Wolf Girl

Chapter 1-Brayden

Two weeks ago...

Brayden's eyes snapped open and stared up at the popcorn ceiling in her new bedroom. She sat up and ran her fingers through her long brown hair. She didn't actually remember what she had been dreaming about, or what had woken her up, but it was enough to cause her heart to race at an alarming rate. All she really remembered was a pair of glowing red eyes. Brayden swung her legs out of bed and walked over to her dresser. She was almost scared to look in the mirror, worried that her reflection would turn her into stone. She hadn't been able to sleep very well lately due to her family moving to the middle of fucking nowhere, Oregon, in the middle of her junior year of high school. She couldn't even pretend to be sad because she hadn't had a chance to make friends yet.

Now she had to go to Jensen High School where she didn't know anyone, not that she was bitter or anything. Brayden finally mustered up the strength to look in the mirror and groaned. It was worse than she'd imagined. Her blue-grey eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Her thick hair was sticking up in tufts so it would be almost impossible to tame. Her already pale skin looked sickly, like milk that had been left out too long.

"Today is not my day to win any beauty contests," Brayden muttered to herself. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. "Shit!"

Brayden rushed over to her closet in order to pick out her clothes for the first day of hell, or school. Not that it really mattered. Her father moved them around so much that even if she made a mistake style-wise, they'd be gone within a few months and she would only be a distant memory. She settled on jeans, a red tank top, and a jean jacket. She did what she could for her hair, basically tying it in a ponytail, and dusted some blush on her cheeks to add a bit of colour to the sickly pallor of her skin. There was nothing she could really do for her eyes except hope that the redness would disappear before she crossed the threshold of her new school. Her finishing touch was the wolf's head pendant that she'd worn every day since she was five when her mother gifted it to her.

Brayden walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, not surprised to see her parents practically glued to their phones. Her mother was a graphic designer so she would sometimes work from home and was in constant interaction with her clients, but her father had managed to turn a lowly real estate office that had two rooms into a national conglomerate. Every few months he packed up his entire family and moved to another state to check on his offices. He had zero regard for the fact that his teenage daughter was getting a little too accustomed to living out of boxes. Of course, in order for him to be concerned about her well-being, he'd have to look up from his phone long enough to remember he had a daughter. Even her mother struggled to remember that she existed and she was the one who shoved her out of a birth canal. Though Brayden sometimes caught her mother looking at her in concern, as if she was waiting for something to happen and was disappointed when it didn't. 

If her parents had ever paid attention to her for longer than a millisecond, it wouldn't bother her so muchthat she was so lonely. It bugged her that she had never been in one place long enough to have a friend, let alone a boyfriend. Although boys had never looked twice at her. She wasn't exactly the type of girl who stopped traffic. She just didn't know how to bring up to her father that she didn't want to move around anymore.

"Mom? Dad?" Brayden ventured to see if she could get their attention. "I'm leaving for school. Big first day and all."

"Okay, Brady," Grant Hayward replied as he tapped out an email. "Have fun. Do you have your car keys?"

"Yes," Brayden answered, rolling her eyes at the nickname.

It was no secret that her father had wanted a boy. Her name was supposed to be Brady Joseph Hayward. The fact that she was a girl didn't change his plan, just altered it. She knew her father still planned to leave his empire to her. She didn't know how she was going to tell him that she'd planned to major in pre-med.

"Are you ready for your first day, Brayden?" her mother asked, finally looking up at her. "Oh, honey, couldn't you have chosen something a little more feminine?"

Her mother was the complete opposite of her father. She'd been fully on board with Brayden being a girl, and was determined to turn her daughter into a fashion plate like herself. Even if it was against her will.

"Mom, this is fine," Brayden groaned. "I'm going to school, not Fashion Week in Paris."

"Fine." Her mother huffed. "So sue me if I want my only daughter to actually look like a girl."

"She looks fine, Estelle," her father said. "Better get to school, kiddo, before you're late."

Brayden nodded and headed towards the door. She glanced back only once, but her parents' attentions were drawn back to their phones. On occasion, her father did act like he cared about the person she was, but those moments were few and far between. She sighed as she walked outside in the cool air and towards her car.

This car was really just another reminder that Brayden was more of an afterthought to her parents. On the day of her sixteenth birthday last year, even before she got a driver's license, they bought her a state of the art Jeep. To anyone else the gift screamed "Best Birthday Ever!" To her it simply stated that her parents no longer wanted to be bothered with driving her around anymore. Truthfully, her wolf's head pendant meant more to her than the car ever could. Not to mention, for the last year, every time they moved, they had to ship the car as well. So that just added to her feeling like she was an annoyance to them.

Brayden shook her head to empty it of these thoughts and threw her bag into the passenger's seat. She adjusted her rear view mirror after putting on her seatbelt, and turned the key. She was already counting the hours until she could go back to bed.