LALA'S SHOCKING (PINK) DIARY

7 MARCH, SUNDAY NIGHT, TIMELINE 2

I spent the next half an hour standing under the shower. I missed my bathtub, my sakura scented soaps, my color coordinated, luxuriously thick towels.

When I got out, I missed the golden birdcage clothes rack where need had to stare at a wardrobe full of clothes and wonder what to wear. I missed the smell of lemon oil. I missed the coordinated sheets and my golden clam shell queen size bed, I missed not having to plug my phone into a charger or having a pretty countertop arranged on my dresser.

I found Lala's favorite soft pajamas and put them on. I missed the floor to ceiling mirrors that wrapped a full wall of my room. I missed my non-pink clothing option.

If Ki were here, he'd have turned down my bed (now it wasn't even made). If Ki were here, he'd had drawn the curtains for the night. If Ki were here...

Okay, suck it up, Sam! It'll only be for a couple of days. Dad said we could go back and undo everything... But why did I get the feeling that I was the only one who wanted to go back to my old life?

This was all Kev's fault! The moment I thought this, the Lala in me felt very guilty about being ungrateful and turning against her big brother. Gah! Why did it have to be so hard? Was this what Dad felt too?

Maybe now that Kev was Dad's son, Dad was feeling guilty about abandoning Kev and returning to a timeline where Kev would be Jude, the traitor facing the tribunals for his war crimes.

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that maybe everyone else was happier this way.

I mean, it wasn't impossible to stay on this time line. If we did, Fluffy would never have had to suffer a puphood as a vamp's pet. Roy never had to be the rogue king. So many lives and families in Morning Light was preserved. Even Ki... I mean, it didn't sound like a happy ending for him yet, but at least his soul mate was still alive and he didn't have to kill her in a fight cage with his own hands.

It did sound complicated with her, and Mum didn't seem to like her at all (I thought Mum liked almost everyone), hmmm... I'm not sure I'd like her.

But the most important thing was that Ki's beta family was still alive, Ki was not reduced to a dog who couldn't sleep at night, and since Ki was still the Lorent Beta, all I had to do was mate Bell and I would be back in Ki's care again! Hoo hoo hoo, I'm so smart!

Anyway, if we did stay, we could take our time to fix everything. Ki's love life, EJ, Stephan and his Red Cloud Pack... I mean, it's not like Lala was busy with anything else.

Once I shifted, I'd be able to run out a lot more. I mean, I'm not sure why I hadn't shifted, but Savy, Ben, and Jonah hadn't shifted either - which was good because they all shifted too early in my original timeline.

Maybe, this was the "right" timeline to be in. Everything in my original timeline was out of wack. Maybe slowing down and pacing our first shifts, our generation's war, our pack's growth, etc would be a less disruptive way to live out our lives. (Even though it also sounded like a very boring way to live it.)

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling bummed out about how things were headed. Shouldn't self sacrifice feel more noble and grand? I didn't feel anything like that. To be absolutely honest, the thought of giving up my original life for this one for the greater good of my wolves, or even the whole of Green Packlands, or lycan kind, or even the whole cosmos... it just left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

It wouldn't always be like that. I could start over.

Yeah, that's right! Sam Kingsley wasn't someone who'd just let something like having my exciting life and magical future replaced get me down! I was the Alpha! I could take it. Or even if I wasn't the Alpha, I was SAM. Not just any Sam, I was the new and improved Sam!

First thing's first. I needed to fix my nails. If I'm going to punch anything without my nails biting into my palms, they'd need to be shortened. Luckily the Lala in me knew how - I could file it down, maybe make them short and squarish. That'll be the cutest manicure that could be packed into a real punch.

It was at this point when I had an epiphany, I wasn't just the new and improved Sam, I was also Lala - and all of her experiences and abilities were also a part of me now. I shouldn't be putting Lala's hard work and years of practice to waste now, right?

I remembered that Lala had tried to start a new diary at the beginning of the year. Now where was it?

