Summer officially arrived.
On the first morning of break, I got up early and went to the dental clinic where Mom worked.
A small, stubborn part of me still held on to a thread of hope.
Mom was a dentist, after all. Maybe family members of the staff got a discount.
Then I’d have less to save.
And I could shed my shame that much sooner.
The clinic was busy, patients coming and going.
I stood quietly in the corner outside her office and waited until she’d sent off her last patient.
For a moment, the office was empty.
I stepped forward and said softly, “Mom.”
When she saw who it was, her face went white.
She took two instinctive steps back, keeping a deliberate distance between us, as if drawing a line I could never cross.
Her voice was ice-cold, like she didn’t even know me.
“It’s working hours. Unauthorized people aren’t allowed near the office. If you have a problem, book a regular appointment at the front desk.”
“Unauthorized people.” She said it so lightly, but it crushed the air out of my lungs.
My wolf caught the familiar scent of her, and was driven back by the coldness in her eyes.
I stood frozen, at a total loss.
Every gaze in the room turned to me.
Curious. Questioning. Pitying. Measuring.
Two dental assistants nearby, both werewolves who worked under my mother, whispered to each other.
Every word landed in my ears.
“Dr. Miller only has one daughter, right? She’s gorgeous, and she’s always stopping by the clinic to bring everyone coffee and pastries.”
“Such a sweet girl.”
“Yeah. But this girl smells a lot like Dr. Miller.”
“Maybe a distant relative?”
In that instant, I understood everything.
To her social and professional circles, my mother had only ever claimed to have one daughter — the beautiful, charming, well-behaved Tessa.
And me — the quiet girl with the mouth full of buck teeth — she’d erased me entirely. She wouldn’t even admit I was her daughter. I was someone she didn’t want to show off.
At that moment, the last thread binding me to her as a mother snapped clean in two.
I didn’t bother her again. I went to the front desk and booked a regular appointment.
The doctor who saw me was a young attending physician.
He patiently took X-rays and measured my jaw, then told me the full cost, professional and objective.
“You have a complicated jaw alignment issue. It’s a tough case. With the pre-op exams, extractions, metal braces, retainers, and follow-ups, the full treatment will run you at least 28,000.”
I walked out of the clinic.
I passed Mom’s office.
Without a second thought, she shut the door.
I understood.
I would never count on her again — never beg for her help, her sympathy, or her favor.
Once I was ready, I would leave them all.
An unloved pup gets cast out of the pack sooner or later.
I went to the community center and rented an empty activity room.
The next morning, I printed a hundred flyers.
I went door-to-door through every apartment building.
After handing them all out, I sat with my phone, waiting for parents to reach out.
But the whole day, my phone stayed silent. Not one enrollment call. Not one message.
That didn’t make sense.
I was a Stanford student, after all.
Confused, I went downstairs that evening to check the flyers I’d put up.
And then I saw it — a sight that stopped me cold.
Someone had replaced my flyers with altered copies featuring an embarrassing photo of me.
It was a candid shot from last year’s family dinner, taken right as I was about to shift, catching me at my most unflattering angle.
The angle was merciless. It was terrifying.
Underneath the photo, in small handwriting: [BUCKY TEACHER. INSECURE ABOUT HER LOOKS. FAKE DEGREE. AVOID HER CLASSES.]
Passersby stopped to gawk at the photo, pointing and whispering without any shame.
“This teacher looks so different. Why does she look like that?”
“Something about her looks unsettling. I wouldn’t trust her with my kid.”
Shame swallowed me whole.
I spun around and ran, nearly breaking werewolf law by shifting into a frenzied wolf right in the middle of the city.
At home, I threw open my wardrobe door, and there was Tessa, her fingertips stained with printer ink, a stack of unposted flyers piled in the corner.
I held back my anger, my voice shaking.
“You changed my flyers? You printed those embarrassing photos on purpose?”