Bounds Of Love (BWWM) #Wattys2018

Chapter 16

When I was twelve I started my period in the middle of my maths class. It isn't the typical story: there was no blood on the back of my grey pleated skirt, no red mark left behind on my chair and no sudden crimson downpour like all the older girls lead me to believe. It is, however, one of the most mortifying social experiences I’ve had until now.

Ms Candy, a sour woman with a grudge against anyone who didn't think her superior, called me to solve an equation on the whiteboard. I remember reaching for the marker with shaking hands, not having a clue why the walls of the room were suddenly closing in on me. I disliked maths and Ms Candy was no sweetheart but that didn't mean I broke down everytime I entered the class. I was actually pretty confident at maths usually. But on that day, the maths room felt like a prison and Ms Candy appeared to be my jailure.

The letters and numbers on the board had all blurred into one. One second I was stood, confused, and the next I was crying out at the foreign pain in the area below my stomach. Ms Candy, ever sympathetic, had told me to stop being dramatic unless I wanted a detention. But I couldn't. Because suddenly it wasn't the walls that were closing in, it was my insides.

I cried, sobbed, shouted until my parents were called half an hour later to take me home. By that point the class had been asked to leave the room whilst I was dealt with. Thank the Moon for that, because it turns out the pain was due to my period – the final stage to be completed in my onset to puberty -– triggering my first shift. As soon as my Dad walked in, bones cracked.

Keeping my shift hidden wasn't an issue - in a town so small everyone was either a were or related to one somehow. But my screams and cries as I struggled to be talked through the transformation could probably be heard throughout the school.

It's strange. A first shift is something all werewolves go through. It's gruesome and painful and darn right terrifying the first time. No-one gets to avoid that; we're all the same. Alpha. Beta. Omega. It doesn't matter. We all cry. We all beg our parents to make it stop, wish for a split second that our life is snuffed out before the pain gets too bad. And we all get talked through it till the pain stops being our focus and we're able to realise we're suddenly so much more.

But we don't all do it in public. In fact, my pack shun it. Socially forbid it in the way that we avoid talking about it to anyone but our own children. A first shift is treated like mental illness: it's there, but no-one really wants to acknowledge it.

And as I walked those hallways half the kids had started looking at me like I was a freak and the rest were giving me dirty looks as though I was acting like a nutcase for the enjoyment of ruining their Tuesday afternoon. People that were my friends flinched as though the echoes of my pain would infect their happy childish souls. High off the transformation, I reacted badly to that. Lunging for a human boy who crossed himself as I walked by and being restrained by my dad had caused a paradigm shift of sorts. A mutual agreement that I was irrevocably, imminently bad.

A big bad wolf amongst predators playing sheep.

It was at that moment that I realised for as popular as I had been until that class I didn't belong. Not really. The bullying started soon after; the kind of bullying that parents forget to talk about - the discreet kind. Hushed whispers and silent snickers when I walked in a room, sudden evacuation when I tried to join in, pet names that suddenly weren't so cute.

And nothing was worse. Could ever be worse.

Except possibly this: sitting before Cole, the person I have just fought against both verbally and physically, and his father. Who has just introduced himself as the MiddleEast alpha.

“You've got to be kidding me.” I gulp as I look into Cole's - the future alpha's - stern face. “Tell me this is a joke.”

Nathan does nothing to correct me, but he does give a gentle smile like I'm a buck about to make a mad dash. “My wife, Tiffany, will be down with your parents shortly. They're just going over the final details for your transition here, so it is less of a struggle to adapt.”

Coles eyes widen as he turns to his father, obviously baffled. “She's staying!”

“Why wouldn't she be? We said as much outside when we asked you to watch over her and keep her calm. Which, given I caught you about to go for each others necks, you failed to do.”

Nathan looks annoyed for a moment and glances at me apologetically. “Your parents were concerned after your shift and wanted assurance that we would make your transfer as smooth as possible. As you know you will be attending East Side school. But rather than move you into the pack house or a werewolf family, we thought it might be better to place you among people closer to your age who can help you through the transition at school and home.”

I just gape at him unable to comprehend the fact that I'm not getting kicked out. I pinch my right arm, just be be sure I'm not still in the midst of my blackout. The sharp tingle assures me this is very much real. Excitement breaks through my disbelief.

“When can I meet them?”

***
A blast to the past here, with one of the scenes I debated turning into the prologue.

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