Taken by the Rogue Alpha

4 | Cats & Canines

I get not a wink of sleep that night, nor the next night. I sit in front of my computer at work, fighting hard to keep my eyes open, placing an order of books which will arrive next week. It is another hot day without any clouds; the bookstore is warm and usually I would turn on the air conditioning but I'm so tired that I feel cold and decide against it.

I respond to many emails, yawning, eyes stinging. They were bloodshot when I left and I am aware of how stoned I must look. I am not as polite or thorough in my emails as I usually am but still manage to respond to the key points. By the time I'm done responding to emails I am even more tired. Having finished The Bell Jar yesterday I decide to explore more of Sylvia Plath's writing. I purchase an eBook of her poetry collection Ariel. Only 97 pages. I could finish it today.

I make it through a quarter of the poems and find myself nodding off. It's a hair past noon and I worry if I stay here any longer I am going to fall asleep at my desk. I cannot make it another seven hours—I might not make it another thirty minutes.

An older couple walks in and I greet them. They are regulars and regard me with concern, asking if I'm feeling well because I look like I'm ill. I tell them I am fine, making small talk as they investigate the book shelves. After they leave I am going to close up—I have never closed early before but I cannot man the bookstore like this. I'll make up for it by opening early tomorrow and closing late. I am especially grateful I own my store today.

They pick out six books between them—they will go through them quickly. I see them every week. They tell me I should rest and I thank them for their advice, trying to hide my irritation at their lingering. We struggle for more concluding small talk and they eventually leave. I wave them goodbye, suppressing a yawn, and as soon as they're gone I lock the doors and prepare to head home.

My eyes are heavy as I drive so I turn the radio loud to keep myself awake. The sun seems particularly piercing today as if it has come out with the sole purpose of shining directly in my line of vision. When I pull into my driveway I am relieved, sighing, resting my head against the steering wheel. I nod off for five minutes, jerk awake, then head inside.

Taking a knife from the kitchen I walk through the entire house, checking each room, making sure Seth is not waiting for me somewhere. I am alone. Satisfied, I put the knife away and throw myself on my bed, preparing for sleep. I close my eyes, arms under the pillow, laying on my belly.

Suddenly I am rejuvenated.

This is frustrating. I cannot bring myself to feel tired at home but as soon as I leave I feel as if I could fall asleep standing up. I roll onto my left side, then my right side, then my back, but that prevalent feeling of tiredness has completely evaded me. Bringing my hands to my face, I scream into them. Hot tears flood in. Jeremy has been calling me every night and doesn't think anything is wrong, mainly because I haven't mentioned that anything is. As far as he knows everything is peachy on the home front.

I pick up my phone, at the end of my rope, prepared to call him. My finger hovers and all I want to do is tell him to come home—come home so I can sleep. I bite my lip, guilt warning against making such a move. As pessimistic as our first call had been the next few have been better and he told me there was a good chance he will be coming home on time. Well, a good chance as in 50 / 50. But it's better than 0 / 100.

I call my mom instead, asking if I can stay with her for a while. She is working and doesn't have the time to ask questions but says I am absolutely welcome. I have a spare key for her place on my keychain. Thanking her, I tell her I love her. As soon as we are done on the phone I pack enough for two weeks. I don't want to forget anything and have to come back. I don't want to come back until the day Jeremy is coming home.

Mom lives on the other side of town which is, like most relevant places I visit, ten minutes from my house. I keep the music loud as I drive, tired again, excited for the fact that as soon I get to her place I am going to curl up on the couch under a blanket and rest. My old bedroom is still there but the mattress is terribly uncomfortable and I haven't got the heart to tell her. As soon as I moved out my back problems miraculously went away. As far as mom knows I fall asleep on the couch accidentally every time .

I pull up in front of her house. It's a larger place, pure white with emerald green trim and a gorgeous bayfront window. The veranda is the centering piece; the porch swing on one side and all her perennial plants on the other. My mom has a beautiful home, completely revamped from when she first bought it. Getting half of dad's will helped out a lot, but my mom is also self-sufficient. She works as a psychiatric nurse at a prison in the city. She never talks about her work and I'm not sure if it's because she's not allowed to or she just doesn't want to.

I grab my suitcase and head inside. The walls are ivory and there is no set color scheme; if my mom likes something, regardless of style or hue, she purchases it. Her home is eclectic but it works somehow; the red couch goes with with the green loveseat and the green loveseat goes with the purple tablecloth and so forth. It feels like happiness in here. I'm sure it's so bright and disjointed because it recharges my mom like a battery when she comes home from work each day.

Carrot—my mom's orange cat—greets me. Initially he was a stray that kept loitering around our home but one day we were coming back from the grocery store and left the door open between hauls and suddenly he was inside waiting for us as if he had been our cat all along. My mom didn't have the heart to kick him out so we kept him. He will be turning 11 soon but still has the spunk of a kitten.

He took to me right away, following me everywhere, and even though I have moved out he still follows me around like the old times when I come to visit. Mom always rolls her eyes at this, claiming I steal him when I come around; he is her sidekick when I'm away, but mine when I'm home. Cats are very different from canines I have come to realize.

He follows me, meowing as I set my suitcase in my room. Everything is the same. The walls are the same shade of lavender, my posters of my favorite bands (well, mostly Fleetwood Mac posters) are still up, and the vanity still stands proudly across from the bed. I trace my fingers along the cotton duvet then sit. Carrot jumps onto my lap as I inhale, taking it all in as I do every time. My fingers stroke his back as he purrs. It is calm here.

