Outsiders

I was sitting with my toes in the creek watching a daring minnow work up its nerve to inspect them. I don’t know why I had run out of the house like some scared rabbit last night. I’d just kept going until I got all the way to the beaver dam. Then I’d stripped and gone for a long swim. I’d laid out on the sun warm rocks to dry off as the sun set letting wolf take control. It wasn’t shifting. It was shutting off my brain. Wolf paid attention to the forest sounds and smells and I idled.

I didn’t have to think my way through why I’d left or what it all meant or any mental nonsense. I just enjoyed the sun on my bare body and listened to the birds winding down and the evening rustling of the night animals waking up. I got dressed and decided I didn’t want to go back to the house. There was only the singles dining room waiting for me and the same questions of what to do while listening to the dance.

Then I’d have Katelyn returning to my room at some hour, probably all excited and wanting to share her Cinderella ball adventure. I really didn’t want to lay there in the dark and hear it and try to be polite. I mean, I was glad she wasn’t bored and alone. It was great she had been invited and by top tier Bradyn, no less. It just, I don’t know, felt like stepping on glass in your bare feet.

‘Stop whining, wolf. We’ve been on this street, and we are getting off. Remember Sun Li?’

“Yeah, fishies. I am smarter now. I can see a pit in the road. I am not going to be run over by the pain train again. It is so the same, wolf. Pay attention. In a very few days, Katelyn is going to move out of our room because the solstice will be done, and she’ll have her pick of rooms. Wanna bet she won’t be up on the third floor near Janis or Marci? Then it’ll be just you, me and Wolfie again. We’ll get a friendly wave in the dining room if we’re lucky. No whimpering. You are a big wolf. We survived Sun Li and that was eight months of intensity. Katelyn’s only been here three days and not near as intense as Sun Li. No big. Right?”

Wolf didn’t answer. I had a feeling I was being ignored. Yeah. I didn’t like remembering our time with Sun Li either. She had transferred in from Seattle after college and, I guess, decided I was destined to be her best friend since I picked her up from the airport. It was fine with me. We got along great. She was fun and funny. We were together breakfast to bed. I took her hiking all over pack land and she took any dare from the waterfall high jump to hunting elk with the guys. She taught me some domino train game we played when the weather was bad and wanted me to teach her the Kill or Be Killed video game. We were unstoppable.

Then, Dagger came home for the summer. I know it wasn’t instant, but it felt like a switch was thrown and suddenly, Sun was with Dag and I was last week’s news. Whenever I caught her to suggest a get together, I heard a version of she and Dag had something planned – how about tomorrow or Friday or a some other day that never came. We didn’t eat together, play games, or go outside. I was devastated. I knew I had done something wrong, but I didn’t know what. The wedding invitation was expected. Being excluded from the huge bridal entourage was not. I didn’t even rank high enough to watch the guest book. Then the pain train backed up over me a few times by not even inviting me to her baby shower. I curled up in my room with Wolfie, figuring I should just fade away and die since I was so awful. Ginger tried to console me. Mama Vera finally brought me soup and insisted that these things happen. I had done nothing. It wasn’t my fault. Sun Li had met her soul mate and no one else mattered to her after that. Mama Vera had to browbeat me consistently to get her point across but eventually I believed her. Not about the soul mate part. About it not being my fault.

But it would be my fault if I let Katelyn tear a hole in me now. That would be class A stupid. I splashed my feet in the creek, scaring the minnows away and pulled my feet out to dry. No. Katelyn was clearly bound for bigger and better. I just needed to put up the steel walls for protection.

‘Stop whining, wolf. You know we need to.’

It’s good she’s heading for nice things. She deserves them after her rocky introduction to Were life. I can go back to my regular life. It’s all good. No harm. No foul.

‘Ok, wolf. Today we should stay away from Katelyn. Maybe talk with Ginger. See what she did last night. You know you like what she keeps in her treat jar, eh? And once Katelyn moves out, I will drag out the box that’s under the bed and you can gnaw on those antlers all day if you want. How about that?’

I got a grudging huff. I figured it was the best I would get. Wolf was in a mood.

“Let’s get some breakfast.” I said putting on my shoes.