The Wolf Within My Love

Chapter 4

    He looked at me and smiled, I couldn't help but to smile back. The way he made me feel was amazing, it was like everything went away, the protective custody order was no longer there, the court date was nowhere to be found and the danger I was in was gone. Nothing else mattered but that moment, it was blissful. His phone started to ring, I could tell it was important, he stepped back and reached into his pocket and just like that the moment was gone. He stepped out of the room, and walked up the stairs. I stood there waiting for a moment before my body let me move. Once I was able to move again I walked over and put the darts back, then back up the stairs. I didn't see him anywhere, he must have gone outside or up to his room. 

    I went to the kitchen and pulled out eggs and bacon, I started to cook on the stove oven top. The smell of bacon filled the air, I went over to the windows and opened them for the smoke. By the time I was done cooking I heard him walking up, I put everything on the middle island and started to make the table for two.

    “Anything I can do to help you set up.”

    “Just sit at the table.” 

    He smiled and pulled out the chair for him to sit in. I brought two glasses of milk over and set them down. Along with the rest of the food I made for breakfast. I went over to sit down and he pulled my chair out for me to sit in. We made out plaits and sat smiling and eating, talking about childhood. 

    Sitting at the table was amazing, it felt right and after our bellies were full, we laughed and just sat there talking. He had told me about the land and all of the crazy things him and his friends had done. I told him about the way I had moved around a lot from the job my dad had, I tried to leave the beatings out of  the conversation my dad used to give me. He could tell there was something I was leaving out. I looked away and got up acting like everything was fine, I grabbed mine and his plates and walked over to the sink. He came up behind me so quiet that I didn't even hear him move. 

    “What aren’t you telling me?” There was something to his voice that scared me. 

    “Nothing”

    “That’s bull s**t. What is it?” I couldn’t help but to show my fear when I turned around and looked at him. 

    “My dad…. He used to beat me.”

    He looked at me, I could see the anger fill and leave his eyes, being replaced with sorrow. I was getting tired of people looking at me that way. It seemed every time someone found something out about my life they would feel bad for me. I hated it, I couldn't help but to feel the rage come and consume me. I pushed him away from me, I couldn’t stop myself from yelling.

    “I’m so sick of people feeling sorry for me. You know people found out about me growing up and it just made things worse for me when they went to him. The beatings became more and more frequent, but at least it made me stronger. It made me prepared for anything. And know what, I’m kinda glad he did it.” 

    The look on his face made me feel worse, I had to get out of there. It’s like I had hit him with a brick wall. I walked passed him and out of the kitchen, I went straight to the sliding glass door. As I opened the door and walked out I could feel the cold wood of the deck on my feet. I continued walking and into the woods. I didn’t care what he had said about the land. I walked so long and far that I found the cliff. You could see miles and miles of free land, no houses, no roads, nothing but trees for miles. For some reason I felt the rage escape me and seemed to just vanish. I sat down and leaned on a tree, just looking out at the land and the birds flying over the trees. 

    Once I got comfortable I heard a wolf howl, as if it was hurt. It sounded close enough to me that I knew where it came from. I started to walk towards where the sound came from, I heard it again and much closer. I pushed some bushes from out of my way, and saw the wolf from the night before. He had a bear there with him, fighting, teeth to teeth, claws to claws, doing damage to both. The bear got the wolf one more time before the wolf took him down with a loud thud. I walked over slowly to the wolf like I had done before, he turned and just looked at me. I could see where the bear had gotten on his back and neck. 

    He laid down before I could get close to him, I kept walking over to him at the same pace. Once I got next to him he started to whine and looked up at me. I sat down with him and held my hand out not sure if I should touch him. He leaned into me as if to try to get me to pet him, I put my hand on his side where I knew he hadn’t gotten hurt.

    “Are you ok big guy?”

    He whined again as an answer. I then looked at his wounds and was amazed to see them closing as a rapidly healing process. I got up and almost started running, but something stopped me. I looked back into his eyes and they glowed, like Leo’s had done before. 

    “Leo? Is that you?”