POV: Jordan

School had finally come to a close. All the restless nights, all the screaming, the crying, the pain. All of it was over and done with, there was nothing left to cry about, nothing left to scream about. The world had finally given us some peace with our regulated breaks. We could do whatever we wanted: stay at home, sit by the fire, go to shops, live a carefree life during Winter. We had nothing holding us to the ground anymore, and that was a good thing. Life was going to get better, the worst of it passed us. Everything was over, life could go on without a care in the world.

Winter break was possibly the best break we could've ever had. The perfect weather, the heartbeats underneath coats. Everything about it reminded me of him, the dirty snow, the grey clouds. I had thought the feelings were over, I had thought I was over him. But seriously, I couldn't make up my mind. Why did I have to break what I loved so much? That was the question that frequently swarmed my mind. I knew he liked someone else, and I had to respect that. I just wanted him to meet me in the afterglow of the sunset, the brilliant colors overhead.

It's all me, in my head.

I found myself hanging around Nathan more, just being near him. It wasn't the same as being with Alex, but it was just good to have someone next to me. Sure, I could've just asked Steven, but I knew I wouldn't be able to face everything I had done. I mean, Alex and Steven were the perfect couple, they deserved each other, they complemented each other so well. Sometimes I found myself thinking if I would be invited to their wedding, or if I would still be a part of their lives if they had kids. I still couldn't help but wish Alex had chosen me, that I was the one for him. Still, there was something intriguing about the hyena that stood next to me at my height.

It only took me a couple of days of being with him to pick up on his mannerisms, the way he acted and talked around different animals. He was polite to herbivores-everyone was like that, but he was also rude to, well, rude herbivores. He would always keep his eyes on them, never once looking away. Other times he was just angry towards everyone. I couldn't figure out anything about him because whenever I would ask a personal question, he would just avoid it. Not like he knew much about me either, he wasn't Alex.

I couldn't help it though, I liked being around him. His unpredictability was just so inviting, just so interesting. He really was someone special, someone who I found myself wanting to spend more time with, someone who I wanted to know more about. I figured we could've been good friends if he just opened up more, but time would tell if he even wanted to open up to me

Nathan's voice went in one ear and out the other as I twirled my straw around, watching the water whirlpool, sucking up anything in its path. I wasn't really interested in anything he was saying, I think he was talking about how we're gonna work on our campaign. I was over it though, I was tired of hearing Brittney's name again. I just wanted it all to be over.

"Nathan," I said. "Can we talk about something different? I'm just tired of hearing Brittney's name."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Sure."

There was silence between us as animals chattered and waiters took orders. We really didn't have that much in common, other than the whole Brittney thing.

He was smart; I wasn't.

Guilt sunk in my stomach as I thought about how stupid it was to invite him somewhere and then shut him down. "Sorry," I said. "I'm just sick of running from Brittney, I'm sick of hearing about how much better she is than I am."

He thought about it for a moment, biting at his cheek. "Well, if you want the truth, she isn't better than you. Neither of you are better than each other, I think you're perfectly matched."

I scoffed. "Really? How so?"

His response came quickly, like he had this all planned out. "Well both of you are pretty stubborn, annoyingly so. Neither of you like losing and you'll each go out of your way to make sure you win. I think calling out Brittney's parents is a perfect example, and-"

I cut him off. "So just the bad traits then?"

"You asked me how you two were similar, I gave you my response. Sorry you don't like it."

He was right, guess I shouldn't have expected much from him. His eyes glanced off to the side and he rested his head on his palm. "So, why did you invite me here anyway? I feel like I'm the only one talking."

I sighed. "Sorry, I've just been missing Alex."

"Then why don't you just call him?"

I waved him off. "It's not important, I'm sure he's busy."

"Have you met Alex? He's never busy."

Our waiter set down our food in front of us and I thanked him. "I know he's not busy," I said, poking my food. "But I just feel weird talking to him...after everything that happened."

His eyebrows raised. "What happened?"

I stopped mid-bite. "Really? You don't remember that I was the one who found him in the bathroom?"