I had to dig around the bottom of my dresser drawer to find the shocking pink thing. Lala had started off full of resolve to record her new High School life and what might probably be her First Shift Year in a diary, but she had forgotten about it after less than a few weeks. Just typical of me.

On the bright side, it didn't take long to flip through. Lala's life had been far less eventful than mine. She didn't even have to start school till February, and after school started, she completely forgot it's existence.

So except for the pink color, there wasn't anything particularly shocking within the few pages. The first entry looked promising though. Lala even knew how to date her entries, which was a good thing because she liked to skip days.

Anyway, here's a sample. Lala's diary felt very relatable. Probably because she was really exactly like me, if you censored all girly squealy giggly ditzy bits. (Bracketed text are my own internal comments.)

PAGE 1

1 JANUARY: STARTING DAY 1

Oh my gosh, how should I start? Today is the first day of the new year so Happy New Year, y'all! <3

(Who's the y'all you talking to girl? This is a DIARY!)

I'm happy today cos the new year always feels like a brand new start! This year, I'm going to be reading at the Lorent Girls' School! That's a fancy way of saying that I'll be a student there.

(Why? Because fancy people don't read anywhere else except when they're in school?)

I am super excited about it. Mum says we're buying uniforms next week. Eeek! My first uniform!

Fancy uniforms, fancy school, even the teachers are fancy! Lady Amber said that most of them must be addressed as "Madam", so much so that it was safe to address any lady we meet in the school as "Madam" and any gentleman as "Sir."

Oh gosh, I'm so nervous! In one month, I'd be starting a new high school life! I'm so glad I can ask Lady Amber for advice. I really want to fit in with the other girls.

I'm also happy because everyone else had to start school because they were attending New Leaf. Nana said she was soooo jealous because I could laze around for another month before school starts.

Lady Amber promised she'd try to meet me more to help tutor me so I would feel more comfortable when school starts.

So I couldn't just laze around even if I wanted to. I had to meet Lady Amber twice a week for this month, and do homework. Like this week, I needed to find my favorite book. It had to be a proper classic novel too. But no Lycan Legends because Lady Amber wanted me to read "more widely."

So far, I have the Wind and the Willows, Don Juan, The Horse and the Boy, Blown with the Wind, and The Scarlet Pimpernel on my reading list. I hope they're classic enough. I mean, Lady Amber's really old, so her idea of classic wasn't always the same as mine. Like her idea of classical music didn't even have lyrics. Just saying.

Nana said I should Google them first before investing my time reading them. Nana's always smart like that. I was just going to go with whichever title I manage to find at the library.

Oh yeah, and another thing: this year might be the year of my first shift! Oh my gosh. This might be the most amazing and exciting year in my life!

I hope I dream of my mate in my shifting dream! I hope I make a lot of friends in school! I hope I can grow my hair out a bit more! I hope... I really hope I shift into a white wolf.

Why? Because it's the prettiest, most princessy color for a Luna wolf. Looking at my Mum and Dad, I have a 50% chance.

Then again, Kev and Kai both turned out different shades of tan... Which I suppose could be a recessive gene or something. I asked Mum and she told me it was complicated. I guess it would be. I mean, not everyone could be a genetic scientist.

So, new year, new school, new me! This year, I'm going to journal everyday, be a kinder person, and revise my school work every week.

It's really important to do keep my grades up because I don't want my future mate and his pack to think their Luna is stupid.

(Unfortunately, Bell thinks everyone is stupid.)

...

Anyway, here I am, writing in a shocking pink diary. I decided that I couldn't leave it hanging like that and wrote my own dramatic entry to mark my "rebirth".

I guess there was a part of me that wanted to make sure INCIDENT 0 and everything else that was my reality, my identity, my life would disappear without a trace.

I really didn't want that.

Actually, my first choice was to go back to the UNDO POINT and never come back, but... I couldn't do that to everyone else.

Maybe what I needed was a plan. The future was what you make it. The future is in your hands. The future is... Insert motivational quote here.

Nevermind the actual words. The point was that I just had an idea, and my ideas were brilliant.