Chapter 116: Interlude 26 – Simple Math

=::= Melanie's PoV =::=

Me and Cerys were hanging out around the back door of the school when we heard the final bell ring. Sure enough within a few seconds the first students came out, eager to get out of the place and head for home. Or to go hang out with their friends, or get to their after school job, or whatever.

Most went out the front doors, but maybe a quarter or a third of them used the back doors, same as Cass and Kaylee. And that's who we were waiting to see.

We knew Cassandra was just as guilt-ridden and depressed as my girlfriend had been lately, but we hadn't had a chance to talk with her at all in the past week. Me and Cerys were off school since she got the news about her dad, then Cerys was too uptight all weekend long and all day yesterday, leading up to the full moon last night.

My girlfriend was doing a lot better now, like a thousand times better in fact. We slept for a few hours this morning, then after we woke up we had some breakfast and streamed a movie on the TV. And the whole day, from when we went to sleep around six this morning till about an hour ago, she was in her wolf form. And that was by choice.

I was honestly a little shocked she was willing to let me feed her like that, but she seemed cool with it. She acted a lot more like a pet than I ever would, but it was all her idea so I went along with it. Mostly I was just thrilled she seemed to have made peace with her wolf already.

She finally turned back to her human form at about half past two and announced she wanted to come to school and meet up with Cass. Cerys wanted to check on how our friend was doing, and she wanted to do it in person instead of by text or phone call.

We took turns in the shower, then we both got dressed and headed over. And since we knew they came out the back door that's where we decided to wait for them.

More kids emerged and walked past us without giving us a second glance, but eventually one of them stopped to talk. Harrison was another grade eleven student, I recognized him from a few of our classes. Rather than a jock or bully he was mostly a harmless nerd.

I tended to avoid him anyways, since one of the guys he hung out with was Gord Potts. Gord was another harmless nerd, but he always had the scent of sheep on him, which reminded me of how my life was before I met Cerys and Cass and the rest of the gang.

"Hey, what are you two freaks doing here?" he asked. "What kind of idiots skip a whole week of school then just show up and hang out by the back doors?"

I rolled my eyes, "Get lost Harrison."

He laughed then asked my girlfriend, "Yo Marissa why don't you go hang out by Ms. Hughes' car? She'd love to have a word with you since you cut three of her classes in a row."

I was about to come to my girlfriend's defence when she beat me to it.

And rather than sounding upset or defensive she actually sounded snarky as she responded, "The name's Cerys and you've had five whole months to learn it. I know that's a stretch for you, considering it's two syllables long and everything."

"Whatever," Harrison scoffed. "Marissa, Cerys, next you'll be calling yourself Kiki or Akko or something."

Then he asked, "Hey whatever happened to that stupid hat of yours? You were a lot more fun back when you were pretending to be a witch. This whole pretending to be butch thing you're doing now really isn't you, you know?"

My girlfriend kept up the snark, "You're just jealous. Hat or not I'll always be a real witch, you're the one who's pretending. And you only get to do that when you play your Dungeons and Dice game."

I thought my mood couldn't get any better, but hearing Cerys proudly declare herself a witch sent my heart soaring. After last August, and especially after what she told us last week, I never thought I'd hear her say something like that again.

Meanwhile Harrison replied in his best condescending tone, "It's called Dungeons and Dragons, loser. And my character's a level seventeen sorceress, not some loser witch."

Cerys laughed, "Either way you're still just pretending, while I'm the real deal. And I'm pretty sure that makes you the loser around here."

"Whatever," he scoffed again as he started walking away. "At least I know the difference between cosplay and reality."

My girlfriend watched him leave then turned to face me again. She gave me a funny look and asked, "What's with the big goofy grin?"

I pulled her into a hug and gave her a kiss, "I'm just really happy for you right now Cerys. Seriously. It's been so long since I've seen you in such a good mood, I can't help smiling."

That made her self-conscious and she blushed, "It's no big deal Mel. I'm just... It's..."

She hesitated then frowned, and for a second I worried that I'd wrecked her mood by calling her out on it. Except her smile returned another second or two later.

She was still blushing though as she admitted quietly, "You're right, I am in a good mood. I'm a freaking werewolf witch. I'm cooler right now than Harrison will ever be in his whole entire life. Literally nothing he could ever do or say can change that."

