I sat up in bed, suddenly fully awake. The alarm clock said 3am. 'Even though I still have nightmares of my mom abandoning me, at least they don't hurt me and effect me as bad anymore.' I thought. 'I thought individual therapy was a load of crap, but I can't deny anymore that it has helped. Everyone has noticed how much more relaxed I am in general after participating in that anxiety group.'
By now my heart rate and breathing had calmed. 'Gosh, I am tired!' I thought as I lay back down and pulled the blankets closer. Sleep closed in quickly.
[7am]
I yawned, stretched and turned off the alarm. I used the bathroom and got dressed and ready for the day, before I walked down the hall and knocked sharply on Kyle's bedroom door.
"Hey, Kyle!" I called through the door, "You awake?"
"Yeah!" came his half-asleep voice.
"Alright, I'll take your word for it!" I called, then went downstairs to the kitchen.
"Hey, good morning, Sam." Kyle's mom, Cindy, said warmly.
"Good morning, Mother." I said with a smile.
While she would never replace my biological mom, I had a good relationship with Cindy. Her family had been so good to me. They had cared enough to go through the whole formality of the legal process, had fostered me here until the adoption became official. My new adoptive parents loved me, and I loved them. I could never call Cindy 'Mom', like I did with my biological Mom, it felt wrong. I decided to call her 'Mother' because she legally was, she treated me like I was her daughter, and I thought it showed her more respect than 'mommy' would.
"Where are we at? What can I help with?" I asked her, gesturing to the half-prepared breakfast.
Every Saturday morning, we all had breakfast together as a family.
"If you can set the table and take what I have ready into the dining room, that would be great." Cindy said.
I grabbed a stack of plates, napkins and cutlery. "Where is Kelly?" I asked. "She's awake, right?"
"Yep." Cindy confirmed. "She's reading in the living room."
I took the things and placed them at the table. "Good morning, Kelly!" I called to my adoptive sister, as I passed the doorway of the living room.
She said nothing but kept her nose in her book and simply waved at me.
I smiled. Kelly was Cindy's oldest child she was in university and took education way more seriously than the rest of us combined. No one had any doubt, she would go far.
"Good morning, Father." I said as I entered the dining room. He was opening the curtains and letting the sunlight in through the sliding glass door that led out to the back deck.
"Good morning!" He returned cheerily. "Have you seen this?" He pointed to the newspaper in his left hand.
It was a newspaper run by werewolves, and he was pointing to the headline article. I moved closer to get a closer look.
"They finally caught some kidnapper after like 16 years? Geez, took them long enough!"
"But this is a big deal!" He said. "She was a really elusive woman, the fact that she managed to kidnap the two-year-old daughter of the only remaining royal shapeshifter bloodline, was a feat in and of itself. Horrible, but she was very good at planning. I'm sure it gives the family some amount of closure though."
"Closure, is the girl dead? Eighteen years old is a really young age to die at."
Father flipped to the inner page, where the article continued. "Hmm. Says here that she claims the girl was murdered by werewolves, but that sounds like a cover-up for the fact that the woman doesn't want anyone to find out she killed the girl herself."
"Sam!" I heard Mother's voice calling me from the kitchen.
"Oh. I gotta go." I told Father as I quickly set the items on the table and left the dining room.
"Coming!" I called to her as I walked down the hallway.
Kyle smiled at me as he exited the kitchen carrying a big bowl of cut up fruit and the milk jug.
Between Mother and I we carried the rest of breakfast to the dining room, calling Kelly to breakfast as we passed her.
When we were all seated at the table, we mostly ate, more than talked. Everyone was hungry. Near the end of the meal though, we got to discussing the family business. Kyle had some ideas for changes and Father thought they might not work.
The family business was in the wood working sector, they created furniture, both indoor and outdoor, as well as doing smaller scale wooden carvings. Kyle, being a year older than me had graduated and feeling not sure what to do in life, decided to work for a year in the family business.
Feeling disinterested in where the conversation was going and finished my breakfast, I took both my and Mother's dirty dishes to the sink. I started washing dishes, thinking I may have to text Serina and tell her we would be late meeting her.
Kyle and I had plans to meet Serina and drive to the mall in the closest city to us. It was almost an hour's drive away.
Just then, my phone rang, it was Serina calling. I dried my hands and answered it. I told her we might be a bit late picking her up, but I would text her the moment we left here.
Mother came in and told me she and Kelly would do the rest and that Kyle and I should go meet Serina.
"Thanks!" I said.
"No problem." Mother said, "Besides, it's better to separate those two Alphas before they start actually butting heads."
I smiled, before I went to the dining room.
"Alright." I said interrupting their discussion, "Time to go, Kyle! Part of being a responsible adult is meeting people on time."
Father actually chuckled at that.
"Sorry, Father. Kyle will have to come with me, he made a commitment on his day off that he needs to keep." I pulled on Kyle's arm for emphasis.
"We can talk later." Kyle told him, as I continued to pester him.
We exited the room and went up the stairs; him to finish getting ready, and myself to find my purse and a pair of low-heeled boots.
As I sat on the edge of my bed, I thought about how much a person could change in a year; about how much I changed in a year. Not only did I do some growing up, I did some healing and building parts of me that were never strong in the first place. The most important changes were that I now had a set of tools I could use to combat and prevent my anxiety, and I had some level of self-worth, self-love and self-esteem, that were pretty much non-existent before. As I changed and the way I viewed the world changed, so did my expression of who I was. I didn't need to wear baggy men's zip up sweaters to hide myself from the world. They were comfy, and I could choose to wear them, but I didn't feel I needed to wear them. At the same time, I could wear women's clothes and not feel like I was walking around in front of a crowd of people wearing a bikini. Still, there were a lot of pieces of women's clothes I wouldn't wear, because I simply didn't like them. I would never be a sparkling, walking piece of pink taffeta.
"Sam?" A voice called…