Anything for you.

Six thousand six hundred and fifty seven.  I have waited 6,657 days for this day. And a good day it is. The hairs on my arms flaring up every time I thought about it, and today I was constantly thinking about it. I’m 18. I can leave. I can finally get hell out of that dungeon and feel what I’ve never felt before. Safe. Anywhere is better than that house.  “Excited?” Alex asked me. He was the only person I could call a friend in my 18 years of living. Both of us have grown together in the orphanage. Alex came when he was 4, and I was 7 at the time. The kids were cruel, as always, trying to act the best to get adopted by the families that came to the house, so I took him under my wing and out of trouble. It’s fair to say that it is impossible for a teenager to get adopted, no adults wanted to dive into the deep end of patently by going straight to the teen stage. Although I was sent there at the age of 2 years old, I’ve never found a home. Forster families always sent me back, whether it be my personality, my looks or my aura, they always sent me back. No one wanted the ugly duckling over the beautiful swans to be.  “That’s an understatement.”  I couldn’t wait. I’d packed my bags days ago, knowing that on this day, my 18th birthday, I would be out of here within minutes. No sorrow, no goodbyes. Well, I’ll definitely miss Alex, and I’d have to try visit him as much as I could. “Two more years and I’ll be out of here too, you best not leave the country without me!” Alex joked, he knew the plan. I would try my hardest to become a working adult and find us an apartment to live in together. I had two years, 3 months and 9 days before he turned 18, and I was preying to god or anyone up there to help us. Help us live, to work and get money, to be able to buy food and pay rent. I knew it was going to be a struggle. The orphanage had a teacher that came 4 days of the week to teach, though us teens only had 3 hours out of the 9 he was there due to him having to also teach three different age groups. I had common knowledge, simple maths, English, a little about science, but my favourite was always art. In our free time I was always sat in my room huddled over the desk painting or sketching anything that came to mind. The changing of the seasons, colours fading into new ones. The ripple of the pond water in the wind just by the house. All that detail, people missed it, or didn’t care to much for it. I adored it. Capturing a split second, all the motions, the colours, the emotions, all in one picture. That was my dream. To travel as far as the world would let me, and capture every moment in a picture, holding it forever a memory to be seen again.  “Don’t you worry one bit, we’ll be together again in no time!”  With one last hug, I picked up my bag and headed down the stairs. This is it. To say I was nervous was an understatement, I had no idea what I was going to do, where I was going to go, but I had make sure Alex wouldn’t worry. I could do it. I’d find us a home, somewhere for us to be safe and happy.  “Be safe, Cassie!”  And with that last wave goodbye, I was free.                              ************************* Two thousand nine hundred and fifty nine.  2,959 days I’d waited waited for this day. Her birthday. The girl I’ve waited so long for. My Cassandra. After our brief meeting, I knew she was the one. I may have only seen her for the matter of minutes and spoke very few words, but she was the one I was going to spend the rest of my life with.  “Brother, what is wrong?” Margo asked. My younger sister stood leaning against my office door, head tilted in question. I had never spoke much of my mate, only that I had found her years before. Although Margo was old enough now to understand, she was still far from knowing the feeling it gave me inside. The tingling sensation that ran through my veins. The butterfly’s that fluttered in my stomach. I wondered if this is how everyone else when they had met their mate.  “Today, Margo, is the day I will find her again.”  I stood from my chair, closing the laptop before turning to face her. Her red hair fell in locks like I always loved. She resembled our mother so beautifully, it was sometimes hard to look at her. With our mothers passing only a couple years ago, Margo was still trying to find her self love again. She knew her features reminded us all of mother, and I knew she silently hated it. But after a long while, she was slowing becoming herself again. The sassy, back chatting though lovable Margo we all treasured dearly.  “Please, brother. Promise me you won’t assume the best. I’d hate for you to be disappointed if you cannot find her.”  Though her words sounded almost insulting to any other, I knew her intentions. She was so worried that I would dive in head first to find Cassandra, and fall deeply in love as I did the first time I lay eyes on her. She was worried my mate would break my heart. I knew that Cassandra would not feel as I felt, she was too young at the time to create such a bond. I just knew I loved her, and prayed to all the gods and goddesses above us that she would love me back.  “Margo, don’t worry yourself. All I want it to see her, meet her properly this time. And come the future if she rejects me... So be it.”  I dreaded the idea of my beautiful soul mate rejecting my love. All I’ve wanted for the past 8 years is to care for her, cherish her, make her feel so loved it was exhausting. I’ve known where she was all this time, but I also knew that I could not change her course in life. She needed to do everything by herself, as the gods planned. As much as I so wanted to get her out of that awful house, I knew it would have been wrong. Not only wrong but probably terrifying for her. A random young man coming in and taking her from where she’d grown up for nearly all her life? If an orphanage wasn’t traumatising enough, imagine that on top.  Margo came forward and lay her hand on my shoulder. God she was just like our mother, so caring and understanding. Her eyes said it all, she was scared for me. She didn’t want me to be hurt. We’d gone through enough in our life time, another broken heart would throw us off course once again.  