Why does the universe hate me? Like, what did I do to deserve the bullshit that is always piled on top of me?

First, I find out that I'm an omega in middle school (pretty jarring but I was able to handle it eventually). Then I had to quit basketball because everyone is an asshole (not a big deal, volleyball is pretty cool anyways). Then I had to attend Gray's ego fest today and dress up (my friends were the only tolerable people there since everyone was either praising Gray, or giving me scummy looks and remarks). The fucking thing took FOREVER to finally start but luckily the ceremony was short so I could finally leave.

BUT THEN, after feeling the cool autumn air on my skin and getting out of that stuffy room I get hit with an amazing smell of pine trees. I was about to turn towards the source but got bear hugged from behind by it. Once I heard the person say I knew that it was my soulmate. Never really thought that I would ever get one but being in their warm embrace I couldn't help but blush. Though it quickly ended, I was finally able to turn towards them. That's when the warm feeling in my chest turned into the deepest sense of dread that I had ever felt in my seventeen years of life.

My mate, was non-other than GRAYSON FARRELL.

Sooo, yeah. The moon goddess hates me. However, he seems as shocked as I am, so I'm guessing he had no idea either. After a few minutes of starring, I see from the corner of my vision that everyone else from inside is rushing to where we're at. Great, now everyone gets to find out too. I would run away as fast as possible if I could tear my eyes away from Gray's confused and shocked eyes.

Did you know this whole time?!

Don't play dumb with me, I'm not in the mood!

To LATE!!

Not helping!

By now everyone has caught up to us and is now crowding around. Great. I hear an abrupt cackling laughter from behind Gray which, thankfully snaps us out of our staring contest, but fills me with disgust when I see that it came from Luke. Because of course it did.

"This is priceless! Not only is your soulmate an omega but a GUY too! And ELI of all people!" Luke cackles holding his stomach. Suddenly, Gray's face twist into anger, which means that shit's about to get messy. In an instant he's in front of Luke, crushing his wind pipe with his hand, then tosses him to the ground like a rag doll. Seeing Luke gasping for breath on the ground gives me a bit of joy to see, until Gray turns his angry eyes towards me. He storms towards me until we're a foot away from each other, trying to stare me down. As if I'm going to submit to him in front of everyone. Please.

"Look Matthews," Wow, I guess we're referring to each other by last names now. "I don't want to be your mate and I know you don't want to be mine, so let me just break things off now." Okay, ouch. For some reason I felt a bit hurt by that statement (though I'm not letting him know that) but it's true. Besides, there's no way we could be a thing and this is better for everyone.

"Ha! And who says you get to do the rejecting here?" I say, crossing my arms, which only makes his anger grow more. Might as well piss him off a bit before he breaks my wolf's hopes and dreams. I can already feel him whimpering and howling in my head.

Don't worry you'll get over him quickly. Besides this is better for everyone.

He runs his hands through his styled dirty blonde hair before huffing at me. "Fucking- Eli! Can you for once not make things harder than they have to be!" Gray shouts, making me flinch a little. I catch a flash of an apologetic look before his face twists back into anger.

"Fine then head alpha, do what you must," I say glaring at him.

Returning the glare, he straightens up to give the usual rejection speech. "Well than. My wolf starts to howl and thrash around in my head wanting to stop what's about to happen. But there's no point since this was inevitably going to happen. Even though I can feel the strain on our bond, and it doesn't feel very good.

"WAAAAAIIIIT!!!" Suddenly an arm cuts in between us, shocking us both and the crowd around us. We both look at the owner of the arm which belongs to an Asian chic who's surprisingly taller than me but still shorter than Gray. I've seen her around school before selling stuff to other students or sometimes hanging out with Gray, but I don't know her name.

"Jaden, what are you doing?!" Gray growls at her, though she doesn't seem phased at all. So that's her name. Jaden crosses her arms and glares back at him.

"I'm stopping you from making a big mistake!" She sighs and gives him a sympathetic look. "Look Gray a lot has happened tonight and I'm sure your mind is running a million miles a minute to try and catch up with everything. So how about we all take a breather before you kill someone for looking at you the wrong way tonight. Let's just put a pin in your big rejection speech, go back inside, enjoy the party that you've worked really hard on, and pick this back up tomorrow. Okay?"

Gray looks like he's about to object but she cuts him off by whispering something to him. He looks at Jaden then back to me, huffing out a breath. "We'll resume this later." is all Gray says, before turning and making his way back to the party building. Everyone outside follows behind him, whispering and gossiping to each other about what happened. Some females even glare at me as they pass; as if it was my fault that Gray ended up being my soulmate! Great, now everyone will probably hate me more than usual. After a couple of minutes, the only ones left outside are me and my friends. That's when my legs give out and I fall to my knees.

