The next evening, I woke up and showered. I went to my dorm and grabbed my clothes. Thankfully, Bianca was not there. I was in no mood to confront her. Aria and I went down to breakfast together. Eryx and Airell were already there and were in very high spirits. They were talking and high fiving each other. We sat down next to them. Bianca was sitting with Finn on the far end of the table and Yves was sitting somewhere in the middle. 

"Great party, huh, Verina?" said Eryx, grinning. 

"Lower your voice Eryx," said Aria quietly. "Someone might overhear." 

"Man, I had so much fun," said Airell. "It was our best party yet. The only downside was that Eryx got hurt." 

"Bro, I know right. But Verina over here, she got me healed pretty quickly," said Eryx. "She's the boss." 

I rolled my eyes at him. 

"Why isn't Yves sitting with us?" asked Aria. 

"He must be mad about that party thing," said Eryx, shrugging. 

"I'm worried about Yves, you know," said Airell leaning forward. "He hasn't been around lately and he doesn't talk much." 

"I guess he feels left out. But he doesn't talk to even Verina now," said Aria. 

I felt guilty when I remembered how I had talked to him yesterday.  

Classes started soon after that. Most of the people who had attended the party couldn't concentrate properly. Jasmine kept glancing at us suspiciously. She knew something was up. I yawned. There was nothing she could do about it now. I sat with Aria who mostly kept silent despite my efforts to talk to her. Bianca sat with Finn, which was fine by me. For the first time in years, I had no wish to talk to her.     

                                        *** 

The days went by uneventfully. The party seemed like it had happened ages ago. Aria had more or less recovered but there still seemed a quiet kind of sadness around her and she was more reserved around Airell than she had ever been. Meanwhile, Airell and Oaklyn had started going out. Bianca had tried to apologise and I had accepted her apologies. Sort of. I still didn't feel like forgiving her but she was my best friend. And she had forgiven me lots of times. Hunting had been going fine because even though I still had no urges, I had to feed with everyone else or else they would call my dad. He hadn't called me again after the time I had ignored his call.

I hadn't yet tried to talk to Yves even though I knew I should. But that meant I would have to apologise and I was not looking forward to that. And Yves was never around anyway which made it easier for me to put off talking to him.

I began to feel trapped by attending the same boring classes every day. Nobody had suggested anything fun since the party. I needed another distraction. Feeling reckless, I decided to skip classes on Tuesday and go to the town of Tresville all by myself.