Even though Bailee got after me for ditching the homecoming dance without getting enough pictures with her and told me her Sunday was spent alone because I was at the funeral and Evan was with Andrew, Meena, and Aaron after it, she was more than willing to let me sleep over at her house. She could tell something was troubling me, but had learned that her efforts in gossiping had hindered her from exclusively talking to me about certain things. And I, for one, didn't want to drop the whole "hey, remember when I just got to town and you asked about my mom? Well I lied; she's alive," thing. She was okay thinking my turmoil was about Ryder.

And she was partially right. Part of me didn't know who Ryder thought he was. Maybe he took Natalie's blame for a reason. Maybe he wanted to be confirmed as a killer so everyone would know the True Alpha Killing Clause still stood. But did any reason justify why he would want to be perceived as anyone who would disrespect the dead? Or why he had lied so well and easily to me about the entire thing...? But then again, everyone in this town knew he was a liar and I didn't listen to them.

"Wait here," Bailee told me Monday morning when I pulled into a parking spot. Even though I also gave her brother Brett a ride, he immediately got out of the car in a silent manner, keeping his mouth shut about the slander going on against his alpha by us. I knew Brett would follow his usual routine by sitting at a table with Maya, Miles, and sometimes Rose, but Bailee followed him out and asked him something. Brett responded with a frown and eventually rolled his eyes before taking his phone out of his pocket and holding it up to his ear. Once he concluded a short conversation, he nodded once and went to sit with his friends, but Bailee also joined them. Before I could understand what she was doing, there was a couple knocks on my window and I turned to see Stella waving with Trevor behind her.

"Hey girlie," she greeted after I grabbed my backpack and exited the car.

"Morning," I said to her and Trevor. He forged a smile and returned the greeting while his girlfriend looped her arm within mine and started walking towards the school.

"What's up with that?" Stella suddenly asked and nodded in the direction of Bailee sitting at a table of sophomores. She wasn't particularly interested in their conversation; in fact, she looked over at us and waved with a smile before she was approached by her favor I assumed she had Brett call in. Ryder.

"Come on," Stella sighed. "Here I thought you two went off for an exciting weekend since I didn't even get the chance to take a picture with the homecoming king at homecoming, but, what, y'all are fighting again?"

I watched as Bailee stood and immediately chastised Ryder for something, but he sighed stressfully and grabbed her arm to pull her off someplace else. I caught his short gaze in the process, but looked away.

"I wouldn't call it fighting," I denied and it was all I needed to say before Stella turned to Trevor in order to wish him farewell until later because she clued in that it had to do with werewolf business. Trevor gave me a secretive look anyways and left.

***

I explained everything to Stella that I knew of—about how she was right about Ryder's innocence, my mother's return, Ryder remaining in the lies, even the mating fiasco with Andrew and Meena that I didn't exactly link with the fact that Fate had a hand in even me and Ryder, but she didn't need to know that much; just that they shouldn't be together.

"And you thought to run away to Bailee?" Stella took away from my rant. She was offended I went to Bailee and not her.

"Uh yeah," I nodded. "She's the only one with no involvement so I'm not totally consumed with this 24/7."

"Okay, going to someone who doesn't know what's going on and letting it bottle inside you will literally make you feel like you're going crazy," Stella preached. "Plus, Bailee's hardly distanced from this."

When Ryder said a human friend was vital to our sanity sometimes, I figured Bailee was mine. She had been a great friend to me since I got to Tyriette and she still remained to be. But Stella was right. Bailee was involved even though she didn't know anything and it spanned further than just me. Her brother was a werewolf, her boyfriend's sister was mated to a werewolf, her boyfriend's best friend was a werewolf, her friend was bitten by a werewolf, her mom's best friend was a member of the purest werewolf family—and then there was me: another werewolf. The Lycan world surrounded her and she didn't even know it.

Stella put her hands on my shoulders and the first bell rang. "You should've just come over to my house. You're welcome anytime. You know what, come over for dinner tonight. We're already hosting Trevor, so might as well."

I didn't accept or reject her invitation because I didn't exactly want to run from my problems again, but facing them required some digging. We departed for our classes and I took my first period seat behind Trevor, who was already waiting for me.

"Should I be worried about you and my girlfriend keeping secrets?" he tried to humor because the dramatic irony of it all was that he thought he knew everything going on more than Stella, but he was wrong.

"You have your secret, we have ours," was all I returned because my family was none of his business.

"Yeah, but your secrets are kind of my secrets too, right?" he reminded because he had said at the Tribunal that he wanted full disclosure in regards to the growth of the pack(s). But I had to be careful about the truth with him though. Talking him off the ledge about usurping Ryder was accomplished because Ryder was vindicated by the universe dictating that Preston was guilty enough to deserve death...but that was when Ryder was his killer. A new, lone wolf to town killing an ex-Beta was worthy of Trevor's righteous rage of injustice. "Is this about yesterday? Or you and Ryder?"

"She was just inviting me to dinner tonight," I replied with a brief, false smile. He sized me up with doubtful eyes and eventually turned around in his seat for class to begin.

***

Apparently whatever Bailee said to Ryder worked. I didn't gather that from her lunch rant about how Ryder's new crown didn't justify him to live as a king and do as he pleased; I got it from the fact that Ryder hadn't interacted with me as he usually did. He wasn't avoiding me, but each time I passed him, he shot me an apologetic expression and waited for me to approach him. Just as he was when we were "on a break," he made sure to run into me as much as possible as if it would speed up the process. But considering Stella (and Trevor by consequence) was around me more today, it's not like Ryder stood a chance.

Even at lunch, it didn't matter to Stella that I would be joining her for dinner because she was still being a protective friend and invited me to sit with her cheerleader friends along with Bailee. Stella was playing Miss Popular so well today to try and distract me that I thought I saw her glance at Stormy and consider inviting her to her table as well. But things weren't that bad around here.

I appreciated her though. As consuming as my relationship was with Ryder and with the packs or my family, it was nice to have Stella and Bailee and their extensions of friends there. Where they were normal high school girls complaining about how they "hated" drama or PE or how dumb boys were, I was enthralled with it because none of their problems included resurrecting family members or revenge killings or full moon responsibilities. I was even happier about my girlish engagements because I had more light shed on the budding relationship between the Meena and Andrew.

Throughout the conversation of how Shana had many classes with Meena and talked about how sickly annoying her relationship was with Andrew, I noticed Stella glancing at me more and more. She knew I was always weary of Meena, but now Shana was agreeing with me for her own petty reasons even though Kayla and Bailee were in love with the idea of love and thought Meena and Andrew were an adorable couple. But all I was hearing was that my brother was falling for a girl who was crazy for him for her family's selfishness and he didn't even know it.

The only difficulty with that was how happy Andrew looked when I saw him return to school with Meena and plant a kiss on her lips before she ran off to class.