He looked off to the side, he liked to do that a lot. "Right," he said. "Sometimes I don't want to remember it. Sometimes I just want to forget it happened."

"I think everyone wants to forget it happened."

There was silence again as we ate, never really looking at each other, never really speaking. I liked it when he didn't talk. His voice wasn't that annoying, but Jesus Christ he could be annoying at times. Sitting with him only made me miss Alex more, but it also brought another emotion that I wasn't used to. I tucked it away in the back of my mind, sweeping it underneath the rug and forgetting about it.

But there was a thing as too much silence. "So, any plans for Christmas?" I asked.

"Nah, my family doesn't really like to go anywhere for Christmas, we just stay home."

"Yeah, mine too...do you have any siblings?" Weird question yeah, but I didn't know anything about him. The only things I learned about him were: he doesn't like Brittney, he's freakishly smart but only uses it to gain the advantage, and could read my face extremely well.

"I have a sister," he said. "She'll be a freshman next year. Hopefully by then you'll be the student council president. I don't want her going to a school where Brittney runs it. It's not safe for us."

I smiled. "I'm an only child. Mom wanted a sibling for me, but they never got around to it." He didn't need to know the truth about Dad, nobody needed to know.

He laughed hard, almost knocking over his cup of water. He caught his breath and put his hand over his chest, breathing a sigh of relief. "Sorry, sorry. Just didn't expect you to actually be funny ."

"What's that's supposed to mean?" I said with a smirk.

"I always pictured you as this get-shit-done carnivore. No time for jokes, no time for...anything. It's refreshing to hear something different."

...I wasn't really trying to joke...but ok dude.

"Well I always pictured you as this reclusive hyena who hides his true nature." I lifted my glass about to take a sip, talking through it. "Seems like we both have something to hide."

"It appears we do." He took a sip from his glass and we stared at each other for a second, the world seemingly stopped to recognize our gazes locked on to one another. Was I looking at another predator? Or just a misunderstood carnivore?

You are the weirdest animal I have ever met, but I want to know more about you. What secrets are you hiding?

The rest of the conversation was bland and boring, neither of us knew what to say. We finished up our food and left the café, our small talk continuing into an even more boring mess. It wasn't awkward-no-it was awkward. What was I supposed to say to him? What was he supposed to say to me? We didn't know each other that well, but wasn't that the whole point of me inviting him out to lunch? So then why did he say yes if he wasn't really going to talk?

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, this was my chance, and I didn't care if he attacked me or if he just smooth talked his way out of it. I needed to ask him, I had to ask him. It was torturing me just to look at him and pretend like everything was ok, that he was perfectly normal. Because he wasn't...far from it.

He turned around to look at me, his hands in his green hoodie pockets, and I spoke up, my hands no longer trembling, my feet firmly planted. "There's something about you that I just don't get. It's driving me crazy!"

"Always one to speak your mind, aren't you?" he said with his voice that infuriated me.

"I know you're hiding something." I said with my eyes narrowed.

"And I know you're hiding something as well. Actually, I already know what it is, but saying it probably won't provoke the nicest reaction."

"Just say it damnit!" I stamped my foot on the ground, acting like a toddler again. A couple of animals looked in our direction, to them, we just looked like an interspecies couple having an argument. But to both of us, it was a showdown to the death.

Ok, maybe death was exaggerating it, but either way, that's what it felt like.

Nathan smirked, his tail wagging behind him. "Your dad is dead, I could tell by the way you said 'Mom wanted a sibling for me' implying that it was just you and your Mom. However, as I dwelled on the thought, something else came up. Why would you use the word 'they' if you specifically addressed your mom? Then the thought clicked, either your dad walked out on you, which is atypical for snow leopards. Or, he died in some accident."

What. The. Fuck.

I was speechless, words fumbled out of my mouth and fell onto the cold, hard pavement. My mind swarmed with thoughts, just wondering how the hell he pieced it together so easily with any further information. I made it perfectly clear to myself that I would never talk about Dad to anyone, nobody needed to know that he was a part of my life. That he practically made me into the animal I was today.

