For Starting Over

One foot in front of the other

Graduation. I went. I shook hands.

June. I sat in the sun. I tanned.

July. I sat in the shade. I daydreamed.

Then came August…

Mom helped me pack up my little blue hand-me-down sedan. It wasn’t fancy, but it was only 5 years old and it had a nice digital dashboard. I tried to smile in the pictures she took, wearing my college t-shirt, pointing to the plastic bins of clothes in the trunk.

This was my next thing to do… just one more thing to do… I had gotten the fresh haircut, gotten some new clothes and shoes, nervously ordered my laptop, and tried to start thinking of myself as a College Student.

As I drove the two hours to Wolverton State, I tried to check on my wolf again. I had noticed a few glimpses of her during the summer… shadows really. She had poked her nose out when Mom and I went to the lake for the weekend. She had growled when the intern with the big white teeth at the car dealership had checked out my body while his boss signed the paperwork with Mom and me. She had been a little happy and excited when the college haircut had turned out really cute… an angled bob at my shoulders that framed my face and looked a little more grown up. But still she didn’t speak to me and she didn’t want me to phase. She was guarding some broken place inside that even I couldn’t fully understand.

-So we are going to college..

I started, she poked her head into my thoughts, so I continued,

-Lots of new exciting experiences, and places, thing to learn, and people…

She seemed to relax a bit,

-I bet we will meet wolves from all over the world. We did get into the best university for wolves in the country.

I could feel her strike a proud pose before relaxing again.

-We need to pick a major… undecided is only good for 4 weeks. I am thinking… international relations.

Her head perked up. She liked that. Good.

-I liked Spanish in high school, maybe we could minor in it?

She huffed a bit, true… mostly I liked the teacher and the cultural things, the language but had been an absolute struggle.

-Yeah, maybe not.

She huffed again but seemed to find a comfortable place in my thoughts for once.

- Did you think about what Dr Wilson said? About the mate and the over writing the bond… Do you think he’s going to be at Wolverton?

My wolf whined a bit, obviously this line of thought brought discomfort. I decided to poke around a bit more, like poking a new bruise to figure out how big it would swell to be.

-A mate is supposed to heal in some way… make us hurt less. It wouldn’t be so lonely for you.

She whined but didn’t leave so I kept on,

- What if our mate is like… exotic?!

A barking laugh came then, surprising me with the sound. I ran through some wolf profiles in my mind…

The shorter, brown skinned wolves with the deep chocolate eyes from Latin America… their muscles thick and their faces always full of good humor and teasing. My heart skipped thinking about their passion and vivaciousness… how would that translate in a kiss?

The very tall, thin wolves from Eastern Africa, their skin so dark it was nearly blue or purple, long legs with taunt lean muscles… the fastest wolves in the world. Surely that athleticism and endurance would make some… intimate activities… very interesting.

The pale, tall, blond Scandinavian wolves, all their color paled and muted… white blond hair, ice blue eyes, pale pink lips. Always so polite and refined, but not expressive or excitable. They seemed to know the best way to do everything… I’m sure anything they wanted to perfect to a science would be… even if the pursuit was purely pleasure.

My wolf snorted at my sweeping generalizations and reminded me that there were also tall wolves from Southern America and flaming red heads from the Northern Isles. I chuckled at her and felt a weight lifted from my tensed shoulders. Perhaps I was going to be okay after all. Perhaps I would recover and move on… one little step at a time.