Chapter 2- Elena -

I couldn't sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Raven's face. I saw him kissing Scarlett. I saw him saying I never existed.

I got up and walked through the empty house one last time. Three years, and it still felt like a museum. Perfect furniture I wasn't allowed to change. Perfect walls I wasn't allowed to paint. Perfect rooms that never felt like home.

There was a horn outside. I looked out the window. A red sports car sat in my driveway. Scarlett was leaning against it, perfect even at 3 AM. Her long blonde hair shined in the moonlight. Her red dress hugged her perfect body. Everything about her screamed "Luna."

Everything I wasn't.

I didn't want to go outside. But my feet moved anyway. Maybe I needed to hear it. Maybe I needed her to destroy whatever hope I had left.

The cold air hit me hard. I was wearing old pajamas, faded pink with little sheep on them. Next to Scarlett, I looked like a child.

"Hello, Elena." Her smile was like a knife. "Or should I say, the former Mrs. Nightshade? Oh wait, you were never really Mrs. Nightshade, were you?"

"What do you want, Scarlett?"

"I wanted to see you. The woman who thought she could keep my mate." She walked closer. Her wolf eyes glowed gold in the dark. "You know, Raven told me everything. How he felt so sorry for the poor wolfless girl that he said yes."

Each word hurt more than the last.

"He said the worst part was pretending," she continued. "Having to come home to you. Having to act like you were really his wife. He said your smell made him sick. Human and weak."

I wrapped my arms around myself. "You've won. You have him. Why are you here?"

"Because I want you to understand something." She stepped even closer. I could smell her expensive perfume. "You were never competition. You were never even a real person to him. You were a duty. A chore. Like taking out the trash."

My eyes burned with tears I wouldn't let fall.

"Do you know what he said when I came back to town?" She laughed. "He said 'Thank God you're here. Now I can finally get rid of her.'"

"Stop."

My hand went to my stomach without thinking. Scarlett's eyes followed the movement. Her smile grew wider.

"Oh my God." She covered her mouth in fake shock. "You're not... are you?"

I stayed silent.

"You are!" She laughed, loud and cruel. "Oh, this is too perfect. The wolfless girl got herself pregnant to trap him. How pathetic."

"I didn't-"

"Does he know?"

"No."

"Good. Keep it that way." Her voice turned sharp. "Because if you tell him, I'll make your life hell. A halfling baby with a wolfless mother? That child would be better off dead."

"Don't talk about my baby that way."

"Your baby?" She laughed again. "That thing inside you isn't a baby. It's a mistake. Just like you."

"Are you done?" My voice was barely a whisper.

She walked back to her car, then turned around one more time.

"Goodbye, little mouse," Scarlett said. "Don't forget, if you tell anyone about the marriage, or about that thing growing inside you, I'll destroy you. And trust me, I can do things that will make tonight feel like a kindness."

She drove away, leaving me sobbing on the ground.

I don't know how long I stayed there. Long enough for the sun to start rising. Long enough for my tears to run dry. Long enough to realize that every fear I'd had was true.

I wasn't a wife. I was a joke.

I wasn't loved. I was tolerated.

I wasn't anything. I was nothing.

When I finally stood up, my body was numb from the cold. I walked back inside and saw the divorce papers on the table. My signature looked so small.

I went upstairs and packed everything I owned. It fit in two suitcases. Three years, and I could carry my whole life in two hands.

The doorbell rang. Beta James was early.

I opened the door. He looked tired and sad.

"Luna- I mean, Elena. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"The papers are on the table."

He walked in and picked them up. Then he saw my suitcases.

"You're leaving already?"

"There's nothing here for me anymore."

He nodded slowly. "For what it's worth, I think he's making a mistake. You were a good Luna, even if no one knew it."

"No," I said. "I was never Luna. I was just a girl who loved someone who couldn't love her back."

James left with the papers. I put my suitcases in my old car, the one Raven had always been embarrassed by. Too human, too ordinary, too much like me.

Before I left, I walked through the house one more time. In every room, I remembered something. The kitchen where I'd cooked meals he'd never eaten. The living room where I'd waited for him every night. The bedroom where I'd slept alone for three years.

I left my wedding ring on the kitchen counter. It had never fit right anyway. Too big, like it was meant for someone else. Maybe it was.

As I drove away, I saw Scarlett's red car coming back. She was probably coming to make sure I was really gone. Coming to claim her territory.

I didn't look back.

My phone buzzed one last time. A text from Raven: "The divorce is final. The money is in your account. Have a good life, Elena."

Have a good life.

Like it was that easy. Like I could just forget three years of loving him. Like I could forget that I was carrying his child, a child he'd never know about. A child who would grow up wondering why daddy didn't want them.

But as I drove toward the airport, toward Alaska, toward a new life, I made myself a promise.

My child would never feel what I felt. They would never question if they were loved. They would never wonder if they were enough.

Because even if I was nothing to Raven Nightshade, I would be everything to this baby.

And maybe, someday, that would be enough to fill the hole he'd left in my heart.

But I knew, deep down, it never would be.

Some wounds never heal. Some loves never die.

And some girls are just too stupid to stop loving men who never loved them back.