I remember the day I turned 18 like it was yesterday. Id only dreamt about it since I was little, since the moment I saw prince charming kiss sleeping beauty awake, causing her to wake up and promptly get married to the handsome fellow, i knew what id wanted. A happily ever after of course! a handsome lad who would fight dragons for me and pine after me even if my greatest talent was sleeping! Hell, prince charming loved sleeping beauty simply because she was beautiful. What more could a girl want? I mean, she got her prince charming and she was just set- boom, happily ever after, roll the credits. Everyone's happy.
Now, I realize that by now, youre probably confused. Since when does turning 18 equate to the appearance of your prince charming? Well, my faithful readers, when you turn 18 you get to look for sugar daddies, other wise known as the modern day prince charming, amirite? Lol jk, dont worry. I should have mentioned earlier that I'm a werewolf.
Golly, no, I don't turn into a giant dog on a full moon or pillage nearby villages for shits and gigs. I dont even hunt vampires, so stop referencing those movies! Us actual werewolves are just like everybody else. We put our pants on one leg at a time, and sometimes sprout a tail (and turn into a normal sized wolf). We can do so on command, uninfluenced by that orbiting rock whos reflection we can see in the night sky.
The only thing that Twilight movie did get right is the prophecy of soul mates. In the movie, they called it 'imprinting'. Well in my pack, the Twilight pack, (goddammit I see the irony all too clearly), we call it finding your destined. Unlike in that god-awful movie, wolves are never destined to children (yuck!), because in order to know who your destined is, both parties must be adults. Now, I'm no scientist or anything but I know it has something to do with your hormones. It's just the time that your body and wolf spirit decide that they're ready to be the half to someone's whole. For most wolves its around 16 or seventeen that they identify their mates. Fate just has a way of placing the two in front of each other soon after maturity. After that it begins with a simple connection of the eyes or an accidental brush up of bare skin and viola! Youve met your destined.
I guess this is why my eighteenth birthday had been somewhat of a milestone. All my life I'd been behind the other kids, always shorter, always slower, I was even the last in my grade to shift for the first time. When I was 14 I'd already spent 13 months playing hide and seek in the woods with my friends as a human. That seems alright enough until I reveal that all of my friends had been wolves, and that in wolf hide and seek, when you find someone the object is to chase them down and pin them to the ground. Lets just say that I found out that human teeth dont exactly serve as an advantage the same way wolf teeth do. I really dont want to talk about what its like flossing your friend's fur out of your incisors.
And so it was no surprise that I was the last of my friends to find my destined as well. My two best friends, Charlotte and Kenny, had realized they were destined for each other shortly after we had begun our Junior year. the day I turned 18 was in the middle of our Senior, and Id been over third wheeling the PDA fest that was Charlotte and Kenny for, I dont know, forever!
Now, don't get me wrong! Id grown up with those two as my best friends. In elementary school, Kenny had taken turns dating the both of us before Charlotte and I had realized that sometimes playing dolls was in fact better without Kenny in the mix at all. We each had our own connections, so when they had turned out to be each other's destined I was overjoyed for them. It's not often that your destined turns out to be someone you had already chosen for yourself, anyways. Really, I'd heard stories of destined pairs who reject each other, because the pairing seemed unlikely. Can you believe that? Unlikely! I mean, can you believe the gall of some wolves; being presented with your absolute equal, the completion to your search, the lime to your corona, only to ignore that? It seems to me like if Fate wants to spoon feed you your soul mate you should take it for crying out loud. I could only guess that some wolves believed they knew better than Fate on how to choose a life partner.