Nathan raised his eyebrows at me, challenging me to comment on anything else, knowing he could just shut it down. " X marks the spot, and you, Jordan, are covered in red paint." He turned around and left me alone on the sidewalk, snow lightly falling and animals shoving past me.

"This is why we can't have nice things!" I yelled at him as he walked away. "It's because of animals like you that this world hates us to begin with!"

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

He turned to look at me, the sun casting an ominous shadow across him. I was terrified, but also seething with anger, I didn't even know that was possible. I just wanted to run away, cower in fear, but I also wanted to rip his throat out. Who cared if he was a hyena and I was a snow leopard? Last time I checked, I was the superior species...at least I thought so.

"You think I'm the problem?" he said, his voice dangerously low. "No, the only problem in this world is that herbivores are allowed to do whatever they want, while we carnivores are stuck in the shadows." He looked at me from the sides of his eyes. "You know nothing about me, and you're never going to."

I swallowed, hard and dry. Anger burned in my throat, my hands shook with rage, and I clenched them. Warm blood dripped out of my palms, and I bit my tongue to mask the pain.

Fine then, I don't know anything about you. But if you think you can just walk away and pretend like none of this ever happened, you're sorely mistaken, Nathan.

I did my best to get my mind off of Nathan by shopping around. But each time I looked at the colorful winter clothes, each time I saw another hyena crossing the street, I wanted to ruin it all. If I knew he would've acted like that, I would've just stayed at home. I would've just forgotten all about him, because he had no emotion, no feelings. The only thing driving him was the motive to destroy all herbivores.

Look, I didn't like them that much either, but at some point, there's not a whole lot you could do. They ran the society, they had government jobs, they sold carnivore meat at the black market and blamed us for being monsters.

I could be complex, I could be cool. The only animal stopping me from doing whatever I wanted was myself. The herbivores could tell me I was worthless, just another waste of space. But who cared? I did, but those feelings of caring about what other animals thought, those feelings of being reserved and hiding my feelings were fading away. I knew I needed to do something regarding Nathan. He shouldn't have been allowed to act like that. He shouldn't have been allowed to put up this facade of a sweet, kind, caring hyena. When deep down, he was just as bad as the herbivores.

The walk home was a long and tedious one. Long from the actual distance and tedious from the thoughts buzzing my mind. It was always Nathan, Nathan, Nathan. No more Alex, no more Steven, no more Brittney. Just Nathan. Always wondering what his next move was going to be, always planning ahead for the next random outburst of territorial anger.

I was so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I'd get there quicker if I was an herbivore. If I was an herbivore, I'd be the herbivore. I was so sick of them coming after me, I was sick of it. Everything would've been different if I was an herbivore.

What was it like to brag about raking in dollars? And getting bitches and models? And it was all good if you were bad, and it was ok if you were mad

If I was out flashing my dollars, I'd be a bitch not a baller. They'd paint me out to be bad, so it was ok that I'm mad.

My legs burst out into a sprint and I raced across the sidewalk, heart pounding in my chest, shoes slamming against the pavement. I was tired of running, so I ran harder, faster; passing joggers in their athletic wear, almost tripping over cracks. The wind in my fur was amazing, the cold air shriveling my lungs. It all felt amazing, my mind racing, daydreaming what I would be like if I was an herbivore, craving the attention and luxurious life I could've had.

Nathan had changed something in me, just with the little conversation we had. I knew I needed to expose him, or at least, to the best of my ability. He was smart, cunning, ruthless. He knew how to win every game. I was just a pawn in his large game of chess, getting destroyed by the Queen Brittney and e replaying it all over. Just because I won the debate didn't mean anything, I had to win the election. Nathan wouldn't have cared though, he would've just used his newfound power to remove every herbivore from power, probably going on in life to be this massive successful carnivore.

I wasn't going to let him. I was going to stop him. I was going to be his friend . We were going to keep civil conversation, hiding it underneath our plots to kill each other.

If push came to shove, I had no problem with actually hurting him.

Let the games begin.

