My Four Childhood Friends Abandoned Me for My Best Friend Chapter 04

My Four Childhood Friends Abandoned Me for My Best Friend Chapter 04

Elena let out a thin laugh, walked over, and took my hand.

“Lillian, the Rite just ended. Everyone’s trying to have a good time. Why are you making a scene?”

“Let go of me.” I yanked my hand free. “I thought you were my best friend. And you’ve been talking about me behind my back? Turning my life into gossip for them?”

Elena staggered back and crashed into a stack of drink crates.

All four of them rushed to her side.

“Lillian, you haven’t changed at all, still reckless, still picking fights!”

Kael looked at me like I disgusted him. Then he scooped Elena up and carried her to the couch.

“If Elena’s hurt, don’t expect me to let that slide.”

Julian, the one who’d called me a willing exile, stared at me. His eyes were ice-cold.

Julian used to be the one I trusted most. Now he was so far gone he couldn’t even see she was faking it.

They crowded around Elena, checking on her, while she waved them off with flushed cheeks.

Men circling the mate they’d chosen under the moonlight. How perfect.

I turned to leave. Someone grabbed my hair.

“You think you can just walk away after shoving someone?”

“Elena’s too nice to do anything about it, but we’re not.”

They pinned me down. I fought them, but there were too many. Across the room, Kael glanced over.

“Kael, aren’t you going to stop them?” Elena’s eyes were wet.

“She’s tough. A little roughing up won’t kill her.”

Kael smoothed the hem of Elena’s dress without looking up.

“Your ankle’s fine.”

Ronan and Julian scoffed.

“Lillian’s been fighting with us since we were kids. A few slaps from those girls aren’t going to hurt her.”

They hauled me up by my hair and slapped me across the face—once, twice, three times. I hit the ground. My face burned.

Kael and the others looked over, then turned back to Elena. That was all the permission those girls needed. They dragged me to the restroom.

“Poor thing. We heard you’re heading off to the human world. Here. Let us give you a proper send-off.”

They dumped cold water over my head, water laced with wolfsbane, and locked me in a stall.

“Sit in there and think about what you did. Let’s see if Kael even remembers you exist.”

They’d taken my phone. The wolfsbane was already making me weak.

I climbed onto the toilet and pulled myself up toward the top of the stall.

I made it over the top and dropped. My ankle buckled the second I landed. A sharp, splintering crack echoed in the stall.

I dragged my right leg behind me and threw everything I had at the door. It rattled in the frame but didn’t give.

I’d been bullied before. But never in front of them. No one had ever dared.

The last thing I’d seen was the four of them huddled around Elena while I was dragged away. I dropped my head against my knees.

Outside, the party kept going.

A familiar voice, just outside the door. “Did Lillian go home?”

“Don’t think so. I saw those girls drag her off.”

“Let them rough her up a little, but don’t let it go too far. We don’t want to have to explain this to the Elders.”

Kael kicked something, the wall, a door. Frustrated.

I opened my mouth to call out.

“Kael, how much longer are you going to keep up this whole thing with Lillian?”

Mason. The one who’d said nobody liked me.

He’d told me he liked me when we were sixteen. I turned him down because I was already in love with someone else.

“Two, three months? Once she’s gone, I’ll break the mate bond. Long distance. Easy excuse.”

I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

“I see Lillian as family. It wasn’t right, tricking her into leaving alone. If being her mate makes her happy for a couple months, that’s not the worst thing.” Kael laughed like it was nothing.

“Damn. You make it sound like her last meal on death row. Let me know when you two are done.” Mason laughed.

“Why? You gonna go after her?” Kael’s mouth curved. Mocking.

“Don’t you like Elena? Why do you care?”

Mason shoved him in the shoulder.

“Lillian turned me down. Can’t I have a little fun getting even?”

…

Their voices faded down the hall. Everything inside me was screaming.

The wolfsbane burned through me in a hot wave, and my mind dragged me back.

When I was twelve, I started making new friends.

I’d be out with them until dark every night. By the time I got back to the pack house, I wouldn’t even see them.

“You’re ditching us for your new friends!”

Julian said it like he meant every word.

“I don’t care. You have to promise we’re still your best friends, or I’ll beat every single one of them up.”

Ronan blocked the door, refusing to let me pass.

Kael grabbed one of my hands, Mason grabbed the other, and they pulled me back.

