Unedited. Mistakes will be present as I am dsylexic.

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I was being used. Again. Slamming the door to my car I tightened my sweater around my waist, chilled more by the state of life than by the bitter wind. The bar looked barren in the morning light. My mind flashed to what it must have been like hours before. Filled with happy people. Drunk, single, happy people that had no obligations to anyone. I didn't even need to be there to know what it was like. It was always the same drudgery as before. 

I hated it.

I hated being here. I hated the smell, the way it looked and the twisted way it converted people. Before I used to come along with him. No because I wanted too but because I tried to be a distraction. As if my presence could alter the core of a man's values and beliefs. Instead I would leave alone, confused and my heart more broken than before I came. Forcing myself I walked on, the crunch of gravel breaking the silence in the air.

I sighed shaking my head. My lips pursed tight, infuriated that I was forced by my love to be here. Again. I pulled my sweater tighter trying to heat up the chill in my soul. Opening the door, I squinted in trying to see the past the dark. It felt as if a residue of bad intentions and wayward sins was a part of the obscurity that clouded my vision. Lilith was at the bar, her staunch figure ringing up bills from the previous night.

"Hey Katia." She said, not even looking up from the bills. Who else would be coming into a bar at this time of the morning?

"Hi Lill. Is he in the back?" I asked, as if he would be anywhere. 

"Mmm. As usual." She replied back.

Walking to the back of the bar I saw his figure, sprawled out on the leather sofa. For a moment I stopped and just looked at him. When he was asleep I could pretend that I was normal. That we were happy and in love.  Pretend that he loved me. 

My nose crumpled up at the smell of cheap perfume. He was covered in a cloud of it. Disgust filled my mind at the thought of how it got on him. Daydreaming was over and reality was forcing me to wake up.

"Lev." I called knowing that my voice would rouse him from his slumber. Even if he was unconscious I could wake him. Groaning he opened his eyes, gaining an instant headache from the light behind me. I must have looked like an angel from his nightmares. Welcome to hangover land.

"Get up Lev." I said. My voice complete neutral. Empty. Drained of anything that showed the tumulus emotions of my heart. 

"Don't." He said, his voice croaking from unused.

I titled my head to the side. Guess this conversation was happening again. I didn't reply. Just looked ahead.

"You're my best friend. Don't look at me like that." He grumbled, swaying from sitting up too quickly. I waited for him to gather his bearings, my face unchanged. His eyes opened. The beauty of the piercing blue was overshadowed by the bloodshot redness of his drunken night.

"Just get in the car Lev." I said turning around and walking to the door. 

The drive to his house was the same as usual. By the time we pulled out the parking lot he settled himself in to sleep. His snores were the only thing heard over the muffled noises of the car ride.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw lipstick smudge on his neck. My hands tightened on the wheel. I was grateful when his house came into view.

Pulling up I saw his brother, David waiting for me at the door. David was always there for everyone. Not only an older brother to Lev but also to me. David and his mate were one of the pillars of our community. They were excellent betas and lead well next to our Alpha. 

"Don't know how you do it Katia. One of these days you really have to call one of us to pick him up. He has six brothers, you don't have to do this each time he drinks himself into a stupor." Said David as I rolled down the window. 

"Yeah, well we all know that wouldn't work. None of you could wake him up. At least this way you won't need to haul three guys to carry him out." I said, shaking my head.

"Well that's true. Lev is as tall as a tree and as heavy as one too. Speaking of which, do you mind waking him up again?" Asked David.

"Lev, you're home." I said. Sure enough his eyes popped opened at the sound of his name.

"Ow, my head" He growled. David just chuckled. 

"Don't know how you get it right Katia. What would we do without you?" Said David, opening the door for Lev.  Lev got out, slamming the door shut. Probably would sleep off the excess alcohol in his system.

"It's nothing." I said back, looking at the closed door.

"Seriously Katia. Thanks. Not only for this but also for helping over the last three years. If it wasn't for you I don't know what would have happened to him. I don't think he would have survived the death of his soul mate if you weren't there. Even now. All his friends turned their backs on him never expecting him to come back, but you stuck by his side."

"What else could I do? He's been my best friend since we were in middle school." I said, smiling back.

David looked back at me, studying my face in earnest. 

"Your smile is not the same anymore." He said, a touch of sadness in his voice. 

"We all change David." I said, looking away.

"What happened Katia?" He asked with sincerity and care. 

"Life." I said, hoping my answer would suffice. 

"Well, if you every need to talk you know where we are. You've always been like a sister to us all." He said, not wanting to push the issue.

"Thanks David. I need to go and get myself ready for work." I said, trying to get myself out of the moment of observation. 

"Sure. I understand. " He said. 

Driving away I saw him staring at my car, a puzzled expression on his face. A look that was all too familiar. After all, it had become one I wore for that last two years. All because of Lev. 