️ ️ ️

You know how your parents always tell you how "you're the special angel"? how you're the "smartest animal in the world"? I came to realize that wasn't completely shit. Not everything they said was true, but it wasn't false either.

Nathan was smart, but I could be smarter. Just like Brittney, I needed to get inside their head, I needed to know how Nathan's brain worked. So I spent the rest of the day in my room, pacing back and forth, just wondering how his mind worked. I tried comparing him to Brittney, but they weren't that similar. Brittney was more of a mean, psycho girl. But Nathan was on a whole different level. He actually was psychotic, narcissistic. He was out to change the system, but it was my job to show him that he was just as bad as they were.

Mom knocked on my door, leaning against the frame, eyeing the papers scattered around the floor and me doing a handstand. They always helped me think, the blood rushing to my head, the dizziness after staying there for a couple of minutes.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"A handstand, they help me concentrate."

"On what?"

"Can't tell you that."

She signed and put her hands on her hips. "Ok, well, your boyfriend is here."

I fell over, scrambling to my feet and brushing out the creases in my clothes. "Boyfriend?"

Mom nodded. "Grey wolf, little bit taller than you and-" I ran past her, a smile forcing its way across my lips.

He stood in our doorway, the light hitting his fur perfectly, that damn simple smile on his face. "Hey Jordan."

"Alex!" I threw my arms around him, laughing, breathing in his scent. "What are you doing here?"

"You really like to hug, don't you?" he said.

"I just like hugging you ."

I pulled off of him and stood there smiling. "You still didn't answer my question, why are you here?" Not that I really cared to hear the reason as to why he was here. I was just glad to see him.

"Oh, Nathan told me you weren't having the best of times right now, so I decided to come over."

My expression turned sour and I grabbed his hand, pulling him into the house and shutting the door behind him. "Of course Nathan set you up to this," I said. "What did he tell you?" I crossed my arms, narrowing my eyes.

"Uh…" He scratched the back of his head, his tail wagging behind him. "Not really anything, why? Did something happen?"

I didn't know if I could tell him all of the events that transpired, I didn't want him caught up in all of this business. But at the same time, I could trust him. I knew how ruthless Nathan could've been, and knowing Alex-being the airhead he was-wouldn't see Nathan coming right for his throat.

"Honesty," I said, walking towards the living room and motioning for him to follow. "There's just something not right about him. I know you two are friends, but he just acts so... weird when it's just me and him."

Alex sighed. "He can be a bit much at times, but he's a good animal."

Is he really?

"I'm not disputing that, there's just... something about him that rubs me the wrong way. I can't really describe it."

He raised his arms to stretch, his shirt lifting up a little bit and revealing the white fur underneath. A sigh escaped his mouth as his arms came falling down. "I don't know what to tell you, he acts fine around me."

"Therein lies the problem, don't you see? He acts fine when he's around you, but when he's around me, he's different. There are certain things that I can say that bring out this aggressive side in him, this more psychotic side of him."

He bit his claw. "I don't know, I haven't known him for that long. Your best bet is to ask Steven or Dalton. I just came over cause he said you were worried about something."

My voice with anger. Angry that he wasn't getting it, angry that I didn't know what I was feeling. "I'm worried about him! Well-not him specifically, but what he could do! I'm stressing over how his mind works-how he somehow knows everything about me!"

"Everything about you?"

Crap, he doesn't know about Dad.

I paused for a second, formulating my words. "Ok, well, not everything. But the things he says, the way he takes the little nuances out of small conversation...it's scary."

His eyes blinked for a moment. "Jordan, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Of course he doesn't, Nathan is a master of many faces.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, wanting to confide in him, but never knowing how. Shouldn't it have been easy though? We'd known each other for a while, gone through some of the worst times in our lives together. So why was it so hard for me to tell him that Nathan was just another Brittney? A carnivorous hyena that was only motivated to change the world in his own way. I didn't know how he would change it, what factors would play into his game of chess, idling waiting until the clock struck twelve, or whatever time it wanted to clang in our ears.

