I suck up the courage to look at her, I watch as her fists unclench, her veins fade away and her yellow eyes turn back to grey and fill with tears. Before she was angry, now she's heartbroken. I did this.
"But it was an accident, he was upset and-"
"Go," she opens her bedroom door, trying to get me to leave.
"No hang on a second, just listen-"
"Get out!" She screams at me. I walk past her trying one last time to explain myself, but she turns away with pure disgust in her eyes. She slams the door behind me and I hear her breakdown in tears. The pain is 10 times worse than I imagined. Matei and Emilia stand in the living room staring at me.
"I told you she'd hate me," I tell Emilia.
"She doesn't hate you! She's just in shock," Matei says.
"Shut up, this is your fault!" I scream at him, I vein up and start to feel everything building up inside of me, I turn into my wolf self and howl, I realise it's because I can't cry anymore, at least not as a human.
"You can't do that, you know it's illegal for us to transform in the city!" Matei says. I growl at him, backing him into the corner. I do the only thing I can think of, I run.
I take myself through the city, no one is out, I suppose they're all at home with their families for Christmas. I get to the park and I transform back to human, collapsing against a tree. I've ruined everything, with one little 5 second mistake. My heart aches. I reach for my phone to call Rhydian, maybe he can help me.
"She kicked me out, Rhydian," I croak.
"Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I ruined everything. I hurt her in the worst way imaginable."
"Carys, Matei called me. He feels awful about what happened, he said you'd wolfed out and bolted, I just need to know you're safe." I can hear my family's voices in the background, Maddy too.
"I'm fine," I take a deep breath, I will not go to that dark place again.
"Go back, try to explain yourself."
"Are you sure? Won't that make things worse?"
"I hate to say it but I don't think it can get worse, but it can get better."
I do as he says and soon I'm standing outside the Kafe, I see Jana come to her bedroom window. She's still crying. She looks down at me and a few minutes later she's at the front door.
"I'm not letting you spend the night out in the cold, come in." We go inside and sit down in the Kafe.
"Can I explain?"
"Matei already did, said it was his fault."
"Well, yeah but I should have stopped him."
"Why didn't you?" She's crying.
"He was upset, for a second I thought that it would just make him feel better, but when I realised what we were doing we stopped. I'm so sorry, I love you."
"It should have never happened, why did you let it happen?" She shouts.
"It was a mistake! The worst mistake I've made in my life, I love you Jana, not him!"
"I know you do, but that makes it hurt even more," she gets up, "You can sleep on the couch," she walks off. I follow her upstairs and sit on the couch. Matei and Emilia emerge from Katrina's room with their bags.
"We're gonna go back home, thanks for having us," Emilia says, hugging Jana.
"You don't have to go, it's Christmas tomorrow," Jana says, still teary eyed.
"I think you guys need space," Matei says. "We'll see you soon." Jana doesn't really acknowledge him, I guess she's angry at him too. Emilia hugs me before leaving, Matei just gives Jana and I a strange look as he shuts the door behind him. He feels guilty, but he's still upset about Emilia and everything, and he still doesn't know just how sick she is. She promised she'd tell him, but with everything that's happened I wonder if she will, it's only going to hurt him more. It seems all that ever happens in our lives revolves around pain and heartbreak.
It's New Year's Eve now, Christmas was awful, mum and dad tried to make it good for me but all I could do was sit there, watching my family having fun. I don't feel like myself without her. Rhydian comes into my room to wake me up.
"Okay, I'm not letting you mope around anymore," he pulls me up.
"Just let me sleep," I beg him.
"You know for a fact you haven't slept properly in days, you need to go and get her," he throws my clothes at me, "I'll drive you."
"What's the point, Rhydian? She doesn't want to see me," he throws my shoes at me.
"You have 5 minutes," he leaves.
I can't make the situation any worse, I've got nothing left to lose. I should at least try to get her back.
