Riley

15

It was during my shower that I truly started to think of all the things that have happened since we moved here. I was expecting just another typical lifestyle with a typical step-father and typical step-siblings. I wasn't expecting to find out that my step-siblings are actually my freaking cousins and that my step-dad had two kids with my aunt. I most definitely wasn't expecting for that to be the most normal thing out of everything that's happened. That even sounds freaking weird just saying it. My mom is engaged to the same guy who knocked up my aunt. Twice. That's freaking disgusting. Though, technically, it was the aunt on my gene donor's side of the family, but still. And that in itself leads to the next big life changer that I've had since we've moved here. My "father". The other half of my DNA. My gene donor. The paternal part of my genetics. That man has made my life do a complete one-eighty. I won't say that I was happy, but I was... satisfied with how things used to be. I knew I had a deadbeat dad. I knew that he dropped off the face of the Earth before I was ever born. I knew that my mother found love again. I knew that she got pregnant with my little sister. I knew that even though he was technically my sister's dad, he met all of the requirements of being my father. I knew that after he died, I wouldn't ever be able to call anyone 'Dad' ever again. I knew that there was no chance that I would ever be able to actually even meet my own father. The one who abandoned my mother and left her to raise me alone. I knew all these things as fact.

Only, now they aren't. I've actually met my father. This Leo. I've learned that he actually had a semi-legitimate reason for abandoning me and my mother. I've learned that I have not only a biological father, but I actually have siblings that share some of my same story and were conceived from the same man that I was. I learned that my father isn't human. I learned that I'm not human. And it's not enough that I'm not even one hundred percent human, but I'm actually supposed to be the next leader, the next Alpha, of a world that I know nothing about. I honestly don't even know how I'm going to react the next time I see my supposed father. I don't know what all I could possibly say to him to get him to realize that I don't want this. He says that I don't have a choice, but this is my life. Not his. Not anybody else's. He's only worried about his damn lineage and status and I'm over here concerned about the rest of my life. I actually had plans before all of this. I was going to be the best damn professional soccer player on Earth; maybe even play Olympic soccer and be in the World Cup if I could get there. And now he's telling me that I might as well just throw all that away. That my life is not my own to live. That because he helped in my conception that I owe him. That I am just going to blindly follow him because he's my "father". He doesn't even know a thing about me. All he knows is that I was the first one of his blood to pop out of my mother's womb. That's it. That is all that he cares about. Me being his first child and Alex being his sister's first.

And that's another thing. Alex. He's never even expressed being not human. Maybe I've overlooked it or maybe he's just gotten really good at hiding it, but if he wasn't human wouldn't somebody have noticed something. There's no way that not even one person knows the truth about him. And I can't help but to think 'so what?'. So what he's not human? So what he's my aunt's child? So what? Why can't he be the alpha or whatever? Why does it have to be me? God, all I wanted was to live as normal a life as I could. I just wanted to be a normal teenager who has lived through the tragedy of losing the only father that she's ever known but still manages to pull through and be a daughter that he'd be proud of. That even though he wasn't a father through blood that he still was in every way that mattered. Why can't I just have that life? Why do I have to be different? How am I even supposed to look at myself now? How am I supposed to act around everybody else now? And what am I supposed to do about my mother? Should I just tell her, and hope that she understands, or should I just keep it from her? They say that a mother's love is unconditional, but does that apply to the mother of a child who is part animal? Or does she already know? She said that she knew I wasn't completely human, but does she know the extent to what that means? What are my plans for my life going to be now? Am I supposed to try and follow Leo, the one who did this to me, or should I still try to stick to my own path? Should I stay, or should I go? What do I do?