Chương 214: I DON'T GET IT, WHAT HAPPENED?

By the time we got back up to the penthouse, it was well past 10 p. m. There was supposed to be a second meeting on the merger, but after Beta Lorent had turned Jafar on us, and Lady Amber had spilled the beans on Beta Lorent's less-than-perfect bloodline, Alpha James had sent his apologies. He would have quite a bit to clean up at home before we could discuss merger terms. My bedroom was just as I had left it.

The lights were on, my school stuff was still a messy pile next to the dresser, and Savy was still on the bed with the stack of manga beside her, earphones on. She didn't even look up when I entered the room or stalked into the bathroom. Well, I wasn't ready to talk about it either. I was especially not ready to talk about the thing that didn't happen. What thing, you ask? NOTHING. NOTHING HAPPENED. Yeah, except I just got betrothed.

Everyone kept congratulating me after the Lorents left and telling me I was beautiful and did well, so I didn't mess it up after all. I got treasure too. A watch with many wishes and a magical, genuine mountain argent bangle. Both of which I was going to keep in my dresser drawer with the gold bracelet I was wearing and not wear. Why? Because I was probably going to lose them, or break them, or get them scratched up, or dirtied, or do something stupid like that. I was quite sure of it. Beta Lorent tried to trap us.

Specifically, he used the magic bangles, hoping that it would cause Mate to be even more vulnerable than he already was as a fight dog. Grrr.... Thinking about it made me mad all over again. But I pulled it off, and luckily no one died or was hurt like hell because the magic bangles only worked on real people and not dream travelers. That was really lucky. Even so, our mating bond grew a new link, and I could now sense what Mate was feeling.

It wasn't a very strong link, just a thread, but it was proof of his acceptance. Not that I cared... I mean... Arughhh... I'm really relieved, okay? I'm so relieved! Anyway, I'm happy. Really, really, happy. Whatever. Nobody reads this diary anyway. I'M HAPPY! MATE ACCEPTED ME! SO HAPPY! Yes, I'm mush. Yes, I'm pathetic to let my mate get to me like that. Yes, I'm an idiot. But right now, I'm a happy idiot. I totally blame the mating bond. I got out of my bath in a really good mood.

I crawled into bed without Savy even seeming to notice, and then I bumped into a manga. It had fallen from the gap between the wall and the upper bunk and landed on my pillow. I picked up the book. Oh well, I dropped it off the side of my bed. I'll pick it up tomorrow. I needed sleep. Tomorrow was Thursday, and I had school, Home Ec with Mrs. Martinez, and then Thursday Training Session... It was going to be a long day. T. T But I'm the Alpha. I can take it. I can take a lot of things.

"Hey, Savy!" I said. No answer. I lifted up one leg and used a foot to kick at where her butt would be. Still no answer. Now that I felt sure she was ignoring me on purpose, I used both feet to press against the bed board and push it upward. I found I could actually lift the mattress up. Savy yelped, "Sam!" She hung over the edge.

"Cut it out!" If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. I laughed and didn't stop because it was quite fun balancing the mattress on the wooden board with Savy on it using just my feet... At least it was fun until it slipped off the groove and the entire wooden board, mattress, Savy, and mountain of manga crashed on top of me. Savy screamed.

"Sam!" Savy called. She quickly scrambled off the bed. Ouch. Hahaha. I'm squashed like a really flat thing, and it was all dark. I could smell the wood of the board. And naturally, Mum, Dad, and Killion were soon in our room. In general, any crashing sound followed by someone yelling "Sam!" tended to attract my parents' immediate attention.

"Oh, goddess." Killion said, and I couldn't tell if he was calling me or swearing.

"Sam!" Mum cried out.

"Oh, Sam!"

"I'm alright," I managed to say. I sounded muffled. It was funny. Hahaha. I can't believe that happened. It was like something out of a cartoon. I felt the weight being lifted off me. Killion and Dad had each taken one end of the bed and were trying to push it up. I crawled out from under the bed.

"Oh my goddess, Sam!" Mum exclaimed.

"We just got you betrothed, and you get yourself flattened?" I straightened up and checked myself.

