was pacing steadily in my belly. I hushed her as best I could, taking a spare minute to fill a glass of icy water from the tap and gulp it down slowly before leaving the kitchen.

I needed to do this now. Layla and Viv deserved an explanation and they wouldn’t be convinced to wait. If I left now, they wouldn’t forgive me. And I needed them to forgive me.

Rolling my shoulders back, I walked back down the hall, toward the glow cast against the worn hardwood from Viv’s open bedroom door.

It was like a game of the floor is lava, but there was nothing to jump on and save myself.

Each step was painful and deliberate. I had to force my feet forward, dragging my heavy form with me.

Stay calm, Allie, I told myself, pausing for one last steadying breath before I entered the room.

“I just don’t understand what could—” Layla had been whispering harshly to Vivian atop the bed but halted when she spotted me in the doorway.

Viv whirled on me, her jaw set. “Go ahead,” she snapped. “Tell her.”

I should have known she wouldn’t explain what was going on to Layla. She would want me to do it myself. To admit what I’d done in betraying them both.

“I lied to you,” I began, a ball forming in my throat, unsure of what to do with my hands. “I’ve been lying to you both for months.”

Layla frowned, a crease deepening in her forehead. Sighing, I lowered myself into Vivian’s chair by her desk and toed the bedroom door closed. Viv’s mom was out of it still in the living room, but I couldn’t risk her overhearing this conversation.

I leaned forward over my knees, breathing raggedly as I settled my head into my hands. “Just…don’t hate me, okay.”

Neither said a word. So, I began.

I told them about my aunt and uncle moving away to Florida temporarily to try to save their marriage.

I told them how my guardians asked me if I could stay with a friend for a while and how I knew Layla’s house was full as it was and that Viv…

well, she wouldn’t want me around because of…

I didn’t go into detail there, she got the gist. I couldn’t live here for the same reason Viv only invited us over when her dad was out of town.

I explained where I had been. In my dad’s old hunting blind in the woods.

How I’d been going into town at the crack of dawn to use the school showers after the janitors went through.

I made it sound much more comfortable than it actually was.

They didn’t need to know the bleak truth of how I’d felt near to freezing to death several nights.

I told them everything I possibly could. Everything I was allowed to tell them.

When I was finished, Viv looked like she was ready to kill someone.

Layla looked like she was going to cry.

Viv ran a hand through her newly cropped pixie cut and inhaled deeply through her nose. “So, you’ve been secretly living in your dad’s old hunting blind because you didn’t want to put us out.”

I nodded.

“And then when the hunting blind was destroyed in that storm, Jared took you in and you’ve been staying with him since.”

I nodded again.

“Well that explains that mystery, at least.”

I couldn’t tell them about Devin. Or about why I continued to stay with Jared and Clay.

They would have to draw their own conclusions.

There were some truths that were not mine to tell.

And if telling them would put them in any sort of danger, then those were lies I’d have to uphold, no matter what it cost.

“Fuck, Allie,” Vivian said, dropping her head to pinch the bridge of her nose.

Layla rose from the bed stiffly and came to pull me into a hug. Her light jasmine scent comforted me, and I felt tears stinging at the corners of my eyes. “Those bastards,” she choked against my shoulder and then pulled away. “I can’t believe they just left you.”

My mouth fell open at her words. This was what she was most upset about? Not the fact that I’d been lying to them for months?

“I ought to fucking call child services on those motherfuckers,” Vivian grumbled.

“But…I lied to you guys.”

“Yeah and you’re a goddamned idiot for not just telling us the truth,” Vivian said through clenched teeth.

“Are you sure there isn’t anything else?” Vivian added, leveling a hard stare at me.

My chest tightened. It took me a second longer than it should’ve to answer her. She noticed, too. “Yeah. That’s it.”

Vivian shook her head. “Seriously, if there’s something else, if you’re in some sort of trouble, you have to tell us.”

My brows furrowed. Some sort of trouble? “What sort of trouble do you think I’m in?” I scoffed, confused.

“The kind that makes you miss school for a whole week and vanish from class halfway through the day.”

I buckled under her stare.

“The kind of trouble that makes Devin Wright up and vanish from Forest Grove. Or the kind that makes weird gang-looking chicks come and confront you at school? Oh! Or makes people like Clayton fucking Armstrong give you a lift home from school?”

Layla looked between Viv and I, clearly not following.

Leave it to Vivian to connect all the dots I didn’t want her connecting. Fuck my life.

“I was sick,” I insisted. “And I told you, I didn’t know that girl. And Clay lives with Jared, that’s why he was there picking me up.”

