HI! It's good to be back. I just started school and it's been difficult.. I'm drowning in things. I hope you enjoy this update though! I will be more consistent now.

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Nova's POV

School days came and went like nothing. Most of the seniors had basically given up by now, some hardly showed up if at all. Who could blame them?

Graduation is in two days. We had practiced walking on for several hours every day the past week. The pro about that is that I got to stay close to Blake since it was a long time before either of us were called and because our last names were so far apart. The distance between C and W in a class of about 350 kids was a lot. He would sneak over to my side and we would talk about final arrangements for our journey.

They wanted us to rest tomorrow so they sent us home early. There were tearful goodbyes as some people knew that they wouldn't see each other again after graduation. 

You always make plans to do it, but for most people, it never works out. Or so I've heard.

Blake had more goodbyes to bid than I did as my high school years were fairly lonely. I went home when I realized that he was gonna be a while. 

My room was mostly packed by now. I planned to only leave a few things behind that either weren't mine or that I didn't want to have. I did not have very many possessions as it was. I had maybe two garbage bags of clothing and a few boxes of personal things, all of which could fit in the truck with ease. 

Blake, as it turns out is more of a pack rat. I had to help him get rid of some useless stuff and decide what he actually needed. I wanted to travel fairly light. 

I already had my outfit planned and everything set up. The twins would likely be out most of the day, so I shut my curtains and decided to sleep for as long as I could. Drifting off was easy, the heat of the day that bled through my curtains made it so that I didn't need a blanket, just shorts and a t shirt. 

I only recall pulling my blanket up over my head when I opened my eyes around 9 PM because I was cold.

The rest is a drowsy blur. 

**********

My phone went off as I put the final touches on my basic hair and makeup. 

"I'm picking you up, right?" his text read. 

I responded yes and stuck a few more bobby pins in my hair, making sure to keep count so that I don't accidentally forget to take one or two out and wake up with them lodged in my skull. 

They're sharp.

When I was satisfied with my updo, I finished with some powder and put mascara on with some lip gloss. 

Less really is more. 

That, and a quote I read recently says, "nothing truly beautiful ever has to ask for attention." 

It really hit me, especially as I walked out of my room and saw the twins breeze past me in dark, dramatic eye makeup in the school colors, green, black and yellow and bright lipstick with dresses that I could see the color of their panties through. 

Case in point. 

My dress was mid-thigh length with a low neck line and racer back style straps with a few more wrapped around my lower back. The gown would cover anything remotely slutty about it. It had a lovely wine shade I liked with undertones of a rich maroon. My gown fit over it which I left undone and tucked the cap under my arm. 

Blake did pick me up as promised and was wearing a basic tux and his gown over it, undone to meet the dress code for tonight. He still looked great though, duh. Who doesn't like a cute guy in a suit? His hair was pulled back into a neat bun with some strands sticking out to frame his face.

"Shall we?" He asks and offers me his arm.

