Cursed

by Brent Miller

  Garrick was staring out the window, up at the clouds in the blue sky. Trees flew past the window as Garrick tried to form his ideas into words. He couldn’t think of what to say, but he could feel it. He knew that this couldn’t be all that life had for him. He could feel it burning in his veins – there was some bigger purpose for his life than he was able to see.

  “I know what you’re saying,” Tyler said.

  “Yeah? So you get it?”

  “Yeah, I can relate. There has to be more to life than this microscopic point on the map we call home – and these people who are so arrogant without any real reason. Somewhere we belong, more than this penitentiary of a town.”

  “Yeah,” Garrick said, somewhat deflated. He shifted his focus from the sky to the trees. Even in the middle of the day, he couldn’t see far into the woods. They’d always had a mystical feel to him, and as he looked deep into the trees, he almost expected an answer. It was as if he was trying to stare through them. As if they would open up and reveal his purpose. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  Present

  Morning of the Full Moon

  The alarm clock rang, startling Garrick out of that terrible and recurring nightmare. He sat up in his bed, breathing heavily and sweating bullets. As he stood, he rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the blurriness from his vision before walking to the bathroom. Splashing water on his face, he tried to forget what he’d seen through closed eyes.

  “Come on, Garrick, snap out of it,” he said.

  His eyes looked significantly bluer with the water he’d splashed at them. Typically, they were dark green, but that changed with the presence of water. His brown hair was matted with sweat, so he ran it under water as well. When he turned his gaze downward, his eyes drifted toward his left arm and he instinctively brushed his other hand over the scar. He almost let his mind wander but caught himself before he fell too deep into thought. He couldn’t be late for school again. He brushed his teeth and quickly dressed.

  “Garrick, are you up honey?” his mother called from the next room. He smiled. She had told him, repeatedly, that she was going to start waking up to make sure he was able to get to school, but she could never get herself up early enough. He couldn’t blame her. She always had to work so late. It just brought a smile to his face that she made such an effort. With the smile, though, there was also a twinge of guilt. She wouldn’t have to feel the need to get up if he could just get out of bed on time.

  Garrick never understood how nightmares made it harder to wake up. Logically, it would make it easier, because he wouldn’t want to be in bed. Maybe it was just the fact that the dream ruined any chance he had of getting good sleep. It felt like he hadn’t in a year, but he knew it was always just worse around the time of the full moon. The nightmares wouldn’t stop, but they wouldn’t be as intense for the next few weeks.

  He leaned against the doorway to his room and waited for his mom to walk out of hers. “I was just about to leave,” he told her.

  “Without saying goodbye?” she asked.

  “You need your sleep,” he said, pulling her in for a hug. She didn’t respond because he was right. “I’m not going to be late,” he added as an afterthought.

  “Oh no?” she asked, jokingly suspicious. “Does school just start half an hour later for you than everyone else?”

  “Very funny,” he said. Timeliness was always so important to her, but she was never the type to yell or even get appropriately angry at her son. He’d seen her mad before, but it was always related to work. When it came to Garrick, this was the closest she got.

  “I love you, Mom,” he said as he broke the hug. She smiled.

  “I love you too. Now get to school.”

  As Garrick headed toward the front door, he heard his mom’s close as she went back to her room. He heard her flop down onto the bed. He opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. Making sure to lock the door behind him, he walked to her car. They only had the one, but since his mom worked night shifts, it wasn’t terribly difficult to share a vehicle. The cool, autumn breeze blew through what was left of the leaves, and he allowed himself a second to breathe before getting in the car. He felt the restorative power of the wind blow away the fog in his mind.

  As Garrick opened the door to his car, Hayden walked up his driveway. She stood by the passenger door and leaned her arms on the top of the vehicle, propping her head down on top of them.

  Her dirty blonde hair fell long past her shoulders. The natural waviness always made it look like she put in so much effort, but she never had to. She looked stunning as she rested her head on her arms and looked at him with those bright blue eyes gazing deeply into his soul.

  “Well, you weren’t about to leave me, were you, Garrick?”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. Since he typically met her at her door, he was surprised to see her. Still, not a second after he asked, his mind started racing with the ways his statement could be misinterpreted, so he felt the need to add, “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “Calm down,” she said. Normally, someone giving that command is absolutely no help to anyone, but her smile actually had a way of calming him – one that he couldn’t entirely explain. He unlocked the other door, and she dropped into her seat. He couldn’t understand how she could make something as mundane as getting into a vehicle look so elegant and graceful. He sat down next to her. “I’m just messing with you.”

  Garrick smiled, rolling his eyes. He didn’t understand how he could constantly be nervous around her, even after so much time. As confused as he was, she clearly enjoyed that she still had that power over him. She’d told him before that it was cute when he got so nervous. Being called cute didn’t do much to appease those nerves, but he accepted that he had to pick his battles.

  He looked out the window, glancing quickly at the trees to his right. Hayden was staring in that direction. Probably not focusing on anything in general, just thinking about that night. But he wasn’t going to – he couldn’t allow himself to. Not for one second longer than necessary.

