Somber Song

Chapter 5 - Enough Space

        I woke up abruptly, terrified I was late for class. My eyes darted towards the window to find that it was still dark outside and then it hit me: I wasn’t in my small, depressing apartment back in New York. I sat upright, letting the blanket I didn’t remember covering myself with fall. 

        The memories from yesterday flooded my mind and I let out a sigh, dropping my face in my hands. It wasn’t a dream, after all, I was really back.

        I got up, looking for my phone to find it was dead. I grabbed the old alarm clock from the nightstand that had woken me up so many times in the past and stared at the time that told me it was ten minutes to six. I must have slept all day yesterday and through the night – I hadn’t realized I had been that tired from everything. And whatever had happened here, there was no place like home. 

        I took a few minutes to check on my room, only to find it exactly as I left it down to my scratch books on a messy pile on my old desk. I took the one on the top of the desk in my hands, opening it to a random drawing. I had almost forgotten about them, and when I stared down at Caleb’s face, I almost dropped the notebook. Most of those notebooks were filled with his face - one of the reasons I hadn’t brought them with me to New York. 

        Staring at it now, I felt a pang of nostalgia. I remembered that day – we were alone in our favorite place by the river, enjoying the last of the warm September sun. He was lying in his underwear while his clothes hung to dry on the tree above us. I had just pushed him in the river after he kept teasing me for something, but then ended up joining him, very unwillingly, after he caught my ankle and pulled me in. After some laughing, wrestling, and kissing we had dropped panting on the grass. 

        In the drawing he was lying on his back, one hand shielding his eyes from the bright sun. Being the impressionable teenager I was, I seemed to have focused more on drawing every hard muscle on his body rather than his face or the beautiful surroundings. With all the hard work on the farm and his regular exercise while patrolling, he had built up an impressive physique even as a teenager, which he used every chance he got once he realized how weak my will became the fewer clothes he wore.

        I set the scratch book down, afraid of all the memories it held. 

        It was too early to go downstairs, so I contemplated whether I should go for a walk or just stay in my room, trying to escape all the memories surrounding me everywhere I looked. My eyes stopped on the window again and another possibility sprung to mind. It didn’t take me long to commit to it and I quickly opened the window, sticking my head out. I grabbed onto the roof and pulled myself up, swaying at the edge for a second. It would have been quite unfortunate if I fell from the roof and woke up everyone. And by unfortunate, I actually meant humiliating to death.

        I tiptoed on my way to the back of the house where I used to sneak to draw. It provided a breathtaking view of the Brayden farm and as it happened, I would have a front-row seat of what looked like a beautiful sunrise. The only thing I didn’t expect was finding someone sitting in my spot. I froze in my tracks, almost sliding down the boards as I lost my balance. That was when he turned with equal surprise painted on his face.

        I wasn’t sure what to do from there. Turning around and going back without a word seemed kind of childish, but just sitting down next to him was even harder to imagine.

        “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’ll leave.”

        “Mia, stop,” he sighed just as I was turning. The sound of his voice calling my name startled me, even more so because there was no hostility in it. “There is enough space for both of us. Besides, we’ll need to speak at some point.”

        I took a breath and dropped next to him. There wasn’t that much space to be honest, so our shoulders and knees touched, no matter how I sat. It wasn’t the safest place or the most comfortable one, but it was my secret place - or it used to be. 

        We stayed silent for a while and I gazed at the forest covering the east side of the farm. It was awkward beyond words, and I was ready to give anything for the tension to go away. On the other side, the tension was what was separating us from going back to the way we were, and I couldn’t afford that. I couldn’t fall back to him, no matter how much the voices in my head begged me to.

        “Everybody is happy to see you,” Caleb finally spoke, and I turned to meet his gaze. It was still hard to breathe every time I looked at him – his dark eyes stirred all kinds of emotions against my will; his straight, handsome face still made me smile even though I was trying not to. He seemed slimmer than I remembered but I suited him – he was intimidatingly tall to begin with, and his broad shoulders and charming smile were already too much for my heart to handle. 

        “Yeah, I didn’t think I’ll ever come back to this place,” I said honestly, and I realized it might have not been the most appropriate reply. When I looked at him to check on the impact of my words, I was surprised to find him smiling. He looked strikingly different from the cold, hostile person I had met just yesterday. I, on the other side, was the same ball of nerves - even though I was the one that had left him, my mate, behind for four whole years. I didn’t write, call, or visit. I had hoped and dreaded that if I ever came back, he wouldn’t even recognize me after this whole time.

        “I always knew you'd come back,” he said, eyes locked on the brightening sky behind the trees. I was about to ask why, but decided against it. “You’ve changed a great deal.” He added after another minute of silence.

        “So I’ve been told,” I scoffed, leaning back on my hands. “I don’t look like one of the boys anymore, I know, I know. Everybody should stop saying that, it’s kind of insulting.” 

        “I’ve never seen you as one of the boys,” he said, and I made the mistake of meeting his eyes. And there it was again, the maddening power of his gaze that almost pushed me off the edge. My cheeks flushed, and I prayed it was still dark enough for him to miss that.

