Howl For Me

Chapter Three — Pomp and Un-Circumstances

The graduation robe smelled like a thousand other people’s nervous sweat and cheap polyester. Iris stood in line with her classmates, a sea of black under the oppressive glare of the early June sun. The air buzzed with the drone of bagpipes (a questionable tradition the university refused to retire) and the rustle of program booklets.

“Iris Vale. Summa c*m Laude. Departmental Honors in Literature. Omega Leadership and Etiquette Citation.”

As her name was called, her feet carried her across the stage with the smooth, automatic grace of a figure skater completing a routine she’d practiced a thousand times. She accepted the diploma cover with a slight, respectful bow of her head, her smile calibrated to “modestly pleased.” Not too wide (gauche), not too bland (ungrateful). She shook the Dean’s hand—firm, but not crushing—and made her way to the other side of the stage.

Her mother, seated in the VIP parents’ section, gave a single, slow nod. It was the equivalent of a standing ovation and a fireworks display. Her father offered a brief, approving smile before checking his watch.

Iris took her seat, the cardboard diploma cover digging into her palms. *Summa c*m Laude.* The words were supposed to mean something. Top of the class. The pinnacle of academic achievement. All she felt was a hollow, airy kind of exhaustion, like she’d sprinted a marathon only to find the finish line was just the lobby of another, longer race.

The wolf inside her was quiet. Subdued by the pomp, the ceremony, the overwhelming smell of human excitement and sunscreen. It found the whole affair a bit boring.

The real celebration, of course, was back at the Vale house. A “modest gathering” of fifty close family friends and pack associates. The air was thick with the scent of canapés, champagne, and subtle, assessing glances.

Iris moved through the crowd like a ghost in a black dress, a living trophy on display.

“Your valedictorian speech was impeccable, dear. So poised!” gushed Mrs. Argent, a beta from a neighboring pack.

“Thank you. I was just happy to represent my class,” Iris recited, the words tasting like paper.

“Literature!” boomed an older alpha, her father’s business partner. “A refined pursuit for an Omega. Good for fostering diplomatic conversation. No messy equations, eh?” He laughed a little too loudly.

Iris’s smile felt plastered on. “No, sir. No messy equations.”

She floated to the refreshment table, a sanctuary of minimal social expectation. As she reached for a glass of lemonade, her fingers brushed the hand of a beta classmate, Leo. He was a friendly, freckled history major who’d once lent her notes.

“Iris! Congrats!” he said, his grin genuine and uncomplicated. “Can you believe it’s over? Feels weird, right? No more seminars on pre-colonial pack poetry.”

“Weird,” she echoed, taking a sip. The lemonade was tart and sweet. Real. A simple pleasure. “What’s next for you, Leo?”

“Backpacking across Europe for three months. My cousin’s in the Bordeaux pack, said I could crash with him. Just… see things, you know?” His eyes sparkled with unscripted future.

Iris felt a sudden, visceral pang. It wasn’t jealousy. It was more like looking through a clear, locked window at a world where people made choices based on what they *wanted* to see, not what they were *expected* to represent.

“That sounds amazing,” she said, and meant it.

“What about you?” Leo asked, oblivious to the minefield of the question. “Big plans? Grad school? Finally gonna let loose and get into some trouble?” He nudged her playfully with his elbow.

The question hung in the air. *Big plans.* Her plans were not hers. They were a docket, waiting to be reviewed and approved by the family committee. The next step was seamless integration into a suitable pack structure, typically via a strategically advantageous match. There was no “Europe.” There was no “letting loose.”

The concept of “trouble” was so abstract it was almost mythological. She’d never had a boyfriend. Never been on a date that wasn’t a pre-vetted, chaperoned “introduction.” Her idea of rebellion was novelty socks and a secret sketchbook.

“Oh, you know,” she deflected, her practiced calm not slipping an inch. “Exploring some opportunities. Taking a breath.” The vagueness was a shield.

“Cool, cool,” Leo said, already scanning the crowd for someone else. “Well, don’t be a stranger!”

As he melted into the party, Iris felt the hollow feeling expand. She was a summa c*m laude graduate, a model Omega, the perfect daughter. And she had never, in her entire life, made a single choice that was entirely, recklessly her own.

A tiny, sharp claw of *want* scratched at the inside of her ribcage. It was her wolf, finally waking up to the conversation. It wasn’t a grand desire for freedom, not yet. It was simpler, more immediate.

*I want another glass of that lemonade,* she thought, the desire crisp and clear in her mind. *And I want to drink it standing on the grass in my bare feet, where no one can see me.*

The thought was so small, so innocuous, and yet it felt monumentally transgressive. It was a want that served no purpose, advanced no agenda, pleased no one but herself.

She didn’t do it, of course. The ghost of her mother’s gaze was on her from across the patio.

But the *want* remained. It sat in her chest, next to the hollow exhaustion, a small, stubborn seed.

Later, in the sanctum of her pristine bedroom, surrounded by gifts of engraved pens and tasteful jewelry, Iris opened her bottom dresser drawer. Beneath the neatly folded sweaters, her hand found the forbidden textures: the polka dots, the grinning skulls. She pulled out a pair with tiny, embroidered rocketships.

She didn’t put them on. She just held them, the silly fabric a tangible anchor in the silent, perfumed aftermath of her achievement.

Graduation was supposed to be an ending and a beginning. For Iris, it just felt like the walls of her very nice, very respectable cage had just been measured, confirmed, and given a fresh coat of paint.

But as she traced the stitching of a rocket’s trajectory, she felt that seed of a want—for lemonade, for grass, for something *hers*—push a single, determined root into the hollow soil of her compliance.

It wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t rebellion.

It was a maybe.

And for now, in the quiet of her gilded room, maybe was a word that sounded an awful lot like hope.