( SHE WOLF. )
CHAPTER FIVE.
honey eyes.

IT WAS A Thursday afternoon. Soft rays of sunlight cascaded through Katie's window as she laid on her floor, mindlessly throwing a lacrosse ball into the air and catching it.

Two days had passed since Katie and her parents had gone to the Beacon Hills Police Department. In that time, Lydia had been found and brought back to school. Katie heard that Lydia didn't remember a thing, that she was acting just as she always had. Weird instances like that had been happening for a while now.

Another notable event was that a deputy had come to talk to Katie's parents. He told them that there was no concrete reason for them to believe that Katie had burned Keith's face, and that she should try to stay out of trouble from here on out. Katie was set to go back to school on Monday, but until then, she was stuck in her house by her mother's orders.

There was a soft knock at Katie's door.

"Come in," Katie called, not moving. The door clicked open and the face of her father emerged.

"Hey, Kat. Someone's here to see you," he told her.

"Elijah?" Katie asked hopefully.

Her dad pushed the door open further. Rather than seeing a tall brunet boy standing there, Katie saw a blonde girl in a baggy grey sweatshirt.

"Erica?" Katie stood up quickly, tossing her lacrosse ball to the side. "Hi, what are you doing here?"

Before Erica answered, Katie's dad left to head back downstairs.

"The teachers gave me some of the stuff we've been doing this week," Erica said, holding up a stack of papers.

"You can come in," Katie smiled, noticing how Erica was standing right outside the door, being careful not to take a step too far. "Thanks, by the way. I can take those." Katie stepped towards Erica, taking the papers out of her hands. As she did, her fingers brushed against Erica's. She didn't expect such a small touch to fluster her as much as it did. Katie set the papers down on her desk before taking a seat on her bed.

Erica stood awkwardly at the front of the room, looking around at all the little things on Katie's walls. Post cards, band posters, polaroid photos, sports medals, team photos.

"You can sit, if you'd like. Anywhere you want, I don't care," Katie said, motioning around the room. Erica nodded and took a seat in the black desk chair across from the bed. Katie stood up to push the door closed before laying back down on her bed.

"Are you okay?" Katie asked, looking at the blonde who was picking at her nails in the chair.

"Yes," Erica answered. Another silence. Katie admired the way that the sun was shining on Erica's face. It melted the brown of her eyes into golden rays, into a steely bronze pool of light. Katie was about to open her mouth to ask another question when Erica finally spoke.

"You didn't have to do what you did in the cafeteria." Erica looked up at Katie, eyes locking. When Katie didn't reply, she continued. "I don't need you to look out for me like that. I don't want you to get suspended for punching anyone who teases me," Erica said.

"That wasn't just teasing— it was outright cruel," Katie reasoned, sitting up on her bed so that they were at eye level.

"Still, I don't need you to protect me or avenge me or whatever you thought you were doing— I don't need your sympathy." Erica's voice was steady but her eyes showed a flicker of hurt.

"Sympathy?" Katie repeated, tilting her head. "Erica, this isn't sympathy."

"Isn't that why you talk to me? Why you keep trying to include me? Why you compliment me? Why you pretend to care so much?" Erica's voice was breaking slightly now. She looked away.

"No! No, it's not. Erica, this isn't sympathy. I don't pretend," Katie assured her, moving to the edge of her bed.

"Then what is it?" Erica shook her head. "C'mon, Katie. I know you feel bad for me."

"Maybe, but that isn't why I try to include you in things and it definitely isn't why I talk to you," Katie stated adamantly.

"Well then why do you? Because you feel like you owe me for tutoring you?"

Katie's eyebrows were knit together, a sadness in her eyes. Erica stared at her, watching as Katie chewed the inside of her cheek. Something Erica had noticed she did when she was thinking, or when she was anxious. Erica wanted to push, she wanted to know that Katie didn't just pity her. For the past week Erica had been letting herself hope. She'd been letting herself dream that maybe, just maybe, Katie wasn't lying when she had called Erica beautiful. That Katie's energetic greetings and bright smiles were real.

"I don't pity you. I don't think that I owe it to you to talk to you. I just like being around you, Erica. I've never met someone like you. You're caring, you're brave, you're smart, you're creative," Katie listed off. "Believe me, please. I'm not the type of person to pretend."

"Don't lie to me," Erica warned.

"I wouldn't."

"Promise?"

"Yes," Katie said surely.

Erica smiled and subsequently, so did Katie. Katie stared at Erica, not even realizing it until she got called out.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Your eyes look like honey in the sun," Katie told her. Her cheeks burned as soon as she said it, half wishing she didn't. Erica's face brightened and she looked into Katie's eyes, a small smile on her lips.

