Fuck the bloody off.
I don't look back.
Amy's shouting my name like she didn't just stand there watching me get yeeted by my own delusions. "Julia! Julia—wait! Come on!" Her voice gets thinner the deeper I go, swallowed by the trees and the pounding in my ears.
I sprint like a gremlin let loose from hell, branches slicing my arms and mud flying up my legs with every limping step. My broken heel makes me lurch sideways like a drunk flamingo, but I refuse to stop. I don't stop until the sounds of the party, the cheering, the laughter, his name—"Caleb!"—fade into nothing but my pathetic hiccups and the sound of my own ragged breathing.
The forest is a blur of green and brown and why-am-I-like-this. Pine needles catch in my already worm-infested hair, adding texture to what is rapidly becoming the world's most disgusting hairstyle. My remaining heel keeps catching on roots and rocks, making me stumble and curse with every other step.
The trees close around me like they're trying to hide my shame from the world. Sunlight filters through the canopy in golden shafts, illuminating the cloud of gnats that have decided my mud-caked skin is their new favorite buffet. I swat at them, but they just swarm thicker, attracted by the cocktail of sweat, desperation, and earth that's currently coating every inch of me.
My dress—what's left of it—clings to my body in all the wrong places. The carefully curled hair that took Amy an hour to perfect is now a tangled mess of mud, leaves, and what I'm pretty sure is a small twig. The rhinestones on my eyelids have mostly fallen off, leaving behind crusty patches of craft glue that make me look like I have some kind of rare skin condition.
I don't even think. I see the lake and dive straight into it like a deranged nymph trying to baptize herself from embarrassment.
The water hits me like a slap of reality. Cold, shocking, immediate. One second I'm muddy, sweaty, covered in someone's frosting and my own poor life choices, and the next—I'm sinking.
The lake accepts me with open arms, wrapping around my body like it's been waiting for this moment. The surface closes over my head with barely a splash, sealing me into a world of muffled silence and panic.
Wait a minute.
Wait. WAIT.
SWEET BABY JESUS!
I can't swim.
The thought hits me at the same moment the water fills my nose. Of course I can't swim. I'm a werewolf who lives in the mountains. When would I have learned to swim? Our idea of water sports is drinking from streams and occasionally falling in them by accident.
My limbs flail, slapping the water like a dying squid having a seizure. Panic sets in faster than I can inhale—which is difficult because I'm currently underwater and breathing liquid instead of air. The lake closes around me like a secret, dark and cold and completely indifferent to my teenage drama.
It's quiet down here. Too quiet. Peaceful, even, if you ignore the whole actively-drowning situation.
Which is insane, because I'm dying.
Actually dying. Like, this is how I go out. Not in glorious battle against vampires. Not saving the pack from some ancient evil. Not even in a car accident or food poisoning or something normal.
No, I'm going to die because I threw myself into a lake after getting rejected by a boy who probably doesn't even know my middle name.
I thrash harder, but every move drags me deeper. My boots—my stupid, expensive, birthday boots—are soaked and heavy as anchors, dragging me down like they have a personal vendetta against my survival. My hair is a wet wig from hell sticking to my face, blinding me and somehow managing to get into my mouth along with half the lake.
I open my mouth to scream, but only bubbles come out, floating up toward the surface I can no longer see. Even my death is trying to be polite, producing tiny silver spheres instead of the blood-curdling shriek I was aiming for.
The water tastes like fish pee and regret.
My thoughts flash through my head like a TikTok reel on 2x speed:
*I will haunt Caleb so hard.
*What if they think I did this on purpose?
*I didn't even get a slice of my own cake.
*Do fish… eat faces?
*Is drowning supposed to hurt this much?
*Amy's going to give the worst eulogy.
*They're going to find my body and I'm still covered in mud.
*What if that worm is still in my hair when they fish me out?
*Oh God, what if they don't find me at all and I just become lake fertilizer?
The water presses in from all sides, heavier than I expected, like it has weight and intention. My chest burns with the effort of not breathing, but my body is starting to betray me, demanding oxygen I can't provide. My brain goes fuzzy around the edges, thoughts becoming slippery and strange.
I can't tell up from down anymore. The world has become a swirling mass of green-brown water and floating debris. Is that a fish? A log? My own hair? Everything looks the same in this underwater purgatory.
I twist, reaching desperately for something, anything—a branch, a rock, a miracle—but my hands close on nothing but water and panic. My lungs are screaming now, burning like I've swallowed fire instead of lake water.
This is it. This is actually happening.
All I can do is pray, and even my prayers are pathetic:
Dear lake fish. Please. I am too pretty to die like this. Just…carry me to the shore. Or like… give me a ride on your back or something. I won't eat sushi ever again. I swear. I'll become vegetarian. I'll donate to fish charities. I'll stop using plastic straws.
But the fish do not respond.
Apparently, they're not taking bribes today.
My vision starts to blur, darkness creeping in from the edges like someone's slowly turning down the brightness on reality. My movements become sluggish, less frantic, as my body starts to shut down systems it deems non-essential.
I'm going under. Eyes sting from the dirty lake water. Chest burns like someone's set my lungs on fire. My limbs feel heavy, disconnected, like they belong to someone else.
And the last coherent thought I have before the darkness pulls me under, before my consciousness starts to slip away like water through my fingers, is:
No one's going to believe this was an accident. Everyone's gonna think I pulled a dramatic Shakespeare and offed myself over a boy I've never even held hands with.
They're going to find my body floating face-down in a lake, covered in mud and birthday cake frosting, with earthworms in my hair and one missing shoe.
This is going to be the most embarrassing death in pack history.
Amy's going to have to explain to everyone that I died of terminal mortification.
Perfect.
Just perfect.
The last thing I see before everything goes black is a school of fish swimming past, completely uninterested in my dramatic demise. Even the aquatic life finds me irrelevant.
Typical.