CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
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i. prom ?

— THE WEEK WAS MORE UNEVENTFUL THAN IT USUALLY WAS, which was nice for Anthony, who had been trying to put his promposal plans in action.

It was really difficult when the woman he was trying to surprise could see the future. Yet, so far, Tony had been doing a pretty good job of throwing her off.

He had everything prepared, and he made sure not to tell any of the Cullens because he knew for a fact that none of them could keep a secret. Rosalie was really close to getting it out of him- but he held his ground, knowing if more people knew it was more likely that Alice would find out.

In the mean time- he tried to keep his thoughts on the idea of going to prom with Jasper or as a sad form of buddy date with Bella. He hoped his thoughts were enough to convince Alice's powers.

So far it seemed to be working, so that was a perfect win for Tony.

On another note, the Cullen-Swans had practically adopted Reyes into their group.

The Englishman had many stories about witch culture. Their abilities, training, their laws.

It was a lot to take in, and with Anthony's forgetful and dismissive nature, all the information seemed to go in one ear and out the other.

"So- basically- you're a criminal?" Anthony asked, unlocking Bella's truck and grabbing the plastic bag that he had situated in the back.

"Not- I'm not a criminal." Reyes defended, standing back with Jasper, who was holding Tony's school bag.

"I mean- it seems like you are." Jasper pointed out, watching as Anthony closed the door of the truck and they all began walking to the cafeteria.

"I'm- okay, y'know, technically there are no written laws against it, it's just strongly regarded as dangerous and stupid." Reyes explained with an exasperated tone.

"So you're dangerous and stupid?" Jasper asked.

"Yes."

Tony wheezed a chuckle at that, almost stopping because of the slight pain it sent through his chest, igniting the constant dull ache that was always there.

"So the only reason no one has heard about witches in all these years is because they've been in hiding?" Tony asked, ignoring the burning feeling.

"Kind of? It was mutually decided that we wouldn't advertise." Reyes stated, hiking up his shoulder bag. "We aren't supposed to interact with shifters and vampires specifically, just because in most cases they're more destructive than humans. Though after the Salem trials that kind of derailed and now we just avoid showing off to anyone."

"So we're the first to hear about witches in how long?"

"A decade or so, at least. Sometimes witches slip up because of their Dyrbáánd relationships but-"

"Their what?" Tony asked.

"Dyrbáánd. Der-bond. It's also been called a direbond. It's the rare bond between two beings, it's like a-... a magnetic force pulls them together by the heart. They're drawn to each other, and they more often than not, can draw off each other's strength. They protect with their lives, emotionally and physically." Reyes adjusted his hand on the strap of his bad, the other boys listening intently. "I'm almost surprised you haven't heard of it." Reyes shrugged.

"Why would I have heard of it?"

"Well- because you have one? The bond can be between anyone. Human, vampire, animal, witch, shifter- though any one is really uncommon." The witch stated. "I thought you knew that you had one?"

Anthony shook his head with furrowed brows.

"It's fairly obvious who it is."

Tony didn't have time to ask another question as they entered the cafeteria, and his eyes immediately scanned their table for Alice.

Anthony urged Jasper and Reyes to sit down while he approached slower, giving himself time to park his oxygen tank and reach into the plastic bag, pulling out the painted canvas that was in there.

Making sure the painted side was facing him, he felt a small smile fall on his lips while he tapped Alice's shoulder.

Tony knew they didn't really do 'promposals' in Forks, but he also knew that Alice deserved something of the sort.

So when she turned around, Tony's smile widened and he showed off the painting, holding it up to his chest.

It was so... Tony. Which is probably a weird thing to say, but none of the other Cullens seemed surprised at what he'd orchestrated.

Alice held a hand to her mouth and let out a muffled giggle when she saw Anthony. Because the painting held up to his chest- in quite a comedic fashion- was in the form of a black tie and tux, the dark sweater he was wearing only made it look even better.

"Tony, what are you doing?" Alice laughed.

Tony ignored the question, "Alice Cullen," he spoke loudly, gathering a lot of attention from most of the student population- as if their eyes weren't already on that table. "Will you go to prom with me?" Anthony grinned, reaching out to grab Alice's cold hand in his, bringing her to a stand.

Alice's eyes lit up in excitement, and she practically bounced with glee when she nodded.

Anthony let the painting hang at his side when Alice squealed slightly and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.

"And seriously- no one realized?" Reyes muttered to himself in disbelief, despite being ignored by the group as they were preoccupied with laughing at Tony's painting.

— ALICE HAD DECIDED THAT SHE WOULD MAKE HER PROM DRESS BY HAND, which was an awesome idea in Tony's opinion and he even offered for her to set up in his garage so he could paint and they could talk.

Anthony's little art studio/garage had become a nice little place to hang out after school. Sometimes Bella would curl up on the love seat and finish her homework while Tony painted. Rosalie and Emmett would jokingly model in weird poses for Tony, and he, being ever diligent, would paint them perfectly.

Which is exactly why Emmett and Rosalie now had three separate paintings hung in the Cullen house.

One depicting the couple with scrunched up faces and a finger beneath their nose that had penned moustaches.