        “Tell me more about the wolf that attacked Julian,” I changed the subject, and he finally moved his gaze back to the sky. His face turned serious, eyes darkening with helpless rage. 

        “Nothing much to tell,” Caleb said in a quiet voice. “There was some unusual activity down at the north border, so we spread to check it out and my father stumbled on the intruder. From what he told us, it was a big one, with white fur. Almost like yours,” he added, and I lowered my gaze to my fingers. Talking about my wolf made me restless considering I hadn’t shifted in over four weeks. It was becoming stifling, but with work and university being crazy, I had no time or a chance to do it. “They fought and my father got bitten. I can’t believe it though. You know how strong he is, it is not by chance that he is the Alpha. I can’t imagine him getting overpowered by this rogue and not even being able to hurt him back so we can track it.”

        “It must have been some wolf,” I mumbled, my mind already painting pictures of the creature Caleb described. Julian was the biggest wolf I had ever seen, and that included our pack as well as the other two packs in Attawaugan and Elmville. And none of them had a white wolf among them. Even though mine wasn’t exactly white but more of a light gray, I was the only one that had such a light fur - even outside of our packs I’ve never seen someone similar. Even my brother had a normal, brownish color when he changed. “What about the wound? How come it doesn’t heal?”

        “We don’t know. It appears to be some kind of venom. It started healing at first,” he explained, intertwining his fingers nervously. “And then suddenly started getting really bad. He is getting weaker by the minute and nothing we’ve tried helps. I even tried to take him to a hospital, but you know him. He would rather die than risk exposing the truth about us.”

        I reached out and placed my hand over his. It was an intuitive gesture, and I didn’t really think it through. His body stiffened at my touch and I could hear his heartbeat racing just as fast as mine. I tried to pull my hand, but he caught it and held it in his. I didn’t object since it was my mistake to get that close, but I refused to look at him.

        “I need to know,” he said, raising my hand and pressing it against his cheek. His skin was warm despite the morning chill, and his touch was like a soft blanket on a cold morning that you don’t want to let go of. He remained silent until I finally met his gaze. I was a bit afraid that he'd try to kiss me, but I was even more afraid that I might let him. “Why did you leave?”

        “You know very well why I left,” I said, pulling back my hand and turning away. The first rays of the sun were slowly making their way to the treetops, so I just stared at them, hoping he’d drop the subject.

        “I thought I knew,” he continued. “I thought you just wanted… more. More than this. More than a loving family, more than a quiet, happy life, more than a small-town boy for a mate. But from what I hear, you live alone, you’re not happy and you haven’t chosen another mate.”

        “I didn’t run from you, Caleb, I ran from this madness,” I sighed, still staring at the horizon. “I don’t want to have to worry that another pack would attack us or that somebody can get torn to pieces just because they stepped on the wrong piece of grass. I don’t want to worry that I would rip somebody’s throat when I get too angry, I don’t want to worry about turning into a monster.”

        He stayed silent and I hoped he’d leave it at that. I had to focus very hard to keep my heartbeat normal and to hold back the tears that filled my eyes as the memories engulfed me. 

        “You can’t change what happened or what you are,” he eventually said, coldness creeping in his voice. “You can never have the normal life you so desperately want. You’re not normal. Even if you leave again and have a new life, marry a man. What would happen when you have to change? What would happen if you get in a fight and you shift? What if you have children and they are shifters too? What then?” 

        I didn’t answer. It was a low blow and I refused to respond to it.

        “It’s so infuriating,” he said in a low voice, full of anger and frustration, “that I want to hate you. I want to hate you for leaving me, but…” 

        “You didn’t really try to stop me, did you?” I said quietly, shaking my head. It was a mistake again, me and my damn mouth. His eyes were tearing a hole through me, I could tell even without looking.

        “What was I supposed to do? Beg you to stay? Tie you down and keep you under lock and key?” He snapped, raising his voice. He got to his feet and I instinctively turned to look at him. He had his hands balled into fists and his chest was rising rapidly. I slowly got up trying to level with him even though I could barely look him in the eye.

        “You could have come with me,” I said in a calm voice, surprising even myself. He simply watched me with his anger still raging inside. “But you didn’t, so I left alone. And you never looked for me after that. That was a choice as well. So don’t play a victim here. We did this to us, it wasn’t all me.”

        I was fed up with the conversation and a word away from screaming at him, so I decided it was time I walked away. I crouched at the edge of the roof and jumped down without thinking. It was quite high, but I managed to land on my feet, gritting my teeth as a jolt of pain rushed through them. If I had been just a human, I probably would have been on my way to the hospital with two broken legs. Or worse.

        I heard Caleb call my name, but I didn’t turn, just kept on running towards the tree line. He didn’t follow. As I reached the trees, I could feel my body trembling already and I frantically started taking my clothes off before they were forcefully torn to pieces. I fell to my knees, welcoming the pain that spread through my body as my limbs shortened, covering themselves with shiny gray fur, my nails lengthening and digging into the ground.