Thanks to everyone that reviewed! If I cannot email you a response it will go on the top here.

Comments:

Guest: Oh gosh all those questions for me lol. You don't have an account so I can't message you all of them. You will find out what happened to Ara's mom, and Ara's reaction to Seth too. Her dad has already accepted that his wife died by an animal attack. Ara isn't going to tell him about Seth because being a shifter is kept a secret. The only thing I don't have is more of a back story to her grandma. After I first read your review I thought I might do a one-shot on her, but then I decided I should sneak a chapter with her POV before chapter 11. So now the story is officially 12 chapters long. I hope you like that chapter. It's for you!


Throughout our whole friendship I had somehow managed to avoid meeting Seth's friends. I'll admit it, I'm terrified of them. They're so big and overwhelming, with no concept of personal space whatsoever. I worry so much about meeting them and then having a panic attack it's not funny.

"You can't avoid them forever," Seth counters.

"No, but I can try." I'd figured out very soon in our friendship that if I pushed hard enough I would always get my way. But this time Seth was not budging.

"Look, why don't you meet them all at the bonfire. Old Billy will repeat all the legends. It will be fun. We can roast marshmallows and stuff," he pleads, reaching over the table to grab my hand. We haven't done anything other than than hold hands. In fact, I'm not sure if Seth means it in any romantic sort of way at all. He never mentioned wanting to be in a relationship again after that first day.

But I mean it.

"I already know all the legends." My grandmother had made sure of that. Her granddaughter may not know the language and barely know the culture, but at least she can say I know all the legends.

"All of them?" he stresses.

"Yes."

"Even the one about Dask'iya?" He pauses for a moment. "About the third wife?"

"Yep, and is Daskiya even a legend? I thought it was just a tale to scare kids with."

"Your accent is horrible." A teasing smile is on his face and I roll my eyes. "Kind of, I mean a legend can be a child's tale too."

I remember my dad used to tell me about Dask'iya when I was little. He told me if I didn't behave an ogress would put me in her basket and carry me to her cave where she eats all the bad little kids that she's collected. I always laughed at him when he told me that story, but still listened when I was younger out of paranoia.

"Have you heard about our Spirit Warriors?" His voice becomes soft. "About imprinting."

I give him an odd look. "Of course, grandma always makes sure to tell me that one whenever I'm over for some reason." She was oddly insistent about it, and stressed certain parts of the story trying to imply something I didn't quite understand.

I notice his hand is shaking and give him a worried glance. "Are you okay Seth? What's wrong?"

He sends a wobbly smile my way, his eyes serious. "Do you trust me?"

The question leaves me with an unsettled feeling. I know some part of me doesn't, the part that still feels like this is all a joke to him. He's never given me a reason to doubt him, but he's just too good to be true. I mean, even if he was ugly and malformed and looked like some kind of rodent I would be lucky to have him.

He never talks badly about anybody, even when they really deserve it. Whenever his friends need him he's always there. He gives so much, and never ask for anything in return.

I really do want to trust me, but he's just too good to be true.

"I trust you a lot," I decide on.

His face falls, reading between the lines. "But you don't trust me completely." Seth breaths out loud, rubbing a cheek with his hand. His eyes settle on mine, a daring look to them. "Tell me your deepest secret, and I'll tell mine. It has to be something good though," he bargains.

I grimace, turning away from him. I can't tell him that, because my biggest secret is my mother's death. No sane person would believe me. My dad doesn't even believe me.

"Oh come on Ara, you can do this."

I give him a small, timid smile. Grandma's right. My name should be Shipaya'wa. "You go first."

He shakes his head, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back. "I have a big secret. Do you?"

"Yes," I say immediately. His can't be bigger than mine.

He frowns. "Why don't you trust me? Have I done anything?"

"You've done too much," I whisper. "Been too kind and understanding." I pull my hand out of his, uncomfortable with the conversation. But Seth places it back in his stubbornly.