The car journey is long, Rhydian is trying to keep me from freaking out, I'm nervous, what if somehow I do make it worse? He tries to distract me by talking about him and Maddy, they're going to get themselves another flat to move in, and how he's working hard to get a promotion at Segolia. I'm happy for him, of course I am, but it's hard to focus on that right now. We pull up by the bridge. I find myself staring down at the Kafe, almost paralysed with nerves.
"Do you want me to come in with you?"
"No, I should do this myself," but I don't move.
"Think about what you've been through," I turn to Rhydian, "Girlfriend troubles hardly seem like a challenge for you."
"The only girlfriend troubles I'm having is that I don't have a girlfriend anymore."
"She didn't break up with you, Carys!"
"I kissed someone else, she screamed at me and kicked me out Rhydian, she didn't need to confirm that we broke up. It was pretty clear already."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, just go in there and get your girl!" He doesn't shout, he just says it really enthusiastically.
I give him a hug and get out of the car, it takes me a few seconds to start walking but before I know it I'm back outside the Kafe. I can hear music blaring from inside, it sounds like a party. As I go to walk in the front door, a group of people around my age stumble out of the building laughing, they're all drunk, I can smell it on them. In fact the whole place smells of alcohol. A few seconds later Rhydian comes up next to me.
"Is she having a party?" He asks. We walk inside and see loads of people dancing around and falling over everywhere, there's some people in the corners kissing. We swerve through the crowd and I see the K's chatting up some boys.
"Carys!" Katrina hugs me. "I thought you were back in Stoneybridge for New Years?" The other girls greet me. I'm guessing Jana hasn't told her about what happened.
"Yeah um-"
"Rhydian!" The three of them crowd around him. They start flirting with him and I feel like I'm back at school again, I sniff around for Jana and find her in one of the booths talking to some random girl. She's drunk.
"Jana." She looks up at me. "What are you doing?" This is not her scene at all, she's wasted. She just ignores me and continues talking to the girl.
"Carys?" Matei taps me on the shoulder.
"What's going on?" I ask him.
"Jana's been drinking since midday, she wanted to have a party. Emilia's upstairs."
"Oh look at you two," Jana stumbles out of the booth and hugs us both, "Look how happy you are together!" She's slurring her words.
"Come on, you're going to bed," I try to get her to come with me but she just pushes me away. "Jana?" She sits on the girl's lap and she kisses her. My blood boils. It's not just a peck, she is full on making out with her. Rhydian, Matei and Katrina all see and start rushing to get me out of this situation. They usher me out of the Kafe and upstairs. Immediately I break down in tears. Emilia comes out of the kitchen and they all crowd around me as I flop onto the sofa. I go into a panic attack very quickly, trying my best not to wolf out.
"She didn't mean it!"
"She's drunk!"
"She's just upset!" They all try to reassure me. Katrina seems a little bit confused by the whole situation.
"Drunk or not, she did that on purpose. She wanted to hurt me like I hurt her," I cry.
"Maybe now she's done it she can forgive you!" Emilia says. That doesn't make me feel any better though.
"Does she really hate me so much that she wants to hurt me? I never hurt her intentionally and I never would."
"She doesn't hate you," Rhydian comforts me, "She's just trying to find a way to make herself feel better."
"She'll wake up tomorrow and come to her senses," Katrina says. "Come on, you can sleep in my bed." Katrina and Emilia both take my hands and lead me to her room.
"Carys," Matei says, I turn to face him, "I'm so, so sorry." I give him a hug and follow the girls to Katrina's room. There's already two air beds in there for Emilia and Matei, but they help me calm down as I get into Katrina's bed.
"Are you sure I can stay here?" I ask through my whimpers.
"Yeah it's fine, I'll stay with Jana, in fact I'm gonna go and get her to go to bed now." Katrina leaves the room. Emilia sits on the end of the bed as I cry into the pink frilly pillow case.
"It'll all work out, you know she would never normally do something like this. She's hurting, and she's drunk, she's not in a good frame of mind."
"I know that you're right, it just hurts so much." Since the moment I got here I haven't spared a single thought for Emilia. "What about you?" I wipe my tears. "Have you told him yet?" I sit up.
