Return of the wolf ....only i'm not alone ON HOLD

Return of the wolf....only i'm not alone part 4

Marlis pov

Recap:

The tension on the table was so thick I'm surprised Ms Goldberg and the class could continue with the lesson. Jenny was sitting opposite me and Marina was now to my right side. Both of them were staring at me, as if they were trying to memorize my face.

Then Marina spoke, breaking the silence, whispering

" Marli. We didn't think you were ever going to come back home again"

.........

I stared back into Marinas green, probing eyes and instantaneously felt my mind momentarily pulled back to the memory of Trey's intoxicating gaze, before snapping back to reality.

The silence stretched between us all. No one broke eye contact. Several times Jenny seemed like she was about to speak but stopped, choking in her words.

I bit my lip slightly, clasping on to the edge of the wooden desk, - Jenny only choked on her words when she was angry or sad.

It was a trait she'd retained from childhood.

Then Jenny's small hands slowly balled into fists and she let out an exasperated breath, leaning into the table and whispering fiercely "God Marli! You just left, left so quickly- how could you just, just leave for a boarding school on the other side of the country without even telling us?"

I stared blankly back at them, trying to put up the mask that I'd had to build to survive boarding school... the lying to my room mates about where I went in the middle of the night , coming back disheveled. why I came back with dirt and mud from the boarding schools surrounding woods on my old black doc martens was really hard to lie about convincingly. They had thought that I had a boyfriend that I was meeting outside. If only they'd known.

Jenny looked to Marina before continuing " M we knew ... I know we weren't- that things between us all were difficult"

"Difficult? Things weren't Difficult between us they were non-existent" I found my self cutting her sentence short. I was shocked at how dry and controlled my voice sounded. I wasn't blubbering pathetically like I had thought I'd be in the countless times I'd envisioned our reunion.

Jenny winced "but don't you think we at least deserved to know? To be told face to face? Did you even plan on telling us? We had to find out from Mrs Goldenberg telling the class for goodness sake!" she whispered.

I took a deep breath. What did they want me to say? They'd stopped speaking to me - no wait scratch that - they had stopped acknowledging I existed by the time I left. They had avoided me studiously in the few days before I'd left, walking the other way when I came down the hall, sitting at another lunch table with the IT crowd, they even moved to the seats furthest away from me in the classes we shared.... My chest stung just thinking about how isolated and rejected I'd felt. I felt the anger, resentment and hurt I'd tried so hard to ignore for the past year bubble up inside me simmering to the surface.

There they were, the two people I'd grown up my whole life with, laughed with, cried with, whom I had considered like sisters. Yet they had rejected me, flung me aside, without so much as a second thought and now they were staring at me as if I'd done them a great injustice by taking my mums offer of a top boarding school's one year student opening.

I leant forward, staring them both in the eyes one by one" Deserved to be told face to face? How could I huh? HOW could I have told you? I couldn't even get you to stand near me - let alone acknowledge my existence. No, you were too busy with your new friends, you so OBVIOUSLY didn't have any time to even look at me - your best friend who you'd known your whole life who thought" I took a breath and felt a short dry chuckle leave my mouth before I continued