Two days later, I was standing inside the front door, opening it before Andrew had a chance to knock.

"Hmm, I think I like this telepathy thing," he smiled. "It saves me energy."

I rolled my eyes. There was no escape from Andrew's annoyance with this telepathy crap. Even when I was sleeping, he was able to sneak inside my dreams and vex me. It wasn't even that he was purposely trying to irritate me. At first, he was just trying to talk about any and every random subject running through his mind as he basically tore up the Obsidian house looking for Dad's will, but after a while, I realized that I found a way to mentally block him, just like I had with Ryder, and only when he noticed that I was ignoring him is when he began pestering me through dreams and his thoughts only came last night when I was conscious and his exclaim "FOUND IT!" was thought too loudly to be ignored. Maybe mine and Ryder's connection wasn't as abnormally strong as mine and Andrew's, because in no way have I communicated with him. There were now two inner selves of me. One was off vacationing with the stress less relief knowing that Ryder was fine and content, and the other was sad I hadn't seen or heard from him not to mention a small amount of rage that he hadn't even tried to see me.

But for now, I was glad for that. I didn't know how to explain how my dead brother was taking over my new home.

"Um, where's your stuff?" I asked him as he stretched out on the couch and sighed. I noticed that his limbs were longer than the furniture.

"What stuff?"

"Your clothes, Dad's will, your overpriced hair product?" I clarified.

"Oh...I knew I was forgetting something," he snapped and then suddenly sat up. "If you give me your keys, I can drive over there real quick and—"

"No."

"You never told me where my car is—probably sitting and rotting in agony—" he dramatized, "or how you acquired such a gorgeous replacement."

"Don't worry about it," I said. Really. Don't worry about it. Not yet, anyways. I still wanted Ryder to take it back, but the only use I ever wanted out of it was its ability to drive me to his house whenever I was missing him...like I was right now. But for now, distractions would become my best friend. "You can buy your own car."

"Actually..." he trailed.

"What did you do?" I scolded, widening my eyes.

"It's what I didn't do, thank you very much," he corrected and I gave him a look. That was even worse. "I couldn't find the will."

"Andrew!"

"It's not my fault, okay," he held up his hands in defense. "That house is freaking chamber for a long lineage of werewolves. No shit Dad knew how to hide stuff—hell, he hid being a werewolf from us for how long?"

"That's irrelevant, Andrew."

"It isn't and you know it," he replied. I sighed. "So what do you want me to do?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because you're supposed to order me around and tell me the stuff that I won't do until I get it wrong x-amount of times beforehand," he answered. I almost threw the nearest object at him for that one. "All I know right now is that I'm hungry."

"Well Cassandra should be home to maybe give us some information, but what do you want to eat?"

"Pizza."

"You always want pizza."

"Then why do you need to ask?" he inquired with a scoff. Then, I threw a pillow at him. "Pretty sure you'd save yourself of the sass if you could just read my mind, but oh no, you shut me out."

"Thank God I did," I muttered to myself.

"Yeah...super hearing," he gestured to his ear to indicate that he heard my insult. I just rolled my eyes. Seconds later, he was yelling "PIZZA!" loud enough for me to hear and I glared over at him smiling innocently.

I reluctantly gave in to his pestering and looked up the number to the pizza place after Andrew told me to get two pizzas. Based off of his eating habits before he was half animal, I think it was a safe call.

"This is Carlo, want a pizza?"

"Yes, I would like a large meat lovers and a large pepperoni," I ordered.

"Under what name?"

"Ashlynn," I answered.

"Ashlynn? Hey! It's me, Rod!" the voice changed and I laughed through the phone.

"Hey, Rod," I altered. "I didn't know you worked there."

"Yeah, gotta make ends meet," he sighed as if there was a serious truth to that for him. "So do you want the pizzas delivered, or—"

"No, I can come pick them up," I interrupted.

"Alright, then, it's fourteen even and I'll see you in a few; it should be ready in like twenty five minutes," he concluded.

"Cool. See you then," I said before hanging up. I laughed briefly and then looked over to where Andrew laid down.

"What the hell kind of nickname is Rod?" he insulted and then received the remaining pillow in his face...though the question intrigued me.

***

When I got to the pizza parlor, the pies weren't done, so I sat around. At first, I was watching the news on the silent but captioned TV, but then I noticed how there were groups of teens and small families having their meals with the delicious smelling pizza. It made me miss Ryder, of all people.

I had missed him this entire time and it's only been two days! Any teenager—that I have or haven't met—reminded me of him and his seeming connection with all of them whether by comradeship or fear. Seeing a pair of teens sneak off from their friends, or a couple with their toddler was reminding me of how I wanted to be here with Ryder sneaking away from his hooligan friends, or having a future together. I didn't know why I was thinking these things about someone who probably didn't once think of me, but I was; and more importantly, I was willing to embarrass myself to make him talk to me.

So I found his name in my phone—since he had put his number in there at breakfast—and pressed call. I should've gotten the hint after the first couple of rings. Or maybe when I heard it click and go to voicemail at his own hand, but still, I waited for the beep and decided to kill him with kindness: "So I'm here at the pizza parlor thinking about how maybe we could finally go on a date one of these days...or is that too cheesy?"

The attempt was super lame and was essentially nothing to someone like Ryder, but come on. It was either he'd hate it and have a legitimate reason to hate me, or he'd like it, consider it, and actually take me up on the date offer. I guess I'd just wait and see. But after a few minutes of no call back or text to even say "hey, I'm busy but I got your message" or "you called?" I wanted to give up despite my assured insides telling me that Ryder is fine. I hated it. I had paid and claimed my pizzas after a brief conversation with Rod that included him mentioning he was going down to drink or maybe smoke with some people from school (including Preston and Ryder) by the lake later tonight even though the guys were there now. They had been doing that for the past two days apparently.

Maybe Ryder could just continue with his bad deeds and act like it was more important than actually acknowledging me. I didn't control him, but it made me feel less than. At times, I'd give myself migraines for thinking too hardly about him or trying to restore the telepathy, but what would it matter if he was intoxicated? He could be drunk off his ass or on his way there and not even think straight. Let alone about me. This is what I should have been expecting from the beginning, and it was starting to sting for my trusting Ryder's word over logic instead of stinging from the pain of actually being nothing.

That was, until I was getting home. I was trying to distract my mind once I remembered Andrew was home and Cassandra's car meant that now, she was too. Neither of them could know Ryder was weighing me down. Especially not Andrew who swore I held no pain. But then, one thing changed and it was as if I knew no pain and all my lapses in faith between me and Ryder were non-existent.

That was completely cheesy...but slightly acceptable, Ryder finally replied me through thoughts. A date would be nice.