Two years ago, our mother sadly passed due to a severe illness. It was slow and probably painful for her, but she never showed it. She acted as though she was happy to see us every time we visited, but I could see it deep in her eyes that she wished we wouldn’t see her in her state. The doctors had told us very little until her last few months alive. I assume it was our parents who had told the doctors not to go into detail of the matter but with me being the oldest, I learned my mother died from chronic kidney disease. Though our wolf genes usually heal our bodies making it less likely for us to fall ill, my mothers disease crept up on us. We had no idea of her high blood pressure, we only noticed how she grew tired so often, her loss of appetite and the headaches she constantly mentioned. My father thought she might have been pregnant, and took her to be checked over at the hospital. It was that day everything went down hill for us. Margo, our younger brother, Harrison and I were at home when father returned without our mother. I remember the tears he tried to hold back. I remember him telling us our mother wasn’t very well and the doctors were helping her get better. I was older and wiser than my siblings though. I knew there was much more behind those words. The way he fought to hold back his tears and the quiver in his voice told me it all. Mother was dying. Her wolf couldn’t heal her this time.  Shortly after our mothers passing, our father left us too. Although the police report told us it was an accident, I knew it was suicide. He couldn’t live without her, his mate. The police report told us that one of the offices in the building our father worked in had caught alight, possibly a candle left burning and something else, they never told us. But I knew he’d done it himself. I felt his pain every day since her death. And Margo. Poor, sweet Margo. Our father couldn’t look at her at all, the exact same features as of mothers, it was too hard for him. Although I still hated him for how he left us and how he treated his daughter when she needed him the most, I could also kind of understand. His emotions ran too high for his mind and body to handle, everything reminded him of her. His home, his children, even his workplace. So he ended it. Leaving his children along in the world to fend for themselves. That it what I hated him most for. How could a father willingly take his own life knowing damn well he had 3 kids relying on him to come home.  “Gray? Mark is on the phone, they caught sight of her down by the town hall. What would you like them to do?”   Margo’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. They’d found her. I expected it to take longer for some reason. Maybe I wasn’t trusting my pack enough? I really had to improve on that.  “Leave her. Watch from afar. Make sure she’s okay, I don’t want her getting into any sort of trouble.” I almost yelled, though my sister just recited what I’d just said to her down the phone.  “How does she look? Is she okay?”  A few seconds passed and my heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to fly straight out of my chest. I prayed she was alright, that no harm had came her way through the passing years. I wish I could just see her, touch her, express my love for her, but I couldn’t. Margo had a long and depressing chat with my a few months back about this day. How I shouldn’t go straight to her, making her feel weird and not being able to trust me. I had to act like I was meeting her for the first time. My sister had may an idea of how I could do that, maybe a coffee shop, maybe accidentally walking into her on the street, or asking for directions. All had came from those stupid romantic movies she’d watched before. Though some were more realistic, I just didn’t have a clue where to start when it came to Cassandra. I had my pack out early this morning, all in the streets looking for my blonde hair, green eyed beauty. I remember the day I met her like it was yesterday.  I’d been walking down the street with Harrison, he was only 6 and I being 15 years old at the time. He wanted to feed the ducks at the pond close by the river front, even though it wasn’t the best of weather that day in April. I remember the clouds were thick and grey covering the sky above us. I remember Harrison running around the water chucking bird seeds like crazy, laughing as all of the ducks and pigeons followed his tracks. That’s when I saw her. I never realised the giant building next to the park was an orphanage till that day. She was crawling through the bushes next to the fence, a huge smile spread over her face. Her beautiful green eyes were shimmering like emeralds, it was like they sent the colour to the grass. As she ran she kept looking back towards the garden she’d crawled from, until she collided into me. I remembered catching her before she could fall. I remembered her rosey red cheeks as she blushed with embarrassment, and how she tried to hide her eyes looking up at me through her long thick lashes. I wondered if she still looked like that. Slim and petite. A hint of a tan growing through her skin as summer crept up. Her almost white hair spiralling in ringlets down her back. I remembered a leaf was stuck in one of them, and as I pulled it out for her, she turned rosey again. I remember I couldn’t help but laugh. She thanked me and I asked what she was doing. She’d told me she wasn’t allowed out of the garden, but there was a lose fence pose that she could move and climb through the bushes, they’d never noticed any time she had “escaped”. I wasn’t sure if she was joking or actually felt like a prisoner. I remember she had a scar on her hand and up her arm, but I didn’t ask what had happened.  “Apparently she’s went into a cafe, Mark said he couldn’t get up close without it looking obvious, but she doesn’t look unwell or anything.”  That’s all I needed to know for now, as long as she was physically okay, I could soon check if her soul wasn’t broken. Living alone, no parents was hard enough for me and my siblings. I couldn’t imagine growing up in an orphanage and never finding a home.  Don’t worry Cassandra, I’m coming.