*****
We sat at my small kitchen table drinking coffee. The silence was louder than any harsh words could hope to be. I hated feeling this way about Liz. She had always been a good friend to me, was always there to lend an ear or help me with school when I wasn't getting it. She even trusted me enough to come out to me. But obviously it hadn't been the only secret she’d kept.
At first glance it would be hard to tell if we even noticed one another. We simply sat, drinking our coffee, until Liz broke the dam of silence. "Are we ever going to get this elephant out of the room?"
Her voice pulled me from my in-depth examination of my coffee cup. She wasn't looking at me. "You mean the big, furry elephant that likes to play during the full moon?" It came out much more aggressive than I intended.
Liz flinched as if my words were as sharp and biting as a whip. "Yeah... That one."
Another few moments of dragging silence stretched on.
"Liz," I said finally, because this awkwardness was seriously starting to wear me down. I had no clue what I was going to say, but thankfully I never had to get that far before Liz spoke up.
"Look, Harley, I know how bad it sounds. I know there is no reason on this God-given Earth that you should just believe me. But I wish you would." She looked back down to her coffee and took a slow drink. When she set her cup back on the table, she finally locked her blue eyes on mine, seizing my attention. "Because I am a werewolf. Straight from the story books, but so much more real. No amount of logic will explain it; no amount of disbelieving will make it not true. You should have never found out. I made a mistake by letting it happen, but I’m also still me. I’m still the girl who will set you up on blind dates against your will and who will protect you because you do it for me all the time. I’m still your friend."
I stayed quiet because she was spilling her side of the story, and I really did want to understand her. I wanted to accept her, wanted to pretend she wasn’t the same kind of monster as Frank.
As far as Liz knew, it was the fact that werewolves were real, and that my best friend was one, that I was having trouble coping with. I'd never shared with her anything from my past. I’d never told her about Frank and what he showed me. About what he'd done. Jesus, I really was a terrible friend. I still couldn't tell her, so I gave her the chance to let it all out. At least one of us should feel the weight lifted from our shoulders. I could give her that.
"Show me," I said finally.
Her shoulders tensed, the muscles in her jaw clenching tight. "No," she said softly.
"Why not?"
"No, Harley," and this time her voice was more commanding.
I waited a few moments, thumbing over the rim of my coffee cup.
"If you want me to believe you, then you need to get over yourself and fucking show me. I mean, what you're asking me to believe is... it's insane."
She looked away from me then, her eyes dropping down to her hands as they lay on my kitchen table. She seemed to visibly struggle with herself over this.
"Fine," she grumbled under her breath and I felt my own muscles stiffen. She stood to her feet, taking a step away from the table and began unbuttoning her dress.
"Whoa," I said holding up a hand. "Why are we getting naked now?"
Liz sighed, rolling her eyes at me like I was being a silly child and simply continued to undress.
"I like this dress too much to ruin it. Sorry, you're just going to have to deal with it."
I didn't look at her as she folded the dress and set it on my table. I would've just tried to maintain eye contact, but since she was refusing to look me in the eye that made it difficult.
"Just remember, you're the one who asked for this. Please don't freak out on me."
Truth was I needed to see it. Though I'd had it happen around me I'd never actually watched the whole transformation take place. I needed to see it to understand it. Or at least to try to.
I started to feel something prickling in the air. Something familiar that settled in my stomach like a lead weight. An electrical charge filled the air—the same as the night Frank had revealed the pack to me—and searched the room for something to grasp onto. It was as if the air itself was alive and sentient. I fought past the suffocating energy that fought to push past my lips and pour down my throat, tried to focus on the small blond woman in front of me. Only there was no more woman.
The thin frame of my friend filled out before my eyes, each lean muscle in her arms and legs appeared to grow and thicken. Her legs seemed wrong. They were twisted slightly at the calf in a very inhuman way. Even her back and neck were stretched longer than normal and her shoulders hunched forward.
Her eyes were still very blue and very human and they bore into me with an overwhelming sense of despair. She hadn't wanted me to see her like this. She’d said that before, but this wasn't the wolf I had seen before. The muscles around her eyes strained, and I knew she wasn't done.
A shrill howl of pain erupted from her throat, almost a scream, and she thrashed in on herself. Whatever was happening to her, she was fighting it tooth and nail to the very end. I didn't remember this part with Frank’s pack.
My skin went cold. That strange energy seemed to suck all the heat out of my body and pull it toward her.
I watched as, before my eyes, Liz shifted from the girl I knew to the wolf that rescued me the other night. The wolf stared up at me, a sad sideways glance of uncertainty, and didn't move. We both just stood still, staring at one another, too afraid to spook the other.
They were real. Werewolves were fucking real. Not an illusion, not a hallucination, not a metal break of any kind. And my best friend was one. Holy shit.
I had no idea what to do. Should I scream? Should I be afraid? Afraid of Liz? Of course, this wasn't Liz in front of me. Or was it?
"Oh my God," I finally whispered, the only sentence my mind could piece together. As soon as I was able to say that, the neurons in my brain began to spark to life again, and I could feel my pulse speed up, my hands shake, my eyes stretch impossibly wide.
"Oh my God!" I shouted this time, taking a step back only to catch my knees on my chair dropping me onto the seat.
I clutched the back of the chair to keep from falling but my eyes never left the wolf in front of me. Her head lowered and she slowly sunk her large graceful body to the floor, resting her snout between her paws. She stared up at me, and I swear I saw tears in her eyes.
This was beyond reason, beyond my wildest imagination, and yet, here she was. Everything I had seen, everything I had wished to be nothing more than a bad head trip, was real. Everything. Frank, the pack, Liz... they were all fucking werewolves. That, and everything that came with that unshakable understanding, hit me like a savage punch to my stomach.
"All this time..." I managed in a trembling voice, fighting to stay sitting instead of running out of my apartment. "I trusted you. I fucking trusted you and the entire time you were a... a..."
I couldn't bring myself to say it.
A soft whine sung from her nose, and I couldn't tell if that was in agreement or argument.
I shot up to my feet, but amazingly didn't run for the front door. Instead I ran straight to the cupboard above my sink and grabbing a half-full bottle of whiskey. I tried to pour a shot with trembling hands, nearly spilling it all over the counter. Not wanting to waste the alcohol I so desperately needed, I decided straight from the bottle was best and tipped it back, swallowing a large, burning gulp. When I turned back around, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked down at my best friend, who was still whining pathetically in my direction.
One more drink.
Hissing through the burning in my mouth, I moved back to the chair and sat down with the bottle clutched in my hand as if it were my last lifeline.
I brought the bottle back to my lips for my third swallow and felt that warm current-like energy push at me again, but I was just too mentally spent to fight it. Let it swallow me whole, who fucking cares? I kept m
y gaze on the bottle in my hands, chugging down two, three swallows before pulling it from my mouth.
"Harley?"
I licked the sweet yet fiery alcohol off my lips, which only fueled my thirst for the entire contents of the bottle. Liz's voice was barely registering past my sudden need for that drink.
"Harley, talk to me. Please," she tried once more.
What did she expect from me? Everything, right down to the laws of nature, had just been proven, in no uncertain terms, to be a big fat lie. Everything I knew about Liz, everything I knew about reality, was shattered. Did she expect me to open my arms in welcome to this realization? To not mourn over whatever truth I’d known? What did she want from me? Talk to her, she’d said. What the hell did she want me to say? I said the only thing I could right then.
"Get out, Liz."
Deny the Moon Page 23
