"It's All a Lie"

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There are certain points in everyone’s life that stands out. Points that you can look back on and say that, that moment changed you in some way. I had a few moments in my life like that. The day I found out I was a shifter is one of them. I was 13 when my mother sat me down to explain why my nails had grown to claws when I got into a fight with my little sister, Faith. I scratched her badly down her arm without meaning to. Honestly, how are we supposed to even begin to control ourselves when we don’t even know what we are? Three of my claws hit their target and she needed stitches. I was disgusted with myself after that. My little sister is only two years younger than I am and a major pain in my ass but I would never want to seriously hurt her. It was also when I learned the wicked webs that we weave when we begin to lie. Not just lie to everyone on the outside either. When you lie to family, the people that you see day in and day out,the deception is hard to keep up. When mom sat me down to explain what I was, she also informed that most everything I believed was a lie as well. There are shifter villages, they’re outside towns and cities so that they’re a part of civilization but also far enough away that the secret is safe and they can be themselves. Apparently my mom lived in Wolf’s End, it lay between Lafayette and Lake Martin, Louisiana. It was perfect because it took just over ten minutes to get to either place and it didn’t make those that lived in the village feel trapped. On one of my mom’s trips to Lake Martin, she met my dad. If you listen to her side of the story, it was love at first sight. I’m not sure because that’s about where I tuned out. At thirteen, mushy stuff just didn’t hold my interest. I still thought of boys as the devil and nothing was going to change my mind. I tuned back in to her story in time to hear that the man that she was married to, the one I called dad and cried at his funeral was not my father. Yes, she met him at Lake Martin and yes she loved him with all her heart and soul…but he did not father me. You can imagine this was all extremely hard to take in. My sister was laying upstairs, out of it from pain meds and I was downstairs at the dining room table listening to my world crumble around me. Yet I had to go to school the next day and act like I was normal, just like everyone else. The problem with that was, I was kind of a nerd. I was an introvert that loved to read and keep to myself. My fashion sense ended at t-shirts and jeans. My raven black hair was only to my shoulders and frizzed out no matter what I did, so I looked like I had a cotton ball on top of my head most days. I was the prime target to get picked on and no one missed a chance to do so. That was when we found out that I had my father’s temper. I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t meant as a compliment and after a week of my mom trying to help me control myself, she decided to uproot us and move back to Wolf’s End. What was I supposed to say after she made that choice? I know that she had talked to Faith at some point to explain to her everything she explained to me. To look at her, you wouldn’t realize it though. Faith took everything in stride and rolled with it. Sometimes I envied my little sister. I remember when we were supposed to be packing for the move and we took a break while mom ran out and got some more boxes. We popped in one of the Pokemon movies we loved so much and laid on the floor with a bowl of popcorn in our room. “Why aren’t you freaked out…like at all?” I had asked her. She looked over at me and looked genuinely confused. “Why should I be freaked out? The thought of our past being a lie doesn’t thrill me but I get why mom lied.” “Yeah but it’s not just that. You’re not freaked about me? About what we are?” Faith smiled from ear to ear at that, her violet eyes sparkled. “Nah, this is totally awesome. I mean, once we learn to control it anyway. I don’t want to accidentally hurt someone but I could defend myself better if needed or I don’t know do almost anything.” At the time, I wished I had her enthusiasm but all I felt was numb. Everything had been a lie, we have this whole new side to us that we have to learn about and try to control, plus we have to move back to mom’s old village. Granted that last part couldn’t be as bad as I had it here but still. “I wish I had just a quarter of your excitement.” With that we just went back to watching the movie. There really wasn’t anything to say after, that would make me feel even an inkling better. All I could hope was that once we got there, things would be better. They just had to be better.