"Let's get this straight. You don't trust me because I'm too nice?" Well when you put it that way I sound like a jerk. "Ara… I'm really trying. Really, really trying. I want you to be happy, I want you to feel safe. But it's like no matter how hard I try it doesn't matter."

Immediately I feel horrible, because I'm making what I view as one of the greatest people in the world miserable. "I'm sorry. Okay, I'll trust you. What do you want me to do?"

He appears hopeful. "Tell me your secret."

"My… secret?" I pronounce hesitantly. "My secret is, is that I'm crazy." I nibble on my bottom lip and stare at the ground. I can't look at him right now. A hand tugs my chin up. I fight it at first, but give in. Seth stares into my eyes.

"Ara you may be a few things, but you're not crazy. Why would you think you're crazy?"

Seth has put up with a lot of stuff with me. He always keeps a level head and manages to calm me down. Maybe this is it. Maybe telling him this is my last protective wall I have against him.

"My mom is dead," I finally whisper. At his confused expression I answer, "And no, I'm not saying that is what makes me crazy. What makes me crazy is I saw it, I was there. My mom, she was murdered." He already knew my mom was dead, but when he noticed it was a touchy subject he left it alone.

"I'm so sorry Ara," he whispers. "I-" He hesitates, clutching my hand harder and getting closer to me. I take a shaky breath in, an awkward laugh coming out of my throat.

"My therapist has been telling me that seeing what I saw was some form of protective mechanism. Either that or I didn't see the animal properly. But I saw it! I looked straight into its eyes," I say wildly. I begin to quiet down soon after, staring down at my hands folded in my lap. "But after all this time I'm beginning to wonder if everyone is right. Maybe my brain made something up and something even worse happened. I don't know."

He doesn't say anything, only rubs my back and watches me with a worried expression.

"Some kind of wolf ate her, killed her. It didn't look normal. It was a lot bigger than your average wolf." I glance at him to gauge his reaction, but it's not what I'm expecting. His face has closed off, the expression on his face hard to read and a seriousness about his movements that puts me on edge.

It makes me regret telling him.

"A large wolf?" he repeats in a business sort of tone.

"Yes," I sigh. "A wolf, only bigger. It didn't look right though. The limbs were almost stretched out, thinner than normal," I mutter as an after though. Abruptly he stands up, pacing in front of me. I stare at him feeling pitiful, because this certainly feels like rejection.

"Ara I have to go," he mutters. It's all he says before leaving me alone at the beach, sitting on a picnic bench with the breeze on my back.

Life suddenly feels a lot colder.


"You say your mother always made the family decisions?" he repeats. I don't know why but somehow this always comes up in my therapy sessions.

"Yes, I've told you this like five times already," I grumble out annoyed.

"How did you feel about that?"

"I don't know," I shrug. "It's just the way things were."

"You never felt… angry?" His question has me jumping in surprise, staring him in the eye for the first time since we began this session.

I don't like the look on his face.

"Why?" I sound defensive.

"Because," he says, dragging his pencil down his clip board reviewing his notes. "You have basically told me that she controlled everything in your life. You were never allowed to cut your hair, not even if you begged. You weren't allowed to ask for seconds when it came to food, only if she said you could. Talks with your father has told me that you've always been a very obedient child, and your mother always was the discipliner in the family. You weren't allowed to wander, expected to always stay by her side unless she said otherwise."

"She was trying to protect me," I defend. "The places we go aren't like here. Things can be dangerous. Why are you trying to make my mother out to be a bad person? She's good, better than I'll ever be," I defend. He's gone too far with attacking my mother.

"I'm not saying she was a bad person," he says softly. "I'm saying she had all the control, and you had none."

"Aren't children supposed to be obedient? I was doing like my mother asked!" I rage. I've never been a violent person, but I really want to hit him. I've been having a bad week. Seth has been gone all week, he doesn't even turn up for school. I even sucked it up and asked one of his friends about him, but I never got a straight answer. Dad left to Guatemala for a dig three days ago, and grandma is wrapped up in tribal stuff. I'm all alone and I have no one and I come here and this man is attacking the one great thing in my life.

