Chapter Four

BILLIE

I wake up the next day around 8 am. The first thing I do is pile my hair on top of my head, pull on some legwarmers, and run through some barre exercises in my living room. I do this every morning. Then I go for a 20 minute run through the human trailer park where I rent a tiny one-bedroom. After a yoga-fueled cooldown, I take a shower in the stained but clean bathroom. I mix some cereal with yogurt and a banana, then take my coffee to the stoop. It’s early, so it’s safe to be outside without getting sexually harassed by one of my neighbors. The view is of my next door neighbor’s garbage bins, but the air is fresh and my rent is paid. 

Around noon, I put on a hoodie and head to the bus stop to visit my mother. She’s in assisted living, and most days I have to remind her I’m not my long-dead Aunt Tracy. On the days she remembers me, she gives me messages to take to my father, who was shot in the line of duty when I was four. Today is one of those days.

“Tell your father that Mckenzie boy is peeping in the windows again, and if he ever wants a son like we planned he needs to be home more often.”

“I will, momma.”

It’s like getting a glimpse into the life I would have had if he’d lived and my parents remained middle class.

She can only really handle an hour of visiting before she gets agitated and needs rest.

Next, I stop in at the Center for Dance where I’ve been a student since moving here, and work on my latest routine. I still miss my old studio space, and the classes my grandparents paid for, but the Center is becoming important to me. I pay for my studio time by volunteering with the young dancers, the little ones just starting out. It's the only time I genuinely smile during the week.

After a while I just let a playlist play and let my body move how it wants to move. I let myself feel how I feel. I’m sweaty and crying by the time I’m through, but I feel better. 

These days, dance is my only emotional safe space. My life wasn't always like this. My mother used to be healthy, and my grandparents, her mom and dad, more than made up for the loss of my father. They took me to school, funded my dance education, helped me with my homework, and depending on what shift my mother was working at the all-night grocery store, put me to bed and read me a story–until I could read my own. Books were my only friends. I wasn't ostracized, I just didn't have time for socializing. Then my mother couldn't work anymore, and my grandparents died two years ago. It’s been a hustle ever since.

Because of that hustle, the fight to find enough money to pay the bills on my momma's treatment and keep myself from becoming homeless, all my emotions, my passions and my pain, are locked down tight. Some days, I dance to work toward a career. And some days, I dance just so I can finally feel something.

Even the pain is worth feeling something. 

I use the Center's shower and change for work, taking the bus straight from the studio for another 10-hour shift at the Gaelic Wolf. The pub is in a student neighborhood, and humans are outnumbered here. I’ve only ever been treated cordially by the werewolves in the area, except the usual drunk customer entitlement.

I’m finally on break, headed to get some air and quiet in the alley behind the pub, when I run straight into Tristan, the guy from last night. 

“Shit, sorry,” I tell him. He looks down at me. Standing up, I can see he’s taller than I had previously thought. Way taller than me. He could easily be a male model, with his stylish haircut, tight expensive clothes, and aesthetically, perfectly imperfect facial features. 

“Careful, little townie. Don’t get hurt.”

I glare up at him. Rude. “Where’s your asshole friend? I’m still thinking about having him banned.” I’m not, the management tends to ignore aggression from the male wolf shifter customers, but I’m not telling him that.

“He’s not my friend, and he won’t be coming back here, little townie. He was my guest, and I take full responsibility for ensuring he doesn’t return to bother you.”

“Oh. Okay then.” I don’t know what to say to that, and his intimidating presence scares me almost as much as the not-friend. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m on break, so…”

And that’s when I see one of the other guys from the previous night, Thorne, the giant, clutching at the exit door desperate to get outside. I hurry to open it for him. He leans against the brick wall and slides down until he’s sitting in the alley, wheezing for breath.