I'll be here forever

chapter 35

Our road trips grew fewer and further in between. If we liked a town, we'd stay for a couple days, sometimes a couple weeks, but we kept going. But then we stumbled upon Cooperstown- we stayed there the longest. Almost a year.

I didn't know what it was about that town. It was small, with a population of about 4,000, and there wasn't much different than any other town we'd gone through. Something about it made me want to stay for a while, so we did. Monsters didn't tend to come out that way, either, so monster attacks grew sparse. Maybe that was part of the appeal.

Making up my credentials as I went along and giving myself Percy's last name, I managed to lie my way into a second grade student teaching job. That job was amazing. Difficult, especially at first, but amazing. The first few days, I couldn't figure out how to communicate with the kids. The turning point was when one of the little girls, Rowan, her dog died. Someone had hit it and driven away, and Rowan was devastated, understandably. Seeking comfort, she had grabbed my hand. Her little hand was swallowed by mine, and I finally got it. The kids didn't need a leader; they needed a friend.

Everything fell into place after that. The teacher of the class became my best friend; Jess Lane. Ms. Lane. She wasn't too much older than I was (even though I couldn't tell you exactly how old I really was), and she was just out of college. Her and I grew close, and I almost felt like I belonged.

Percy and I weaved an intricate lie about who we were, who we used to be. Because of the matching rings on our fingers, we maintained the image that we were married, especially so we weren't placed under suspicion for living together. Jess often mentioned that she "knew" Percy and I were married before I even told her, which I felt the urge to dispute, because I didn't know Percy and I were married before I told her. It was something I'd made up on the fly when she asked me who he was. She told me she loved how physically affectionate we were.

In all honesty, when I got nervous, I instinctively reached for his hand. He accepted this without question, usually moved closer to me, protectively, and did something to comfort me, like rubbing circles onto the back of my hand with his thumb.

When I'd told him about my conversation with Jess, later, I'd said something like, "Oh, by the way, we're married now." Percy had just nodded appreciatively and asked me if I wanted to slap a "just married" sticker on our backpack, because they sold them in the tourist shop. I didn't miss how he turned bright red before turning away from me to hide his face.

Our story was that Percy and I had met in college; he was going for a degree in marine biology, and I was going for one in education. We had bonded over our similarities; we were both from small towns, both of our parents had died, and we both owned golden retrievers in our childhood. We lived out in the country, but felt the job opportunities were better in Cooperstown. The detail was impressive, considering Percy came up with it off the top of his head when someone asked how we'd met. I knew him well enough to nod along and mentally file that information away for later, just in case.

Jess and the other girls sometimes asked me why I "married" him. "Sure, he's really hot," they'd say, "but he is a bit strange. I think you could do better." I always told them that there was really no one better out there, that I was sure he was the one. They would titter and tell me how amazing I was, and how I could pull any guy I wanted, but that's just it. He was who I wanted. I wanted Percy, and everything that came with him. I don't think they understood that.

Despite our differences, I made friends quickly, easily knowing half the town in less than a couple weeks; Percy, on the other hand, didn't do as well.

He could've, if he wanted to. Girls hit on him all the time; he'd politely refuse them, and walk away. Sometimes, when I managed to coax one of their names out of someone who'd witnessed the encounter, that girl would end up with a black eye the next day.

Hell, if he really tried, everyone would've loved him. He was just one of those people that you couldn't help but like. But Percy was content just to spend time with me and go to work, and follow me around to small parties that my friends threw on the weekends. I almost felt like we fit in there, in that little town. Almost, but not quite.

He often told me that I was the only person he needed, especially when I'd pressure him into at least trying to make friends. Still, he came with me to the neighborhood parties I was invited to, and was always polite, always said hello and played beer pong with the husbands, minus the beer. He maintained that someone had to stay sober to bring me home if I had a little too much, but when I offered to take turns, he refused.

He didn't drink, not at all, and eventually everyone learned to stop asking, no matter how strange they found it. Most people wrote it off as him once being an alcoholic and going sober, but being too embarrassed to talk about it. But I knew it was something different. Sometimes I'd see him staring at a bottle of beer with such hatred, and then he'd blink, startled out of it, unsure why he felt that way. It was times like those that I would walk over and place a hand on his arm, quietly asking if he wanted to leave. He would just smile softly, assure me that he was fine, and that he didn't mind staying.

Still, I did my best to wrap up the tipsy neighbors after something like that would happen. Honestly, I couldn't tell you if we were even of the legal drinking age, but I think we looked older than we really were. I knew we were around the same age. Going off of Percy, because I knew him, I would guess for him to be about twenty two. But he looked years older, and could easily pass for twenty five.

I supposed he looked so much older because of the glare he would give people sometimes; when we'd hear people whispering about other people, spreading rumors and "you didn't hear it from me"'s. Percy's glares were scary. Older people didn't want to admit that Percy scared them, him being much younger, so he aged up in their minds.

To be honest, I wasn't really sure how we got away with living among the clueless mortals for so long. Only a couple times were we asked to host something at our house, but we couldn't tell them that our "house" was really just a tent a ways into the woods. So I made a lame excuse or two, and they stopped asking. Thankfully.