I march up to him, pointing my hand in his face furiously. "My mother was a great person, better than you'll ever be!" I spit viciously. He calmly puts his clip board down, grabbing my hand and placing it at my side with such composure that I'm too surprised to do anything.

"I don't deny that. Anyone that knew her always says the same."

"My mother never abused me, she's never even hit me before."

"I know, you've told me before," he says in that calm, even tone.

"Then why would you think that!" I cross my arms on my chest, glaring at him. "Let me see the clip board. I want to see the clip board," I demand.

He picks it up, unruffled, and hands it over to me. I turn around and walk to the edge of the room, ready to read all the secrets he's written about me. As I go on I begin to have trouble breathing. At first I'm in denial, but the further I get into it I realize there's a truth to each statement.

Ara is having trouble adjusting.

Ara has depended on numbers since childhood.

Ara began her counting for control?

Ara stopped being angry about having no decisions around seven and shortly started counting numbers afterwards.

Whenever Ara's mother asked her to do something she would start to count.

Ara's OCD started out of a need to control her life.

The last line is underlined and circled, written in bold. I take a shaky breath in, feeling the need to count again.

"One. Two. Three. Four," I whisper in an unstable voice, slightly hysterical. When I'm calm enough to turn around I do, slowly bringing my gaze up to his. His eyes show understanding. I don't want it.

"I love my mom," I repeat. "She was a very good person."

"Yes," he agrees. "She was."

"Then why are you saying I'm crazy because of her? She didn't mentally or physically scar me! Every night when I was little she tucked me in and placed a kiss on my forehead! She'd read to me until I fell asleep! She held me in her arms and let me sleep with her whenever there was a thunderstorm because I was scared! Sometimes she gave her meal to the poor, deciding to starve that day so that the little child she gave it to could have a real meal for once. My mom isn't some horrible person like you're making her out to be! " My voice breaks on the last part and a wave of tears fall down my face. I say all this hoping to prove him wrong, but it just makes me feel desperate in the end. Before I even know what I'm doing I am sobbing on the floor, gently rocking myself back and forth. A hand places itself on my back, his hand. I look up through watery eyes to stare at him.

"Your mother was a great woman. I know just like you that everything she did was out of love and to protect you. I think you knew that too, which is why you always listened." I sniffle, wiping my nose with a hand. He reaches over to give me a tissue and I grab it. "Your mother did everything to protect you. I asked your father about the hair thing once and he explained. Some cultures view woman with short hair as disgraced. They would treat you differently than they would a woman with long hair. That was why she didn't allow you to cut your hair. She made sure you didn't wander off because she knew if she did she would never see you again, so she held onto you with an iron fist and made sure you knew to never leave her side. Everything your mother did was with love. This doesn't make you bad either. You had no control and you wanted some. That's normal. Everyone wants a little control. Even if you didn't realize it, counting was your form of control."

"Then why did it get so bad when my mother died? Wouldn't it of gotten better? There would be no one there to control me," I deny.

"Ara, I think that moment was the least amount of control you've ever had in your life," he says passionately. It's the first time I've ever seen him with any real type of emotion, and it takes me aback. "That was all that it took to push you from the precipice. You were healthy before, you just had a little quirk with numbers. I think if that attack had never happened you would not have gotten this bad. Sometimes all it takes is one moment, one little push, and then you lose that ledge."

I stay quiet, thinking about his words. "How do I find the ledge again?" My voice is pitiful, childlike and unsure.

"Slowly, steadily, calmly. You cannot rush it. Take control of things. Tell your dad you want bacon instead of toast. Walk on side of the street you want. Now I'm not telling you to disregard everyone, I'm just saying don't be afraid to tell people what you want."

We sit in silent, only my sniffling filling the air.

"Dr. Rolph, I don't take my medicine. My mother always said medicine was bad for you," I admit.

To my surprise he laughs, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Well Ara, I can definitely say I'm not too surprised about that."