Lost & Found

How could I?

"Alice?" Stella whispered quietly. We were lying in our beds. After our chat, Stella wanted to go out to common room, but I told her that I would rather catch up with my schoolwork. It was the last thing that I really cared about, but it was pretty good excuse. Since I came to school on Monday, there was still three days left till the end of week. And I needed to get mentally ready for that stupid meeting.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Kyle likes you?" Not this again.

"I think he just thinks that. But he really doesn't know me."

"Maybe he's your mate." she said. She was such a dreamer, even when now she was not totally wrong.

"I don't think so."

"But you can't really know that. You need to take some time and talk to him. I also haven't found my mate yet, but I haven't really made any connections here with anyone, so who knows..."

Yes, normally it worked like this. You found someone, you were talking, but you didn't know he was your mate automatically. You needed to get to know them. Only in few rare occasions, mates found each other so quickly. You could say that we were trying to found our soulmates, just like humans and some of us found them at first sight. But it was much more than that. It was different spectrum of emotions for us. You could say our animal part was taking over us and we weren't really controlling it afterwards. But that was a good thing. Normally. Not for me.

That's why I couldn't understand what happened that night. How could something so rare happened to me and Dalia and even with that exact person? We were close, but this was different. Moon goddess was never making mistakes, at least that's what I've been told.

"I told you I'm not interested in boys."

"But this is Kyle Cohan. You saw him. He looks amazing and he used to be really cool."

"Yeah? How so?" I had to ask.

"You know, I told you about my last year."

"Yeah."

"He never laughed with others. He never helped either, but at least he didn't laugh. Sometimes he even took people away or changed the topic. That's more than anyone else did. Sometimes he even talked to me. Mostly when he needed help with school, but after that he used to at least say hi or smile at me. He never liked me, I could tell, he was nice like this to a lot of people. Vivienne never made fun of me, because she knew he wouldn't like it." Stella was slowly falling asleep. Only I was now stuck here with questions.

"What happened then?"

She yawn: "Not much. He just changed. After summer, he came back, but he looked different. He wasn't talking to anyone except Bryan. Even on classes he stopped with his jokes. It was weird. Something must have happened. But no one really knows what."

It had to be that night. He felt what happened to Dalia. It explained that drawing. He was alone. And I was his second chance. Now I was sure of it. In no way I could let this happen.

___________________________________________________

Standing in the woods I saw him right in front of me. Next to him, there was his wolf. Black one, walking around him, protecting him. Kyle was looking at me with smile on his face. Calling me to come closer. I wanted to go. I felt it was the right thing to do.

"What are you thinking about, sis?" just like that, Dalia came out from behind him. Her ginger wolf, Eva, was walking near her. Slowly approaching me.

"Dalia? How can you be here?" I asked. I should have been happy, but I felt scared. I was never scared of her before. Scared about her, yes, but never scared of her.

"Aren't you happy to see me? That hurts, sister." she said, making fun of my reaction. "Or maybe you don't like me in your way." still slowly approaching.

"No! I love you. I would never betray you like this." My white wolf, Ama, came from my left side, she wanted to come closer to Kyle's wolf, but Dalia's Eva stopped her. They were nervously barking at each other both confused.

"How weird, isn't it? We always played when we changed into our wolfs. But they have their own heads now. Clearly they want the same thing." she looked at Kyle. "What do you want, Ali?"

"I want this to go away. I want you back. By my side. Please, Dalia, you have to believe me."

She stopped right in front of me. I couldn't see Kyle anymore. "No sister, you want your new life. With him and your new little friend. You replaced me so easily. No troublemaker in your life." she was smiling, but I could see she was really angry with me. Every single word was like a little dagger.

Our wolfs were growling aggressively at each other. And then Eva jumped and bit my Ama right on her neck. She cried out and so did I.

___________________________________________________

"Alice, just wake up! Please!" Stella was standing next to my bed shaking me with panic in her eyes.

"Oh, thank God. You're up." she exhaled.

I sit up, still little bit confused. Was it just a dream? "I'm so sorry, Stella. I should have warned you about this."

"Who is Dalia?" she asked and I froze. "You were calling her name and then you started crying. I couldn't wake you up."

I didn't know what to say. When she woke me up, I stopped with crying, but now it was coming back. I really didn't wanted to cry in front of her, but didn't really have any other option. And she let me, she kindly hugged me and waited. It took me few minutes to settle down.

Honestly I thought it's gonna take much more than just friendly hug and patience. On the other hand no one was there with me when I woke up before. At least not to help me, just to wake me and let me handle it myself. In the beginning it made me feel even worse, but then I preferred to be alone. When I told my parents to stop coming, I think my dad felt relieved. Mum wasn't sure about it. But agreed.

"If you don't want to, you don't have to tell me." Stella brought me back from my thoughts. She was gentle as always. I really couldn't believe I met her two days ago.

"Dalia was my best friend since childhood. But she is gone now and I miss her." I said carefully choosing my words.

"Don't get me wrong, I just...It just really didn't look that way. I honestly thought it was your Charlotte. Someone who hurt you or something."

"No, she would never do that. I hurt her more than she ever hurt me. I'm just really angry at myself."

She was thinking about it for a bit: "Can I ask you what did you do then?"

"I wasn't there for her. I let her go away." I said and we stayed quiet for a while. "One day, I will tell you more. But today, I'm not ready for more. Is that alright?" I asked.

She gave me the most calming smile: "Of course, Ali." she said, first time calling me like this. It felt really nice.

I don't know how, but she calmed me enough to fall asleep again. It didn't lasted till the morning of course. Dalia's words were like a boomerang spinning and coming back in my head. But even these few hours surprised me.