The Shadow Wolf

    It has been years since I had felt shame. Standing in front of the pack I had helped create in a stupid dress waiting to see if this i***t would show up made me feel deep shame. It's not because he had left me in this situation, but because they know how utterly unworthy I am. The girl who is unworthy of love. The girl that is unworthy of who she's supposed to be. What she's supposed to represent in this family.      I had made this man what he is now and up until we were forced to stay together, I didn't expect much from him. I had chosen to save him because I saw potential in the pain of a young boy who had known nothing but suffering. I looked at my mother. She's livid. I could practically see the the gears in her head already making up the possibilities of just how I had managed to screw up an arranged marriage.      My brother is just as mad. Not for the same reason. He's mad because of the time I had wasted. Looking back at all of it though, some of it wasn't. No one had been more patient with me than that man. I had known this would never work out. My head has been f****d up since I was a pup and f*****g things up is what I do. What I have always done. She's never let me forget it and this just adds on to her long list of things I have ruined in her life.     I guess I just expected him to be able to tell me that to my face. I had wanted him to come up here and tell me that this wasn't going to work. I wanted him to admit that for the past few months he had been seeing someone else. I had wanted him to be truthful with me just the way I had and if he couldn't say no to me then I would have said no, but this. This is not how I expected things to happen and the anger in me was prominent ready to strike out for something, anything to make it settle.      The guests that had gathered today will only say one thing. She wasn't even worth an actual rejection. There is just nothing. Thousands of spent dollars, months of planning, days filled with putting up with my mother for nothing. He couldn't even say no to me in person.      After forty-five minutes of waiting, I ripped the veil off and shoved it into my mother's chest as I walked back towards the exit. The gasps came from many different directions. The murmurs will start. The shaming will begin. I can feel the darkness creeping around the edges of my being. The blue glow of my eyes is there. It was the reason she didn't say anything. Why she held her tongue. I hope she knows that I'm angry.  That's right, mother. Look at the monster your daughter is. Shame her before all these pack members that hold you high above everyone else.      "Rip,"      I turned to look at my brother. He wants to stop me from leaving. He can. Probably the only person present, who can stop me but he's not. He doesn't want to make this already catastrophic event into an even bigger scene. I walked out of there. I ran before anyone could stop me.      It had been so easy being the monster. Being a heartless beast is so much better than trying to care for those who will never care back. Bitter. I much rather be bitter than pretend to be something I'm not just to please her. There was nothing other than the fact that I had once again f****d up and that's all she will ever see. All of this is about her now.      I want to go back to a time when all I could feel was the numbness of what I had been trying to become. What I became. What I am. Taking everything is easier than giving it. Being the bully hurts less than being the bullied. Yet, here I am with this f*****g shame hanging strong over my very being threatening to eat away at what little existence of my soul is left. Being bad hurts a lot less than trying to be good, yet I want it. I want to be good again.