"Jordan, I am a lot of things but I am not controlling, I am not depressed and most importantly I am not a baby. You come back here where do you think you are going!"
Gal was sure everyone near would hear her yelling and they might think she was yelling at someone of her age, but no! it was her hot-blooded kid brother who had sworn to always walk out of her whenever she was talking to him. It was as if every kid's mind was placed in his, he is hot-tempered, stubborn, and what he always loves to call himself 'crazy.'
He was her only sibling yet he made things so hard, especially whenever they were with other people. She wasn't wrong calling him an attention seeker but he always says it's better to call him crazy than an attention seeker.
After calling him well, technically yelling, he came back with his best friend Timothy and asked whether Gal was going to cuss at him, scolding him about attending the swimming practice which she was sure he wasn't listening to. She asked him to go out and wait for her. Gal thought of how Jordan and his friend Timothy always found ways of making her life a living hell, she was sure if Jordan was the eldest, he would ask her to kneel while talking to him.
His brother whispered to Timothy how he thought his sister was depressed or may be lonely, and seriously he wasn't far from the truth. They walked out and she could hear him cuss, the amount he cusses wasn't the same as she did, he was getting better at it as if at school he was learning how to cuss and being stubborn.
Gal was at the school's swimming pool thinking of ways she could make her brother stop attending this swimming practice, the yelling and the cussing were not working. If only it could be that easy, Jordan had the support of his best friend, the team, and the coaches.
She has been thinking of ways to scare the coach so has he can kick him out of the team except he is so sweet and the kids love him, and she was not that evil to make him go away. She had to wait for the other coach whom she heard was tough and understanding, the coach was new yet she had left as soon as she had arrived. Who else was she going to speak to other than her?
"That isn't a good way to speak to a kid." Someone said which nearly made her jump, she was busy with her thoughts that she forgot that she was supposed to get the bag and leave. There were so many kids, especially boys who always left their bags and wait for their parents to come and look for them, they didn't care that there was the locker room, the gym room most importantly carry their bags.
Turning around she couldn't believe the woman standing in front of her, why she was wearing a coach's uniform and why she was even there. The woman introduced herself as Sheryl, Jordan's coach. She was the coach Gal had been waiting for to explain to her so as she can stop her brother from practicing and even send him to the football team. Or the running team, any team as long as it was not the swimming team.
"Sheryl!" Gal exclaimed, she couldn't believe that Sheryl was standing next to her, the woman dared to introduce herself and even ask why she was being hard on Jordan. She wanted to explain how Jordan was supposed to be raised and Gal how unfair she thought Gal was being because she used to love to swim, Sheryl was having trouble talking and Gal knew it was from how hard she was looking at her, eyes blazing hot.
"You have to stop it I don't care how but you stop him. Don't ever talk to me again." Gal yelled at the woman, she always found herself yelling whenever she met the woman and she thank the moon goddess they only met once in a blue moon. Sheryl of course, won't listen and wanted to talk more about what happened on that day and say all about how Alpha Mia won't have accepted how Gal was yelling at her.
"Gal, is she talking about mum?" Jordan asked, he became tired of waiting for Gal outside, the look on his brother's face looked like someone who wanted to learn more about what was going on, curious as the kids of his age always were, but Gal wasn't going to start explaining to him who Alpha Mia was, she wasn't ready and she knew there was no way she was ever going to be. She asked Sheryl to make it be done in any way, and she didn't care how.
She didn't mean to be rude to the woman like that, Gal didn't expect her to find them, she was so sure she was doing a good job at hiding themselves after all they were with the Oceans Pack. At the Oceans Pack, no one knew anyone. No one cared about any other person apart from themselves and their families, the pack wasn't as close as any other pack would be. It was on a rare occasion that they even get the chance to see the Alpha and his family.
Sheryl had found them two years ago, she had tried to talk to Gal but Gal wasn't having any of that, she was busy screaming and yelling at the woman. She started telling Gal what happened that day of the horrible fate but she wouldn't listen. Gal knew Sheryl was lying, her mother Alpha Mia Ryder wouldn't have done what Sheryl said. Her mother was in love with her dad, everyone admired their love others were envious.
The last time Sheryl had found them, she and Jordan were with the humans minding their own business. Gal had found a small town where she was hundred percent sure no one knew her or their existence. It was her, and Jordan against the world. After Sheryl found them and started telling her how wrong she knew her mother Alpha Mia. Gal decided to run, again.
Gal knew for sure; her mother didn't cheat on her father.
What Sheryl was saying about her mother Alpha Mia Ryder were nothing but lies.
Even with her fourteen-year-old memory she still remembers how her mom's eyes shone brightly whenever her dad entered the room, her mother was the Alpha and everyone looked up to her. Gal remembered her father and how the pack members used to talk about him behind his back, that her mother married him and not the other way round. His dad didn't deserve all that backstabbing, he was kind, caring, sweet, and funny.
They were almost at the Oceans Pack house and she began thinking of what she was going to prepare for supper, even though they were staying in a pack house there was no eating together at one big table like a happy family, the parents didn't want that. That would bring confusion to the children, to make them think they were one happy pack, it was better to eat whatever you had with your parents or siblings.
"Sister, why are you always thinking?" Her brother asked her, on their way home he was calm and sweet even calling Gal, sister.
She just smiled at his brother and asked him what he was going to draw while she was making their supper. Jordan always drew and watched her sister while she cooked, well not all the time because Gal preferred to eat at her friend's place or order take-out. His brother's drawings always reminded her of her father, they were always, the river, the moon, or a lady and a man. Her father used to draw too, and his favorite subject was her mother.
Gal always wished she had known how to draw she could have had something to feel close to her father, but no as her mother used how to tell her, "Gal focus on your gift. Leave the drawings to your father." If only there was a time machine, she wished she could go back and learn even how to draw a butterfly, or a werewolf, or her parents, even her siblings.
Arriving at the pack house she greeted some women she found in the sitting room and went to hers and Jordan's room. As soon as they arrived, her brother ran to the bathroom to take a shower while she was cleaning the room then came back with his drawing book and started drawing as she washed the vegetables for supper. It was their routine and she loved it.
She didn't want anything to break that routine, it was their normalcy and they were comfortable with it. Her brother had found a best friend and a school he loved, the last thing he wanted was to be moved to another school, again.
Gal stared at her brother sleeping and she knew even if she had to use every means possible to make Sheryl go away, she would. Or maybe hide her under her bed and feed her there, just any possible way.
"Why did he have to choose swimming out of all sports at school?" Gal asked herself that question and seemed like it was the only question she kept asking herself before going to sleep. Why swimming?