“You’re not allowed to go. You can only play with us. Nobody’s ever going to treat you better than we do.”

When I didn’t budge, they scratched little smiley faces into their pendants with bits of wire.

“We swear, as long as Lillian stays with us, we’ll follow her wherever she goes.”

That oath became a joke. I was the one who left. And they found someone new to keep.

I spent the whole night locked in there. When I opened my eyes, I was in a pack hospital bed.

Kael was sitting beside me, holding my hand.

“How are you this stupid? One of the pack staff accidentally locked you in, and you didn’t even think to call for help?”

The first thing I heard when I woke up was blame.

“Forget it. Don’t worry. I already fired the guy.”

“Who told you it was a staff member?”

I pulled my hand away.

“No. That wasn’t what happened. It was the girls, the ones who dragged me out of the party.”

“Right. Elena already told us you were jealous, so now you’re blaming her friends.”

My childhood friends walked in. Behind them, Elena, looking wounded.

“Lillian, they just pulled your hair a couple times. Do you really have to make this into a whole thing?”

I touched my split lip. My bruised cheek. Then I laughed.

“They just pulled my hair?”

None of them said a word.

“Lillian, I’ll apologize for them. Hit me if it’ll make you feel better!”

Elena grabbed my hand and pulled it toward her face. Her knee drove straight into my broken leg.

I screamed and shoved her off me.

“Lillian, what are you doing?!”

All four of them lunged for Elena.

Ronan grabbed my arm, hard enough to bruise.

“I always thought you were just moody and antisocial. I didn’t think you were this spiteful.”

“What, those slaps bruised your ego? You had it coming.”

He flung my arm away so hard it sent me backward. My head cracked against the corner of the bedside table.

Blood ran through my fingers.

I looked up at them. Everything was red at the edges.

Kael caught me. For once, he looked scared.

“Lillian!”

Ronan’s eyes went wide. He bolted out to find a healer.

Mason and Julian pressed tissues against my forehead.

“Don’t blame Ronan. He’s a big guy. He doesn’t know his own strength when he’s angry.”

“Lillian, I’m sorry. He only did that because she was upset with me.”

Elena pressed her hands together, sobbing.

“How is any of this your fault? We were messing around, things got out of hand. Nobody meant for this to happen.”

Kael’s face softened. He let go of me and went to her.

The healer came. Ronan glanced at me, guilt all over his face, but the second Elena looked up with tears in her eyes, I stopped existing.

I was the one bleeding. They were the ones gathered around her, telling her it wasn’t her fault.

After they stitched me up, Kael sat down beside me. He was careful with his voice.

“Lillian, you’re leaving for the human world anyway. Would it be okay if Elena took your room at the Silverpine City penthouse?”

My fingers twisted in the bedsheet.

Our parents had bought that apartment together. Five bedrooms, two guest rooms.

My room had been designed exactly the way I wanted it.

“Aren’t there guest rooms?”

I kept my eyes down.

“The guest rooms don’t get good light. And she’ll be living with us practically full-time.”

I smiled. Or tried to.

“Then buy out my share. I’m never going back anyway.”

“Fine. Elena probably wouldn’t like your taste anyway.”

Kael rubbed his forehead.

“I’ll redo one of the guest rooms for you. Same style, same everything. That way you’ll still have a place when you come back to visit.”

A place to stay. Not a home. Not anymore.

I looked out the window. Birds crossed the sky, heading west, and I watched them until they were gone.

…

The day of Elena’s eighteenth birthday party, my childhood friends booked out an entire banquet floor for her.

I could barely walk on my crutches. They were too busy to notice.

The same girls who’d locked me in that restroom posted on PackNet: [This is almost too much love! We’re making up for all seventeen years you missed!]

Kael and the others had put together eighteen gifts, one for every year of Elena’s life. Making up for all the love she’d never had.

The five ceramic wolves sat at the center of the gift table. And there was Elena in her white dress, smiling, standing right where I used to be.

I hired someone to help me pack. Then I had them leave my pendant and a letter in my old bedroom at the penthouse.

I was about to board my flight when the old group chat lit up.

[Where’s Lillian? Was someone supposed to pick her up?]

The message was deleted seconds later. Wrong group chat.

I laughed softly.

I left the group chat and blocked every one of them.

Eighteen years, gone. They stayed with the pack. I walked into the human world alone.