Layla gasped. “Wait, so you’re living with Jared Stone and Clayton Armstrong?”

I grimaced.

“How the hell did you manage not to spill the beans on that?? She was watching me incredulously.

I didn’t have an answer for her. I’d wanted to tell them so many times.

Vivian was still watching me like she wasn’t quite sure she recognized me. Like she still didn’t fully believe me. I hardly blamed her.

“I’m sorry,” I told them, feeling an ache behind my breastbone. “I’m so freaking sorry. No more secrets, okay?”

…except the ones I had no choice but to keep.

Layla cast her eyes to the floor and Viv’s face pinched.

There was a pause where I held my breath, praying to whoever would listen in the back of my head that I would do anything if it meant keeping my best friends.

Please.

Please.

Layla moved away and sank onto the edge of Vivian’s bed. “If we’re being honest, then I have something to tell you both. I—I haven’t exactly been honest, either.”

Viv’s spine went ramrod straight and her eyes bored into the back of Layla’s head and then glanced questioningly at me as though I should know what she was talking about. I shrugged to show I didn’t.

“What?” Viv pressed.

Layla winced and I saw a slight tremor roll over her shoulders. It made my insides twist. This wasn’t some small lie. I braced myself for it, somehow ending up kneeling next to her on the floor, putting my hand on her lap. “What is it, La La?”

She smiled sadly at me. “I’m sick,” she said. It was like a physical slap.

Vivian turned white as a sheet.

I could hear my pulse in my ears.

“Huntington’s?” I asked in a breath when she didn’t elaborate.

Her mouth pressed into a firm line.

“But you said the test came back negative.”

When she looked up again her eyes were red rimmed and brimming with tears. “I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. They said I might not even show symptoms at all for another twenty years, maybe even thirty. I could be fifty before it starts.”

She was rambling now, but the important part she left out was that it would start.

Her grandmother had Huntington’s Disease.

It was genetic. And there was absolutely no escaping it.

Eventually, someday, Layla would begin to deteriorate.

She would lose her fine motor skills. Then her ability to walk.

Her speech would become garbled and disconnected until she may not be able to speak at all.

Then the dementia would set in. And eventually, Layla would succumb to it.

“My parents and I decided before the results came back not to tell my brothers and sisters. It would be too hard for them. And then when the test was positive, I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything to either of you right away.

I told myself I would tell you later, when it wasn’t so fresh and raw.

But…then it was a month later. And then six months later.

It was never the right time. And, I mean, it’s not like it matters anyway, right?

I might be totally fine until I’m, like, super old anyway. ”

Viv tugged Layla back into a hug and I crawled up onto the bed to join the group hug. Layla shook between us as we all cried. “We’ll take care of you if it comes to that,” Vivian said against Layla’s hair, meeting my eyes over her head. I nodded my agreement.

“Yeah,” I added. “We’ll all buy a big house together and get jobs working from home. It’ll be perfect.”

The beginning of an idea was forming in my mind and I held tightly to it, daring to hope.

If shifters and vampires and witches were real, then magic was real. And if magic is real then maybe, just maybe there was a way to fix this before Layla would ever have to feel the effects of the disease she’d inherited from her grandmother.

I can fix this.

We pulled away after a while, all of us wiping our eyes. Viv trying to hide the fact that she’d been crying at all.

“So,” Layla said awkwardly, pushing out a breathy laugh. “Are we going to watch this movie, or what?”

I shifted, going to get up and start it for her, but Vivian stopped me, curling her fingers around my wrist.

Her pallor was almost green when she spoke. “One more thing,” she said, gulping hard, her eyes shifting, not resting on either of us for more than a second.

“If you say you’re sick, I swear to god—”

“No,” she hurried to say, shaking her head. “It’s not that. But we did say no secrets and I guess I haven’t been honest, either. Not even with myself for a long time.”

Layla and I waited while Viv struggled for the words. She worried the edge of her Paramore t-shirt until it started to come apart at the seam. “I’m gay,” she said in a gush of air, snapping her mouth shut as soon as the two words flew out. Like they were a caged bird she hadn’t meant to free.

Me and Layla shared a look.

She smiled first. My smile followed.

Vivian, finally looking at us now, was beat red and clearly confused as to why we were grinning like idiots. “We know,” Layla and I said at practically the same time.

I gripped Viv’s shoulder, giving her a little squeeze. “But we’re glad you figured it out.”

She choked on a laugh and laid her hand overtop of mine, squeezing it back while she fought not to start crying again. “Okay,” she croaked. “Put the stupid movie on. Might as well cry some more now since the floodgates are open.”