I carry him back to the couch, grabbing the knitted yellow blanket draped across the back, and curl up. He nestles against my stomach. I stroke his fur until I fall asleep.

✿✿✿

I wake up hours later to the door opening, shooting up quick as a rocket. My heart races—another dream about Seth...an intimate dream. I used to dream this way all the time about Jeremy and I loved it, waking up glowing each time. Now I wake up sweating. I find myself worried I will never dream about Jeremy again. The dreams helped with the bond. If I keep dreaming about Seth I fear the bond will fade, and fade rapidly.

"Hi, mom," I greet sluggishly, getting up from the couch. Carrot runs to her, brushing against her leg. We embrace after she takes her shoes off and I sit at the kitchen table as she starts unpacking her lunch containers from her bag. "How was your day?"

"My day was the usual," she smiles. "What brings you here, Amelia? Is everything okay?"

"Everything is...okay. There's just been some strange things going on around town and I haven't been sleeping well," I yawn as if on cue. "And I missed you. It's been a while."

"Oh, do you mean rogue activity?" she asks, putting her used containers in the dishwasher. "I've been hearing about that lately. Jeremy is away for a while, isn't he?"

"Yes, he left for work on Monday. At best he'll be back in two weeks but it might be longer."

Mom has established, and continues to establish, many spontaneous friendships here; she is a lovable, boisterous person and casts light on everyone she encounters. We didn't know anyone upon moving here but she's become friends with my friend's moms, people she's met at the grocery store, at the pub—pretty much everywhere she goes she makes friends. She is magnetic and charismatic and it takes no effort to be her friend. Although she prefers to spend most of her free time alone she is never lonely. There is always someone who's reaching out to her.

Mom became privy to wolf presence before I did—her closest friend she has made here is a wolf. Mom didn't believe her at first but her friend proved it to her—mom never told me how, but I inferred her friend must have shifted in front of her. My mom would never have believed her otherwise. I didn't believe Jeremy until he did the same thing. I mean, what human would believe right off the bat if someone said to them: so yeah, hey, actually, I'm kind of a werewolf? Hope that's not, like, weird or anything.

I didn't know my mom knew until I told her what Jeremy was and she shrugged, saying she wasn't surprised. She told me that wolves do not only have romantic soulmates, but also friendship soulmates. It would explain why my mom wasn't afraid of her friend, or of this place, because we'd have fled overnight if she was. I'd like to think Kareena is one of my soulmates in that regard—and Zhang's, too, of course.

I have always questioned my mom's decision not to tell me. She says it's because I wouldn't have believed her, and while I don't think her answer is completely untrue I have a feeling there's more to it. She'll never admit it, however. At least not yet.

"Do you feel unsafe?" she asks.

"Yes," I confess. I am glad she asked me this specific question—I was waiting for it. Sometimes I feel like my mom is my diary. She is the only person I feel I can tell this whole fiasco to. "There have been very strange things happening. I'd like to sit down and tell you everything."

"You make the teas while I change out of my scrubs."

✿✿✿

I tell her everything—the night at the bar, the dreams I've been having, how Seth broke into the house on Monday. My mom has her arm around my shoulder as I talk. She asks me what options I think I have—the police, Jeremy's family, Jeremy himself. I have considered speaking to Kareena and her husband but realized there is little they can do without inflating intertribal conflict. I have considered Jeremy's parents...but haven't got the courage to tell them. And Jeremy? Not while he is away; not while he is building upon his name.

"You need to tell Jeremy," my mom asserts. "You are doing more harm to your relationship by keeping this a secret. This Seth sounds dangerous. Who knows what he will do next? He's building up to something, Amelia."

"I don't want to tell Jeremy while he is away; he is working towards his future and getting the experience he needs to be an effective leader one day. I don't want to sabotage that."

"Are you sure you can't turn to Kareena and her husband? They must be able to do something—restraining order, something else?"

I explain to her what Kareena explained to me when her and Zhang visited me the other day—how taking some sort of institutional action against Seth will amplify tensions and hostilities and likely wouldn't be effective anyway. Plus, I have no proof he broke into my home; he technically didn't, since he found the spare key, but he was unwelcome and unwanted nonetheless. I have since hidden the key in a different place, hopefully one where it cannot be found so easily again. I just don't trust that the police could do anything, and if they could it would only be a temporary measure.

She asks me again about Jeremy's parents and I shake my head. I get the sense they are irresolute about me as it is. They have never been outwardly rude towards me but I see the way they look at me sometimes and I hear the backhanded comments they make to Jeremy about how he is a good man who deserves a good woman, how he deserves nothing but love and happiness, and how he deserves a mate who will fulfill him until the end of his life. In other words, another wolf.

I know they want me to know they think I'm inadequate because they make these comments in front of me as if I'm not even there and then the conversation awkwardly peters out after Jeremy says how he has already found a good woman. My mom isn't a huge fan of his parents because of this, and they don't even try to hide their disdain of me in front of her, but it's their prestige she is seeking to exploit. Their ambivalence towards me has put strain on their relationship with Jeremy but his loyalty to them is innate and I respect that fact. I have the feeling they will weaponize this situation against me—against us. They will tell me this is my fault and confirm my guilt. They will tell Jeremy to leave me.

"Stay here until Jeremy gets back," mom regards me with dark, serious eyes. "And tell him as soon as he's home."

"I will," I nod. "I will."

I will.