They all rush to me asking if I'm okay but I don't know why they're asking. That is until I start to feel something wet on my face, and realize that I had started crying. Strange, why am I crying? I mostly feel tired and numb inside; but I also feel a small sense of...... relief? That can't be right, I should be upset that the rejection was interrupted. I should be angry and swearing at the moon goddess for pairing me with the king of knotheads himself. So why am I crying? Maybe these are just Spark's feelings getting mixed up with mine own. Yeah, that's probably it.

"Okay dude, let's get you home," Atlantis says, helping me up. "I'm sure you're worn out from all of the... excitement that happened tonight." All I can do is mumble an okay as she half-carries me home. Beth and Milo try to cheer me up but I can't seem to focus on what they're saying for it to work. The only thing I can focus on is putting one foot in front of the other.

*****

So. Do you think I should use warm colors or cool colors for this one.

You do realize that you just spoke to me, right?

Okay, warm colors it is.

Right now, I'm in my nest wrapped up in my favorite blanket, trying to finish an art piece for school. Now before you start saying that's such an omega thing to do, know that I didn't want one at first. But Milo said that I should build one since it would be good to at least have a comfy spot to chill in, and thanks to the layout of this house I've been blessed with a small walk-in closet. So, I threw a couple of pillows and a blanket in there and called it a day. However, Spark kept whining that it should be a bit more organized so I gave in, and started moving things around to shut him up. ......Let's just say I somehow brainwashed myself into spending that weekend working on my nest. And I hate to say it but Milo was right; having my own oasis of sorts is nice. Besides no one's going to be rifling through my closet any time soon.

The nest now consists of a really soft rug on the bottom and a ton of soft blankets and pillows forming a crude looking circle around it. There's a small fuzzy bean bag to lean on and a laptop tray with a lamp for me to do my work on. A small book shelf in the corner holds my books and art supplies and there's a small ac unit next to it for heats. I thought about getting a mini fridge for the area to, but mom said that if she got me one then she would barely ever see me. To be honest this place looks less like a closet and more like a small room now.

Come on Spark you can't be mad at me forever.

Gee, thanks for the afterthought.

...Oh

I can hear him whimpering in my head and I can't help but feel guilty. Even though I'll never fully understand how they're able to communicate in the subconscious realm they're in, I'm sure they got along great when they first met. Plus, it's not his fault that Onyx had to be Gray's wolf.

Look I'm sure Onyx is a great dude, and honestly seeing you this down about it I would try to make this work. But at the end of the day Onyx is attached to Gray, who isn't so keen on the idea of dating me. So, we might as well get the rejection over with so we can focus on the recovery. Okay?

I wait a few minutes for a response, but I guess he's back to ignoring me. Sighing, I return back to drawing for a bit until I get a call from my mom. She's resorted to calling my cell when she needs me, since I usually can't hear her yelling from here. "Hey mom, what's up?" I ask.

"There's a guest here to see you so make sure you look presentable." Before I can ask who it is she hangs up. Okay weird. Usually if it's one of my friends she would just let them in without a second thought. So, who would want to see me on a Sunday afternoon? Reluctantly I push my stuff to the side and trudge out of my closet, closing the door behind me. I can quickly tell who it is by the sweet smell that hits me before he even gets to my door.

Great, now Spark it getting all hyped up and I have to try and quell my growing panic. Why is he here? Hasn't he done enough already? Well then again, he's probably here to seal the deal. Makes sense but the thought doesn't sit well with me for some reason. A knock on my door snaps me out of my racing thoughts and practically scares me half to death. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down before going to open the door. Relax Eli, it's just stupid Gray. Nothing is different about him besides his age and status. Oh goddess, would he kick me out of the pack after rejecting me?! No, stop it, get a hold of yourself! Just face him with a cold attitude like you've done a hundred times before. Don't show weakness.

I open my door and there he is, leaning against my door frame with a bored expression on that shifts to a look of slight surprise. He looks the same as always sporting a football jersey and some baggy jeans. Dirty blonde hair in a messy style and rich blue eyes with rings of gold that are... staring right at me with unwavering attention. Almost like they're trying to draw me closure to him. Fuck, I can feel myself starting to blush. I blame the way-to-strong scent of pine trees that he's giving off; which is somehow making me dizzy (in a good way?). That's when I realize that we're now standing way to close to each other and have been staring for a bit. Again.

