My Four Childhood Friends Abandoned Me for My Best Friend Chapter 08

My Four Childhood Friends Abandoned Me for My Best Friend Chapter 08

Two years passed. I buried myself in research, weapons engineering, all day, every day. It became my entire world.

My parents visited during my second winter there. My dad was grinning the second he saw me. “That’s my Lillian. You’re going to need a bigger trophy shelf.”

My mom rolled her eyes, but her voice went soft. “Käel and the others… they ask about you every year. That first year, they were outside our door before sunrise.”

I said nothing.

She pressed the Moonstone Blood Pendant into my palm.

“They said… you never formally severed the mate bond. So it’s not theirs to keep.”

I put it in a cedar box. A relic of someone I used to be.

That third winter, I went back to Silverpine City.

The courtyard hadn’t changed. I put my hand against the laurel tree and looked up, straight into a pair of eyes I knew too well.

Kael was frozen on the balcony. Then he was running, down the steps, across the yard, and nearly

crashed into me.

“Lillian. You came back.”

We sat over steaming cups of coffee, talking the way strangers do.

“Pack affairs. Maybe I’ll finally head up to Northreach Lycan Academy,” he said.

“My PhD. I’ll probably keep doing research,” I said.

“Can we… start over?”

I looked at him. “You all have Obsidian Pack to run now. We’ve got our own lives. Why go back to

something that already broke?”

“Things are different now.”

“You look after my family. I appreciate that. But that’s duty, not love.”

He flinched. “Then can we be friends? Or… let me do this right this time.”

I stood up. “You took what I felt for you at sixteen and used it against me. And now you want another

chance?”

He caught my wrist. “Please. Just… finish your coffee.”

I sat back down. Halfway through the cup, the door flew open.

Rohan pulled me into a hug so tight I couldn’t breathe. Mason and Julian crowded in, looking me

over like they were checking for damage.

“You’ve lost weight.” Mason’s voice was rough. “But you’re stronger.”

“I’ve been busy. Tell me what you’ve all been up to.”

“We want to apologize. For real this time.”

“We’re not asking you to forgive us,” Julian cut in. “It’s just… none of us have slept right since you

left.”

I looked at them, heads down, shoulders drawn in, and felt nothing.

“Then let this be closure. You can finally rest.”

I walked out.

For the next ten days, fresh flowers showed up outside my door every morning. No names. Just a

few lines of poetry.

One morning, I caught Kael and Mason in the act. I lined up the bouquets side by side on the step.

“Let us see the season through,” Kael said quietly. “One last rite.”

I let them be.

I’d stopped trying to figure out what they really felt. The boys who once treated love like a game

were drowning in what they’d lost. That was their problem.

Three more years passed. I became lead researcher on a classified project.

Everett Sloane, my lab partner from Hawthorne, became my partner; in the lab first, then in

everything else.

We shared the silence between datasets and the rush when something finally clicked.

I rarely heard about the others. They found their mates. Took over their pack duties. Built lives

somewhere else.

Only the laurel tree stayed the same, year after year, untouched by any of it.

The love had been real. So had the betrayal.

Now there was only distance. Maybe that was the kindest thing left.