His Second Chance Mate

Chapter 2

Was I really going?

I pulled back from my mom. “You aren’t going to change your mind at the last minute, are you?” I stared intently at her. If she changed her mind and told me I couldn’t go, I honestly didn’t know if I’d stay sane.

She shook her head no, smiling at me. She put one hand up, as if she was standing trial. “I solemnly swear I will not change my mind about this.”

I gave my mom a tight hug once more before pulling back. I followed my mom to the sofa, collapsing onto it, wiping my face of all the tears. I had so many questions right now.

“How’d you know it wasn’t the beach house? And not to jinx myself or anything but how come you’re sending me? You wouldn’t send me to Katie’s house and that’s only like 15 minutes away. This is about a three days by road.”

“Well, for one, unlike what you seem to think, parents aren’t total idiots. At least yours aren’t. I wish I could say the same for some of your classmates.” She clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Especially Amy’s mom. Someone should tell her that her daughter isn’t the perfect angel she thinks she is. I mean, just how oblivious do you have to be to not know your own daughter? She’s so annoying at PTA meetings, sometimes I wish I could rip her hair out.”

She continued to mumble under her breath, shaking her head.

Even if my mom wasn’t an i***t and she was the farthest thing from one, she still had an impressive ability to go off on a tangent. Like ANY tangent. Not that she was wrong about Amy.

Though, now that I think about it, how does she know about Amy?

I narrowed my eyes at my mom. Every mom in this town seemed to think that Amy was such an absolute angel. Except my mom. 

Was she psychic? Or a secret spy? Did she turn into a teenager and attend High School with me? Wait. How’d she know about the temple? I needed answers!

“Mom? Mom? MOM!” It took me yelling in her face before my mom was jerked out of her hair pulling fantasies. She looked confused before she melted into an expression of consternation. “Sorry. Where was I?”

“How’d you know I was planning to go to the temple and not the beach house. And whose hair do you want to pull out? Amy's or her mom’s?”

“Ahhhh....is this an extreme version of Would You Rather? That’s a rather tough question, but if I had to choose only one, I’d choose her mom’s. I don’t think I can get away with pulling out the hair of someone my daughter’s age. The last thing I need is weird rumors.” She paused to grin at me. “And, as I was saying, most parents aren’t completely oblivious idiots when it comes to their children. I’d say I know you pretty well.” She raised her an eyebrow at me challengingly. I slowly nodded reluctantly because a) I could not raise a single eyebrow in return and b) she wasn’t wrong.

She did know me pretty well. Annoyingly well, actually. Maybe she really was a secret spy. Though judging by the way she can barely use her phone to do anything other than call told me she wasn’t. Though, on the other hand, she could just be Clark Kenting me. I mean, there was only a few hundred times you could explain how to buy stuff online to someone before you start to wonder if they were faking it.

I turned to face my mother fully and raised both eyebrows, because again, my mother selfishly refused to pass any interesting character traits to me- like being able to raise a single fudging eyebrow at a time. Maybe she really was a spy. This wasn’t the first time I’d had this thought, though I haven’t found any conclusive evidence to this day.

All of a sudden, she smacked my lips so fast I barely saw her hand move. My mouth fell open in shock, my fingers flying up to my stinging lips.

“Owww-uh! What was that for?”

“If you keep frowning like that, your mouth is going to get stuck that way. I know you can’t make your face look better unless you get plastic surgery, but you really shouldn’t be trying to make it worse.”

I halfheartedly glared at her but she simply stuck her tongue out at me.

“Now if you’re done wondering if I am a spy or a psychic or an alien who can read minds, we can get back to the topic at hand.” I tried not to gape.

I waved her off instead. “Oh please. I ruled out alien when I didn’t inherit any weird abilities or weird body parts. I waited until my 18th birthday to be sure, in case alien puberty started late.”

She only sniffed at me. “Dammit. That was my favorite theory.”

“Wait. Now how’d you know this?” I groaned. Was there anything she didn’t know?

"I may or may not have read your diary a few years ago. It was a very interesting read, though you needed to work on your handwriting. It was kind of horrible really. I had such pretty handwriting at your age. Though I suppose you’ve improved a lot since then.”

I mouth fell open in shock. She could not be saying what she seemed to be saying.

“I knew it!” I screeched, springing to my feet. “I knew you’d been reading my diary. I asked you millions of times and you denied it. You swore on grandma’s grave!”

“Did I?” She made a grimace, but gave no other reaction.

“Get your feet off the couch.” I sat down immediately. There was a limits to how far I could push her, even if I was semi-mad and standing on the couch was one of those.

“And I honestly hadn’t read your diary when you asked me a million times. It was only because you asked me soooo many times I just had to read it. So really, you can’t even blame me.” She shrugged innocently.

“If you think about it properly, you'll be able to see that it's all your fault.”

I shook my head speechless. This was like putting two and two together and getting twenty-two. It wasn't wrong exactly, but it wasn't numerically right either. 

“Why’d you stop writing though? I missed reading your diary.”

I glared at her. Did she even have to ask?

“Maaybe....because someone was reading it!” My voice was low and vicious.

My mom made a ‘O’ with her mouth before shrugging.

“You should have hidden it better. Like I said, your fault. You should have hidden it better. Anyway, if you’d stop distracting me, I’d like to finish what I was saying.”