"And you know what's even better?" she added with a wider smile. "My girlfriend is a freaking werewolf witch too! We are hands-down the coolest badass girls in all of grade eleven."

I pulled her into another hug and asked, "Are you forgetting we have a fifteen-hundred year old demon classmate? Are you sure she's not cooler or more badass than us?"

"Positive," Cerys stated. "It's simple math, Melanie. Girlfriends means our coolness multiplies, and werewolf-witch squared beats demon. The only reason I can't say we're the coolest badasses in the whole school is the demonic goddess in grade twelve kind of beats everything else."

I gave her another kiss then teased, "I never took you for a math nerd. Mr. Guthrie will be so happy to know all his hard work has paid off."

My girlfriend rolled her eyes then kissed me back. In fact we were still in mid-kiss when the demonic goddess emerged from the building, along with her demon sister and witchy girlfriend.

"Cerys, Melanie!" Kaylee reacted with surprise. "I didn't expect to see you two here today. What's wrong, is everything ok?"

"Hi Kaylee, Cass, Nina," Cerys greeted them after we broke off the kiss. "We're fine. Better than fine, we're doing really good. And we're here because I wanted to check up on you folks. Well, Cass especially, since I know things have been rough lately."

It was pretty easy to tell Cassandra was still feeling pretty bad. She hadn't said anything yet, she was just staring at the ground while Kaylee did the talking.

The redhead grimaced, "Definitely rough. You seem like you're in a good mood today though, which..."

Her voice trailed off but it was easy to imagine what she was thinking. The day after the last three full moons Cerys was even more moody than usual. Finding my girlfriend in a good mood now was probably the last thing Kaylee expected.

"Do y'all want to go somewhere we can talk?" I asked. "Somewhere private I guess, so we can talk openly?"

That ruled out Kaylee's place, not that she'd ever invited us over before anyways. And even though Cass's folks weren't a problem it looked like she wasn't comfortable talking about stuff at her place either, which basically meant my house was the only option.

The five of us stopped at a coffee shop on the way though, we all got extra large hot chocolates with whipped cream and stuff. Then we went back to my place and down into the basement so we could get comfortable.

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Like usual the other three all sat on one of the sofas, with Cass in the middle while her girlfriend and sister were on either side of her. So me and Cerys sat across from them on the other sofa. And like usual my girlfriend was practically ontop of me, even though there was tons of space. I wasn't going to complain though, we both enjoyed the contact.

"So what's got you in such a good mood Cerys?" Kaylee asked after a big sip of her hot cocoa. "Sorry if this is insensitive, but you're usually a lot more subdued around this time of the month. Especially after..."

Her voice trailed off, like she didn't really want to mention what happened last week with Mr. Ainsley.

Instead of being upset though my girlfriend just grinned, "I had a kind of breakthrough earlier today. Actually maybe it started last night? Either way I'm feeling a lot better now, and it sort of helped me deal with that other stuff. It helped me put things in perspective, I guess."

"Speaking of which," Cerys added as she suddenly got to her feet. She moved across to the other three, then pulled Cassandra into a surprise hug.

As she held the blushing demonic goddess she stated quietly, "Thank you for saving me and Melanie from my dad. Thank you for doing what had to be done last week Cass. I know that left you with a lot of guilt. I don't know if this helps any but I wanted to tell you in person that it wasn't your fault. I don't blame you and I'm not upset with you. You did the right thing, and I hope you can accept that and start to feel better again."

Cass was obviously surprised by all that, so were Nina and Kaylee. For that matter I was a little surprised too. I kept quiet though, so did the other two. In a way this was between Cerys and Cassandra. I hoped it was going to help though. We all knew how upset Cass was, but as far as I was concerned she definitely did the right thing. I'd have done it myself if I had the chance.

After a couple seconds Cassandra slowly returned the hug. She mumbled, "Thanks Cerys. I'm glad you're not upset with me or anything. And I'm glad you're feeling better. It's uh, good to see you so happy again."

The two finally let go of each other after another couple seconds. My girlfriend took a step back then replied, "Thanks Cass. I really hope you start feeling better again soon too."

"What sort of breakthrough did you have?" Nina asked. "If you don't mind saying, that is."