Obviously, Charlotte and Kenny were no such wolves. One day at lunch Charlotte had asked Kenny to pass her a napkin so that she could clean up the spaghetti sauce she had gathered on her chin over the duration of the lunch period. When Kenny had offered just that, a single unused napkin from the plastic dispenser on the table, Charlottes hand seemed to not be able to accept it. Her hand had stayed outstretched in midair, meeting Kenny's over that single ply tissue. I remember Id been in the middle of a story, probably of how Mr Moody's song of the quadratic equation had been utterly embarrassing for him, especially when his obvious armpit sweat stains on his purple shirt were completely accounted for, and Id had to pause to ask if theyd also thought the sweat and singing was utterly embarrassing for the teacher as well. Id quickly been notified that their silence had not been a signal that they disagreed with my opinion on Mr Moody's fate, but that they had, in that moment, over that facial cleaning device, found their destined in each other.
For Charlotte and Kenny, it had been just as the fables had predicted. Two destined touching hands for the first time as mature wolves. Then came love, then came marriage. Well, I'm just kidding about that. We weren't even legal adults yet by human standards. We're just as 'civilized' as humans, and tend to go by their laws, anyway, so marriage wasn't an option. To be fair, though, by werewolf standards, they were both adults in that moment, but werewolves don't get married, so you guys can take your marriage laws and shove em. I mean how does your age really determine if youre ready to make serious decisions anyways? But thats none of my business (sips tea). Instead, after the love part, the text book example of destineds falling in love with each other, commencing in precisely one hour and being broad cast every moment after by the use of adorable nick-names and overly enthusiastic public displays of affection, came my uncontrollable references to their love beginning over a facial tissue, and sometimes charlotte's marinara sauce beard at the time of their meeting.
Part of me couldnt help it, both because it was hilarious and because I was without someone to call 'Pookie bear' or 'Schnookums'. After 16 months of sitting across from Pookie Bear and Schnookums at lunch, Id been more than ready to brush elbows with a Pookie Bear of my own. And by god I would never call him Pookie Bear. I would have settled for something far more dignified. Perhaps a 'Sugar Pie' of 'Honey Bunches' would have worked for my purposes.
Above all Id simply wanted my prince charming; someone who would take one look at me and know beyond all doubt that I was the one person in the world who could make him happy. Someone who was not only okay with, but was impressed by my ability to wait to do laundry until i absolutely needed clean underwear. Someone who found my small stature adorable, and not weak. Someone who could sit on the couch and read books with me all day. Someone who could listen to my stories about swallowing wolf fur as a 14 year old human girl, and just laugh with me. Someone who cherished me. And I could cherish them too.
Oh how I longed for someone to cherish and hold dear. Charlotte and Kenny were fantastic friends, confidants, and support systems, but they made out every chance they got, and I was (very thankfully) never involved. But seeing how they treated each other only made the wait to meet my destined seem longer. When I turned 18, some part of me knew that even the late bloomer that I was wouldn't be kept waiting for too much longer. Fate wasn't that cruel, Id thought.
I had been correct that Fate wouldnt make me wait forever. I had been wrong to assume Fate had a pleasant journey waiting for me ahead.
The morning of my birthday I had awoken to a pancake breakfast, a gourmet effort put on by my gracious mother which dazzled in comparison to the eggo waffles I usually put together on my own before school. The wonderful start had made my time at school seem even more boring than it already was every day. Nothing about the whole day had screamed birthday, especially not the end of it.
That evening we'd had Thai food, per my request, and ice cream. After dinner, came a visitor. My mother was a well regarded wolf for her skill in hand to hand combat, at least that's what Id heard about her from her younger days. Whatever social prowess she had accumulated from her youth still stuck around, because one of her closest friends happened to be the Beta female of our pack, Sheryl Davis.
My mother's friendship with Sheryl could be the only reasonable explanation for her son's arrival on my doorstep that evening. His ringing the doorbell had been just in time to avoid interrupting our celebration, further solidifying my theory that he had been prompted to come by his mother, who had been scheming in kahoots with mine. However, when I opened the door that evening, rubbing a food baby made of spring rolls and cookies and cream ice cream, it wasn't the face of Sheryl's son, Skipper that caused the circular movement of the hand on my stomach to freeze and fall absentmindedly to my side. No, it wasn't the surprise of Skipper's arrival, or the dawning of the realization that my mother was far too eager for me to meet my destined, so eager that she had facilitated an interaction with a boy whom she thought would suit me. It wasn't even the disappointment that she had been wrong about who my destined was. My destined wasn't Skipper Davis, the Beta's son.
