036
966 Words
~ Alice
I didn’t sleep.
I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, counting the slow turns of the fan, listening to the quiet hum of a house that felt too big when my father was gone. Every sound echoed,footsteps that weren’t there, doors that didn’t open, a presence that used to ground me now reduced to absence.
And Iris.
My phone sat beside me, face down. I didn’t flip it over. I already knew what I wouldn’t see.
No messages.
No calls.
No I’m okay.
I have always been the one calling.
We haven't have any issues but it felt like.
She’d smiled at me earlier. That soft, practiced smile she wore when she didn’t want to fight. The one that made my chest ache because I knew it wasn’t real. I’d felt it then,that sense of her slipping, like sand through fingers no matter how tightly I clenched.
I hated that feeling.
I rolled onto my side, jaw tight, forcing myself not to spiral. I told myself I was being dramatic. That people drift sometimes. That it didn’t always mean loss.
But Iris wasn’t just people.
She was the constant.
The person who knew my moods before I spoke.
The one who saw me as Alice, not Alpha Duncan’s daughter.
And now… now there was space between us.
Unspoken, heavy, growing.
My phone buzzed.
I froze.
For half a second, hope flared so sharp it hurt.
Then I saw the name.
Sasha.
I exhaled, irritation and something else twisting together. I hadn’t blocked her. Not because I wanted her. But because blocking her felt like admitting something I didn’t want to name.
I stared at the notification.
Sent a video.
I closed my eyes.
Of course she had.
Sasha had always been… intense. Too attentive. Too eager. These days,she laughed too loud at my jokes, looked at me like I was something she needed instead of someone she liked. I’d brushed it off at first. Compliments were easy to ignore when your heart was already full.
But my heart wasn’t full anymore.
That was the problem.
I picked up the phone before I could stop myself.
The screen lit up. One tap. That was all it took.
I didn’t turn the volume on.
I didn’t need to.
I recognized her immediately,the angle, the confidence, the way she looked straight into the camera like she knew exactly who would be watching. It wasn’t vulgar. It wasn’t crude.
It was intentional.
Her body language said this is for you in a way words never could.
My stomach twisted.
I shut the video off almost immediately, heart racing, heat crawling up my neck. Anger flared first,sharp, defensive.
What the hell was she thinking?
Then came something worse.
Power.
The sick, quiet kind.
Someone wanted me. Wanted my attention. Wanted me enough to send something that vulnerable, that exposed.
I hated myself for noticing it.
I dropped the phone onto the bed like it had burned me and sat up, dragging my hands through my hair.
This wasn’t me.
I wasn’t the girl who collected attention to feel real. I wasn’t the girl who entertained temptation just because she felt lonely.
I love Iris.
Didn’t I?
The question surfaced uninvited, ugly and sharp.
Of course I did. I love her fiercely, painfully. I loved the way she laughed with her whole body, the way she got stubborn when she thought she was right, the way she curled into me at night like she belonged there.
So why did it feel like she was already halfway gone?
My phone buzzed again.
A message this time.
Sasha: Do you want to meet?
I swallowed hard.
Fear crept in, slow and insidious.
Fear of responding.
Fear of not responding.
Fear of what it meant that I hadn’t deleted the video immediately.
I thought of Iris,quiet lately, distant, her eyes always somewhere else. I thought of Ky, the way her name slid too easily into conversations now.
The way Iris defended her without meaning to.
Jealousy burned hot and irrational.
Was this how it started?
This slow replacement?
This quiet choosing of someone easier?
I didn’t want to be desperate.
But desperation had a way of disguising itself as pride.
I typed. Deleted. Typed again.
Finally, I sent:
Alice: You shouldn't be texting me Sasha.
It was firm. Controlled. Safe.
The reply came almost instantly.
Sasha: I know. I’m sorry. I just, I feel invisible sometimes.
My chest tightened despite myself.
I knew that feeling too well.
I locked my phone and set it aside, pressing my palms to my eyes. I wasn’t going to do this. I wasn’t going to let confusion turn me into someone I didn’t recognize.
She has done this before.
The video lingered in my mind,not because I wanted Sasha, but because I wanted to feel chosen. Wanted to feel like someone was reaching for me instead of away.
That scared me more than anything.
The next morning, I moved through the house on autopilot. Shower. Clothes. Coffee I barely tasted. My father’s absence pressed in on me from every corner. Normally, I’d roll my eyes at how overbearing he could be.
Now I wished he were here.
At least he would’ve noticed something was wrong.
We were on holiday.
At the pack house later, people greeted me with respect that still felt too heavy for my shoulders.
Eunice wasn’t around yet. That was a relief I didn’t examine too closely.
I checked my phone once.
Still nothing from Iris.
Didn't she missed me ?
My chest ached.
Anger simmered beneath it now, anger at her silence, at her distance, at myself for feeling so easily replaceable.
Ky.
I'm sure she's probably with iris.
I sighed and pick up my phone.
The pack was my priorities.
- Writer
