Finding Home

Chapter Four-Paige

Paige woke up early the next morning. Jet lag can really mess up your sleep schedule. Having nothing else to do she decided to go for a run. Running had been her escape for as long as she can remember. In high school she was on the track team. Her father insisted she play a sport and with track you can be alone for most of the time so she decided on that.

She walked out the door and started at a warm up pace. She thought about how she ended up back here. Obviously she was going to have to come back at some point. Her brother and sister were going to have big life events eventually. Bindings, pups and the like. But still she wasn't ready. Part of her thought that the first time she'd come back here she'd have more. A degree, a career, a family of her own perhaps. She knew nothing could make up for her lack of a wolf but that didn't stop her from trying.

It didn't matter how many human accomplishments she achieved, nothing would make her father be proud of her. Nothing could make him respect her. She didn't fit in his world. No amount of forcing or wishing could make it so. And now that she had seen life outside of the pack, she was determined to never come back here.

The authoritarianism of the pack had never sat right with her. She had learned to obey, to bite her tongue but in her gut she knew it was wrong. She had to beg her father to let her leave. He didn't understand why she wanted to go. He thought pack life was the best thing there is. He didn't see how much she was hurting under it.

She's turned eighteen in the fall of her senior year. When she failed to shift she was despondent at first. Heartbroken that she wasn't a wolf. She had known deep down that she wasn't but it still hurt to have that confirmation. For the first few weeks she didn't get out of bed. She couldn't face her family or friends. Not that she had many. Betty, James and Dorothea were her only friends but she couldn't stand to see the sad looks on their faces.

By the time Yule came around she had decided to take her fate in her own hands. She started applying to college, looking for a way out. She knew she couldn't stay in the pack. She had good grades in high school. Even if what she learned wasn't standard for the rest of the world she still had good enough grades to be accepted at most schools.

She ended up in a school in Portland, Maine. It was small and she had to take a lot of placement tests but she survived her freshman year and was thriving by the time she was a sophomore. She started to look beyond her small cities and towns and looked for something bigger. She applied and transferred to a better school in Boston. Her father was furious with her. He thought Portland was too far and too big, but she knew in her heart Boston was where she was supposed to be.

After the disaster of a graduation dinner she decided to travel for a while. She had paid for school with scholarships and had worked through her four years. Her father's insistence that she come home, just made her run further away. She traveled all over the world. Europe, Asia, Australia. It was one of the most amazing years she had spent in her life. Until she was left behind.

The sky began to lighten as she made her way back to her parents house. It wasn't her home as that one had been destroyed by rouges. She walked through the side door to find her father in the kitchen. She stopped in her tracks and they stared at each other in an awkward silence. Not knowing what to say she walked past him.

As she made her out of the kitchen, her father said "Don't do anything to embarrass us today." She stopped to listen. "What you do reflects on all of us. You might not care about this pack but your mother and brother and sister and I all live here and will continue to live here even after you're gone again."

"I understand father." She walked out. She bolted up the stairs back to her room. She took some deep breaths to steady herself before she headed to the bathroom. After showering she made her way back down stairs and was relieved to see her father had left for the day. Her mother and sister were in the kitchen. After saying good morning and having some breakfast it was time to go.