Blizzard

chapter 7

Her stupidity decided to come to the surface once again as she carefully approached the wolf. The canine shifted her weight on her paws, looking rather uncomfortable with her closing in. Or maybe she was just contemplating whether or not to let her. She still hadn't taken a step back, which Toni took as a good sign as she slowly, but steadily, walked closer. She halted when she was only standing two feet away from her. Slowly, but cautiously she reached her hand out towards the wolf.

"Please, don't bite my hand off." Her voice came out as almost a whisper. Her hand was shaking a little as she nervously waited for the wolf's reaction. Being in such close proximity to the wolf, she noticed the sadness hidden in her eyes. It made Toni frown. Was it some kind of anthropomorphism or was the canine actually sad. And if so, what could possibly make such a magnificent creature look so dejected?

Like a dog, the wolf slowly lifted her head to sniff her hand in a tentative manner. Toni remained as motionless as she could, trying to still the trembling of her hand. The blue-eyed beauty was probably deciding whether or not Toni was worthy of the proximity. After a few seconds, the wolf finally did something. She pushed her forehead against the palm of her hand while closing her eyes. Toni almost couldn't believe the canine finally allowed her to touch her. Toni calmly crouched down in front of the wolf. She was still a little hesitant, afraid that one wrong movement would ruin all the progress they'd made. She brought up her other hand to stroke the wolf's neck, her fingers running through her clean, white fur. The whole occurrence filled her heart with so much warmth. It made her never want to stop petting her.

Toni didn't understand why Martha had been so scared for her to get close to the wolf. She was actually kinda cute from up close. Especially when she let her ruffle her fur. "You're not so scary, now, are you? In fact, you're actually fucking adorable."

The wolf frowned for just a second, before relaxing into Toni's touch again.

After what felt like half an hour but was probably just a few minutes, they moved so Toni could sit down against the trunk of one of the bigger trees, with the wolf's head in her lap.

Toni felt like this was her best Christmas Eve yet, aside from the one she'd spent at Martha's house, two years ago. They had invited her again last year and this year, too. But she had declined. She didn't want to bother them. She already felt like they'd done too much for her. They had often helped her when certain foster homes got a little too much. Toni already couldn't repay them. She didn't want to ask any more of them, only for them to eventually realize she wasn't worth it after all. She told the wolf about it, and, for some reason, disclosing that was a gateway to start talking about her experience in the foster system.

Being forced to talk about it with the therapist her current foster parents had made her go to, about two months after being placed with them, had made her so fucking uncomfortable that they'd stopped making her attend after three sessions of mostly silence and adamant discomfort on her part. But somehow, here, talking to the wolf, about the exact same subject, she felt completely at ease.

"This one time, one of my previous foster parents chose my arm over the ashtray, because his wife had pissed him off." Toni said as she stroked the wolf's head. "I was like eight at the time. I think I still have a scar from that." Toni shrugged her arms out of her jacket and rolled up the sleeves of her sweater to search her forearms. She was unbothered by the cold, probably because of the warmth radiating from the wolf. "Yeah, right here." Toni trailed over the mostly faded scar with her index finger on her left inner forearm, close to the inside of her elbow. The little circle was barely a few shades darker than her skin.

The wolf lifted her head from her lap to actually take a look at where her finger was tracing the small scar. Her ears were flattened and she made a quiet whiny sound.