Finding myself

Chapter 36

Blaze had send one of his 'soldiers' yesterday to tell me that training starts at 5:00 AM. And unfortunately, I had asked Lexi to call me at 4:30 too.

That is why I found myself groaning myself to consciousness at the break of dawn. Gosh, I am becoming lazy. If I were with Sam... no, I don't want to go there.

Now that I think about it, I should have set it for 5:30 or something. It would have been a good start for Blaze's and my punch bag buddy relationship.

'Wakey-wakey Zar-zar' Lexi annoying voice filled my room and I didn't miss how she exaggerated the name Jason gave me.

I am seriously re-considering giving her the auto-mode recording feature. It was Sam who thought it would be better for my safety.

Throw her to the wall or something.

My wolf half growled-half whined.

Lexi is my baby. And she took me more than nine months to make mind you. I am not foolish enough to destroy all that in a fit of rage.

I slowly stood up and dragged my sleepy self to the bathroom.

'Your meme will be ready in a couple of minutes.'

She chirped. And it had me wondering. Aren't memes the electronic form of coffee? They are certainly energizing for me.

I opened to door to my bathroom, immediately coming face to face with the mirror on the opposite wall. If it wasn't so early in the morning, I promise you I would have screamed. Because the sight reflected on the mirror was every girl's nightmare.

No, it's not overnight makeup stress I am talking about here that makes you look like a raccoon. I am talking about the full-on 5-year old scribbling with markers of all of the flashiest colors. For heaven's sake, there was a black star outline around my left eye and a green fully colored triangle around the other. My lips were covered in a dark violet shade and both my cheeks contained two big red swirls. Like the blush thingies, you sometimes come across in anime. Small shapes were drawn to fill the rest of the space on my face. Like circles, squares, stars. And a pine tree?

On my forehead were the words 'BE HAPPY.'

"JASON!" I bellowed. And with due all self-righteousness, I don't give a banana peel who woke up.

I hope for his sake that this marker isn't permanent. When is he going to grow up?

I know Jason is trying to console me. But the way he goes about it is as weird as it gets. Especially after yesterday's um... crying session. God, I wanted to bang my head on the wall just thinking about it.

Why weren't any of my brain cells firing when my mouth ran like a speed train? It is very unusual for me. Another thing that I have never been accustomed to is the heavy sleeper I have become. I am an extremely light sleeper. At least for the last three years after Blaze's rejection. What can I say? Sam always kept me on my toes. His training didn't exclude my sleep. And I learned that with a very hard lesson. I shiver just remembering it.

Maybe, that is what caused me to open up to them. While what Sam is doing is really admirable stuff for me like training and what-not, I can't help but try to remember at least one time when I heard him accept me for the emotional wreck I was. He was always trying to change me. Improve me. Make me something, I was not... at least at the time.

And that made all the difference. Because, after such a long time, I began to see that the primary source of my frustration came from the lack of acceptance, acknowledgment. And that was so freely given in our group which isn't as much of a broken vehicle as I was seeing it as.