Red Blooded

Chapter 1 - Once upon a time...

I grew up an ordinary girl. Well, really, I grew up less than ordinary. In what starts like one of the most cliché stories ever, I was the girl with the baggy jeans, baggy tops, and a fringe haircut that gave any blonde porn star a run for her money. I was the nerd - the one that hid away from all the rebellion in school and at home. Growing up as the 'less than ordinary' child in a family with the expectations of a nunnery proved easy. A girl was to be seen and not heard. Well, that was me. Except, in my case, I wasn't seen nor was I heard. And why would I want to be seen and heard? All that got me was heartache.

Heartache. A concept I was really familiar with as I grew up. But you get over it, you know? You hope that one day your family and your community will accept you into the fold and treat you with the respect you deserve.

Obviously, I just wasn't good enough. Which is okay. Because now, I'm in a better place.

My past is only a distant memory, not a fond one, but one that I can turn to whenever I need to get angry and beat Romero when we're boxing. He has no idea of my past. And naturally, when I think of the past, he always loses in a match. Poor Romero.

Nine years ago

I'm walking. I'm walking. I'm...not walking. The push from behind sent me sprawling out onto the concrete floor. As much as I want to say that it was a surprise, being assaulted in the middle of school, it wasn't. I wasn't surprised; in fact, I already knew what was going to happen next. And as if on cue, the jeering started up and my backpack was snatched. I watched as Jessica Michaels unzipped my bag, wordlessly, and tipped out the contents. I watched without saying anything. I knew the consequences of speaking out during an attack. I didn't want the bruising that came along with it. During the whole debacle I could see Connor, my brother, smirking at me from where he stood at his locker. Hayden, his best friend, stood alongside him, standing long enough to look at me with a strange sadness, pity probably, before walking away.

"There we go." Jessica's high pitched voice broke through the vision of the blue ocean my mind escaped to. "That's much better." She bowed over me and glared; her eyes so vicious that I couldn't help but flinch away. "You're nothing in this school. The sooner you kill yourself, the better."

Kill yourself.

I've already tried.

Her words hurt me - they really hurt me. What hurts the most is that my brother, Connor, walked up behind her and heard everything; but he stayed quiet. Actually, he laughed. At fifteen, I was three years younger than my brother. I was a senior in high school because I was advanced in my studies. But being the youngest, nerdiest, fattest, ugliest in my year had severe drawbacks.

"Scram, weirdo." He spat. Dutifully, I gathered up my books and my bag and limped across the corridor. Hurtful jeering filled the corridor, the words feeling like stones against my body; it shattered my illusions of a blue calm ocean. I ducked into the first bathroom I could get to and locked myself in. I don't cry. I never cry. There is just no point, they aren't worth my tears. I sat on the toilet and brought my knees to my chest...and dreamt.

I dreamt of the dream. The dream - the one where I'd one day go off to college and the whole pack would be just be a distant memory. I would find my mate and he would look at me with nothing but adoration. He would call me beautiful, even though I wasn't, he would lie and call me skinny, even though I wasn't, and he would never make fun of me. He would just love me and accept me. My mate would take care of me. That's all I really wanted. I wanted to go to college, find my mate, get married and become a full time mother to my own pups. I wanted the whole deal.