"And yours look like a solar eclipse," Erica observed. For the first time since they'd met, the silence that followed didn't feel awkward; it felt safe.

Katie was scared to speak. She was afraid that if she did, they would never be able to get back to this moment of comfortable silence.

Erica spoke first. "How did you get that scar on your forehead?" she asked innocently.

Katie laughed lightly, brushing her fingers over the dent in her forehead. "I was riding my bike when I was eight and as the genius we all know I am, I decided to ride with my eyes closed and ran into a metal mailbox."

Erica laughed with her, spinning around in the desk chair so that the back of the chair was pointed towards the wall, no longer serving as a protective barrier.

"The funniest part was that my mom made me eat the dinner she had been preparing before she took me to the ER," Katie added. "Mom of the year," she smiled sarcastically.

"My mom has always been hypersensitive about any injury I've ever gotten, especially after I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was seven," Erica explained, "But lately it seems like she's getting tired of it, and tired of me."

"I think my mom's tired of me too, but not for the same reasons. She's tired of me not being like my brother. I think that's all she ever wanted; a second Andrew," Katie laughed. Erica didn't laugh.

"You're so much better than a second Andrew," Erica told her.

"You don't know Andrew. Everyone likes him, and I mean everyone. He's charisma incarnated and I doubt he ever got lower than a B+ his entire high school career. Sometimes I think my parents used up all the good genetics on him and I was what they could piece together with the leftovers," Katie said, "But then again, I have a C- in biology so I don't know if that's backed up by science at all."

Erica instantly felt guilty. It hadn't even crossed her mind that Katie would have to problems outside passing classes so that she could play lacrosse. It also didn't occur to her what lacrosse was for Katie, but looking around her room and learning about Andrew, she finally thought she understood. "You're smart, Katie."

Katie laughed, "Please don't tell me you're being serious."

"Okay, well, maybe not academically but you get things. You get people, and you get practical knowledge. Like lacrosse, that takes strategy, more than you probably think," Erica explained herself, "So stop with the self deprecation."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah, I do."

✶

Monday drew in slowly. Just like her mother asked, Katie went to school, kept quiet, and came home. She went through this cycle until after school the next day, when her mother allowed her to go to her tutoring session after school. It was decided that school and any school-related activities (including lacrosse) were permitted.

Katie said goodbye to Elijah, who was currently one of the only friends that she was still talking to. It hurt her to know that Brennon's kindness was selective. That whenever Katie needed it, he had always been a generous friend, but as soon as someone was making fun of a girl he didn't know who or didn't fit his idea of cool, he was suddenly devoid of any empathy.

Katie walked into the library excitedly, there was so much that Katie wanted to talk to Erica about amid the chaos that was happening in Beacon Hills. There were rumours of one of the boys in the lacrosse team, a quiet kid named Isaac Lahey, being his own father's killer. Katie had seen him taken for questioning that day in lacrosse, and she needed to get her thoughts out.

Katie's eyes scanned the room like she always did. When she didn't see Erica, she started to look in the hidden corners of the library, checking every table. Erica wasn't at any of them. In the end, Katie just decided to claim a table and wait.

Usually, Erica was the early one, but that didn't mean she had to be. Katie tapped her fingers restlessly against the table, staring at the library entrances.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen.

Katie looked around again, deciding to do another quick lap around the library. Erica's familiar golden ponytail was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey," Katie tapped on a girl's shoulder that she recognized from chemistry class. "Have you seen Erica Reyes today?"

The girl shook her head and turned back to her studying, looking annoyed. Katie turned away, confused. Was Erica okay?

Katie rushed back to her stuff and pulled out her phone. She typed in Erica's phone number and called. She let it ring until Erica's voice came through, but it was only a voicemail.

Katie then decided to resort to text messages.

Katie: Where are you??  
Katie: Are you okay?
Katie: It's been twenty minutes, are you coming?

Three messages. Katie decided to lay off and wait a little while longer. When the clock hit half past three, Katie decided to start studying on her own.

An hour passed, still no response to her texts. Katie was getting more nervous by the minute.

Maybe she just forgot.

Katie pulled out her phone again. Erica hadn't come to chemistry, but Katie had assumed she was just gone for the morning. They'd agreed on meeting today at three. Erica would've at least called to tell Katie that she couldn't make it, right?

Maybe she's sick? Maybe she had a seizure?

Katie picked up her things. She figured that if Erica still wasn't there, then Erica wasn't coming. She packed everything away except for her phone.

Katie: Answer, please.

No reply.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

( word count: 2013 )

i tried to figure out how law enforcement works with this kinda stuff so we're just gonna hope it's right lmao.

thank you so much for reading!! remember to take care of yourselves.

much love,
skye