” I left everything I knew behind… and called it survival.”
Lena
I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the floor.
In a few hours, my life would change utterly.
I had known it for three days.
Yet, sitting there in the quiet of my room, it still didn’t feel real.
Every time I tried to picture it: the kingdom, the palace, the king, my mind just went blank.
In a few hours, I would step into a world where I was the only human.
I almost laughed at that.
When I was sixteen, I used to read werewolf stories late at night with my phone hidden under my blanket.
I loved them, and I never once asked myself why.
The irony of it almost made me laugh.
Two days ago, I told Tessa.
I don’t know why I waited so long.
I needed those days to sit with it first, to make it real enough in my own head before I said it out loud.
I remembered how I brought her up to my room that day.
Sat her down on my bed, the same bed I had barely left these past few days, and I just told her.
All of it.
The bloodline.
The covenant.
Erevon.
The king with the curse.
The bond written between us before either of us was born.
Tessa didn’t say a word throughout.
Which, if you know Tessa, is almost a miracle.
Tessa talks the way others breathe; constantly, naturally, without thinking.
She had an opinion on everything, but she sat there, listening.
Her eyes moved over my face, quiet and careful.
When I finished, she was still for a moment.
Then she said: “Werewolves.”
“Yes.”
“And you have to go to this king. Who is a werewolf?”
“It’s more like a bond than a marriage, I think. I’m still figuring out the words for it.”
She looked at me.
“Lena.” Her voice was trembling; it wasn’t sadness, but something louder.
“I will find a silver bat, and I will fight him.”
I stared.
Out of everything I’d imagined she might say, it was not that.
“You can’t fight a werewolf king, Tessa.”
“Watch me.”
And I laughed.
This time, a genuine, surprised laugh bubbled up from beneath all the fear and heaviness sitting on my chest for three days.
It just came out, and for a moment, I forgot everything.
Tessa took my hand after that and didn’t let go the rest of the afternoon.
But we did them as if they mattered more than ever before.
Yesterday, we finally visited the waffle place she had been talking about for weeks.
We sat in a corner booth for three hours, talking about everything except what was coming.
We discussed her terrible taste in music.
A film we both hated for different reasons, and some boy she fancied, whom she saw as the most beautiful person on earth, which I deliberately disagreed with to annoy her.
For three hours, I forgot.
Completely and totally.
I was just a girl in a warm restaurant with her best friend, laughing over nothing.
I needed that more than I can say.
That night, Tessa went home.
And at two in the morning, my phone lit up.
I hate this.
I looked at it for a long time.
“Me too,” I replied.
I didn’t sleep.
Instead, I lay in the dark, staring at my room.
There’s a crack in the ceiling above the bed.
It’s been there since I was twelve.
I used to trace its shape with my eyes every night, so often I could draw it from memory.
The little shelf by the window with the small plant.
I had nearly killed that plant fifteen times by forgetting to water it.
Somehow, it survived, and I had always admired that.
I stared at my curtain for a long time, reflecting on the night it moved.
The amber eyes I saw in the dark beyond the glass.
The voice with no source.
All the things my body recognised before my mind found the words.
I don’t know when morning arrived.
I just noticed that, at some point, the dark turned grey, then pale, and then the birds started.
I stood in the shower for a long time, just stood there letting the water be hot, normal, mine a little longer.
When I looked at myself in the mirror afterwards, I didn’t recognise the expression.
It wasn’t sad.
It wasn’t scared.
It was the face of someone who had made an irreversible decision and was still trying to figure out how to carry it out.
I went downstairs.
My mum was already in the kitchen.
The moment she saw me, her face crumpled.
She crossed the room and pulled me into a tight hug before I could say a word.
She held on so tightly it was almost hard to breathe.
I pressed my face into her shoulder, trying to remember the feeling, the warmth, the familiar smell, how she always held slightly tighter with her left arm.
She had made my favourite breakfast.
I wasn’t hungry.
My stomach was a clenched fist.
But I sat, ate it because she made it, and that was enough.
I kept looking at them, the way my mum moved around the kitchen with red eyes and steady hands; my dad sitting across, quietly drinking his coffee.
Eventually, the tears came.
I didn’t try to stop them; I just let them fall, continuing to eat.
My dad reached across the table and gently held my hand.
He said nothing, and I knew he didn’t need to.
The knock came promptly at nine.
Three deliberate knocks.
A heavy, familiar sound that had changed everything four days earlier.
I went to the door.
The man was tall and composed, dressed plainly in dark travelling clothes.
No armour, no ceremony; he looked like someone who worked quietly, efficiently, and unnoticed.
Then he bowed.
“Miss Calloway,” he said.
“I am Riven. His Majesty sent me to escort you. We are ready whenever you are.”
I nodded, my voice nearly gone.
I returned upstairs and grabbed my bag.
I hadn’t packed much.
Honestly, I didn’t know what to pack.
What do you take to a werewolf kingdom?
What’s the weather in a world that’s not on any map?
I stood there for twenty minutes before grabbing a few outfits, my phone, which would likely be useless, my treasured notebook I’d carried since I was fourteen, and my worn hoodie, which had become part of me.
It wasn’t much.
Maybe that was okay.
Maybe I didn’t need to carry much of this life into whatever comes next.
Back downstairs, I saw my mum’s hand dart to her mouth.
My dad stood up as well.
They both hugged me tightly, one on each side, and I stood between them, inhaling their scent, trying to hold onto every detail, the weight of my dad’s hand on my head, my mum’s slight tremor, the way we fit together, as always.
These are the most important people in my life, I thought.
And they love me enough to let me go.
I love them even more.
None of that makes it hurt any less.
I pulled back.
I looked at their faces one last time, emotions blurring my vision.
Then I grabbed my bag and headed for the door.
I stepped out.
It was already happening.
I didn’t look back.
I knew I’d never be able to continue if I did.
So I didn’t.
This chapter was all about the “ordinary” moments that are the hardest to leave behind.
Lena is officially stepping into the unknown to protect the people she loves.
Question: Who else wants a best friend like Tessa?
Let me know what you thought of the goodbye!