  Garrick watched the clock, waiting for the dull experience of English class to come to a close. He was equally dreading and anticipating the ending of class. With the change so close, it became an hourly task for him to prepare himself for that earsplitting ring. There wasn’t much he could do to dull the pain. He’d tried earplugs, but he couldn’t have someone notice. Even plugging his ears would look strange, aside from not being nearly enough to be effective. All he could do was accept that it was going to hurt.

  He watched as the seconds ticked by, counting down in his head. By this point, he had completely tuned out anything that the teacher was saying. All of his attention was on the clock. When there were five seconds to noon, he bit his lip. The bell rang, and he bit harder, drawing a drop of blood. It was his attempt to distract himself from the ringing. Pain was one thing that pulled his human side out and hid the other side. While it did manage to shift his focus slightly, the bell was still deafening.

  As the bell faded away, Garrick stood, throwing his bag over his shoulder. He walked down the hall toward the lunchroom. He had his top lip over the bottom one and was trying to put pressure on the bite with his tongue. It didn’t really hurt – he’d done it to himself enough times that he’d gotten over it. Anyway, it was nothing compared to the ringing that was slowly fading from his ears. However, he didn’t want to come up with some excuse for a bleeding lip if anyone questioned him on it.

  So many conversations droned on over the dull ringing that still resounded in his ears. It was surreal – being able to hear so many different things and actually comprehend any single conversation that he wanted. Out of all of the jumbled words from all of the students talking, he could pick out any of them to hear. He wasn’t used to having so much control over his own senses.

  Distracted, he almost walked right into Hayden when she approached him. He stopped, and she gently tugged him to the side of the hallway. She pushed him again
st the wall and gazed at him. People passed them, but he felt frozen in time looking into her eyes. The world kept moving, but he had a break from it.

  After a moment of looking him up and down, Hayden sighed.

  “Garrick, it doesn’t have to be like this,” she said. She was the only one that knew about his method of blocking out the bells. She had her own. Not her own, really, she shared it with the rest of them. But to Garrick, it was giving up, and he still wasn’t ready for that.

  “How was class?” He asked, changing the subject. She stepped closer to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He wasn’t sure if she intentionally ignored the question or if something just came over her and she wanted affection. On those days, it really could have been either. She looked up into his eyes and leaned forward, kissing him.

  He could hear her breathing change ever so slightly, and he could almost even hear her heart beating faster. She pushed her tongue on to his lip, licking the blood off of it and running her tongue across the small holes he’d left in his lip. He gently pulled away and leaned his forehead on hers. She leaned forward again, but he didn’t move toward her. He pushed her back, but she just looked annoyed and tried leaning toward him again.

  “Hayden,” he whispered. She didn’t say anything. His lip wasn’t bleeding any more. In fact, he could feel that the marks had closed up as he ran his tongue across his lip. Even though he’d experienced it before, the rapid healing was still shocking to him. His ears had healed without him even noticing, and the ringing was completely gone.

  “Hayden,” he said again. That finally snapped her out of her trance. One of the many negative aspects of her, along with most of the others, being so accepting of the change was the canine qualities which presented themselves.

  “What?” she asked, “Oh, it was fine.”

  “You were doing it again.”

  “Well, you need to stop hurting yourself!” she whispered angrily. Hayden was clearly embarrassed that she’d reacted like that. She paused for a second before asking, “What do you expect me to do?”

  “Sorry,” he told her. He stood and leaned his back against the wall. She breathed heavily, trying to hide her anger, before she dropped her head and leaned against his shoulder. As she did, she let out a resigned sigh.

  “No,” she said, “I know it’s hard to deal with. It took me a while too.”

  “It took you less than a year.”

  “Yeah, well, you know. People are different. I shouldn’t get mad at you, it’s just…”

  “I know,” he said, “It’s okay.” He could feel it too. Around the full moon, everything was different. It didn’t matter how many times he experienced the change, he still couldn’t get used to the few days before and after. It was like there was another personality fighting for dominance.

  He turned around and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close to him. He kissed her. “I love you,” he said.

  “I know,” she said with a small smirk.

  “Get to class,” he told her, letting her go. He watched her walk until she turned a corner, then waited for the hallway to clear out. Not ready to proceed with his day, he dropped his bag to the floor and leaned his back against the wall, sliding down until he was seated against it. He buried his face in his hands.

  Garrick had spent more time in his head than he could possibly remember over the course of his life. He’d always daydreamed or focused on his own thoughts, rather than anything around him. It had been his way of escaping the world. Recently, though, he would give anything to quiet his thoughts – to simply ignore everything happening in his head and focus on the real world. But he couldn’t, especially not on that day. He shook his head; even slammed the palms of his hands against his forehead, but the blaring noises that surrounded him wouldn’t quiet.

  He took a deep breath. Calm down, he thought. Focus on your breathing. Everything amplified as he started to panic. He could hear people’s conversations as they took their seats in classes, and the chairs sliding along the floor. His own thoughts were even louder, racing through his mind, but he couldn’t attach words to any of them. The world started to feel heavy, and he realized he wasn’t breathing at all. Panic flooded over his body, though his brain knew there was a simple solution. The light making its way through his fingers grew brighter, and the noises started to blend together into a deafening screech. The lack of oxygen to his brain was starting to take its toll, but he couldn’t force himself to open his mouth.

