5,3
Sleep wouldn't come. Derek tried, he really did, but he couldn't fall asleep, no matter how hard he tried. Patty was his best friend, and he hadn't had one of those in as long as he could remember. At least, not one that didn't come with pack ties. Patty was just his and he didn't have to share her with the rest of the pack. They had their own ideas of fun and they had their own conversations that excluded everyone else. He liked having someone to confide in and someone to spend his time with, and someone to care about without having to worry all the time that as soon as the next big thing collapsed down on the city, she would run into the fray and he would lose her. He didn't have to worry that caring about her was going to hurt the people he loved. ...he trusted Patty.
And somewhere along the way, something about their friendship had changed. She was colder and more distant; he could feel her keeping him at an arm's length and it took a while, but once he figured out why, he wasn't sure he could do anything to salvage it. She had feelings for him. Lydia had been right all along and the worst part was that Derek...felt the same way. Fear and worry kept him from saying anything. Derek tried to keep things the same in spite of the fact that they were changing constantly around him. It was at the concert that he really realized that there was no salvaging what they'd had before. He could jump or he could let her go. He'd decided to let her go and he told himself it was for her own good, because he was no good for her or for anyone. Neither of them ever came out and said what they both knew had driven the wedge between them, she just stopped messaging him or stopping by and he stopped reaching out to her to invite her to come around.
That had been a week ago. He'd been miserable and hadn't slept worth a damn since. He wasn't sure what had possessed him to do it, but he decided that he couldn't stand his life without her in it and it was time to take that leap. Whether or not Patty would still have him after the length of time that had passed, he had no idea, but Derek couldn't take it anymore; he knew he had to try.
The rain was coming down in sheets as he stood outside her door, ringing the doorbell in spite of the fact that he'd left his house twenty minutes ago and it had been nearly two-thirty in the morning. By the time he heard her coming to the door, he was soaked to the bone and miserable and scared and if she slammed the door in his face then that was it, so he felt sick to his stomach with nerves on top of it.