That night, on my birthday, as I looked past the boy with dark eyes and dark hair which my mother had assumed might compliment my equally dark features, I saw the slouching boy with lighter hair. But it wasn't his hair that had caught my attention, it had been his eyes. They were even darker than Skipper's, darker than mine. They were darker than any eyes, it seemed, that I had ever seen before. And when they locked with mine, I almost imagined they became even darker.
I had gasped with the realization. It felt something like a deja vu feeling you get when youre randomly remembering a dream youd had the night before. It was like Id known my whole life that the boy in front of me was my destined, but only just then could remember it.
In that moment, I could recall every glance, every casual pass Id had with the boy in front of me. I recognized him as the Alpha's quiet and reserved son. He was in my grade, we'd grown up together distantly, always seeing each other at school but never interacting in any sort of meaningful way. Nothing in those prior interactions could have indicated what I knew then. I remembered seeing him tirelessly play video games with his friends in the computer labs, but the only thing that had occurred to me had been the thought that playing outside was much more fun. I remembered one day this year in english class when he had taken his sweatshirt off, and from my seat behind him, id been able to catch a glimpse of a dark swirling tattoo in the center of his back. I remembered Id thought it was the dumbest shape I'd ever seen. It had looked like a poorly drawn hear rate monitor. Even dumber was he to mark it on himself permanently, Id thought. The least he could have done was enlist a talented tattoo artist! Or perhaps, he was just interested in health equipment.
Nothing about our prior interactions screamed soul mate, but for just one moment, as he looked at me in my worn out blue jeans and plain shirt, Id felt complete.
I hadn't even noticed that Skipper had been wishing me a happy birthday, complete with an offered hand shake as if to say, 'Lets find out if we're destined,'. I would have scoffed, if I hadn't been too busy staring into the eyes of Brighton Richmond. All it took was for our eyes to meet and I knew it.
Call it naitety, call it wishful thinking, but I never would have anticipated Brighton's first words to his destined, his soul mate, for lack of a better phrase, his very own Pookie Bear. Call it ignorance, but I never would have interpreted his eyes to mean what he said next.
Id watched his careful intake of breath, the way his angelic lips had parted to allow the air into his lungs. I remember thinking they were the most beautiful pair of lips I'd ever seen, or would ever see. Id wondered, what would they say to me? Would they speak softly and gently to me? Would they lift me up? Id noticed the nervous way he'd reached for the hem of his t shirt, the way he'd clutched at it. Was he nervous? I wondered. At that moment I couldn't find a reason in the world for him to be nervous. My conscience reminded me briefly that I was the smallest person in our class, had never excelled too much in athletics, and compared to his towering frame, as well as most people's, was anything but intimidating.
I remember feeling a flash of confusion and concern, the urge to comfort my destined was intense despite our only recent meeting. My fingers barely had time to twitch in pursuit of touching him when my body felt the shock of his first words to me, "No..." his voice had come out desperate and forceful.
My fingers had frozen. My mind, it seemed, froze as well. The train of thought which had already imagined our long lives together entered broken tracks and crashed and burned. My mouth had opened but refused to pursue any answers. It refused to potentially solidify what my stomach feared was happening to us. My muscles locked up, yearning to block out his next words. "I-I dont- I don't want a mate."
I literally blinked at the force he put behind those words. The blood had rushed to my cheeks and I'd stuttered in confusion, "Brighton-?" It sounded like a simple question behind my small voice. Id cleared my throat, the voice in the back of my mind urging me not to sound like Eeor from Winnie the Pooh, but I didn't get to say anything else.
He'd clenched his fists by his sides when he'd spat, "No Danny. I don't want a mate. I dont want you,"