I rolled my eyes at that. There was absolutely no where I could hide stuff  in this house without my mom sniffing it out eventually. She was better than those specially trained dogs. Did mom's automatically gain super-powered  X-ray eyes after they gave birth or something? It never mattered how deep down under my clothes I buried something, she always got her hands on it somehow. Still, I responded to the accusation.

“I haven’t been distracting you! You keep getting distracted by yourself!”

She waved me off. “Well yes, not an i***t, blah blah blah. The temple. How’d I know?" She snorted loudly. "Of course I knew. How could I not? I was actually waiting and wondering when you’d ask me. It’s not like it takes a big leap of understanding. You turned 18 a few weeks ago and you just graduated. You and almost every other graduate on this side of the planet will be heading there anyway. And you’ve been dying to go for years. I kind of expected you to ask the day you turned 18.”

“Well, I wanted to, but exams.” I trailed off. I’d desperately wanted to go there the second I’d turned 18. The call that I’d always felt had been getting stronger for days before my 18th birthday and hadn’t stopped since then. But I hadn’t want to ruin the ending of my senior year. I had a strange feeling that once I went there, my life wouldn’t be the same.

“Ah, yes. My nerd of a daughter.” My mom attempted to muss my hair but I pulled out my bag of ninja tricks and dodged. No one was getting to my hair. No one.

“I still remember the fuss you made when you first heard of the temple. You went absolutely crazy. You cried so much asking us to take you. And no matter what we said and how many times we told you that you were too young and you wouldn't even be able to see the temple, you wouldn’t listen. Finally, your dad and I decided to take you, but that night you fell asleep and when you woke up, you weren’t interested in the least. It was the strangest thing, but it was for the best. It was a really critical time for your dad at work but he couldn’t stand you crying like that.” I smiled at that. My dad was the absolute best. 

“Do you remember though? Why’d you suddenly change your mind? I was insanely curious. but I was scared bringing it up would set you off again and I could deal with that version of you again.”

I grinned at that. The memory was vague, but I must have been an absolute monster during that period. I shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I remember wanting to go. I think I had a dream. She- I think it was a she anyway- told me that I’m too young and that I had to wait. After that, I didn’t feel that I had to go anymore. I’m not sure. The voice was so familiar, but unfamiliar at the same time. I don’t really remember anyways.”

I hadn't thought of all this in ages. I looked over at my mother, but she only looked thoughtful.

I remembered the first heard the of the Temple of the Wolf at school. I was around 10 or 11 and all the girls were terribly interested in it. Everyone was. It was the only tourist attraction on our island and people came from all over the world to see it.

It is still one of the biggest mysteries of the world. It was invisible in the daylight and on new moon nights. It grew increasingly corporeal with the phases of the moon and was only fully solid under the full moon. No one under the age of 18 can see it, though a few 17-year-olds claimed to have seen the temple. Absolutely no photos of the temple existed. No matter how many were taken, the temple was invisible in them. You could only see a huge empty clearing where the temple was standing.

There were thousands of stories and experiences of visitors on the internet. Some people claimed to hear the sounds of people on nights when there was a new moon and others swore they heard wolves howling at the full moon. The most popular story though was how they met their soul mates at the temple.

Of course, a mysterious temple with a humongous wolf statue and , that appeared and disappeared with the moon cycle- most people automatically assumed that it had to do with werewolves. Luckily, no bodies have suddenly showed up with wolf bites till date. Although, there was some concern. Several dozens of people had gotten “stuck” in the temple overnight. They hadn’t left before the sun rose and moon set and were unable to exit until the next night. None of them had any memory of what happened the entire day though. They only remembered entering the night before and exploring the temple. Everything after that was blank. They hadn't even known that they'd been stuck and that an entire day had passed. 

There was a lot of controversy too, when a few people never reappeared, after entering the temple. There were protests and I think one or two illegal attempts to blow up the temple. It was an impossible task anyway, with the temple invisible during the day and surrounded by people at night. Even after all this, hundreds still flocked there every full moon.

When I first heard of the temple, I’d been desperate to go even with the talk of disappearing forever floating around.. I still remembered the feeling of desperation that had plagued me, even if I couldn’t remember the exact reason. Mainly because the feeling had never disappeared all these years. My parents had of course refused to take me back then. I’d begged and cried and pleaded, but they didn’t want to waste a week to travel somewhere to see something that would have been invisible to me anyway.

My desire to go there had never disappeared, though it hadn't been overwhelming for a long while. Though, since my 18th birthday, the desperation seemed to be mounting. Sometimes, at nights, especially during near the full moon, it got so bad I actually contemplated running away. Only the thought of my parents was able to hold me back.

Though, I'd feared the time when even that wouldn't be enough. I'd feared that the desperation would take over and force me to make a decision I knew I'd regret. 

But today, all those worries were gone. My mom had said yes. That meant my dad would too. 

I was going. Just the thought that I was going, and with my parents permission (which, frankly, I thought would be impossible to get), had me smiling and grinning so wide my cheeks hurt, but I couldn't bring myself to stop.

I think I was the happiest today than I'd ever been in my entire life- which made me seem ungrateful to the wonderful upbringing my parents had given me, but it was the truth.

I couldn't help but wonder though. Just what was in this temple that just the thought of going there had filled me with so much happiness that I felt like I was floating?

I didn't know yet, but I would soon. I couldn't wait!