Cerys moved back to cuddle with me again as she replied, "You all know it was the full moon last night, my fourth time turning into a wolf? The first three times it wasn't great, but this time... This time it was fun. Like not the actual changing part, that still sucked. But after I was changed, me and Melanie basically just spent the whole night playing. We ran around, we chased each other, played tag, we had play fights, we even had a little race this morning. And it was all just really fun."

"In fact I had so much fun that um," she hesitated for just a moment, like she suddenly felt a little embarrassed. Then she smiled and came out with it, "I had so much fun that after I shifted back to normal this morning, I willingly turned into a wolf again. I spent most of today as a wolf. I only turned back about an hour and a half ago."

I was smiling too as I added, "It took me almost a year to get to that point. Cerys got there in four months. I figured it'd take her six, minimum. Up to twelve maybe? But four's awesome."

My girlfriend was quick to point out, "You did it less than a month after you started seeing your wolf tutor. Before that you didn't know any of this stuff. I've had you giving me lessons and stuff right since the start. And you've been telling me some of this stuff since this time last year. So it's not a fair comparison."

"I'm still happy for you cutie," I responded with a grin. "And proud of you. I'm going to text Mom-iji later, but I'm pretty sure four months isn't far off what a natural-born wolf like her would do."

By that point she was blushing from the praise and everything. She was still smiling though, which was the best part.

Then in an attempt to shift the focus Cerys looked over at Nina and asked, "How are things going at school? Sorry we haven't been there with you lately."

The small demon shrugged, "It's ok. Uh, some of the teachers aren't too happy with you two though? You should both really get a note if you can?"

"Ms. Hughes asked me today if I knew where you were, since she knows I'm friends with you?" she added with a grimace. "I hope it's ok but I told her about your dad, that he passed away last week and you've been dealing with that."

My girlfriend thought for a moment, then nodded "Actually yeah, that's ok. Maybe she won't have it in for me as bad if she thinks I've been grieving. Thanks Nina."

"Not sure I can get a note," I commented. "I guess I could ask my dad, but even if he agreed I don't know if 'skipping school to look after my girlfriend' is a valid excuse?"

Kaylee made a face, "Probably not. I think officially they'd expect Cerys's legal guardians to look after her, while you'd be expected to attend class."

"Yeah that's what I figured," I scowled. "Whatever. We'll probably be back at school tomorrow, if anyone gives me a hard time I'll tell them I was looking after Cerys. If they don't like it, tough."

"I hope you don't get in too much trouble at school. But I'm really glad you're doing a lot better now Cerys," Nina said.

Kaylee nodded, "Same. It's good to see you smiling again."

"Yeah," Cass agreed. Other than that she was mostly keeping quiet again though.

"Thanks," my girlfriend replied. Then she grinned at me, "Hey can I show them my wolf form? They've never seen it before."

I laughed, "Why are you asking me? If you want to, go for it."

Cerys blushed slightly, "I don't know? Because you're the experienced wolf, I guess."

Then she added in a quiet teasing voice, "You're my strong experienced pack leader, I'm just your cute doting wolfy mate."

That got me blushing. Actually I noticed the other three were all blushing too. I was smiling though, so were Kaylee and Nina. Then before any of us could respond Cerys got to her feet and ducked around behind the sofa.

"Sorry I'm not going to let you see me change," she told the others. "I'm not quite used to the 'undressing in front of people' side of things yet."

She crouched down behind the sofa as she pulled off her clothes, then closed her eyes and concentrated. It happened a few seconds later, and my blonde wolf girlfriend emerged and walked around between the two sofas so our friends could get a good look at her.

"Wow," Kaylee commented. "It's kind of wild Cerys, knowing that's actually you."

Meanwhile Nina had a big smile on her face as she added, "You look amazing! Is it ok to pet you? I won't do it if you don't want me to."

That was definitely something where my girlfriend and I had very different opinions. It took me forever to let Cerys pet my wolf form, and I still wouldn't let her do it where anyone else could see.

It wasn't that I didn't like how it felt, but I was a little sensitive about the implications. I didn't want people to think I was anyone's pet dog or something like that.

Cerys didn't seem to have any of those concerns. She moved right up to the small demon and rested her chin on Nina's lap. Her tail even started to wag as she got some pets and scritches, while our demon friend beamed happily.

That got me smiling too, same with Kaylee. I even saw a little grin on Cass's face as we all watched my girlfriend dissolve into a happy tail-wagging puddle under Nina's barrage of ear scritches and pets.