[CONTENTID2]A Monster's Tears - Wants And Desires[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID1]

Everyone around me is in a rush to grow up. Am I truly the only one who dreads the next day and what it will bring? “There’s always tomorrow.” Yes, there is, and why is that thought so very depressing? I don’t wanna grow up. Never have, I don’t think I ever will.

When I was young, there was no reason for me to want to leave behind the safety and protection my pack brought me. I always knew that, once I became old enough, I would be kicked out from my pack. Our alpha didn’t like competition over the females. He didn’t seem to realize I was just as interested in him as he was in the girls. I didn’t want to grow up, face reality. I didn’t want to leave.

Perhaps this was true of all my kind. I wouldn’t know, I’d never met one. Even among my own pack, I was still special. I didn’t know why. I merely heard the whispers as I went by. I was one of a kind. One of the last of a dying breed. Apparently, anyways. From what I’d gathered. For a short while, I knew I would still be considered a pup, but that wouldn’t be for long. Next month I would turn sixteen. I didn’t want to be chased out of the territory by my alpha, JR, the love of my life. I didn’t want to leave.

I knew it was not normal, not natural, my preferred interest in the Alpha as opposed to the pretty girl members of the pack, and so I kept it a secret. I could see that even the older members couldn’t figure me out. In the past, when a male pup was born, normally it made sense to chase him out by time he was around my age. Around this time a boy would be typically full of raging hormones, trying to get with every girl in a hundred mile radius. I just wasn’t one of them. But sixteen was the latest a male could be chased out, otherwise the alpha stood with the possibility that I could be a challenger. The Alpha was still young, he didn’t need a male pup to overtake him. Thus, my presence was unnecessary, a burden. I was meant to go and create my own pack or wander until I died. I didn’t want to leave.

I suppose an explanation would come in handy at this point. I am a werewolf. I can change at will to my pretty, long haired shaggy blond wolf form. I was part of one of the larger packs in the area. I had never actually stepped foot beyond our borders, our territory was so large. A long way to be chased. My human form was a thin, pale boy with the same blond hair as my wolf form. I was useless, perhaps another reason the alpha had no interest in keeping me around. My strength was practically non-existent, due to being a runt on top of everything else wrong with me. I served no practical purpose when hunting except for scaring off the game. Because I was clumsy too. Of course. I still didn’t want to leave.

But I had made up my mind: I was going to leave all the same. I didn’t want to feel JR’s fangs nipping at my heels as I crossed the border. I didn’t want to hear his howl of triumph as he vanquished the pest. I didn’t want to see the accomplishment in his eyes. His pride in getting rid of me. I didn’t want to see any of it. So I was leaving.

I looked around cautiously, as though afraid someone might bother to actually stop me. I pawed at the earth before the border. A last mark. There was no other way. There was no chance that JR would keep me, I had been lucky he hadn’t gotten around to running me out by now. It should have happened years ago. With a final glance around at the home I loved, I placed my paws over the boundary. The invisible line marking my old pack’s l