Abby slid the dandelion behind my ear, the petals tickling the side of my face. I had a flower crown, flower bracelets, and now a weed tucked behind my ear. Abby had been weaving them with grass and stems for the two hours I'd been talking to her about all of my problems. She had listened intently, and gave me the best advice she could, but I knew that I had to figure this out myself. I had to figure out my feelings and what I wanted to do in life. Abby said space was good for the human half, but that my Wolf needed people around to feel safe and secure.
"Aster and I will be like those people for you," she said. "Elaine is probably another good one, but she's always so tired with the pups and from Tyler."
I nodded sadly. "Yeah, I suppose so."
Abby punched my lightly. "Hey, don't be upset! We're having fun! It's a beautiful day out, you look fabulous, and now you smell like a blooming rose bush." She beamed at me. "Isn't it awesome?"
The sky was a shade of dark blue up above us, framed by a ring of orange. The sun would start setting in a couple of hours. I was tempted to sleep out here in the woods again, curled up in a burrow beneath a tree. Abby and I had shifted before we left in order to give me more practice and to get further, faster. I love Abby's wolf form. Her coat was a shimmery color of blonde and her eyes were wide and crystal clear. Abby portrayed a lot of her emotions through her eyes, and I could stare at them forever, but they weren't quite as captivating as Aster's. I felt like his gold irises were made out of stars, plucked out of the night sky and mashed into a ball to make his steely yellow gaze. I thought about Aster almost all the time now, and it was beginning to show. Abby said I made puppy eyes at him all the time, but she also said that Aster talked about me non-stop with some of the higher-up wolves and especially Elaine. That made me want to giggle and blush like a schoolgirl.
"Do you think he likes me?" asked Abby.
I looked up, startled. She wasn't talking about Aster, was she? "Who?"
"Umbridge," Abby said, exasperated.
My tense posture relaxed.
Abby laughed. "You thought I was talking about the alpha, didn't you? Hah! Please, Aster loves you to the ends of the earth."
I blinked. "That's silly."
Abby shook her head. "No way. He would do anything for you if you asked. He's obsessed with you, and I swear he just mopes about in his room, whining to Elaine about when she thinks you're going to come back to the house. He's too lovesick for his own good, too lovesick to even know he's lovesick. He's oblivious to his own feelings. It's pretty cute, watching him try to deny it whenever its brought up. He's like a guilty child."
My face turned bright red and I picked at a loose stem on one of my bracelets. Abby finished weaving her second crown, the white flowers pointed upwards towards the sun. A single bumblebee buzzed around the flowers she had been picking, but Abby waved it away. She placed the second crown, this one slightly larger, over my head and it sat lopsided over the first one. We looked at each other for a brief moment, and then burst out laughing. I could just picture how ridiculous I looked, all dolled up in flower jewelry. I was having so much fun, way more fun than I had been having with Jamie and Adam lately. I think I related to Abby more, and she was so energetic and full of life. She wasn't as beaten down or depressed as most people my age. Abby was only nineteen, but she'd barely gone to school and spent most of her time hunting. She was living her perfect life, and she knew it. I was jealous.
Abby reached up her fingers and plucked a loose leaf out of my hair. She spun it between her thumbs as we laughed again. It felt so nice there, the warm sun on my face and the comfortable feeling of joy in my stomach. Wolf was silent for the first time in almost ages, also content with spending time with Abby in the middle of the sun-soaked forest. I know knew who I could talk to, but I still needed to find out where I was going and what I was going to do for college. I shook my head. I could decide that later. Right now, I was content just laying out here in the warm clearing with my new friend.