LIKE HOME AGAIN

She growls with that familiar aggression that made her who she was. The one that was successfully making me smile right now.

[Called it quits.] I say with a sigh, shrugging to myself in a desperate attempt to act like it didn't hurt, like I didn't care when I did. I did.

[Don't worry, I'll handle the body.] She replies with a voice that actually scared me a bit. [I'm on my way.]

[W-What? No.] I say sniffing a bit. She was making the same drive I'd have to to go back to our hometown. She left earlier since I was supposed to go with Maxiime. [You're already halfway home.]

[Feli,] She starts with a sigh. [I don't give a f*ck whether I'm in Texas or Haiwaii. There's no way I'm letting you drive three hours by yourself with your toxic ass thoughts.] She says calmly into the phone before a loud screeching sound fills the air followed my abrupt honking and cursing from the other side, all product of a horrible U-turn Sammy just made no doubt. [Well I f*cked your husband last night so the jokes on you!] She screams back to who ever was shouting at her. [I'll be there in five.] She says returning to relaxed demeanor.

[You're the best.] I say truthfully as I grip the phone even tighter. My car came to a stop in the parking lot of my apartment complex.

[Oh I know.] She says with a chuckle. [I'll be there in an hour. Love ya, Wolfie.]

And with that she hangs up, I get out my car and make my way into the building. I blaze through my phone for nonexistent messages, desperate to keep my mind busy as I enter the elevator.

I falter slightly when my eyes catch the screensaver I'd grown so accustom to. A picture of me and Max. He took it while kissing me on the check in surprise. I was never one for broadcasting my relationships like this, but Max demanded that I kept it as my screensaver. So I'd always be close to him …

I change it to the wallpaper that was always present before and after I got in a relationship. One sentence resting on a white background in big, black, capital letters.

'FOOD IS MY ONLY SOULMATE.'

Once I enter my apartment, I get to work on packing up the last bits of things that rested all over the place. Blasting the most depressing album I could find, I began downing a bottle of white wine.

A trick dad and I picked up after a couple of years- alcohol numbed the rage a bit.

If I drank enough, my rage settled to a mundane level. If I drank too much, well, it only heightened the catastrophe I was already.

I successfully managed to stuff my car with all my things, leaving enough space for me and Sam to fit in. I look around the apartment feeling a tugging in my chest. I was closing another chapter of my life, one that I was surprised to realize I would miss.

In California, I was free. Free to be whoever the f*ck I wanted to be.

I was not Feli, the eldest son of Julian Heil and Aiden Calderon- the alphas of the number one pack in the world.

I wasn't the calm older brother to my four siblings who many labelled as crazy or dangerous.

I wasn't that weird guy with a jaguar as a friend.

I wasn't the adopted freak without an inner wolf …

And I wasn't The Rogue Daughter, as many often whispered when they thought I couldn't hear.

I was just Feli.

The twenty two year old art major with a pretty insane best friend. I didn't stand out and no one glanced twice at me. Because nobody knew I was a werewolf, they didn't know I was adopted unless I told them, they didn't think I was a freak of any kind.

I was just Feli. Felicia Calderon.

But that was all about to disappear and I couldn't hang onto it, no matter how badly I wanted to.

A loud knock on my door completely snaps me out of my daze as I rush to it. I open the door and smile immediately when I look to Sammy. Her hair in a lose ponytail, her dark shades resting on her nose as her biker jacket stuck to her like a glove. We found that jacket digging through a thrift store years ago and she still hasn't let it go.

She opens her arms for me and I quickly hug her. She squeezes me back tightly, her hold suffocating to say the least.

Whenever someone touched me, my body ached from past pains. It was almost as though a snake was running through my body under my skin, biting at me, trying to break free from the confines of my body, but it never could. It was always accompanied by a numbing streak of fear which overtook me completely. But it was always less painful when it was people I trusted touching me, the agony small enough that I could bare it.

"I swear to your freaky Moon Lady, the next time I see that poor excuse for a man I'm going to saw his d*ck in half." Sammy promises seriously when we separate making me wince slightly as I rub my own crotch. "We have to nip the chance of shit descendants like that in the bud."

"Whatever you say Sammy." I say with a chuckle as I step back completely from her grasp.

"Ready to get out of here?"

"Yeah." I reply before sliding on my shoes and grabbing my backpack. I take one last glance around my studio apartment which was my home for the past four years. Memories of the nights I spent here with friends, others with me and my canvas and finally, ones with Max flash before my eyes. I struggle to stomach the rising wave of sadness as I turn back to Sam, her smile gentle and knowing.

I close the door and leave it behind; leaving my fake life behind, knowing it was time to return to the real one that was waiting for me.

"Ready?" Sammy questions once more as we buckle into the front seats of my truck. Her car hooked onto the back of it like a trailer.

"Yeah." I say with a sigh before nestling into my seat as she pulled out the parking lot and set out on the road.

I stuff my ears with my earphones and look out the window, memorizing the trees which passed me by as the journey home began.

***

"You sure you don't want me to come with you?" Sammy asks as I unhook her car from mine. Our cars were parked on the sidewalk in front of her small home, her parents already unpacking her things eagerly. "I can stay with you tonight, or as long as you need."

"I'm fine Sam." I say as best as I can but she just gives me a look that said she knew I wasn't. "I'll be fine." I correct and she nods.

"You sure as hell will be." She says punching my shoulder and I wince. "Oh stop you're whining. There's no way that hurt you Wolfie."

Sam knew I was a werewolf. She knew since we were kids and she didn't care, not in the slightest. She however, did develop the nickname Wolfie for me as a result. Most people thought it was a product of my personality, but Sammy said it was that as well as the fact that I went beast mode every now and then.

"I have to go." I say looking down at my phone. The amount of impatient calls from my family made me smile almost as much as Damon's threatening texts demanding I got home immediately before he got his acid.

As for why he insisted on having containers full of acid since he was twelve, well, it's because he's Damon and anyone who ever met the kid should know that that's reason enough.

"Okay, I guess I'll see you around Wolfie." She says before opening her arms. I shake my head no and she smiles with a small nod.

There was only so much skin contact I could bare through and Sammy knew that. That's why most times she gave me the choice, and I loved her for that.

Nobody else knew I hated to be touched. I couldn't bare to tell my family- they were so affectionate that it'd break their hearts.

Especially if they realized that I'd hated it for years and they did it unknowingly. I couldn't tell them.

"Bye Sam." I say as I step into my truck. She comes to my window as I roll it down and start the engine. "Try not to scare the neighbors."

"Impossible." She says with a smile and a salute as I drive out.

The drive to my pack wasn't that far but it was long enough for my pending sadness to return full force.

Desperate to derail my thoughts I think of the people who make me smile whenever I'm down and made me into the man I am today.

My family.

My family was a big, crazy, one-of-a-kind group of a*sholes who loved and protected one another with an unbeatable fierceness. I say a*sholes cause we are all a*sholes. In different forms and fashions- sure, but still a*sholes.

As my car nears the giant pack gate with its stone sentries, I begin to wonder how no human ever came across our pack. Yeah, we were deep in private land territory, but wasn't anyone ever curious enough to come through anyway?

"Welcome back, Felicia." One of the guards say as they open the gates. I send them all an appreciative smile before driving over the threshold and into our land.

And just like that, I was home again.