The Wolves' Captain And Me

Chapter 1: The Party Nobody Told Me About "Where is he?" I asked Jasmine for the third time, and for the third time she gave me the same tight smile that meant she didn't want to answer. My dorm suite was packed. Nineteen candles waited on a cake nobody had cut yet. Music thumped against the walls. Half the floor had shown up for my birthday, and the only person I actually wanted here hadn't walked through the door. Derek promised me this morning. Tonight's the night, Mia. I'm done hiding us. He'd said it like a gift, like two years of secret dating was finally going to be worth something. He'd even kissed my forehead before he left my room, soft and certain, the kind of kiss that made a girl believe every word coming out of a boy's mouth. I believed him. That was my first mistake of the night. It wouldn't be my last. I'd spent the whole afternoon getting ready like tonight actually mattered. Curling my hair until my arm ached. Trying on four different dresses before Jasmine finally pointed at the green one and said, that's the one, wear that one. I remember standing in front of my mirror thinking that after two years of being someone's secret, I was finally going to walk into a room and be someone's girlfriend out loud. Two years of quiet dinners in his dorm room instead of the dining hall. Two years of him introducing me to his friends as "a friend from class." Two years of telling myself that love didn't have to be loud to be real, that some people just needed time, that patience was a kind of loyalty. I'd built a whole religion out of waiting for Derek Wynn to be ready. Tonight was supposed to be the reward for all that waiting. "He'll show," Jasmine said, not meeting my eyes, and something about the way she said it made my stomach tighten in a way I didn't want to examine too closely. By eleven, my stomach had twisted itself into a knot so tight I could barely eat my own cake. I checked my phone. Nothing. I told myself he was busy, that something came up, that he wouldn't just not come to my birthday after everything he promised. Then the door banged open and Derek strolled in like he owned the place, laughing with two guys from the team, already smelling like beer. He didn't look for me. He didn't scan the room the way someone does when they're searching for their girlfriend. He went straight for the drinking games in the kitchen. I stood there in the dress I'd bought specifically for tonight, waiting to be seen, and he walked right past me like I was part of the furniture. "Go talk to him," Jasmine said, pushing my shoulder gently. I didn't want to beg for his attention on my own birthday. But I did it anyway, because that's what two years of loving someone quietly teaches you to do. You learn to ask nicely for the bare minimum. I pushed through the crowd, weaving between people I half recognized from my floor, past the speaker blasting a song I didn't even like, searching every corner of my own dorm suite for a boy who couldn't be bothered to look for me. Someone handed me a cup of something sweet and sticky. I took it without drinking it, just to have something to hold onto besides my own nerves. I checked the kitchen first. Then the balcony, where two of his teammates were arm wrestling on the railing while everyone cheered. Then the hallway, where I found nothing but a couple I didn't know making out against the wall. That was when I heard his laugh coming from my own bedroom hallway, low and easy, the kind of laugh he never gave me anymore. I found him twenty minutes later, laughing too loud at something, his arm slung around a girl I didn't recognize from behind. My whole body went cold before my brain even understood why. I walked closer. The girl turned her head just enough for me to see platinum blonde hair and a cheer squad jacket. Bree Halston. Head cheerleader. The girl everyone whispered about because she always got what she wanted. Derek saw me and dropped his arm fast, but not fast enough. "Mia," he said, too casual, too quick. "Hey, this isn't what it looks like." "What does it look like?" My voice came out steadier than I felt. He didn't answer. Bree just smirked and walked away like she had somewhere better to be, like I was an inconvenience she'd already stopped thinking about. I should have known then. I should have turned around and gone back to my own party and let that be the end of it. But something in me needed to see it with my own eyes, needed proof so undeniable that I could never again talk myself into believing his excuses. So I walked down the hall to my own bedroom, the one place in this dorm that was supposed to be mine, and I opened the door. The room was dark except for the light from the hallway spilling across the bed. Across my bed. Across Derek's jacket thrown over my desk chair and two bodies tangled in my sheets that weren't supposed to be there at all. Bree's head snapped up first. Then I heard Derek's voice, panicked, from somewhere behind me in the hallway, because somehow he'd beaten me to my own bedroom door and was standing there watching my whole world collapse. Wait. That didn't make sense. If Derek was in the hallway, then who— The boy in my bed lifted his head, and it wasn't Derek at all. It was Marcus, Derek's own roommate, someone I'd said maybe ten words to in two years. I turned around slowly. Derek stood frozen in the hallway, staring past me into the room, his face draining of all color. "Bree," he said, and his voice cracked on her name in a way I had never once heard him say mine. That was when I understood. This wasn't about me walking in on my boyfriend cheating with one girl. This was about a boyfriend who had never really been mine at all, watching the girl he actually loved get caught with someone else, on the one night he was too busy chasing his own secrets to notice mine were about to blow up in his face too. Two years. Two years of hiding, of quiet dinners, of him telling me he just wasn't ready to make us public, and the whole time there had been a Bree-shaped hole in the middle of his heart that had nothing to do with being ready and everything to do with me simply not being the one he wanted. I laughed. It came out broken and strange, not because anything was funny, but because my whole chest had cracked open and this was the only sound that could escape. Marcus was still frozen in my bed, clutching my comforter like it might protect him from whatever was about to happen. Bree had already found her shirt. Derek stood in the doorway staring at her like the rest of us, myself included, had simply stopped existing. "Mia, wait," Derek said, reaching for my arm as I pushed past him. "Don't touch me." I yanked away so hard I stumbled into the wall. The music was still playing in the living room. People were still laughing, still dancing, completely unaware that my whole life had just ended two rooms away. I grabbed my jacket off the coat hook by the door, ignoring the way my hands were shaking, ignoring Jasmine calling my name from somewhere behind me. I needed air. I needed to be anywhere that wasn't here. I pushed through the crowd, past the cake with my name written on it in blue frosting, past the balloons that said HAPPY 19TH MIA in letters too cheerful for how I felt, and out into the cold night air. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have anywhere to go. I just knew that if I stayed in that dorm one more second, watching everyone celebrate a birthday that had just become the worst night of my life, I was going to fall apart in front of every person who had ever doubted whether Derek was actually good enough for me. They were right. I had just been too stupid, or too hopeful, to admit it. The cold air hit my bare arms like a slap, and I welcomed it. I stood on the front steps of my dorm building for a long moment, listening to the muffled bass still thumping through the walls behind me, watching my own breath fog in front of my face. Somewhere up there, my birthday cake was still sitting uncut, my name spelled out in blue frosting for a celebration that had already died before it started. I thought about calling my mom. I thought about calling Jasmine, even though she was probably still inside dealing with the wreckage I'd left behind. In the end I didn't call anyone. I just started walking, not toward anywhere in particular, just away, my heels clicking too loud against the empty sidewalk. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Derek's name lit up the screen. I stared at it for exactly two seconds before I turned my phone off completely and shoved it deep into my jacket pocket. Whatever I was about to do next, I didn't want him to be able to reach me while I did it.