"It...it doesn't matter," I said, flopping on the couch and lazily turning on the tv. At least since he was here, I could enjoy his company. He didn't need to know the ins-and-outs of my mind, of my feelings. He didn't need to know anything. I could've kept everything a secret and he would've been none-the-wiser. At least, that's what I told myself.

"Well, it matters to me," he said, looking at me with sadness in his eyes.

Don't do that, don't go making me fall in love with you again! Lord knows those feelings still haven't gone away.

It's not like I don't want to tell you, it's just, I don't know how to.

"You know how I feel about you," I said, standing up from the couch and getting close to his face. "So don't go around acting like you care about me knowing how it affects me. Jesus Alex, every time I look at you I die inside cause I know you're not going to be with me."

You're not going to love me.

Another damn confession. How many did I have pent up inside of me?

He still stood, his eyes off to the side, and I immediately felt ashamed for everything I had said. He didn't deserve the hate I had inside of me. It was from Nathan, and I had directed it towards him. I had made every situation worse because of my insecurities, because of my unwillingness to let go of the feelings I had towards him, desperately hoping that he would choose me.

But he wasn't going to choose me, I thought I had accepted it, guess that was wrong.

He sighed and began walking towards the door, his tail still, his hands shaking. I grabbed them, wanting him to stop, wanting to say sorry, but he just looked back at me silently. A million thoughts raced through my head, watching as this grey wolf moved towards the door and out of the house, out of my sight, but never out of my mind.

I had ruined everything... again.

"Damnit" I yelled, kicking the sofa and wincing from the pain.

Mom came out of her room, looking disappointed. "I heard everything. Maybe you should just try to-"

"It's over Mom! There's nothing left to our relationship! Everything is RUINED!"

My door shut behind me and I cried into my bed. Loud, disgusting sobs left my mouth, tears blurred my vision and my lungs stung from the screams and yells that escaped them.

Everything was just pain, just pure, agonizing pain. Pain that forced its way into my heart, breaking through the walls on my skin, breaking my castle into rubble, tiny shards stabbing into every organ, every piece of tissue. It ripped through my body, shredding everything in its path, leaving everything broken, destroyed. Nothing in the world could've fixed me, nothing could've taken away the pain.

"I'm...I'm such an idiot!" I just wanted to stab my claws into my face and rip everything out, just destroy the face that kept weeping tears, that kept screaming and yelling, that kept crying and showing emotions. I wanted it all gone, I wanted to feel numb. For some damn reason, for some satanic, demented, fucked up reason, I wanted to feel like him. I wanted to feel like I had nothing in the world, that everything was crumbling down, that nobody cared about me.

The thoughts, they were so damn tempting, so... inviting. Just to feel the blood rush out of my body, just to feel the pain wash away.

But that wasn't what I wanted to be.

I wasn't like him, I wasn't as broken as him, and I sure as hell wasn't suicidal.

Tears left their stains on my pillow and I picked my head up, falling from the emotional high. In truth, I did feel numb, but that numbness was calm, serene. I was awakened, my senses were heightened. The buzzing of the fan, the smell of Mom's cooking, the light tapping of rain. It was all there, all in my head, and all...not.

He was the only one that I wanted, and I got addicted to his light. I just needed gravity to pull me towards the ground, to show me the reality, to break my legs even more than they already were. He was my saving grace, he was everything I needed and more. But I wasn't going to have him, his heart belonged to someone else, his light, his voice, his everything belonged to someone else.

Maybe I'll find someone like you, maybe I won't.

The world was funny like that. It liked to ruin you, break you down, destroy you, then show you everything you have, not what you could've had.

An estranged smile forced its way on my mouth and I laughed, thinking about him. I was a horrible animal, I was an animal who got mad when something didn't go my way, when something changed. I was an animal who had anger issues, who assumed the worst in animals, never assuming the best. I was an animal who decided that I could only have one love, even if that lover didn't love me back.

"Friends," I said aloud. "A bittersweet word in my case." I sniffled and took a deep breath, my finger no longer trembling over the picture of him I had in my phone, hitting the dial button.

His voice lit up my phone and I smiled.

Friends.