When I first arrived, I had been a mess. I had nothing—no money, no connections, no idea how to survive in a pack this large, this developed, this alive. I had stumbled through those first months, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for someone to hurt me the way I had been hurt before.
But they didn't.
Soren was my first friend here. He had helped me navigate life and then amie and Phoenix came later.
I had been terrified. I didn't know how to be around people who weren't trying to use me. I didn't know how to laugh without waiting for it to be punished. I didn't know how to exist without fear.
But they taught me. Slowly, patiently, they taught me.
They taught me that I could say no. That I could have opinions. That I could want things and ask for them and not be hurt for it. They taught me that friendship wasn't a transaction, that kindness wasn't a trap, that I was allowed to take up space in the world.