"Yep, told him just after Christmas, he took it pretty badly but I think he's processing it now, I told Jana too."
"Oh right, how did she take it?"
"She cried, quite a lot actually. She said..."
"She said what?"
"She said she needed you."
"Really?" This makes everything even more confusing. "And uh, how are you?"
"Weak, I don't think I have long left," I take a proper look at her, she really doesn't look well at all. "Hopefully I have one last full moon in me."
"I'm sure you do, are you gonna be able to make it to Norway this month?"
"No, I'm going to run wild up in the mountains with Matei. Carys," I look at her, "There's no need to feel guilty." How can she possibly read my mind like that? "Just because your problems aren't quite like mine, doesn't mean they don't matter, you are allowed to be sad."
"Thank you." She's wise beyond her years.
I end up managing to fall asleep, Emilia sits with me until I do. All I dream about is being alone, in the dark. I've had a lot of dreams like this, they usually end with me waking up in a sweaty panic, but this one doesn't, I see the darkness around me slowly morph into a sunny field. A warm hand touches mine, and I wake up feeling calm. Jana is crouched down in front of me.
"Jana," She seems pretty sober now, I sit up, "I'm sorry-"
"You were tossing and turning, I was just checking you were okay," she says quite bluntly, then turns around and walks out. The calm turns to panic again.
"Jana wait!" I get up and follow her as she goes back downstairs. "I'm sorry!" I don't know why I'm still apologising, she hurt me. She stops in the middle of the party and turns to me. "You mean everything to me, literally everything. I know you did what you did because you're angry, I understand. Please understand me. You're my best friend and the love of my life and I could never intentionally hurt you. Please can we just put this behind us?" I realise everyone is looking at us, the music has stopped. It's so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
She doesn't look at anyone else, just me, right in my eyes, "I'm sorry too," I can't tell if she's going to take me back or not, before I get to say anything else her lips crash into mine and everything feels right. I hear the fireworks outside, then the crowd of people around us cheers. As we pull apart she looks at me and finally smiles. "I've missed you more than anything ever in my life, I love you too. But you can't do that again," she pleads.
"Never, I promise," I kiss her again.
"One minute 'til midnight!" Katrina shouts. I take a step back from Jana, reach into my back pocket and pull out a small red box.
"What are you doing?" She asks. I get down on one knee and everyone goes silent again. I open the box to show the ring to her.
"Will you marry me?" Everyone gasps, including Jana. But she doesn't answer, suddenly I worry I've ruined everything again. "Say something." Then, she reaches into her own pocket, pulls out an identical red velvet box and gets on one knee opposite me, she opens the box to reveal the exact same ring that I got for her.
"Yes," I'm so shocked. We put the rings on each other and everyone goes mental cheering for us, most of the people here are strangers but they don't matter right now, what matters is that Jana and I can be happy again. We stand up and kiss each other as the clock strikes 12. Everything is exactly how it should be.
One year later...
After the wedding in Stoneybridge with all our friends and family, we go back to Jana and I's new house for a party, everyone is here; Rhydian, Maddy, Bryn, Ava, mum, dad, Tom, Shannon, Matei, Emilia, Emilia's dad, TJ, Imara, Selina, Alric, Aran, Meiner, Mr. Jeffries, Dr. Whitewood, the K's, even Sweeney is here. After making a few toasts and cutting the cake a few of us went into the kitchen; Matei, Emilia, TJ, Selina, Jana and I.
"So I have some news," Emilia says, I'm so worried, what if the cancer is going to take her sooner than we expected "I went to the doctors yesterday."
"Is everything okay?" Jana says worriedly. Emilia's got a sad look on her face, then I look at Matei who's smiling. I see what's going on.
"I'm in remission!" She starts beaming from ear to ear.
"Oh my God!"
"This is amazing!" We all hug and say congratulations, then Jana and I pull her out into the living room.
"Guys! Emilia's going to be okay!" Jana shouts, crying tears of joy. Everyone cheers for her. Everyone is so happy and everything is perfect, this is what life should and will be from now on.