Chapter 36

Ollie’s POV

A few days later, as graduation looms ever nearer, I can’t understand why I haven’t heard anything back about my application to the university in Nightheart pack.

While acceptance could take several weeks as the application would need to be reviewed, I should have at least received an acknowledgement of receipt by now. Yet my email remains empty and there’s been no letters for me.

I’m starting to stress about this. The application for submission has come and gone by now, and soon the high school will start requesting my intent for university. They always announce the university the graduates are attending during the graduation ceremony.

To have not heard anything yet, and to feel this uncertainty… My entire future is up in the air.

To be rejected would be one thing. It would suck, but I would know and could then start making other plans. Not knowing is somehow worse. I can’t act in any way if I just don’t know. I’m at a total standstill.

All this waiting makes me feel like I’m standing on pins and needles, so I spend a lot of time anxiously waiting for the mail to come every day so that I can be the first one to look through it and find my letter if it’s there.

This worry has led to be acting recklessly. Where normally I would attempt to be discrete so as to not draw attention to myself from the brothers, right now, I’m too anxious to care who sees.

The brothers will figure out my plans eventually. And if the letter is an acceptance letter, then I don’t care what they think. I’d be gone as soon as I have my diploma in hand.

That being said, I still don’t want them to know until I have that confirmation, one way or the other, so I probably should stop being suspicious as hell.

I can’t help it though. My nerves won’t let me sit still.

I somehow manage to get away with my anxious tendency to check the mail first for several days.

Today however, after accepting the mail from the mailman and combing through it right there at the front door, I’m interrupted by a voice.

“Looking for something?” Declan asks.

I didn’t hear him come up behind me and nearly jump out of my skin at his sudden presence. After a brief moment of collecting myself, during which I somehow manage to return my soul to my body, I ask him, “What makes you say that?”

He doesn’t give me a verbal answer. Instead, his cool gaze drops down to the mail in my hands that I had been desperately searching through less than a minute ago. Then he looks right back up into my eyes.

“It’s nothing,” I say, and hurry to come up with a lie. “It’s just a silly sweepstakes thing I signed up for. I want to see if I won…”

I’m not a good liar, but I’m hoping this one is close enough to the truth for me to have pulled it off okay.

Declan’s face remains cold and impassive as ever, giving nothing away. He could know everything or nothing and I would have no idea.

But I do know that continuing to speak will only make me seem guiltier, so I close my mouth and swallow hard, waiting for him to make the next move.

He holds out his hand then, and I know he wants me to give him the mail. I hesitate, because I haven’t finished looking yet.

As he waits, his eyes grow colder, like a snowstorm starts. Feeling the chill, I pass over the mail into his waiting hand.

“The odds of winning a sweepstakes are slim,” he says, his voice monotone and utterly indifferent. “I wouldn’t count on a positive response.”

“Right…” I say.

He lifts the mail and looks through the envelopes one by one. He takes his sweet time, as if he likes torturing me. I worry my hands together, desperately wanting to snatch the mail back and see if the letter is there or not at a faster speed than he is moving at.

When he finally reaches the end, he grips the pile.

I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t.

“Well?” I prompt.

“What?” he asks.

“Was there a letter for me?” I ask.

Again, he takes his time, carefully setting the bundle of letters on the side table near the door.

“No,” he says at last. “There’s nothing for you there.”

My frustration couples with the new wash of disappointment that overtakes me. What could be holding up a response this long?

Declan watches me for a moment. I don’t know what he’s looking for or what he sees, but he turns away without any change to his expression. As he walks away, I can’t help feeling like he’s toying with me somehow.

Maybe I’m just paranoid.

After all, the brothers don’t know what I have planned. They have no way of knowing that I’m just waiting on that acceptance letter, and I’ll be moving to Nightheart pack.

“Have you ever heard of an application acknowledgement taking this long?” I ask Ella later, when we are chatting in my room.

“No,” she says. “In fact, I’ve heard a lot of our classmates are already getting their acceptance letters. For you to not even have acknowledgement yet… Are you sure you filled out the form correctly?”

“I’m positive,” I tell her. “Do you think it got lost in the mail? Is that possible? Or maybe they misplaced it at the admissions office?”

I don’t want to think I’m being overlooked just because I’m an Omega, but the thought has crossed my mind. But why would they acknowledge they accept Omegas on their brochures, if they don’t actually do so? Is it all some cruel trick?

“Maybe you should call them,” Ella says, unsure at first, but then with growing confidence. “Yes. You should definitely call them. Maybe your application was misplaced. The guidance councilors tell us not to bother the admissions people, but it’s not like you are trying to hassle them to hurry up. You just want acknowledge they received the application.”

He have been told repeatedly not to bother the university admissions office. I’m not sure what kind of harassment those offices endured in the past, but it’s been made clear that even calling could reflect badly on the applicant now.

But Ella is right…

If something is wrong, if my application hasn’t even been received, then I need to know about it.

Together, we look up the number on the website and after a deep breath to calm my nerves, I make the call.

I’m connected with an assistant first, before I’m left on hold a while. Finally, I’m patched through to a woman with a kind voice. I’m hopeful that’s a good sign.

“Hello, this is Abigail with admissions. How may I assist you today?”

“Yes, um… My name is Ollie… from Crescent Claw pack. I sent in an application but I haven’t had an acknowledgement of receipt yet. I don’t mean to rush you, and I’m so sorry to be a bother, but… is there any chance you could confirm for my peace of mind that my application made it to you?”

“Of course, dear,” Abigail says. “There’s no need to sound so nervous. You’d never be punished for asking a simple question.”

“Oh,” I say, as relief washes over me. “Thanks.”

“Now, what did you say your name was again?”

I spell it for her. Afterwards, there’s a long pause.

“And which pack?” she asks.

“Crescent Claw,” I say, and spell that too just in case.

Another pause. “I’m sorry, Ollie. I don’t see any application from you in our records. In fact, we haven’t received any application from your pack at all.”

My stomach twists. Ella looks at me with concern.

“You don’t have it?” I ask.

“As far as I can tell,” she says. “It never arrived here.”