Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
I can’t seem to help myself. When his memory gets invoked, I become a version of him. I turn into that violent troublemaker everyone in this damn pack expects to see when they look at me.
I got written off by teachers and pack elders by third grade. Like my dad, I struggled with my temper. The violence at home transferred to violence at school. I was already getting into trouble for fights in elementary school. I threw my book at a teacher for scolding Seb for something he hadn’t done. I held a kid upside down by his ankles until he apologized for pulling Casey Muchmore’s hair.
Everyone assumed I would become a little hoodlum, so I met their expectations. My teachers hated me, so I hated them. Or who’s to say which came first? Regardless, that’s why I was doing so poorly in school at the time Lotta made me her tutoring project. The school had put my name on a referral list for volunteer tutors, and she chose me.
She met with me three times a week. It took me a while to believe that she really wanted to help, but she persisted.
I wouldn’t say she was the first person who cared about me because my mom cared. My dad cared in his own way. Mrs. Angelson cared.
Lotta saw my potential where others saw rebellion. She was invested in my success. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she was beautiful. Sometimes it was hard to focus on her lessons because I was mesmerized by the shape of her bowtie lips as she spoke. By the jade glow of her eyes. But eventually, I repaid her attention by actually applying myself to my work, and she brought me from failing to As and Bs by the end of the semester.
Tonight when I slapped her ass and walked out the door, she said, “I’m expecting you to turn in that self-portrait, Asher. Don’t make me fail you.”
Part of me wanted to turn around and tell her to give me an A, or I’d tell the whole school we’re fucking, but I couldn’t. And the reason isn’t all based on honor.
It also seems to have something to do with this little painting of us.
The canvas does something to me. It produces a sense of fullness in my chest. A yearning. Maybe that’s the effect of art.
I can’t believe Lotta’s parents told her there’s no place for art in a pack. What are we, heathens? We can’t appreciate beauty or art? We just run around and eat, fuck, and reproduce and stay in our tightly-knit pack full of assholes? I don’t get it.
But I never did understand this life we lead here. I’ve always chafed against authority, against what they want me to do, against everything Wolf Ridge stands for.
I study all the detail she worked into such a tiny canvas. The background is familiar. She didn’t make it up. She must’ve painted by memory.
I realize I know the meadow in the painting. It’s an incredible hollow up in the mountains. Surrounded in all directions by tree-lined mountainsides, it’s a gorgeous open field that fills with wildflowers in the spring. It’s the perfect place to pitch a tent and camp. Or to paint. If I remember right, it’s far–a solid hour and a half run on four legs. And the only road that goes to it is an old bumpy Jeep trail–not fit for a car. I could get there on my motorcycle, though.
Something about this homage to me, or to our wolves, makes me actually want to do the assignment. Despite the fact that I shut down all communication, I still have this desire to express myself to her. To show what I am.
And it’s not the person I pretend to be. I’m not just the hell-raiser who will probably turn out to be a criminal like his father. The man who stole from the pack. But I did steal this necklace from the beautiful girl up the road.
I am also the guy who kept it all these years, bitter over her betrayal yet still obsessed. Still hoping there was some explanation for why she hurt me the way she did. Why she used what I told her in confidence against me and my family when she promised she wouldn’t.
My mom taps on my door and comes in. “Hey, honey.” There’s a frown between her brows. “I heard something today.”
I groan and sit up. This is the drawback of small towns and wolf packs. Moms hear things. Nothing is ever private.
I brace, instinctively knowing it’s going to be about Lotta.
She folds her arms over her chest. “I heard the fight you were in happened in Lotta James’ classroom. That she’s teaching art at the school now.”
Fuck. I rub my face. Guilt twists in my gut. My mom doesn’t know I’m the one who told Lotta about Dad stealing money from the pack, but she knows Lotta’s mom is on the council and was responsible for getting him banished.