In a weird twist of fate, our friendship had altered our lives. We were not quite popular, not quite loners.  Instead we became a duo of our own. Instantaneously we were best friends.  Somewhat on the fringes of other circles we gravitated to the normalcy we gave each other. Throughout the years we were such a part of each other's live that my memoires of childhood always had him by my side. 

I think everyone was completely surprised when Lev met his soul mate. They assumed we would be. A part of me believed it too. Even my father thought so. My parents had died in a car wreck when I was 15. I had no siblings and no other family. Instead of foster care, I became legally emancipated. The lack of extended family and my introverted nature left me lonely. I didn't mind.  

It was always just Lev and I. 

That ideal changed drastically in our senior year of high school with the arrival of Arabella. Arabella was a transfer student. A sweet yet thoughtful girl who had a unique capacity to love. She was the closest description that one could have for perfection.  The type of person I would have wished for a brother to marry. By marrying Lev, in some way she did.

Lev wasn't just enchanted with her. He was completely transformed by her compassion and support. I couldn't help but like her and was quickly drawn to her. Arabelle made Lev so happy. Arabelle made me believe in myself. Through her example with Lev, I started to believe in soul mates. It was because of her love, I was never afraid of losing my friend. In some way, I actually gained another. For the first time in years, I had someone I could talk too about makeup, clothes and emotions. Arabelle made both of us better, filling the voids we had in our lives. 

They were married for five years when they discovered she had cancer. A rarity amongst wolves that was one hundred percent fatal. She died six months later. Along with a big part of Lev. I lost two of my dearest friends in one day. 

It took a year for Lev to get out of his depression. Most of that year his brothers and I watched over him, frighten that he would try to join Arabelle. Then suddenly it was like the storm broke.  He came out of his room, showered, shaven and started to function as a normal person. 

He was still grieving but it was clear he was out of the woods and was coming to terms with her passing. He returned to work, was an active member of our community and started going out socially. He loved Arabella with an immensity of affection and truth. Yet she was gone. The part of him the left with her never returned.

In the second year he started to go to bars. Drinking as a young, single unmarried man would. Unmated males in the pack were quick to welcome him into their folds. Over the weekends they celebrated their singleness with a fervor only becoming to festivities.

When I said he was overdoing it, he told me I was overreacting. Maybe I was. He was acting like a normal kid of his age. Except, we were never normal. He never got drunk before or had one-night stands with too eager whores. I guess our definition of normal had shifted onto alternate paths.

He became someone different. Perhaps it was only natural. After all we both change in the process of Anabelle's passing.

Unbeknown to everyone, the most drastic change in a multitude of uncertainty was what happened on my 25th birthday.I spent most of the day waiting to hear from Lev. He never returned my calls. I realised around seven, that I had wasted my birthday waiting . I fell asleep watching on the couch, with an irrational hope that he would come by. 

Instead I got a slurred drunk call around three in the morning.  A part of me thought he was giving a belated birthday call. Instead it was some new random friend of his telling me to pick Lev up. 

There was a heaviness in the atmosphere that night. Over the years, my birthday was a forgotten event. I understood why he didn't celebrate it when Annabelle died.  It was with an immersive disappointment. One that left me reflective.  The hollow emptiness of the day had occurred so often, it was now normal. 

I walked into the emptied bar. I was tired, frustrated and disappointed. A feeling that had become all too familiar after the last few years. 

I walked into the bar and for the first time in my life, I smelt the full spectrum of rain. It was soft, refreshing. It calmed my bruised emotions and misused nerves. Something was different that day.

I inhaled deeply, overcome and overwhelmed by the intensity of it. I loved it but grimaced. The smell was tainted. There was a bitterness that clouded the smell. A cheap, overly sweet, slickly perfume.  Driven in part by curiosity but also by stubbornness to discover the cause I followed the scent. I was a fool. 

It was Lev.

After waiting years for a mate, waiting for my other half I learned he was by my side all along. 

I was confused. I tried to understand and to figure out why did we miss each other. Why did Lev meet Arabella, the woman who was clearly his mate if he was now mine? 

Before I could process what was happening Lev started to wake up. When his eyes opened the reaction was instantaneous. The connection was made creating a bridge that connected our hearts. Through bloodshot eyes, he saw me. Truly and deeply. 

Until a look of shock and horror overcame his face. 

"Never again. Must be crazy to imagine that pain again. I'm clearly still drunk." He said to himself. With that statement the connection instantly froze. Lev was so stubborn he could halt the fusing of souls.

I was left in limbo. Stall in time and stuck in a passage of unmoving fate.

He never brought it up again. Pushed it completely out of his mind. I was still his best friend only in title. Or when I was needed for something. Whilst everything had changed, nothing was permitted to be differnt.

No wonder my smile had changed. 

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