"I'm fine." Killion and Dad gave up trying to fit the bed back directly from where it fell. Killion pulled off all the bedding, and Dad helped him take out the mattress and wooden board. They had to tilt it so that it could come out of the bunk bed frame. Then they set the upper bunk back piece by piece: the wooden board, the mattress, and the sheet. Killion took off his shoes and stepped up on the ladder to make the bed. We looked at the mounds of manga that had fallen on and next to my bed.

"What's all this?" Dad asked. It kept nearly tripping him when he was trying to maneuver the mattress into place.

"Manga," I answered. Dad just looked puzzled.

"They're comic books, dear," Mum explained.

"They're Savy's," I explained. Even though they were on my bed and around my bed... it wasn't me.

"Haylee lent them to me," Savy explained.

"They are very enlightening." Killion started picking them up off the floor, so I helped collect the ones on my bed. We helped Savy stack them back on her bed.

"Were you still up reading, Savy?" Mum frowned.

"Try to get some sleep, alright? Tomorrow is a school day."

"Just a bit more, Mum," Savy promised. The adults left the room. At the door, Mum said, "And Sam, whatever you were doing before, don't do it again." What? Why did Mum assume it was me? Granted, she was right, and the bed collapsed because I pushed it out of its groove with my feet, but it could have been anything else! Like it could've been an earthquake, or a defect in the bed's design, or even Savy's—I mean Haylee's—mountain of manga on the top bunk.

"I thought you were going to be squashed like a pancake just now," Savy told me once the adults left.

"Are you okay?" I asked belatedly.

"Yeah," Savy cackled from her bunk.

"How did you survive that?" I laughed.

"I the Alpha!" I boasted.

"And probably just lucky." I actually had no idea how it didn't hurt. Soft bedding beneath and around me? Strong reflexes? The fact that the wooden board, mattress, and Savy weren't all that heavy? The pressure was distributed evenly across a large surface? Who knows? Savy was still cackling.

"It was just like a cartoon." I laughed along.

"Yeah. I'll be Tom and you be Jerry."

"I hated that show," Savy admitted suddenly. Me too. I remembered the show now. I always felt so sorry for Tom. I guess I was watching the cartoon too seriously, but I was a pup then, so you can't blame me for that. I just felt it was grossly unfair for Tom, like everything was stacked against him.

"Savy?" I asked.

"Would you rather be Tom or Jerry?" Savy thought a bit.

"I'd rather be Spike."

"Yeah, me too," I said. When I was young, I had always thought Spike was the best because he was the strongest.

"But that's just because Spike was a canine. I really just hate that show. The art was terrible, and the plot was repetitive," Savy told me. Oh, well, that's true too. Sometimes I admired the way Savy saw things like that. Whenever we watched movies together and got to the plot twist, Savy would be like, "I knew it!" while I would be like, "I don't get it, what happened?" Mum was even funnier. She would say things like, "Don't worry, she won't die. The director can't let her die yet." Or, "They would meet again.

The director would make sure of it." Mum didn't believe in coincidence or serendipity, or luck. She believed in the director, and he never failed her. Dad would make comments too, but they were more like, "That's a very silly thing to do." In his opinion, for a character to do anything that wasn't facing the problem head-on and working out a viable and honest solution was a silly thing to do. Dad's very focused like that. Sometimes when I couldn't take the suspense anymore, I'd ask, "What's going to happen?"

And either Mum or Savy would tell me.

"Why are you watching if you already know the ending?" Dad would ask from the side while answering emails on his tablet.

"I'm not watching for the ending, I'm watching for the journey. I like to see exactly how she overcame it!" Mum would say while Savy nodded. Mum and Savy were complicated like that. If it had music and singing or dancing or action AND really funny jokes, I would probably like the show. I could miss a hundred plot twists in a show, but I would never miss a joke. Maybe I should ask Mum or Savy to tell me what's going to happen in my life too. What do you think?

Because for the life of me, I still felt like, "I don't get it, what happened?" Most of the time anyway. Today, a lot of things happened. Probably more than I understood. But I didn't care. I was happy. Mate accepted me. I'll figure out the rest of it another time.