SHUT UP!

Is this what it feels like to be around your soulmate? Goddess this is going to be harder than I thought. I force myself to look away breaking whatever trance we were in. "Um, come in I guess," I say, faking a cough and walking further into my room. Gray quickly straightens up and walks in; probably trying to regain his cool after realizing that he was staring too. Which is kind of funny and cute.

Wait, cute? Ugh, no Eli! Don't get sucked in. "Well if your gonna reject me hurry up already. I need to get back to my homework," I say, sitting on the edge of my bed.

"Aren't you an eager beaver," he says crossing his arms and leaning on my actual desk that I barely use.

"Well I know that your majesty has SO many more important things to do, so I wouldn't want to waste your precious time."

He chuckles and starts to fiddle with the random stuff on my desk. "Since when did you start calling me your majesty?"

"Since the day you started calling me Matthews."

"I was trying to be to be formal."

"Hah! Okay sure."

Gray sighs and then turns to me with a serious expression. "Look Eli, I'm sorry for seeming so aggressive Friday night. A lot of... things happened that night and I guess I got worked up over it." Wow an actual apology from Gray himself. I never thought that I would live to see the day. "That being said, I talked to my parents about our bond and what we should do yesterday. To which they pretty much made me swear to carry out THEIR plan."

"Which is?" I ask.

"We have to wait until you turn eighteen before we can do the rejection officially."

"WHAT?!"

"I tried to appose it but there was nothing I could do! So please tell me your birthday is tomorrow or something."

I groan and fall back onto my bed, covering my face with my hands. I never thought that I would hate the fact that my birthday isn't close to Gray's, but here we are. "It's on the twenty-fifth...... of March," I mumble.

"What?" he asks, and I can hear him walking closure to me, so I sit up and look him dead in the eyes.

"March 25th. Aka, SIX MONTHS, six days, and who knows how many hours from now," I huff out.

"Shit."

"Yeah."

Gray starts pacing in front of me, deep in thought over our situation. I mean, couldn't we just break the bond anyways? Gray is head alpha now so shouldn't he be able to do whatever he wants? Well, I guess "technically" he can't take over fully until he has a Luna. So that's probably why he still has to listen to what Alpha Alexander says.

I'm sure you're just having the time of your life right now, huh?

Well enjoy it while it last. As soon as I turn eighteen this whole thing will be over.

Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick.

Gray stops pacing and turns towards me with a determined look on his face. "Okay," he says clapping hands together "The only thing I can think to do is either ignore each other completely until you turn eighteen, OR I need to find someone who can be a great Luna for the pack and convince my parents that they are who I want to be with. That way, we could end things earlier."

Find someone who can be a great Luna for the pack? Does he think that I would be an awful Luna? No, Eli stop these thoughts. I shouldn't even want to be the Luna of a bunch of assholes anyways. Besides, no one but my friends like me, so finding some popular bitch to take my place would make sense.

"Well then you better start searching, because I don't want this to drag on for months," I say standing up.

"For once, I completely agree with you on something," he chuckles.

"Well as GREAT as it has been to see your ugly mug, I have shit to do. So, time to go." I grab his arm to shove him out but feel a weird shock from touching him, which makes me jump and pull back my hand. And from the way Gray slightly jerks away from me I can tell that he felt it too. We both share a surprised look at each other, wondering what that was. It felt like he gave me a static shock but instead of it being painful it left me feeling warm. I literally have to stop myself from touching him again and instead nod towards the door.

"You know where the exit is," I say trying to hide my slight blush.

"Uh, right yeah. See ya later," Gray mutters out and leaves. I make a bee-line for my closet and shut the door behind me, collapsing into my bean bag with a groan.

Yeah, for you.

Ugh

If anyone tries anything, I'll beat them to a pulp. Plain and simple.

I get back into a comfy position and continue with my art piece while trying to ignore the lingering pine smell Gray left behind. I honestly can't even tell if my new found motivation is coming from the fact that everything got resolved (kind of) or the comforting scent (which slightly worries me).

I thought you were supposed to be the positive one?

Heh, okay.

I can feel Spark winding down for a nap so I focus on coloring and my own thoughts. I can see where Spark is coming from, but I can handle a few insulting words here there. Hell, I get them every single day just for being an omega. And as far as rogues or outsiders attacking, I'm sure they won't even know that I'm Gray's soulmate since news like that doesn't travel or matter unless I was actually MATED to him.

So overall I'm sure I'll be fine.