It is the smell of the salty ocean water that propels me to the cliffs edge. I rarely jump off of it unless I am with the company of the pack, who enjoy doing flips and acting reckless. Normally I just sit, much like right now, and think about important things.

It is nearly impossible to get peace now because of everything that is going on around me. I have a brother who is always home and constantly asking questions I don't want to answer. I love him more than anything, but talking about my feelings is too hard for me. My mother runs around the house smiling and laughing about all the happy things that are happening for her, and telling me to have a better attitude about life. She has Charlie now, a nice man but not in any comparison to my late father, to keep her in a good mood. She is also cherishing the wedding announcement of my cousin, Emily. Emily's mother, my aunt is not the greatest mother figure and lives nearly two hours away, so my mom felt it was necessary to step in. Ever since Emily decided to reside here permanently, my mother has taken the liberty to unofficially adopt her, with no consideration towards how I may feel.

Home is hard enough. I spend half of my time in my room, lying face up in my bed and staring at the ceiling; I used to have posters up there but now the walls are bare. The other half of my time, I spend in the woods or elsewhere on the rez, away from people. I enjoy my privacy and sadly I have very little of it. The pack tries to be polite with their thoughts when I am phased but they aren't very good about it. I do my job, stay silent, and obey the alpha command, no matter how much it bothers me. Staying bitchy and loud didn't get me very far before.

I had plenty of reasons to act up. Sam had left me for Emily—my best friend—and chose to tell me last, I became the first girl to phase along side my brother, and my father had died of a heart attack (some will blame the last one on me since my phasing was the last thing he witnessed while conscious). The way I saw it, bitchiness was the only reasonable solution to my problems.

It stopped working and complaining lost its effectiveness. The boys stopped listening to my griping and started blocking me out. The names they made up for me were unoriginal but still left a sting. They hated me; I could just tell. They thought I was insensitive because I was unable to cry for my father or for Sam, at least not publicly. I didn't let them see the private side of me, which felt hurt and betrayed, and chose to transfer my pain into physical violence and verbal abuse.

Sam started giving me the patrols on the graveyard shift, when no one else was phased, so that they wouldn't have to listen to my thoughts. He gave me fewer duties than anyone else—I couldn't tell if that was because I was the only girl, or because he felt guilty and couldn't stand to see me either. He didn't speak to me, but I preferred it that way. When he had confronted me about his imprint I had told him I never wanted him to speak to me again; he was simply obeying my request. The only time we exchanged words were through the pack mind and the words were a small number of emotionless statements.

I could hide the feelings I had about him when we were phased. He was pretty good at it too, but sometimes a comparison between Emily and I would slip and I would have to phase in order to dodge it. He didn't give a rat's ass about me, or what we used to be; if he did I would never know because he was good at hiding his feelings around me.

The cliffs were the only place I could go where I was silent. I had run here, on foot, and walked the rocky path to the cliff. I was seated, dangling my running shoes over the edge of the rocks, leaning back on my elbows. It was silent and perfect, with no one to bother me.

I was now suffering from the lack of food in my system. I hadn't eaten in twelve hours, eating less often now that I was in a sour mood all the time. Somehow I thought that if I stopped eating or threw up more, that I could miraculously alter the way I saw myself. I hate the way I look. I used to be beautiful and full of life, with glowing cheeks and perfectly maintained hair; now I was cut up, beaten, and hungry. My hair was limp, sad, and the clothes I wore were colorless, hanging loosely off my body. The changes in my appearance were as obvious as my mood, both dulling and weakening as the weeks got closer and closer to the end…

The end of what?

My previous life with Sam.

He was getting married in a couple of weeks and then everything we had together would be over and done with. There would cease to be a Sam and Leah, and future memories would only remember Sam and Emily.

My first phase was initiated by the conversation between Sam and I, when he confronted me about Emily. I just lost it. I was hurt and betrayed when I found out about the imprint. I wanted to hit Sam and Emily, and then I wanted to hit myself just so that there would be someone to blame, but there wasn't. That was the worst part about this whole thing. I couldn't point my finger at anyone because the imprint was 'destiny' and 'chosen by fate'.

I burnt all the pictures of us and threw his clothes—the ones I hid in the bottom drawer for when he spent the night—out the window, into the mud. I was sad and bitter, refusing to talk to my family and friends. I resorted to cutting myself, and drinking large amounts of hard alcohol at parties, but stopped when they no longer had the same effect on me. With the werewolf genes, it's harder to get the same results, the alcohol burns off faster and wounds stop bleeding earlier. Although the release was less intense than for a human, I still got something out of it. It was always over too soon, once the blood stopped running and the skin closed, but I still had the scars. They were hidden under my sleeves, on the inside of my upper arm. With the weather, sleeves were common, and they didn't show under my fur when I was a wolf.

It was only when Emily over, came to hand my mother and Seth her and Sam's wedding invitation, that I stopped feeling angry and started crying; all day long, until my eyes were red and out of tears.

She had the nerve to ask for me at the door, she said she wanted to speak to me and apologize. I wouldn't have it. I hid in my room, backed up against the locked door, and cried until I heard the truck pull out of the drive.

In an act of desperation I crawled to my closet and pulled out the dreaded pink box. It was hidden underneath old shoeboxes and bags of clothes. I had avoided this box as much as possible, the past couple of weeks, afraid that it would be my ultimate cessation.

I jerked it out from under the junk and clutched it to my chest. I had hidden everything I couldn't bear to burn, inside this weak box. I peeled off the lid and looked inside. Homecoming tickets, photos of us on the beach kissing, the first note he passed me during my freshman year, a stuffed animal he bought me when I broke my arm, assorted birthday and Christmas cards I had saved, and his chain with a gold L and S, which he had left on my dresser so long ago. I smiled at these memories, remembering why each item was so special to me and how important it was to keep them.

I was thrown from my day dreaming when out of the corner of my eye, I found the black velvet box; I wished I could forget about. I clutched it in my fingers and pried it open. Inside was the small, gold band with a single circular diamond in the middle. It was the ring that Sam had given me the night he proposed. He knew that we were still too young to get married, but he promised that as soon as I was out of school, he would make me the happiest woman in the world. He had promised me a lot that night, a house we could live in, a future filled with children and grandchildren, and most importantly his love. Of course I had accepted, how could I not when I loved him so much.

We never got to keep those promises.