"Let's shall," I nod and take his arm. 

~~~~~~~

"Ms. Nova Collins," the dean calls me with a diploma in hand which I take and shake his hand, shake the hands of some other teachers I had or didn't have in my years at this school and turned around to smile at Blake. His eyes seem to have been on me the whole time judging by the smile he gives me when he meets my eyes.

Loud cheering from familiar voices comes from the audience somewhere. I look out and see Taylor and his crew of guys. He just claps, looking at me with pride. 

I can't describe this feeling. This, this school, these people, this lifestyle is all I had known since I came here. I don't feel ready or wanting to spread my wings and leave so suddenly. Leaving, to leave Taylor especially would be hard.. harder than anything I've ever done. 

After the class is announced and officiated, people hang around for a while and start to leave. Blake tells me that he needs to go home and get something while I was talking to a friend for longer than he had time for. 

When the field was mostly empty, I start to walk off as well seeing Blake's truck pull up again. 

A loud whistle tears through the silent air making me stop. A familiar figure leans on the fence near the border of the track. 

"Hi stranger," I smile at him, his eyes still radiant with pride. 

Oh Taylor.. please don't make this harder than it's gonna be. 

"How do you feel? Liberated?" He asks with his hands on my shoulders, still smiling. 

"Not exactly.." I mumble and look down, taking my cap off. 

"What's the matter?" He furrows his brow and changes his look from pride to concern. 

"Nova! Are you ready to g- oh," Blake comes up behind me. 

"Taylor will take me home.. I need to talk to him," I tell him softly. 

He nods and gives me a look of knowing. I had not expressed my worry to him about talking to Taylor, but this look told me that he knew.

"Nova, what's going on?" Taylor asks. I start to smell, or Wolfie starts to smell worry in him in the form of pheromones. 

"We need to talk. Maybe over a cup of tea?" I suggest, trying to ease his worry even though he had every right to be worried. 

"Yeah.. sure."

The drive is silent and awkward; a first for us. I always had something to say if he didn't, but this was no time for sarcastic jabs and self destructive jokes. 

We pull into an empty driveway and I unlock the door to let us both in. I undo my gown and drape it over the back of the couch, placing my cap on top and going to the kitchen to start boiling water. 

I pull six bobby pins out of my hair, making it fall around my shoulders and over my back in soft waves. I step out of my heels and set two mugs on the counter and set up his favorite that I save only for him, and my own favorite. 

"So.. what is it you wanted to tell me?" He asks sitting at the bar across from me.

Everything I want to say for some reason isn't coming out. I make the motion to speak but my mouth won't allow it. 

A little help here?

I can't.. look at him! We can't tell him.

We have to. We owe more to him than to just leave.

She tunes out and I make a frustrated noise and hit my fist on the counter, holding my face in my hands. 

Bitch...

Hey!

"Hey, Nova talk to me," Taylor rushes around the counter to hold me close to him in an attempt to calm me. Funnily enough, this only gives more power to the growing pain inside me. 

The first tear pricks the corner of my left eye. They say that the first tears on the right side come from happiness, the left is from sadness and pain. 

I gather my courage to finally say, "I'm leaving tonight.. with Blake," and look up into his eyes which break in confusion. 

"You're... what? What?-Why?" His voice is laced with panic. 

More tears fall, now from my right eye as well and I choke back a sob, falling into his arms. He bends his knees taking us both to the floor. 

"I need answers, Taylor. I need to know where I come from. Blake wants the same thing." 

"You told me your parents were dead," he says with an upturned tone.

I chuckle, "there is something I haven't told you." 

I do share everything with him, but not my other side. I was afraid he would see me differently. It's now or never, right?

"You need to promise me you will never tell another soul about this, swear to me." I say in the most serious way I can manage over my tear stained face. 

"Of course Nova, always." 

I crawl out of his grasp and brace myself, summoning her forward. I open my eyes and see him in a defensive position, to my horror. 

Taylor's POV

"What.. the.. fuck?" I whisper and slowly get closer. She just did that. One minute she's.. her, human and the next she is a wolf. Was I dreaming?

The pain I feel in my head assures me that this is very real. The pain is something I have never felt before, something forcing its way in, a voice. "It's still me, Taylor. This is my other half."

Other.. half? 

"Woah! How can you do that? I can hear you!" I say breathlessly, reaching out a hand to touch her, but realize she has huge, white fangs now. "C-can I?" I ask and look into her blue-green canine eyes.

She nudges my hand with her head, which is bigger than my hand and throws herself into my lap with her belly up.

I scratch her head and belly gently, still in shock, in awe. I don't know what to think here. 

Somehow, she molds back into her human self. Her fur and ears go away, her snout disappears. She pulls her dress back on and sits in front of me.

"Does it hurt?" I ask.

"What, changing? No. Only if I don't do it for a long time. Before I met Blake, I hadn't changed since I was with my parents last. They left me in Susan's care when war broke out in our pack." She explains. This is news to me.

"I'm not exactly a normal wolf. Blake is, but I'm part Lycan. Lycans are bigger and stronger than normal wolves. Lycans are bred to fight and be warriors and leaders."

I nod, still confused. The Lycan thing was reassuring.

We go sit outside on the porch swing as she continues her story. 

She tells me everything from us meeting just days after she got here and why she was leaving with Blake. It is hard to understand fully, but I eventually get it.

All I can ask after she finishes is, "why couldn't you have told me this before?"

She looks at me with understanding and sadness, "I was afraid you would see me differently, Taylor. I hadn't told anyone else. Susan only ever called me a freak for it.." she pauses. "But do you understand why? Why I need to leave?" 

"Yes, Nova. I do. I just wish it didn't have to be like this." I mutter and put my empty mug on the side table. 

