I stare at Eberlyn. Eberlyn stares at me. Silence aggravates any words breaking through.

“Um, hi?” I offer, feeling like a stranger. She doesn’t respond, instead continuing to stare at me. I squirm.

“Can I come in? I want to talk to Riley.” She hesitates and then steps aside as she opens the door fully. “Thank you.” I say as I pass on through.

We don’t speak. We don’t blink at each other, we just look elsewhere. “Uh, should I go call her or do you want to go to her?” She suggests, unease seeping through the seams of her polite voice. “I’ll -I’ll just go to her. You coming with?” I add.

She shakes her head. “Um, later.” I stiffly nod and walk further on into the house.

Walking into Riley’s, I had the delusion of hope mixed with my anxieties about the conversation I would have to have with friend. Here’s the thing, I don’t know if she’s aware that I want to fix whatever this is between our or if she’s even willing to cooperate with me. She can be determined when she sees or feels that she has to have something. I don’t think she would want me here.

The soft sound of ambient music dulls out the itch to run away from this situation as fast as I can and never look. Familiar words echo from beyond the wooden door.

Is-is she listening to our favourite song?

I stare, frozen with shock, at the doorknob in front of me. With the intensity of my fixed gaze, I’m surprised it’s not melting and turning back to

Why? Isn’t she still angry at me, even thighs I see no absolute reason for that, abd wants nothing to do with me since Tuesday?

I have to know.

An action I would never in a million years commit or even think of doing, I barge into her room uninvited. The door slams against the wall with a loud bang. Startled, she takes off her earpiece, and turns around. Stares at me with blank eyes.

“Riley, I-“ I start, caught off guard just as much as she is, if not more by my own actions, the urge to apologize rising up within me.

“Its fine. What did you want? Finally come to apologize?” She asks, pushing her phone down into her back pocket, deliberate scoffs tilting her vocal coeds in my head. The show grows and changes, however, into clear confusion, then fades back into hidden surprise.

“What? No. I came here to fix things between us. Why would I apologize?’ when I have nothing to apologize for?

She eyes me and sits down on her bed. “If I’m not getting an apology out from you any time soon, I suggest you leave my room. I don’t like being in the space as unremorseful people.” Her misguided accusation slaps me in the face, unexpected and hard, not bothering to hide her obvious dislike for having to be in the same said presence as me. Hot anger flares and burns through my veins.

“I would have been sentenced to death and or exile if any human knew about us werewolves. You know this and yet still jeopardized my safety. But somehow, I’m the selfish one.”

She barely flinches at the words that fall from my lips, barely blinks as she turns away from me. “You know that was a mistake. You’re taking things out of proportion.”

I fold my arms. “Was it? For all I know, you could still do that again. And you promised that you’d never reveal that secret of mine when I told you. You promised.”

I breath heavily, chest starting to exert itself as I struggled to breathe in through my nostrils. Shaking, I balled my hands into fists.

I continue. “So are you going to apologize? Or am I going to be friendless?” Her eyes flick from the wall to me for the briefest of moments. “You have Daisy.”

Exasperated, I yell. “She’s not you!! ” Teary eyed, I whisper, “I just want my best friend back.”

Is that too much too ask for?

Silently, she turns back to me. Stares at me for an aeon. “You’ll have to do without me then.” Her brown eyes barely show emotion.

I stare at her, really look at her, as memories shared between us for the last 8 years fall before my eyes. Her first crush. Squealing about it to me. Her feelings about mother nature. Trying to get us, me, to see the beauty if it. Our first sleepover at Eberlyn’s. Giggling for no apparent reason for an hour. Eberlyn’s and Riley’s first night at mine. Gossiping about whatever there was to gossip. A life time of friendship which I know, my heart is certain if this fact, that would not, could never think of doing, ever dream of throwing away. For whatever reason she was upset, she still held our friendship in high regard enough to shove aside her stubborn pride.

So then, who’s this person I’m looking at? Cause this is not my Riley. This isn’t-surely can’t be- one of my best friends. Can it?

My shoulders droop. “So you’re just gonna-gonna throw away the years we’ve spent together? Trust, friendship, pain, and joy we’ve built together? Over some stupid mate thing?” Emotional pain spurts up in my eyes, casting a physical reflection of the pain I was going through, was putting myself, shivering in the blast of cold through.

Had the room always been this cold? It feels like its 0° in here.

Silence. Aghast with disgust and disappointment, I turn away. “Fine. If that’s how you want it to be, fine.” I wrap my arms around myself, shivering and trembling in sadness. Gulping, I blink teardrops away. I take a step forwards, then stop in expectancy of telling, or calling after , or anything to stop me from continuing. She doesn’t. I take a few more steps forwards, hope flowing and ebbing when she still doesn’t make any move to stop me from leaving. The hairs in my neck prickle in the tense silence of foolish anticipation.

Soon, the drag of footsteps lead me towards the door. I stand between one side, one foot out in front of the other. Not a word cones from her. I’m tempted to turn around and force solve this thing. Even if it means apologizing for something I’m not responsible for. And is it me or does it feel like she was upset about some other thing? The way she mentioned Daisy’s name leaves unsettled.

‘Well, if she hadn’t made the decision of almost causing you your life, you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to befriend her. Simple as that’ Fern states as if it were a mere common fact.

I bit my lip, contemplative. Her words struck a chord with me.

I know that in my heart of hearts she's right. But knowing is different from feeling.

"And if I hadn't? Would she be still jealous?' I ask back.

Scratches of fingernails on wood. It echoes in my heightened hearing.

I sigh. "I know your there Eberlyn." Shuffling of feet permeates passed my ears. She bites her lip a d looks at me, worried. I look at my fingernail, interested in the dirt in between.

"I wasn’t listening in…..I just happened to stumble upon…?" She says, trying o hard to cover her tracks, sprung up hand gestures, timid and tentative. I raise an eyebrow.

"Okay, fine I was listening in but it was mostly muffled. " She admits, lowering her gaze. I shrug.

"She doesn't want to apologize. I don't want to apologize for something I didn't do. I don't think we're friends anymore. And I think she's jealous of my relationship with Daisy." I state in a nonchalant tone, although the reality of our choices hits me in the face with a blow to heart. I let my shoulders droop heavy with their sadness.

She looks up at me, mouth agape and closing like a fish trying to grasp at the air that’s not getting into their lung thanks to the constriction of their chest.

She groans, tilting her head back in what I can recognize as frustration. You and me too. "I had hoes she wouldn't let her feelings get in the way. Guess I was wrong."

I snort, finding her humour to be funny even while in sadness, and fold my arms.

"Yeah, guess you were."

Silence ensues. She hesitates, wanting to say something to me but too unsure to say it in case of reproach

I notice. “If you wanna say something say it. I do not want to stay here all day.”

She stares at me earnestly open in honesty. "Eliza, About Tuesday.... I'm sorry. I was trying to help and went about it the wrong way I guess. I know that you won't forgive me easily or forget, but I also sorry that I took her side over yours when she's the one that's at fault." She twiddled with her fingers, turning them one way and then the other in an up and down manner. Air hitched up in the back of my throat hearing the sentence I’d wanted, needed to hear since our fight, the result of her betrayal.

Now the questions is, do I forgive her? Have I already forgiven her? Do we just jump back into being best friends or is it ruined? I didn't know.

What if she does it again? What if there's no going back after that? What if I lose her for good? I'm scared. I don't think I can go through this again. I don't want to be this hurt again.