I Said I Fell While He Held My Bandaged Wrist Under Healing Light...

I didn't take the vest off until I was back in my apartment.

The hallway at school had been too crowded to do it there. Between third and fourth period the air went heavy with bodies, lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking on waxed floor. I kept my head down and my bandaged wrist tucked close to my ribs, but people still looked. Not at the bandage. At the crest.

It was small, stitched over the left side of my vest — a dark shield with a silver wolf's head and three thin bars underneath. I'd worn it for two years without thinking. That morning, after what happened outside the parking lot, I couldn't stop feeling it there, like it had weight.

Jessica fell into step beside me at the lockers. She didn't say anything at first, just glanced at the crest and then away.

"You still wearing that thing?" she said, quiet enough only I heard it. "After yesterday?"

I didn't answer. I pulled my books tighter against my chest so the vest wouldn't show as much.

She leaned in. "My cousin said that girl who cut you — she said you shouldn't even have that crest. No wolf, no rank. You know how some alphas are about that stuff."

That was it. Not that I'd been hurt. That I'd been wearing the wrong uniform while I got hurt.

In the bathroom I locked the stall and stared at myself. The white shirt, the striped tie crooked at my neck, the vest. The gauze around my wrist was still thick, but the blood underneath had stopped seeping through. I tugged at the bottom of the vest like I could make the crest disappear. I thought about taking it off and shoving it in my backpack and walking out in just my shirt. It would have been easier.

I didn't. I left it on and went to class.

He was waiting for me after last bell by the side entrance where the buses didn't go. He had his hands in his pockets. His gold-rimmed glasses caught the gray afternoon light, and I could see the dark strap of his watch on his left wrist.

"You didn't change," he said when he saw me.

"I thought about it," I said.

He fell into step beside me as we walked toward my apartment. We didn't talk until we were inside with the door closed. The lamp was on, the same warm amber light from the other night. My apartment smelled like old coffee and laundry detergent.

I pulled the vest off finally and dropped it on the kitchen chair. It landed with a soft thump.

"They think I don't deserve it," I said. My voice was flat. I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at it. "Without a wolf spirit, I'm just pretending. That's what she said. That I was taking a spot."

He didn't pick the vest up right away. He pulled the chair out and sat across from me.

"Who told you that?" he asked.

"Everyone. No one. Doesn't matter. It's true, isn't it? Omegas with wolves get the crest. Omegas without — we get the fast healing and nothing else. We're not supposed to be marked."

He looked at the crest, then at me. "Do you know what that crest actually means?"

I shook my head.

"Three bars are three houses. My family is one of them." He tapped the edge of the shield with one finger. "It doesn't mean you have a wolf. It means you were admitted. You tested in. You earned the shirt and the tie and the vest the same day I did. They gave it to you. They don't get to take it back because someone decided to use a blade to prove a point."

I swallowed. My throat was tight.

"I was going to leave it in my locker tomorrow," I admitted. "Just wear the shirt. Blend in."

"And hide the wrist too?" He glanced at my bandage. "Like you did this morning, pulling your sleeve down every two seconds in the hallway?"

He wasn't being cruel. He just saw it.

"I don't want to be a target," I said. It came out smaller than I meant.

"I know." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His watch shifted on his wrist, gold bezel catching the lamp. "But taking it off doesn't make you invisible. It just tells her she was right. That you believe her."

I looked down at my wrist. The gauze was bulky and obvious and it itched. Underneath, the cut he'd healed still throbbed faintly, and I knew there was now that thin pale line where the glowing light had sealed it. I hadn't looked at it without the bandage since that night.

"Let me see," he said, same words as before, but softer. "We should change it anyway. You still need medicine, scar or not."

I hesitated, then held my arm out. He unwrapped the gauze slowly, loop after loop, until my inner wrist was bare. The skin was smooth except for that faint, straight scar, pink against my pale skin. No blood. No open wound. But it was there. Undeniable.

He didn't cover it again right away. He took the small tube of ointment from his pocket — I'd seen it that night too — and dabbed a little along the line.

"You get to wear it," he said, not looking up. "Not because you heal fast. Because you showed up. You kept showing up even when they made it hard to wear. That's what the vest is for."

I felt my eyes sting. I didn't cry. I just breathed.

After he wrapped a fresh, thinner bandage around it, I stood up. I picked the vest off the chair. The crest was silver thread, a little frayed at one edge. I slipped my arms through, pulled it straight, and looked at myself in the mirror over my dresser.

I didn't look like an alpha. I didn't look like an omega with a wolf. I looked like me — long dark hair tucked behind my ears, black glasses a little smudged, white shirt, striped tie, dark vest. My wrist showed just below the cuff, the new bandage thinner so the shape of it was visible.

I left it visible. I didn't pull my sleeve down.

He stood behind me in the reflection and nodded once.