"I'm sorry." She tries to hold back more tears. 

"Come here," I open my arms and I hug her tight. She didn't need me to yell at her even though I didn't like this. She needed a friend, and she needed me to understand and be there for her. 

"As much as I'll miss you, I know you need this. I know you. I know you well enough to know that you don't rest until you get your information." I chuckle and let her go. "I hate that you aren't gonna be around anymore and I hate that I don't get to know that you're gonna be okay." My voice cracks, conveying how I was really feeling.

She takes my face in her hands and brings it to meet her eye level. "It's going to be alright," she whispers and smiles reassuringly. 

Some part of me believes her.

She takes my hand. "Come, I have something for you."

She leads me to the garage where she pulls the door up and brings me to her bike, pulling its tarp off.

"I can't take it with me.. I want you to have it. I'm also leaving my tea collection to you. Blake won't let me take all of it." She smiles and tosses the tarp aside. 

My jaw drops, "no, I couldn't. This is your baby. I can't accept this." I cross my arms and back away. 

I really couldn't take it. I know how much she loves it, the thrill she gets. We are very alike, her and I.

"Would you rather I leave it here for the twins to sell or flaunt?" She raises an eyebrow and leans on the bike, twirling the key around her finger. She tosses the key to me which I catch, before catching her in my arms with her arms around me.

"Just take good care of it, okay?" She mumbles into my chest and looks up at me. 

"I will. Take care of yourself, okay?" I hold her close to me.

"I promise." More silent tears run down her face which I wipe away with my thumb. 

Blake pulls up and honks before getting out and coming to meet us. 

After an awkward pause, she tells us that she's going to go change and start getting the boxes from her room. Blake offers to help and starts to follow, but I grab his shirt and pull him back to face me. 

"She told me everything. If I find out that she gets hurt or worse, I will personally hunt you down and tear you limb from limb, wolf or not," I threaten dangerously. I hardly knew this guy, and trusting him with Nova did not sit well with me. She seemed to trust him, and her intuitions tended to be decent.

"I know you worry about her, man. I appreciate you trusting me to keep her safe. I'll guard her with my life," he looks at me solemnly which relaxes me slightly. 

I nod and go back in the house to bring boxes to his truck.

With the last box, Blake goes to start the car and give us one last moment. 

I hold her by her shoulders and pull her into me. This was a lot to take in, and I found myself hoping that I would wake up and see a text from her asking to meet up. A pit in my gut told me that that wasn't the case and worse, that I would probably never see her again.

"Nova.. I don't know what I'm gonna do without you," my voice cracks and the waterworks start. She was my best friend, I loved her. She knew it too as she told me she loved me all the time. It wasn't in a couple-y way, it was unique to us. It wasn't in a friend zone kind of way. 

"Oh Taylor, please don't cry," she says crying herself. I knew she felt the same way I did, I could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. She withdraws herself to remove a necklace from her neck. It was a sturdy chain with a unique looking pendant. It was the necklace she always wore, but I never asked her what it was. 

"This is a Celtic knot. Look at it.. there is no beginning or end. You can't tell where it starts or ends, can you?" She asks, placing it in my hand.

"No, why?" I ask looking at it. 

"They symbolize connections, let this one be my connection to you. You will never lose me as long as you have this. As long as you have this, I will always be with you, Taylor," she says as she closes my fingers around the necklace, placing her other hand on my chest over my heart, "right here." She cries more and wipes her tears with the back of her hand. 

God, I hated cliches like this but this one was different, it was personal.

I pull her close to me for the last time, trying to brand this feeling into my memory. 

"I will never be able to thank you enough for everything you have done for me." She sobs.

"No. Thank you." I whisper, trying to comfort her as much as I can even though this was tearing me apart inside.

Blake honks the horn, getting impatient, kinda ruining the moment for us both. 

"I love you, Taylor." She hugs me as tight as she can.

"As I love you, Nova." I plant a soft kiss on her cheek which she returns in the same way. 

I can't believe this was it... I can't believe she's leaving. But I know she has to, I know this will help her. 

I know she is going to be okay. I have to continue repeating this to myself, otherwise I wouldn't be able to let her go. 

She turns around and walks to the passenger side of the car, getting in, looking out at me one more time. Blake puts the car into gear and drives off. She blows a farewell kiss to me with tears in her eyes as they turn the corner. 

I take a deep breath and go back to the garage to get the bike and head home to process this. 

I put all I had left of her in the saddlebags, put the necklace around my neck, and look down at it. A few final tears go down my cheek, down the chain and onto the pendant. 

She really would always be with me, I could never forget her. 

I take one last look around her room, now bare. I take in the smell I would always remember her by and close the door, leaving through the garage which I close. I load the bike up onto my truck and get in, looking at the picture I kept of her and I on my visor. It was old and beat up, but she was smiling and happy. I tuck the picture into my wallet.

That was all I could hope she would be now; happy.

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YOU GUYS I'M CRYING. They're off and I cried at my own scene. I'm a blubbering mess.
I'm sorry if I made you cry, I promise it gets better. Don't be sad. Because sad backwards is das, and das not good. They are onto bigger things!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH, WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. 

Until the next chapter!

P.S. I had an idea. I wanted to allow Taylor and Nova to live out any romance they might have had, maybe in an alternate universe. I was thinking vikings. Tell me what you think! I love hearing your thoughts.