Loca

Chapter 1: First Sight

Troy's POV

My mother's smiling face stared at me as I ran my thumb across a wallet sized picture of her.

I kept it close to me always...because I never wanted to forget what she looked like and this was the only thing left to remind me. A fire had stolen all others, just as it had her.

In the ashes a void remained, one that could never be filled by a photo. The picture would never be enough - it couldn't do her justice...no substitute for what had been lost. It was the best I had though.

Especially since memories themselves tend to wither away, like cut flowers. Without their roots in the soil they die slowly. To fuel them, like placing flowers in a vase, only prolongs the inevitable...it doesn't save them. One of the reasons I always hated bouquets.

With a bittersweet lump in my throat, I tucked the image of my mom away and curled up in my seat, staring out my cab's window at the rain.

My driver was one of those slick sleazy ones who asks if you "are from the area" with the intent of taking longer routes and charging you more if you aren't.

He was disappointed to find that I knew my way in Washington, and that I wasn't just some dumb city kid who hopped off the plane and would stop to take pictures of the green, endless green - I had never known so much of it - that grew in picturesque abundance everywhere you looked...One of those kids whose jaw drops because they're used to the slums and not forests.

I wasn't one of those kids. The scenery wasn't unfamiliar or impressive to me. Not to take away from it, it was definitely pretty, but I had seen things much lovelier than green.

When the drive concluded, I paid the driver who didn't bother really with me. I pulled my hood over my already-wet hair and got the suitcase I'd brought out of the trunk. In it were the few things I had left to my name. Not much, but it would do.

When you hit rock bottom as I had, you come to find what things are necessity and what are luxury.

Glancing over at the small house that looked so inviting before me, I knew that it wasn't home and it never would be, but it was as close as I'd get. Home was gone.

I missed it, Los Angeles, already.
It had been one of the main things on my mind during the flight, and persisted in my thoughts now.

The streets had raised me - the city, my city, was home in every sense. Sure it wasn't perfect; there were dark spots, and places that I associated with the memories I didn't want to recall, some more recent than I would like to admit...but it built me.

Growing up there with the people I did and the experiences I had, is what made me.

Tiny-as-hell Forks Washington would never have a place inside me like L.A. did. It was just a temporary fix before I found my own way.

I'd have given anything not to be here. To be back in California, with all my closest friends and a mother who wasn't a fading memory...but there were circumstances that wouldn't allow that.

I knew that, and even with a dwindling hope, I was unable to reach out to the one person who might make me feel better.

Perhaps because I'd left without saying goodbye, or because he was out all kinds of crazy nights, living a lifestyle that was more fiction than reality. A lifestyle I happened to approve of, and wanted for myself.

Even though many warned me against such desires. Knowing the cons better than I could grasp them. They thought I deserved better and tried to persuade me against it to no avail.

They never changed my mind about wanting to leave my human life behind.

Running rampant with a pack of wolves under a full moon, owning the night...was a long-term goal of mine. One I was temporarily delayed from. Sidetracked.