Another had a very princess and the frog moment when Emmett had decided to squat for an hour just for fun.

The final one, Rosalie's favourite, was split into quarters and in each one there was a scene with the couple just holding each other in a way. One with Rosalie perched on Emmett's shoulders, or her holding him bridal style and vice versa, or them just hugging in a weird half-dip.

Needless to say, they'd had plenty of fun with that.

Alice's dress had been coming along well too. She'd told Anthony that she studied fashion design for a while- which wasn't a huge surprise for Anthony.

They'd decided together on a purple colour for their 'theme'. Though, it had been confirmed that Tony would be going black tie. Except theme colour did help with corsage choice.

Besides that, Alice created a dress design that she fell in love with instantly- and she found the perfect material.

Anthony felt so at peace, sitting in the garage with Alice working away on her dress while he painted and held Jasper's hand, listening to the radio. He'd never felt happier than he was in those moments.

He should have known something like that wouldn't last.

It was like the world was just holding it's breath, waiting for the moment where it would let out a huff of air and let the storm rip everything to shreds,

Calm before the storm.

Well, if that statement wasn't true.

— IT WAS HALF EXPECTED FOR THE DAY TO BE COLD. It was Forks, after all. Though everyone had been hoping it would be warm, for Tony's sake.

It was like the weather was punishing Anthony for having such a good week, deciding to smack him with freezing wind and air that would leave his chest in pain.

But of course, he still had to go to school.

That was probably the first mistake he made. Going to school.

The day just went from bad to worse with each passing minute. Alice accidentally hit him with a pencil in art after twirling it around too much. He tripped over some kid's bag in history and almost hit his chin against another's desk if Jasper hadn't caught him.

The whole day, full of mistakes.

On his way to the medical building, Tony nearly slipped into a puddle but luckily, only his arm got wet. Then in the building Reyes gave him a stern talking about his pain medication and how it still hadn't gotten refilled. During lunch he got pudding on his sweater, the dark brown stain was screaming to be noticed against the white material.

Jasper ended up giving Tony his sweater, not worrying about his scars since he was also wearing a long sleeved shirt.

Then in Trig some kid nearly hit him in the eye with a pen after clicking it too much and it shooting out of his hand.

Mistake, after mistake, after mistake.

It just wasn't a good day for Tony, and the last thing he needed was to be tried by some asshole. Yet- of course, what else should happen.

Finally at the end of the school day, ready to go home, Anthony still had to wait for Bella to finish up on some project of hers before they could get going.

Alice and Rosalie had stayed behind to keep him company, along with Reyes who had nothing better to do. They all sat in the bed of Bella's truck and talked, tossing a rock around.

It was like the day was finally starting to look up for Anthony.

"Hey, look who it is." A voice interrupted Rosalie's teasing of Jasper becoming soft.

The group turned to the voice, and paired it with a man who seemed either drunk or stupid. Maybe both.

Tony's eyes hardened and became cold as he looked at the man, not bothered when a bit of wind tousled his hair around so it obstructed his vision slightly.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Anthony called out, slowly taking out his nasal prongs and wrapping the tubing around his oxygen tank, ignoring Reyes's warning glances.

"You know me, always hopping from place to place. But I saw you over here and just had to say hello, y'know? Like old friends, you and I." The man laughed.

Alice and Rosalie exchanged a nervous and confused look when Tony hopped down from the bed of the truck and got in the man's face.

"Old friends?" Tony laughed humourlessly. "No man, you're an old problem that I thought we'd gotten rid of." He stated, standing directly in front of him now, being able to see the blue of his eyes and smell the alcohol in his breath.

"Oh c'mon, Tony-"

"No- Isaac- you are literally the biggest waste of oxygen I have ever seen- you dumb fucking prick..,"

"I told you," Tony began again. "I told you that the next time I saw you, I'd kill you for what you did. Do you have a death wish? Is that what this is?"

The man, Isaac as Tony had called him, seemed to dismiss the anger in the boy's tone and just laughed.

"Oh yeah, how is Liv by the way?"

It seemed like that was the last straw,

The final mistake of the day, was those words coming out of Isaac's mouth in a dismissive and class clown tone, with a dopey, shit-eating smile to match.

Because all it took was that sentence for Anthony's already bad day to become worse.

It made everyone fall silent, like the world was holding it's breath yet again but this time, in anticipation for what was about to come.

And the only sound that broke the void of quiet was a loud, echoey, satisfying crunch.

author's note

I'm so sorry this is late ahh
school literally starts up again today so I've been trying to mentally prepare myself for that

Also I kinda feel like this chapter could be better- maybe it's just because my anxiety ridden brain is writing this at 4 am so I'm sorry if it's off or not as good as it normally is, I'm just really tired 😂

But on another note- I wanna try and keep my updating as consistent as possible so hopefully I can keep up with 'every 2-3 days' thing but school might get in the way of that- I really hope not but we'll see

WDWG is literally so close to being finished, there's only a few chapters left so I've already started setting up a new thing for me to work on while I get the new moon sequel ready and planned out- I'll probably talk about some of all that on tumblr tbh because I feel like my authors notes are too long already to get into that stuff.

Anywhoo, i love y'all ♥️⭐️