  Finally, Garrick gasped in a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if he’d finally convinced his body to act on his thoughts or if he’d fainted and just breathed afterward. His heart pounded, and his ears still rang with the cacophony of voices surrounding him. After a few more deep breaths, most of the voices quieted, leaving only a ringing in his ears that accompanied sudden silence.

  He waited a few minutes, trying to calm himself down, before he finally stood up and walked to the lunchroom. He could constantly feel it, clawing to get out, fighting him for control. The others just gave up so close to the moon, they just let it take over. They were normal enough; no one would question them unless they were really close, and the only people close enough to notice behavioral changes were the other wolves. Garrick knew, as he sat by Tyler with his lunch tray, that he didn’t have that luxury.

  Garrick silently sat in the seat next to Tyler. The chairs in their lunchroom were all mismatched, probably because the school couldn’t afford anything better. Random chairs were higher than others, and some tables had benches instead of any chairs at all. Garrick always enjoyed finding the chairs which were raised a little higher because it put him right about Tyler’s height. Of course, even when Garrick tried to use the seats to his advantage, Tyler’s perfect posture didn’t help Garrick appear any taller.

  As Garrick sat down, Tyler looked at him with a smile. His brown hair moved as much as it could when Tyler turned his head, but there wasn’t much of it. Tyler was always joking about letting it grow out because singers had long hair. He looked at Garrick with hazel eyes. Garrick had always thought it was interesting how Tyler’s eyes would appear different colors, but now they seemed consistent compared to his own. Now, the fact that one word could describe the color of his eyes made them more special. It made them human eyes.

  “Hey,” Tyler said, “Took you long enough.”

  “Yeah. I ran into Hayden in the hallway.”

  “Of course you did,” Tyler laughed, “You two have been together for nearly two years, and anyone who just met you would think you’re in the honeymoon phase.”

  “And you, my friend, have said that same thing daily since I met her.”

  “Not exactly the same thing. I like to vary my verbiage. Keep you guessing.”

  Garrick rolled his eyes with a laugh. He glanced down at his food for the first time since he’d sat down, and suddenly felt like he hadn’t eaten for days. He picked up the sandwich and took a bite, making sure to remind himself not to devour it too quickly.

  “Seriously though,” Tyler said, “I’m really happy for you.”

  Garrick smiled, but he didn’t know what to say. He’d run out of fake compliments for Tyler’s girlfriend months ago, and he wasn’t in the mood for concocting more. The two of them had dated on and off for two years, which was longer than he and Hayden had been together. But Garrick had never liked Kayla. He had never seen anyone hurt his friend so bad. Just thinking about it, Garrick could feel his heart rate rising. He wanted to lie to his friend, to say that he was happy for him too, but that was the human side of him. And it was quickly losing control as his thoughts grew darker.

  “Hey,” Chase said, coming up from behind and grabbing Garrick’s shoulder. He pressed his fingers against the pressure point on Garrick’s shoulder, and Garrick bit down on the pain. Chase had clearly sensed Garrick’s loss of control in one way or another, and Garrick was thankful that he was there to tear him from his thoughts. He wasn’t sure how he’d explain his irrational anger to Tyl
er. Chase sat next to them, and he and Tyler exchanged friendly greetings. Garrick steadied his breathing, trying not to think about anything that could be slightly bothersome. Chase emptied his lunch from his bag, and Tyler was sufficiently distracted from any reaction Garrick might have had.

  “How?” Tyler asked. He sounded playful, but Garrick knew there was a hint of seriousness in his question.

  “What?” Chase asked.

  “You literally brought half of a fried chicken and pizza to school for lunch,” Tyler said. Chase typically was able to hide his lycanthropy just as well as Garrick, or better, but one thing he didn’t hide was the ravenous hunger that typically came on the day of the transformation. It wasn’t hard to explain away, given that he was a teenage male, but it was still too risky in Garrick’s eyes. Garrick would rather just eat mountains of food in the comfort of his own home.

  “Yeah,” Chase said with a shrug.

  “How do you possibly eat so much food and still look like that?” He asked.

  “I work out,” Chase joked.

  Tyler laughed and shook his head. “As do I, but I still have to eat healthily. I’m not bitter or anything.”

  “Hey, I don’t eat unhealthily,” Garrick defended. Tyler looked at the chips in front of him. “They’re baked! They’re good for me.”

  “Whatever you say,” Tyler laughed as he took a bite of his broccoli. Tyler had always been stronger than Garrick was, and he had the physique to match, but Garrick never really thought about how much work he must have put into it. He’d just assumed Tyler liked rice and broccoli. Garrick could eat whatever he wanted, and he basically couldn’t put on weight. Becoming a wolf tore every muscle in the body apart, and every time they reformed, they were stronger. He knew his friend was only joking, but it still gave him a slight twinge of guilt. It really wasn’t fair that he was able to have something that Tyler worked so hard for without putting in any effort.