MEREDITH
"Your father just bought her a new car a week ago. It was supposed to be yours, mine, but no, we live in slums, and you dare reject that form that will give you a chance to our freedom, Meredith."
She muttered lowly. I looked at her quizzically, her words confusing me even more.
"He's not my father," I growled at her, and she rolled her eyes, already used to my words. I'd rejected him as my father the day he rejected me as his daughter.
"And who got a car?" I asked, not failing to hear the last words and hoping my mother, Naomi, hadn't gone mad again.
"Your stepmother. He got her the latest car in town."
"Don't tell me you still work with that butt-ass investigator?" I asked, and she removed her eyes from me, staring at the bedside.
"It doesn't matter, Meredith. I am not doing this for you. I don't want you to accept the form for me. But I don't want you to end up like me. I want you to have a better future and be more powerful, and your life shouldn't revolve around a man. And if it does, I want you to be powerful enough to control him, to have him wrapped around your hands like they were just made for you. This is the world we live in, Meredith."
She held my two arms, her soft palms digging into my flesh, and this time, her eyes were pinned on mine. For the first time, her words made me shudder.
I'd been so blinded by hate for the elites that I forgot that school would give me a better future.
The next morning, I walked down into the principal's office, hands tightly clutched on my bag as my heart beat tremendously.
I was hoping I'd refrain from blasting at him...
"How dare you, Mr. Principal, sleep with my mother in our home? Don't you have a single shame?"
The words came out faster than I expected, and I almost bit my tongue at the last words, but the words had already been spoken.
The principal's eyes widened with terror as he stared at me. Tiny little beads of sweat formed on his head. He looked quite scared for someone who was banging my mother.
"I am so sorry, Meredith. It wasn't my intention. It just happened, and I promise you, it won't repeat itself."
He said, and I nodded, walking towards the table and dropping my bag on the table in a rather unruly way, which caused a frown to appear on his face.
"This is inappropriate, Miss Gwen."
Gwen was my mother's surname, the one she got from her father, and hearing the principal call me that after what he did made me rather... angrier.
"Do you want to talk about appropriate? Then tell Mr. Nick to confess to the entire school that I never tried to seduce him. That he had been lying. He had ruined the little amount of image I had left."
I knew I was going far, but my mother had mentioned power to me, and I was the type who abuses stuff when I have it. Perhaps it was a thing I got from my father—who knows.
"Miss Gwen, I can't do that. You attempted to seduce him."
He said, arranging his glasses properly as he glared at me, not happy with how things had shifted.
"And you slept with my mother."
Happy with how things had shifted.
His head raised sharply, and then he gave a little smile.
"Yes, Miss Gwen, I will do that now."
I nodded, not one bit satisfied.
"I presume your mother had told you to get the form. It will be submitted to the post office in a day, as early as tomorrow morning, so you should apply right now so we can submit it to them."
He said, sliding out the paper from the expensive file.
"Okay," I replied, collecting the paper from him as I stared back at the paper. I remembered I had also looked at it the previous day.
"What if I get rejected?" I asked, reading through the items on the paper, and my heart skipped when I read the bottom of the paper:
'Getting accepted also means having a chance into the heart of an alpha.'
I read it again, wondering what that meant, but I chose to ignore it, focusing on the moment.
"Well, since it's limited, it will be a fifty-fifty chance. If you get rejected, you stay back and think of a better way of leaving here, and if you get accepted, well, ensure you remember this school. We need all the help we can get."
I was astonished by his words, but I remained quiet, not giving him another word. I grabbed my bag and left his office.
As I walked out, I saw that most of the students were looking at me. Their heads were moving rather weirdly to one another, whispering into each other's ears as they glared at me, but I chose to ignore them.
Knowing the gossip never ends.
I walked to a lonely path that led to a bush which rather few people loved to go to, and I sat down on a log of wood, bringing down the form in my hand as I read through the page, my pen scrutinizing each word like an investigator.
There was nothing really difficult in the form filling. Then my pen read down to a place underlined:
'Characteristics/Skills'
I looked down at myself, wondering what sort of person I was. Deep down, I wondered why most simple questions used to be the hardest.
I picked up my button phone, the only one I could afford, and dialed the last number I wanted to speak with.
Naomi, my mother's voice, spoke loudly on the intercom.
"What are my characteristics and skill set, mother?" I asked. The phone went silent for a while, and I wondered if she was still there.
"Mother..." I called, and she quickly responded.
"Girl, I don't know, but I do know you have red shiny hair with bright amber eyes, you have a hot mom who sucks dicks for a living, you got rejected by your father, and you hate the elites. Don't you dare write that last part, though. Hahahahaha."
She said, cutting the call. Damn, I wouldn't have called her in the first place.
My eyes tore through the page again, and I scribbled down very fast:
Characteristics/Skills:
Red-haired woman who doesn't apologize for taking up space.
Skilled at survival despite being unwanted.
Expert at seeing through elite bullshit and calling it what it is.
Abandoned by a father who couldn't handle what he created.
Raised by a woman who taught me the world's ugliest truths.
Good at giving a SUCK
Never in my life had I been as proud of myself as I smiled down at my neat handwriting, which gave off everything I'd always wanted to say.
"I'm sorry, mother. I just busted our chances."