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The change rooms were busy with girls hurrying back and forth, either getting into or changing out of swimsuits. I managed to navigate my way to a stall without getting knocked into, but it was hard, especially when Cherry and Honey decided it'd be fun to block my way. I just stopped, stared them down, and after a few uncomfortable moments, they turned their noses up and stalked off, practically bristling from head to tail. I counted that as a win.
Getting back to my locker was even more of a trial, and when Cherry nudged Honey, no doubt to try again, I scurried past before they had another chance to try and block my way, and I shut my locker door with a bit more force than usual. 'Don't let them bother you,' Gambit advised me. 'They're a certain word for females I won't repeat in polite company, but they're toothless in every way.'
Cherry and Honey had the misfortune to be born without wolves, but they were as catty and arrogant as if they had full use of their werewolf abilities. To make up for their lack, they'd formed a tight-knit clique which included my younger sister Faith, and they were known throughout the school for getting into all sorts of mischief. No one could touch them - Cherry and Honey's father was the alpha of the Red Whistler pack, and he had the money and influence to overturn any punishments handed out to his daughters. Mine and Faith's father was exactly the same, and as I left the change room, I felt a moment's sting of deep hurt.
Faith was everything I wasn't - beautiful, smart, popular and the heir to my father's title. I was average in every way, and even Gambit came in for some harsh criticism from the rest of my pack. She'd been born a runt, and while the other wolves in my pack were kind to her, their humans weren't, and took every opportunity to talk her and me down. It hurt to be criticised so harshly, but I'd learned early on to just disappear into the background, and nine times out of ten, it worked. No one noticed me unless I happened to get in their way, and then I was remembered and vilified. Father in particular liked to take out his frustrations on me if I got in his way, and more than once child services had called around whenever someone at school saw the fresh bruises on my arms. Father, however, had the consummate skills of a born actor, and he always spun a woeful tale of how I'd managed to walk into a door, or fall over a chair, or chip a tooth on a too-hard cookie.
Child services, however, were starting to give him the hairy eyeball whenever they came around, which made him get more creative whenever I crossed his path - the abuse now turned emotional and psychological, and sometimes I wished he'd go back to hitting me with his belt, or striking me across the face. To be called useless, worthless, and so on, hurt ten times more than the physical abuse. To this day, I had no clue as to why I was treated so harshly.95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5oAqpSOvlM
I did suspect, though, that Faith was simply more to his liking as a daughter. She loved all things frilly, pink and feminine, while I was a tomboy. Faith loved the fine arts, while I preferred to get my hands dirty working on motorbikes and cars. Faith was never without a bevy of handsome males around her, while I hung out with maybe one or two males, both of whom treated me like I was one of them, barring the necessary bits that would have completed the picture.
And lastly, Faith was drop-dead gorgeous, and she knew how to use her looks to her advantage. I was your regular Jane - tall, mousy-brown hair, muddy hazel eyes, and practically no boobs to speak of. And I wasn't terribly interested in boys, or sex. Mother had tried turning me into a frilly doll, but when I'd put up more than one fight, she'd given up and left me to my own devices. Then Faith had come along when I was three, and Mother got her perfect porcelain doll after all.
"Hey!"
I snapped out of my reverie to see Coach Jo watching me with concern. "You okay there?" he asked.
I nodded. "Just spacing out," I told him, dropping my towel on one of the bleachers.
Coach Jo didn't look like he believed me, but he let it go. "Ready for practice?"
"Oh yes," I said, and I meant it. Both Faith and I loved to swim - the one thing we had in common, though it didn't bring us any closer - but while Faith loved doing butterfly stroke, I preferred the dolphin stroke, and to dive deep underwater to see how long I could go before having to come up for air. 95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEFo1UH5wAL
It was, in essence, the one true pleasure I had, and it was something no one could take away from me.
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